Only Me Moment #1
I was 18 and attending classes at Schoolcraft Community College. During my Biology class, we learned about peristalsis, which basically helps to push ingested food pushes downward in order to be digest
ed properly. The professor asked for a volunteer to help demonstrate how, because of peristalsis, food eaten upside down will still be pushed to the right areas and digested. So of course, I raised my hand and jumped at the opportunity to help out. I got up in front of my classmates and per my professor's request, put a pretzel in my mouth, put my hands on the ground, and began to kick my legs up against the wall to stand on my hands. Before I knew it, my sweater decided it no longer wanted to cover the top half of my body and I found myself exposed in front of 40 college students. The room was dead silent, except for an "Oh boy!!" that shot out of my professor's mouth. I quickly got back on my feet, covered my half-naked self, tucked my sweater into my pants and tried again with success! Now why didn't I think to tuck it in in the first place? That's a question I've been pondering a lot over the years. Still no answer.Only Me Moment #2
As the Curator of Education at the Arab American National Museum, I am asked to give presentations about Arab culture and Islam on a regular basis. Because I have been doing this sort of work for years, I rarely get nervous... except for when I speak in front of military officials. Let's face it. Many of these guys are trained to dislike Arabs, so speaking to them about how great Arabs are is pretty freaking intimidating.
So, I was giving my very first military presentation to a group of mostly men who were going to be deployed to Iraq in the upcoming months. After my introduction, I realized that they weren't as scary as I thought. One thing that helped is that they were very attentive and seemed to pay close attention to everything I was saying, which gave me confidence. Once I concluded my shpeal, several of the officers approached me and thanked me for enlightening them. As I was putting away the computer and projector, I noticed there was one man still in the room. He approached me slowly, looked at me and said, "Thanks for you presentation." I smiled. He then pointed to my shirt and continued, "But next time, you might want to make sure all of your buttons are buttoned." I looked down and sure enough, two of the buttons on my blouse had popped open! My face turned red, I turned around and buttoned them as fast as I could. By the time I was done, he had already left the room. Only me. And now for the...
NU-HADVENTURE OF THE DAY
It was one week before I was leaving to serve a mission for my church in New Zealand, and my brother and I got into an argument. See, my brother doesn't have the highest opinion of my church, and on this particular day, let's just say that he was very vocal about his disapproval. He yelled and yelled, and to his surprise, I yelled back.... LOUD. (For those of you who know me well, you know that I'm usually not a yeller.) I had gone through a lot of persecution in the recent months about going on a mission, so at that point, I snapped. The whole time we were fighting, I silently prayed that the yelling would stop and that we would walk away from each other in peace. My prayers were answered, but not in the way you'd expect.I approached the front door in the attempt to leave, but that didn't work and in fact, the screaming got louder. Then, to our surprise, we heard a voice from the top of the stairs (the stairs to the top floor are right by the front door.)
"STOB IT!!!! WHAT'S GOIN' ON????" We looked up and at the top of the stairs, and there stood a naked, dripping wet Nuha squinting to prevent the shampoo in her hair from going into her eyes. "YOU ARRE CRRAZY! STOB IT!!!" My brother and I stopped dead in our tracks, looked at her, looked at each other, and had not choice but to listen to the command of the chubby, naked angel sent to stop our brawl. Nuha is proof that God works in mysterious ways.
