When did you all learn to be so graceful and confident and NORMAL? Somehow, I missed this important chunk of growing up. For example, the other day, I went to a department meeting at school. This was the FIRST department meeting I had been invited to, and I was SO excited. Now, the teachers at this school are amazing and I feel so stupid compared to them, so I'm always on the lookout to avoid looking like a retard. Usually this does not stop me. Anyway, my mentor teacher and I are the first to arrive in the room. It's a classroom with four tables arranged in a square, and four chairs at each table. My mentor teacher sits down at one table, and tells me to just sit anywhere. Just then, another teacher walks in. I choose a chair, and my mentor teacher says, "Oh good, pick that one, that will piss off B____" The other teacher laughs, but I pick a different chair anyway. Normally, when the teachers have meetings, they congregate in little groups at one or two tables, so I chose a seat kind of off to the side to ensure I would not steal anyone's seat. But as teachers begin to file in, I see that they are forming an informal circle - everyone sitting around the edges of the room. I am SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE. Seriously. So then the art teacher comes in, and one science teacher, and they make a big show of saying, "Oh, hello, I don't think we've met.." blah blah. I suck at this. I always forget my name, and how I should introduce myself... It's so awful. Anyhow, I remembered my name, and gave it out, but it wasn't SO bad because no one was listening, everyone was making fun of my mentor for not introducing me. The meeting begins, and they all have a TON of stuff to discuss, and seriously, you cannot believe how smart these people are! They talk about books and teaching theory like I talk about pizza and beer. I just stay quiet and try to learn something. But then I feel a little tickle on my neck, which is weird because I wore my hair up. And because I'm super paranoid, I think that maybe my hair is starting to fall down, and everyone will notice because I'm sitting in the middle of the room, and I will look sloppy and careless, and they will never want to write a recommendation for me. So, I touch my neck to try to grab the stray hair and tuck it back into place EXCEPT IT WASN'T A HAIR. The ladybug army was after me again. That's right, it was A LADYBUG. On my neck. While I sat in the middle of a meeting full of smart observant people. As soon as I felt that round little shell I knew I could not freak out. So I grabbed it and tried to toss it onto the floor casually. The ladybug had other ideas. Obviously. And I played into it's hands by wearing a v-neck sweater which it PROCEEDED TO FLY INTO. Naturally. So, still trying to not seem like a moron, AND learn something (because after these things they ALWAYS ask me what I learned) and not freak out, I try to plot a way to get the ladybug out of my shirt. My shirt was tucked in. Could I untuck it? I certainly couldn't reach in the top and pull something out that way!!! But again, I'm in the middle of the room. I could use the bathroom, but I can't leave discreetly (middle of the room) and the meeting just started - if I left for the restroom just then, I would seem unprepared... you see where this train of thought goes. I decide to wait until after the meeting, then duck into the bathroom, and get rid of the ladybug. The meeting goes on a bit, and then I feel a little tickling sensation on my stomach. Yes. What can I do? I grab it through my shirt and my intention is just to HOLD IT STILL until the end when I can get it OUT and AWAY FROM ME. But suddenly it struggles, and I grasp to hold onto it, and then I hear this CRUNCH. I killed it. Now there's a ladybug carcass in my shirt. Finally, the meeting ends, I tell them what I learned (not much, except about ladybugs) and run to the bathroom, when I untuck my shirt and the dead ladybug tumbles out. I curse at the ladybug, but it does not care, because, like a kamikazi pilot, it has accomplished it's part in a larger mission to TAKE MY SANITY.