Oh, the excitement. Oh, the nerves. Oh, everything else in between. That is how I felt before coming to Conn. I wondered how living on my own for the first time in my entire life would feel, and I guess a lot of first-years were feeling the same way. As soon as I entered the campus I thought to myself, “Wow… this is actually really beautiful, I cannot wait to live here for the next four years.”
I moved in and everything was merry until I realized what life without A/C felt like. Eventually, I got through orientation and started building my list of embarrassing first-year moments. Below is a list of things that I have managed to do within the first two weeks of school:
1) Walking into a class an hour and 15 minutes early: Yes, this actually happened to me in the second week of classes. I thought my History class (Contesting India’s Past) with Professor Chhabria started at 1:15 when actually it started at 2:45. I entered a class filled with seniors while the professor was giving a serious lecture. She looked really confused and thought she had gone over time and then eventually realized that it was only 1:15. She said, “We do not have class until 2:45.” I apologized and left the room, but it was a very embarrassing 30 seconds.
2) Falling off of my chair in Math class: This was a very interesting experience. For context, I am currently taking a Calculus class, we had just taken a quiz on limits, and Professor O’Keefe was solving a problem in the board. I leaned over because I had dropped my pencil, and while I was leaning to the side, my chair tilted with me and I fell onto the floor in slow motion.
3) Putting my clothes in the dryer instead of the washer: Yes, I have done this as well. I was doing laundry for the first time at Conn, and I thought the dryer was the washer. I put in my quarters and then my clothes, as well as the Tide Pods, and hit start. After I hit start, I realized what I had done. I simply moved the clothes into the washer and wasted a dollar and fifty cents.
4) Running into a glass door: While I was walking into the library, I didn’t realize that the doors were glass. They looked transparent, so I ran right into one and hit my head. Next time you’re walking somewhere, how sure can you be what’s in front of you is not a glass door?
5) Trying to open my box in the mailroom for 30 minutes: This is something for which I refuse to take the blame. The P.O. boxes in the mailroom are harder to open than a bank vault!
This list is an embarrassing one, but moments like these make you realize that it is okay to make silly mistakes. More importantly, it’s okay to be able to laugh at yourself, once in awhile. We so often get caught up in being very critical of our actions all the time that laughing at our mistakes every so often is entertaining. It teaches humility and to not take oneself too seriously–at least not all the time. •
