Chueling Ruengurai, a sophomore from Thailand majoring in TESOL education, shared an experience hiking Three Peaks with her sister. She said they were both on different peaks, and she began singing the lyrics to “You Are the Reason” by Calum Scott. She said her sister later told her a group of hikers could hear her singing and were laughing at her. “That group walked past me but didn’t know that [it was] me who was singing the song. ... It was so embarrassing but luckily they don’t know who I am.”
Claire Parsons, a sophomore from Australia majoring in business management, shared an experience surfing with her friend and getting “taken out” by a wave. At first, she said, she felt embarrassed because her friend saw her and started laughing. Laughing at herself, she shared, helped curb her embarrassment, knowing that trying new things isn’t easy for anyone. “I have to allow myself to laugh at me ... and if you’re not doing that, then you’re just living a life too seriously.”
Denzyl Ellery Dacayanan, a freshman from Las Vegas, Nevada, majoring in exercise science, said that while working as a pool boy, he would sometimes misread people’s addresses and wind up at the wrong place. On one occasion, he shared, he misread an address and showed up at the wrong client’s property to find him cleaning the pool himself. “Before he saw me, I kind of like backed away really slowly. ... It’s just kind of one of those things where I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Jarom Perandos, a senior from the Philippines majoring in social work, said he called his friend Sam by the wrong name, Michael, for six months before learning his actual name. He said they shared a mutual friend named Michael with whom they would play basketball. Unconsciously, he said, he started calling Sam by “Michael,” until Michael called Sam by his correct name. “There were so many occasions that I called him that [Michael] and just felt so embarrassed.”