They made me do it

I hope whoever's reading gets a good laugh out of this.

I went, bitterly, to the school yesterday afternoon to give my "speech." I'd just made a series of notes of things to touch on, and assumed that my rambling ways would fill at least 45 minutes, and that the students would be sufficiently curious to ask a few questions that would let me ramble a further 15 minutes. I went and started talking... the room was actually pretty full, and a lot of my students were there. I chose to gauge myself based on the face of a particular student, who was smiling and nodding most of the time, but about 10 minutes in, I realized that I'd lost most of the room. Soooo I just kept going. I finished with 10 minutes for questions, but there were none. The student who was chairing the lecture got up and said "due to the time, we should bring the lecture to a close..." and THEN suggested that I perform in some way for their entertainment. They wanted song or dance. Obviously I was not going to dance. And sing? Moi? You may not know this about me, but I love singing. But I love singing so that you do not know about it. I'm happy to do it in the shower, in my car, in an empty house, at drunken karaoke... yeah, that's fine. And I'd hazard that, in the absence of anyone to critique my ability, I ain't bad. But I'm sorry, put me on the spot and expect me to serenade you out of my ass, and you're in for an unpleasant experience. Anyways, there was more than 100 of them, and one of me, and this boy very humbly came up and expressed profound interest in it, and I couldn't think of any way to escape... I thought actually how much I wished I was a dude. Dudes I think can really respond to a song request however they want. Girls have some bizarre reputation to uphold with their tinking voices and such. So... I cleared my throat... a lot... reminded them that I was sick (I don't think they understood me) and after a long awkward silence...like... worst performance of "Another Day" EVER. OH MY GOD I haven't been so embarrassed in a long time. Long long time. I did not like how I felt at the end of that ordeal. I made the insistent student come up and sing also, and he came up bashfully, then like... broke into a rolicking rendition of some Chinese song about a pretty girl (I was implicated here), and it was fun. Then we were all dismissed. I spent like the next hour trying to figure out what I could have done differently to make that any less of a traumatic experience. Sigh.

Other things of note: I was recently trapped in the revolving door at the front of the Archives building. Not like I was spinning around infinitely. Like I must have dodged the sensor somehow, so the door didn't speed up once I entered it, instead rotating at what I'm assuming is its energy conserving velocity. It very clearly printed (in Chinese) at face-level (for me) on the glass not to push the door. But not quite understanding the mechanism behind the door's movement, I figured it was a 50-50 chance that pushing on it would get me out sooner, as opposed to like... setting off an alarm or something. I nudged it slightly, found that it was unforgiving, and decided just to wait and walk very slowly until I reached open air. Then I heard the guard behind me yelling. It seemed like he was saying "[something something] push it!" Well, since I wasn't pushing it, it seemed unlikely that he was telling me to stop. So after a few moments and still not quite getting what he was saying to me, I gave the door a hearty shove. Aaaand it stopped moving altogether, positioned just so I had no hope of escape either forward or backward, like a bug in a jar. A group of workers standing just outside burst into laughter. I... also laughed. The guard behind me laughed and came to my rescue. My first such experience.