And then it made me think of all of the other embarrassing moments in my life. This one is definitely not even close to the top ten and so I felt much better. :) Hopefully, this will make someone laugh or someone feel better (or maybe just me?), but I have decided to retell my embarrassing experiences.
2nd grade – After watching the movie A Christmas Story (which we were definitely not supposed to be watching), my brother and I decided to see if licking a metal pole in the middle of winter really would make it stick. Fortunately, right after we did that our bus came and we were able to rip our tongues off and get on the bus. As we got on the bus, I told my brother that my tongue was bleeding, but that I thought I was okay. Later that night after school and after dinner, my whole family was doing Advent devotions (just a few weeks before Christmas!), and my brother started crying! My parents finally got him to confess that we had stuck our tongues to the metal pole and he had been worrying about me all day because he knew that my tongue was bleeding. Oh!
3rd grade- In third grade, my family moved to the country, and so I changed elementary schools. During practice for the Christmas program, my teacher explained that we would all need to use a microphone to say our parts in the play. I raised my hand and told her that I didn't need to use a microphone because I could say my parts nice and loud. She then told the whole class that everyone needed to use a microphone. On the day of the Christmas program, I walked up and screamed my lines right into the microphone. The entire crowd leaned back like they'd been hit by a tidal wave. After that my class nicknamed me “blow-a-mic.”... And the name stuck with me until I moved on to middle school.
7th grade – I started middle school and went to my first middle school dance at the end of the year. My friend decided that since I had never danced with a boy before, she was going to set me up. She found a really nice kid and told me to go dance with him. I was so nervous that I couldn't look at him and halfway through the song I ran off the dance floor and out of the gym. (That “kid's” name is Josh- there are many more embarrassing stories involving him.)
8th grade – I decided that I liked a kid named JD. My middle school had a fund-raiser selling and delivering flowers on Valentine's day, and I decided to send JD a flower with a note. I went into the teacher's classroom and asked the teacher if I could leave a note to go with the flower that I was sending. The teacher misunderstood and delivered my love note to JD that day (in front of his entire class)- who didn't talk to me for an entire month after that. Ah! Oops.
9th grade – During the summer before, I took a trip with some of my friends and my friend's older brother and his friends. At the end of our week stay on Lake Michigan, one of the older brother's friends kissed me and everyone found out. Throughout the school year (I was in middle school but the older brother and all of his friends were in high school) whenever the older guys saw me, they sang “the kissing song”.
10th grade – Josh, the kid that I had my first dance with, asked me to go on a date. On our first date at the movies, he tried to put his arm around my shoulders. When he did that he caught my hair and was pulling my hair back and hurting my head. I didn't know what to do so I jumped up and told him that I had to go to the bathroom. Later I found out that it had just made him more nervous.
Traveling to new countries and experiencing new cultures always adds to my nervous/embarrassing experiences... And, I have traveled a lot! :)
In Cologne, Germany my class and I were visiting the cathedral and then had some free-time. My friend and I who didn't have a watch decided to walk downtown. Later, we were walking to the next shop when our buses drove right by us and stopped on the side of the street. My teacher came running out of the bus saying that they had left the cathedral 20 minutes ago.. without us. My friend and I had to walk on the full bus as everyone laughed at us for getting lost and being late in Cologne.
When I was in Paris, France with a group of college students, I was trying to say goodbye to one of the French students. I told him “au revoir” except that I said it exactly how it looks “oh revere!”. Unfortunately, everyone heard it and repeatedly used my pronunciation every time they said goodbye to me!
After college I moved to South Korea to teach English. Asian culture has so many “rules” that's incredibly easy to accidentally “disrespect” an elder. Most of those rules have something to do with eating. My first week in Korea the school where I was working had an employee dinner party (this happens at least 2-3 times a semester, but this was MY first one in Korea). At these parties there are long tables set up perpendicular to a head table where all of the head teachers, principal, and vice principal sit. There is one seat open in front of the principal and one-by-one every teacher goes up and talks to the principal and drinks with him (since I don't really drink I was told that I could dump my alcohol in a special bowl sitting on the ground). When it was my turn, I went up to the front and used my few Korean vocabularies to introduce myself to the principal. After that he picked up a piece of meat and my co-teacher told me that he wanted to feed me. Not really understanding, I opened my mouth and tilted my head back like a baby bird. The principal started laughing really hard which prompted all of my co-workers to turn and see the situation and laugh at me. (Apparently he just wanted to put the meat in my bowl- not my mouth! Haha!)
Oh I could go on and on and on about the funny things that happened to me in Korea, but there's one more that I think is especially funny. I was showing some co-workers the pictures that I had taken when one of them looked at me and said, “Jenny, do you have a dick-a?” I was a little shocked, but I asked her to repeat what she had just asked me. Again she said, “Do you have a dick-a?” I told her very plainly that I was a woman and so no, I did not have a dick-a. She then explained to me that Koreans sometimes combine and shorten words to make what they call Konglish. Dick-a was Konglish for digital camera. Oh! Haha!
During a trip to Macau, my friends and I were waiting for our dinner and we ordered a pitcher of sangria. We started to drink it on an empty stomach. 1 hour later our food still hadn't arrived and I was absolutely drunk. One friend (who was also videotaping the scene) asked me where our hotel was. I said, “Our hotel is over there.” And then, I proceeded to make circles over my head pointing everywhere. My friend still has this video and is threatens to show everyone that knows me. Hehehe!
I hope that reading this made you laugh. Or helped you get over a embarrassing situation! Take Care!
