It is only natural for us high schoolers to do cringy things during our freshmen year. This is a confusing and uncomfortable time in our lives as we grapple with self-discovery and try desperately to fit in. When I was an underclassman, I did a number of cringe-worthy things that still haunt me to this day. From emails I sent to comments I made, I will never live down the plentiful faux pas that I have committed. Nevertheless, I would not be able to look back on these acts with amusement if I did not learn and grow from them. After nearly two years of one embarrassing deed after another, I have built up the courage to share my most cringe-worthy moments with you.
As grateful as I am for Choate teachers, I cannot help but fear for their sanity — especially for that of my poor geometry teacher, Mx. Chantal Wang. whose inbox was inundated with my frantic freshmen emails. I emailed them about every assignment to confirm I understood the task and due date correctly. I also emailed them every question I had on the homework, fearing I’d get detention if I failed a test. In truth, I swamped all my teachers with incessant emailing, but Mx. Wang had it the worst. I emailed them 40 times. 40 times. Sorry, Mx. Wang! To be fair, after being told how many emails I had sent that year, no other teacher of mine had to suffer the same fate.
Even worse than my emailing addiction was the amount to which I corrected people in my day-to-day life — a habit that my friends will never let me forget. I was an excited freshman ready to embark on my academic journey at Choate, and I thought my peers would appreciate my correcting them in class. Lo and behold, I was wrong.
My third-form Spanish 200 class was my main victim. Having taken Spanish for roughly six years (and still being in the 200 level class, which says something about my Spanish skills), I thought myself to be a valuable asset to my peers’ success. Thus, I took it upon myself to correct my classmates’ conjugations and pronunciations. If a student used the preterite tense rather than the imperfect tense, I made sure to make them aware of their error so they did not make the same mistake the next time. Writing this, I can’t help but purse my lips and shake my head — in what world would a freshman feel as though her older peers wouldn’t be irked by this? At least I learned from my mistakes … even if it was at the expense of my peers’ patience.
As you can see, my 14-year-old self liked to approach everything with a high level of professionalism. So, naturally, I took Thirds Squash very seriously. I stepped onto the court my first day of practice convinced that I was squash’s newest prodigy. One time, I was playing a game against a player from The Westminster School. My opponent was struggling to return any of my serves, and so, I was winning by a lot. Each time she missed, I would saunter around the court, skipping and grinning. However, she caught on to my repetitive play style, and soon enough, the tables had turned and she was the one annihilating me. I ended up losing and ran off the court in tears. Needless to say, I stick to intramural squash now.
Looking back on the blunders I’ve committed in my underform years only highlights how far I’ve come. These embarrassing and awkward moments are an essential part of growing up, and Choate invites us to experience and learn from them during our time here. So, while they make us cringe looking back, they truly are a rite of passage. Revisiting my past mistakes has reminded me that people forgive and forget — unless all of your blunders are immortalized in The Choate News!
