Elizabeth Brauders
Hello, my name is Elizabeth and I’m socially awkward. The above image, fondly referred to as Socially Awkward Penguin, relates to none other than myself, and an incident in Junior Fresh year. I was searching for an English tutorial, and I was very late. The assigned room on my timetable was distressingly empty, but in the room right beside it I could hear a tutor starting up class. I walked in briskly and sat down, but quickly realised that people were giving me strange looks… After the first 5 minutes it became apparent that this was a class on childhood language acquisition, and not even a first year one at that. Constant references to “last year’s course” and phrases such as “I know you’ve covered all this before” lead me to the realisation that they were, in fact, third years. Third years who knew, therefore, that I did not belong. My subsequent embarrassment and social paralysis was such that I couldn’t bring myself to get up, to laugh it off and breeze out of the room. No, no, I brazened it out for the next 45 minutes, pretending to take notes on Noam Chomsky and phonemes. My relief when the bell finally rang was cut short when it became clear that this was a two-hour tutorial, and the tutor was using this opportunity to hand around a sheet for names and email addresses. Just as I was about to fake a fit of the vapours, it was suggested that we also use this time to go to the bathroom. I ran, I ran as I have never run before. I later discovered that our English tutorial had not started yet, and would indeed take place in the classroom right beside the one I had been in earlier. Four weeks later, at the first English tutorial, some ingenious disguise would be necessary. I wore a hat.
When I get home the men are nowhere to be seen, but their car rests outside ominously, a warning that they will return, I will see them, and this time laughing hysterically won’t cut it. In the same way that I could not stand up in first year and say “Oh, sorry, wrong class!” I now cannot even consider playing dumb next time I see them, or apologising and admitting that I don’t speak German. Besides, that old man looked so happy that I understood him! I will have to learn. Thus I reveal to you one of my great talents (some would say fault) in life: making mountains out of molehills. Aus einer Mücke einen Elefanten machen in German, as my dear old friend Google tells me. I am now an Irish Erasmus student, studying English, in a French university, trying to teach herself German on the side. Do wish me luck.
