My Mom Says I'm Cool

I had my first day of TEFL class today. It was a weird feeling, a first day of school, and something I haven't experienced in four years.

It's so funny how that nervous feeling never really goes away, no matter how much you mature and change and develop confidence in yourself as a person and a student.

It always takes me a while to warm up in these situations. I never want to be the person who is overly enthusiastic and friendly to the point of looking desperate. I worry though, that in trying to look like I'm not trying too hard, I end up coming across as aloof or standoffish. Usually once I get a chance to speak to people one on one I'll start acting more like myself but I worry that the first impression I make is that I'm snobby.

This isn't all in my head, either. I mentioned in this post that my best friend from high school thought I was a snob the first day of school. It's not because I'm a snob though, it's because I get nervous and don't think straight and let things come out of my mouth that don't sound right.

That first day of ninth grade, when the teacher was taking roll, she said to let her know if we had a nickname of choice. My turn came and rather than saying the obvious "you can call me Ali," I said in a loud voice with clearly enunciated words, "I prefer Ali." Doesn't sound weird now but in a room full of fourteen year olds, it didn't say "I'm cool, you want to be my friend" either.

So what did I say today to establish myself as the nerd of the class? Well we had to go around and use alliteration to associate an adjective with our name to help the class remember it. What's the first thing that pops into my head and out of my mouth? Adventurous? Awesome? Oh no, friends. How about acrimonious?

I don't think anyone remembered my name because they were too worried about how to pronounce my adjective. Hopefully they all forgot it before they got the chance to look it up and find out that not only am I the class nerd, but also the self-proclaimed class bitch.