Freshman forgiveness

Lindsay Hardwick, freshman human development and family studies major, was making her way down the stairs of Dunbar Hall when she suddenly tripped. And she tumbled all the way down – to the amusement of a group of people behind her.

“I felt dumb! I mean, how do you fall down the stairs?” Hardwick said.

Hardwick is not alone.

Most people have experienced it at one point: The melt-into-the-ground-and-disappear moment. Whether it’s falling down the stairs or spilling something on one’s self, it might be entertaining to the beholder – but it’s certainly painful to the bearer.

The entertainment value for the beholder is obvious. Humiliating experiences of people everywhere have graced the pages of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen Magazine for years through features such as “Confessions” and “Traumarama.”

It seems there is plenty of embarrassment to go around – and Kent State is no exception. Some students were brave enough to come forward with their embarrassing tales.

Contact features reporter Anna Duszkiewicz at [email protected].

“I locked my room key in my room, so I got a temporary key. They told me to return it before 11 p.m. I forgot to return it, and I left it in my wallet. The next day I locked the temporary key in my room along with the other key … I live in Eastway, and I had to walk over to the Twin Towers with gym shorts and no shirt on. The receptionist was looking for the temporary key. I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, my temporary key is in my room, too.’ So we had to track down the main RA guy. It was quite eventful.”

– Jared Holt, freshman architecture major

“I had just gotten out of the shower when I realized I didn’t have my room key. I had left it in my room by accident. So I grabbed my towel and began searching all over for an RA. None of them were around, so I had to wait in my towel until somebody showed up.”

– Vanecia Kirkland, freshman fashion merchandising major

“I’m a violin player. One day I was carrying my violin on my back and walking through a very narrow door. A man was holding the door open for me. He was holding it with one hand, and he had a cup of coffee in the other. I couldn’t see where the violin was going behind me. It hit the man who had been holding the door for me and his coffee spilled all over him.”

– Jenna Schweitzer, senior music education major

“I just recently brought my bike to campus (and I) was riding it around. It was busy, and I couldn’t get through or around the crowd. Out of nowhere, somebody came walking out in front of me, and I didn’t see him. So I stopped my bike abruptly and flew forward off of my seat. I didn’t fly off of the bike itself, but I almost did. I felt pretty stupid.”

– David Fassnacht, sophomore education major

“I tried to get on top of my friend’s shoulders at a concert this summer, and he lost his balance. I fell down face first in the asphalt. When I stood up there was blood and concrete all over my face. I had two black eyes. I felt like an idiot!”

– Kristin Schoenlein, junior nursing major

“I was working on a project in the architecture studio one night, and I stabbed myself in the groin with an Exacto knife. Everyone in the studio saw it. I didn’t realize it, but the little board I was cutting was hanging off my table. I didn’t know the table ended, so I kept cutting. I cut straight down into my groin. It landed a millimeter to the right of my femoral artery. The first thing the emergency room receptionist said to my buddies was, ‘Did his girlfriend get mad at him?'”

– Nick Boka, sophomore exploratory major