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In my freshman P.E. class there was a really big punk kid who would go around pulling people's shorts down. I felt bad for the kids, but one time he pulled a guy's shorts down to his ankles while he was walking and the poor kid crashed onto the sidewalk like his legs had suddenly been paralyzed. He looked so silly and pathetic wriggling on the ground, desperately trying to pull his shorts up, that I couldn't help but laugh a bit at his miserable condition. My good humor was soon put to the test, however, because one day, when I wasn't looking, the big punk guy snuck up behind me and pulled my own shorts down. I don't think many people were around, but I got really embarrassed and mad at the guy. So I chased him around the basketball court for a while, wanting to hit him, but I didn't catch him. This was probably good, because he could have hurt me pretty badly if he wanted to. Anyway, I was upset for days afterwards, and I tied my shorts up with a strong rope around my waist in order to prevent any future embarrassing moments of this sort. I think I was a little foolish about the whole thing, however, because I didn't realize that nobody is ever able to look dignified or avoid misfortune all the time, and sometimes we have to just laugh at ourselves.
-Bob Bernreuter
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Second day of classes at the University of Washington...I was a lowly freshman and had just moved from Angoon in Alaska which is a tiny Tlingit Village of 600 people. The only way out or in of this village was by seaplane and there was one store and a road that went around in a circle. At the UW, however, I suddenly found myself in the midst of a huge institution of 45,000 students (a population 75 times the population of where I had been living) and it was intimidating!
That same day I had to go to the undergraduate library where they used to have these metal turnstiles you had to go through to make sure people didn't steal the books. It was in between classes and all the students were pouring through. I was trying my best to look like I knew what I was doing when suddenly my sandal strap got stuck in the bottom of the turnstile.
Before I knew it, I was face down on the floor with students gawking all around me. In a matter of seconds, I jumped on my feet again and the librarians at the front desk asked if I was okay. I quickly said yes, but ---GEEZZZ.... was I embarrassed!
-Donna Bolima
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My most embarrassing moment occurred when I was sixteen and dancing the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker. In the second act of the ballet, there is a variation (solo) that the Sugar Plum Fairy dances. You probably know the music as the irritating tingly music that is extremely overplayed during the holiday season. At the end of the dance was a series of turns (32) in a circle. Also during this dance, the stage is completely empty except for the Sugar Plum Fairy...and two chairs that are upstage center. As I came around the corner I could see these chairs and I aimed for the right of them. By this time, however, I had done about twenty of those turns and I was little dizzy...and I plowed into them. The chairs moved several feet and I think one tipped over. It is hard to look graceful in a tutu when you are falling over chairs.
-Paige Etter
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When I first started driving, I had a really hard time backing out of my friend's curved driveway. One day, I was backing out and I ran into a bush. I couldn't figure out how to fix my error without hitting any of the other cars, so I just barreled through the bush leaving a big de-leaved trail through the center of the bush. My friend's dad, who was watering the lawn at the time, stared at me with a half mortified, half amused look on his face.
-Amy Huang
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I was walking in an alley, and a bird pooped on my head. Luckily no one saw it, and I washed it out as soon as possible.
-Zahid Khan
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One time I came into the web class and started chewing out the web students for failing to log out of their special web accounts. Everyone started laughing including Donna.
"What's so funny?" I demanded.
"This isn't web class," they replied.
-Byron MacKenzie
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I remember when I was attending community college, another student asked me if I had heard of Green Day. I asked "Is that a holiday like Earth Day?" I felt like such a nerd when they told me that "Green Day" was the name of a popular grunge band. Sad embarrassing moment, but I'm hard to embarrass.
-Leah McCann
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Most embarrassing moment: having my fly open while student teaching two years ago; finally about an hour into the class a student told me (why he waited so long I'll never know)- ah, so that's what all the snickering was about! Now, whenever students get the snickering in my class, one of the first things I do is look down- fly up, check.
-Lawrence Uhlman
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Upward Bound decided to drop a student from the program. The student and family were informed a couple of weeks before the summer awards ceremony that this decision was final. On her own, the student asked if she could attend until the last day of the program even though she would not earn credits nor stipend. Everyone agreed it would be fine. There was a miscommunication between student and parent however, because the parent attended the awards ceremony, handing me a huge bouquet of flowers, and thanking me profusely for "having patience" with her child. She was under the impression that the student's continuous attendance indicated Upward Bound staff changed its mind and decided to keep the student in the program. I felt so bad and didn't know what to do with the bouquet. I felt so guilty for receiving it.
-Leny Valerio-Buford
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Believe it or not in college I was at a track meet and was warming up for the 200 meter dash. I decided I would make a quick stop at the restroom between my 2 mile warm-up and my drills. I was in a hurry and ran into the bathroom and began what I had to do. But after a second or two I noticed that I was not in the Men's restroom. I was in the WOMEN'S room!!!!! I waited until I thought no one was around to make my exit but alas, just as I was leaving a whole mess of women runners walked in looked at me as if I was some sort of sick-o. I slinked out and was so embarrassed I almost didn't race!
-Andrew West
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Let's see- so many to choose from.... When I was first showing our students how to search the Web, I mistyped the Web address of the search engine. I could tell by the looks on the faces of the students that what had just appeared behind me was most definitely NOT Yahoo. I immediately turned off the projector and had a long discussion with the class about Web safety......
-Dave Wolczyk
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