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NewsvineOn a sunny day in August, lots of diverse people with unique stories roam about the Stanford campus. Graduate students study in the library, tourists photograph MemChu and bikers hurry to escape the heat. But the dark blue jeans of one biker stand out — they belong to Abi Nishimura, a High School Summer College (HSSC) student from Atlanta.
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Her jeans may not suit the weather, but Nishimura remembers how the dark color once saved her from devastating embarrassment during a second-grade standardized test.
“I finished early, and I really had to pee,” Nishimura said. “It took me a while because I had to finish the test, and I couldn’t go until I was done. So I was holding it and holding it until I was finally allowed.
“But I couldn’t undo the button on my pants!” Nishimura continued. “I tried and I tried because I really had to pee, but it didn’t work. So I ended up peeing in my pants — at school!”
But Nishimura didn’t panic. Looking at the contrasting dark shades of her jeans, she turned to the bathroom sink and sprinkled water on herself in an attempt to hide her embarrassment — and it worked.
“I went back into the quiet testing room with my dark jeans and sat in there smelling all like pee,” Nishimura said.
She rides away on her bicycle. As embarrassing as her story might sound, Nishimura isn’t the only one with a mortifying experience. Around the corner from her, a girl in a red Stanford sweater runs frantically to catch the departing Marguerite shuttle. Unfortunately, the bus driver shows no mercy, leaving behind Tweety Huang, an HSSC student from Boston. Huang is not at all disappointed — she knows her running ability too well.
“I am in a field hockey team at my high school,” she noted. “Every Monday, we have to run the whole field. But one time, our coach made us run the field two times as punishment. I am a slow runner, and I remember my coach thinking that I was the first to finish the run when I was only halfway done. I felt really embarrassed when she called out ‘Great job!’ as I completed my first lap.”
A jog down the street, in the School of Education, visiting Prof. Solomon Major teaches International Organizations. Like many Stanford professors, Major appears 10 feet tall to his students. However, Major revealed an embarrassing fact: He was never a good student himself.
“I almost flunked out of high school, and I almost flunked out of UCSB [UC-Santa Barbara],” Major said. “I got into UCSB because of family friends, and because it was our local school. I probably shouldn’t have gotten in. I know I’m smart, but I’m just not a good student. Some people are good at the business of being a student. I read more than people, studied more than people, but I never really studied to pass a class.”
Exiting the oldest building on campus, the animated voice of Omonigho Oiyemhonlan ‘11 catches the attention of passersby. She joyfully chats away with people she met for the first time. However, there is another side to her cheerful laugh.
“It might not seem that way, but inside, I am a really, really, really shy person,” Oiyemhonlan admitted. “I get louder and more enthusiastic when I am really uncomfortable. It’s funny because my loudness is a defense mechanism, but it works out well. I guess I’m really backwards, or my character is rewired in some different way.”
Back on West Campus, Katie Rice, an HSSC student from Atlanta has different shades of jeans scattered on her bed and a collection of accessories glimmering on her shelf. Not to mention, the loud music booming from her iPod speaker. Her room definitely glistens with the fresh spirit of a teenager. Not everyone, however, sees Rice as the lively high-school student that she is.
“A young woman who worked at the grocery store said to me, ‘Your daughter is so cute!’ as she looked at my younger sister,” Rice said. “I awkwardly shook my head, fearing for the worst. The woman gave me a confused look and asked, ‘But aren’t you two...?’ pointing at my dad and myself. At that point, I wanted to scream: ‘I am only fifteen!’”
“It was even more humiliating because she felt really bad and kept repeating, ‘But you look so old!’” Rice added.
Under their surface appearance, there’s apparently much more to the people who roam Stanford campus — whether it’s their actual age, an embarrassing secret or elementary-school humiliation. At a place where intellectual inquiry is encouraged, all it takes is curiosity and the courage to ask what that secret something is.