One time, in a film class that I took my first year, we were doing small group discussions and I got in a disagreement with someone. At one point in the discussion, someone told me that they genuinely thought that my opinion was “wrong.” I wish that I had told them that that’s not how opinions work, but I didn’t.
One time, at the end of one of my seminars sophomore year, one of my classmates mistook me for a senior. After our last class we talked for a bit and when we separated they yelled something to me even though they were a good 15 feet away. I turned to catch the words: “Have a good rest of your life,” they said.
One time, in another class, I said that I thought one of the texts we were reading for class was just one big straw man argument. Another kid told me something along the lines of, “You’re not making sense; that’s just how arguments work.”
One time, at my TH, my housemates and I were talking about Harry Potter fanfiction. We were talking about what characters we thought would make great pairings. Of course there was the obvious: Harry and Luna, Hermione and Draco, Harry and Neville. But at one point the conversation lulled, and one of my friends looked up with a smile and said, “Dobby and Lucius Malfoy.” The rest of that day was spent remembering that moment.
One time, I was so stressed during sophomore year that I attempted to convince myself that it was morning again so that I could force myself to feel refreshed so that I could go do more work. I did everything: I lowered my shades, dimmed the lights, made coffee, put on morning music. It didn’t work and I had a panic attack instead.
One time, I was in the bathroom fixing one of my contacts. It was one of the few gendered bathrooms on campus and I could see that no one was in the bathroom with me. I was very surprised, then, when I started to hear someone singing in a voice that reverberated through the entire space. I was convinced it was a ghost. I would find out later that the bathroom next door was connected to this one by an opening in the ceiling.
One time, I was walking with some friends to the Mug my first-year (as one does). Walking there, the people in front of us were having trouble with a drunk friend. He started to stagger, tumble, and fall. I was close enough to catch him. The drunk man turned his head to look directly into my eyes and he said, “Let me go or I’m going to fucking beat you.” Then his friend took us apart.
One time, in the bathroom during my first-year Halloween, someone came up to me and said: “My friend wants to know, are you circumcised?” I obviously ignored him, continued my night, went to a party and ate some pizza. That same night, someone came up to me and said, “Your costume makes you look kinda like a pedophile.” I think it was due to the large marker-mustache I had put on. I was dressed as Theodore Twombly from Spike Jonze’s “Her.”
One last time, on that same night, I was washing the mustache off of my face in the bathroom. I was also eating pizza at the same time. Pizza in my left hand, wet paper towel in my right hand. A boy walked in, looked at me and said, “This is probably the most Vassar thing I’ve seen in a while.” Then he looked at me more closely and asked: “Were you the guy from ‘Her?’”