Banner by Sariha Moyen
Nikki Williams
Hometown: Jackson, Michigan
HC Position: Editor-in-Chief
#DormProblems
When I was a freshman, I constantly studied in my room. On any night between 7 and midnight, you could find me in my dorm room with my English paper drafts and writing samples spread all over my bed, constantly editing and making sure that they were perfect (I was way grade-obsessed when I first got to college). Before I packed up for Ann Arbor for the first time, I bought myself a pink iHome that was my pride and joy my freshman year. I constantly played it, and because it was on all night and never stopped, I didn’t listen to a certain playlist, I just played my entire library. One night a girl across the hall from me had used her key to get into the bathroom to take a shower, but when she came out of the bathroom to go back into her room to get changed, the key oddly wouldn’t work to let her into her room. Because she knew that I would be faithfully in my room studying, she knocked on my door and explained this situation to me while standing in the hall sopping wet, only wearing a towel. She politely asked me if I would run downstairs to the desk and try to get her a temporary key. I definitely would not want to walk into the lobby, nor stand in the hall for a long period of time in only my towel, so I politely obliged and asked her if she wanted to wait in my room while I went downstairs. Of course, she accepted and went inside while I ran to get her a key. When I came back up and entered my room again, Susan Boyle was blasting over my iHome. Someone in my family had the CD lying around at one point or another and I uploaded it to my library just to see what was on it. Usually I skipped through it when it came on, but I had completely forgotten to hit pause when she came in, and while I was downstairs, Sheryl Crow had switched over to Susan Boyle. I was mortified at the fact that she thought I studied while listening to Susan Boyle, although she insisted that she didn’t care and thanked me several times for the key. To this day, it stands as my most embarrassing moment from freshman year. I still have Susan Boyle in my library, but I listen to Idina Menzel and Lea Michele’s Glee cover of “I Dreamed a Dream” more than I listen to Susan Boyle’s!
Franci Litvak
Hometown: Weston, Connecticut
HC Position: Assistant Executive of Marketing
#Dudewheresmyclass?
It is difficult for me to come up with an embarrassing moment although there have been plenty. I pride myself on my composure and togetherness, qualities that make the process of repressing all of the embarrassing events that happened to me during my first year at the University of Michigan effortless. Of course my paranoia of imminent mortifying situations usually leads me right down the path of humiliation. So I was acutely aware of a potential tumble as I walked towards home from the Duderstadt library (which we Wolverines endearingly refer to as the “Dude”). Suffocated in layers of clothing, as it was the dead of winter, I shuffled my feet back and forth up the road to my dorm. It was in that exact moment when my feet hit black ice and I proceeded to fly onto my back. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, my backpack, which had been bursting at the seams with textbooks continued to weigh me down, and left me flailing like a turtle on its back. I could not have lacked more refinement even if I had tried!
Kylie Kagen
Hometown: Savannah, Georgia
HC Position: Assistant Editor
#FreshmanFail
When I was first asked to write a piece describing my most embarrassing freshman-year blunder, I thought to myself, “well that should be easy… I was ridiculous as a freshman.” After spending a good amount of time thinking over what I would choose to share with my fellow Collegeiettes (TM), it became clear to me that this task would be much more difficult than I previously thought, not for lack of memory or creativity, but much more for overwhelming excess of options in terms of embarrassing moments to select. As I reflect more and more on my early days here at U of M, I realize that I was lucky to make it through my first year alive and relatively unscarred. Although it was certainly a tough decision to make, I finally decided on one particular incident that makes me cringe to this day.
I’ll start by saying that I absolutely hated the taste, idea, and even smell of coffee before I started my first semester at Michigan. Once the lack of sleep and warmth started to kick in, however, I found myself growing more and more fond of the drink, as it both pushed me through my dull lectures, and warmed me as I braved the biting Midwest cold. Thanks to my new-found-love for the miracle juice, I was almost ALWAYS late to my first lecture of the day, as I needed to stop to get my fix to start my morning right. Like any other day, I strolled into my lecture hall, fashionably late. I settled into a nice corner seat in the back of the class, and set down my belongings on the floor in front of me. So far, so good.
As I began to take notes on what I remember as the most treacherous account of ancient philosophy imaginable, the unthinkable happened: I, Kylie Kagen, shifted in my seat, and casually kicked over my full coffee. Now, normally, this would just cause a minor mess and extreme frustration for a now-coffee-deprived college student. However, this particular lecture hall boasted stadium-style seating, in that the seats were arranged on a large slant leading down to the front of the classroom. So, as my coffee pooled on the floor in front of me, it also began to make its way down said slant, like an angry coffee river, carrying loose pens and flecks of litter in its wake. As my eyes widened in terror, I realized that the river of coffee I had just created was also working its way towards the bags of everyone in front of me, unbeknownst to the poor owners.
I wish I could tell you that I played the good guy card and got napkins for those affected by my idiotic beverage flood, but unfortunately I took the easy way out. I decided that the class wasn’t worth my time anyway, packed up my bags, picked up the now empty coffee cup, and said a little prayer for those bags tainted in the disaster. I guess it would have been worse if a load of people saw me actually spill the coffee, but it certainly is not a memory I reflect upon fondly.
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