One of the first classes I took in college was European Literature. On the first day of the class, the teacher came up with this icebreaker game where each person says the name and an adjective that starts with her/his own initial (i.e. mika meek). Then, the next person would say the names and adjective words of the people who spoke before him/her. There were about 40 people in the classroom and I was closer to the end. At that time, I didn’t know very many adjectives, so this game was really hard to begin with. Then, this adjective came out of this guy whose name was Alex: asinine. One, I had no idea what it meant. Two, I couldn’t catch the whole word. Fortunately AND unfortunately, there was one more person before me. I was hoping that she’d say the word clearly, so that I could hear what the word was BUT this girl could not say the word either. She said, “Alex, ass…” and stopped. Everyone laughed and that was alright. What was not alright was that I could NOT hear the whole word.

Now, it’s my turn.

I felt like my heart was beating 200 times per sec. I got too nervous to say that I could not remember, which I should have said, and instead, I tried to say the word and ended up saying “Alex, ass…”

Everyone went silent.

Poor me.. Now I think this was funny but at that time, I wanted to set the whole classroom on fire. Ah..