(Every couple of weeks in my Japanese class, we learn a new set of kanji. In this class, we’re learning the kanji for ‘woman’ and my professor is showing us a way to remember it better.)

Sensei: “So, does anyone know the word for a female ninja?”

(The class is mostly silent, but then I speak up.)

Me: “It’s a kunoichi.”

Sensei: *staring, surprised* “How did you know that?”

Me: “… Naruto.”

(She blinks and stares. Then she just rolls her eyes, mumbles ‘neeeerrrrrrd,’ and turns back to the board amongst the laughter of my classmates.)

(I’m with a group of classmates on a trip to film footage for a documentary our school’s history department is producing. We’re staying overnight in a hotel. Several of us are in my room, which happens to be just above our professor’s room.)

Classmate: “Hey, I say we jump on the floor and bug [Professor].”

(She begins to jump up and down, while the rest of us refrain from joining in. To our surprise, our professor does nothing. He talks to us the next morning at breakfast.)

Professor: “So, who was jumping on the floor last night?”

Me: “That would be [Classmate].”

Professor: *to Classmate* “I put you in your room so I wouldn’t have you bugging me all night! You put cracks in the plaster! I need you to go find out how much this is going to cost the school to replace.”

(My classmate apologizes profusely and goes to talk to the people at the front desk. Just as she’s about to leave the room, my professor calls her back.)

Professor: “You didn’t really crack the plaster. I was kidding. Come finish your breakfast.”

(My PE teacher has pulled a student to the front of the class to show us technique when playing volleyball.)

Teacher: “Okay, so what does [Student] need now?”

Classmate: *raises hand* “Self belief!”

Teacher: “Yes, other than that?”

(I’m on a field trip with my school. I’m sharing a room with two friends, so it gets a little crazy during the night. However, we keep quiet and reasonably calm. During the night, the phone rings. We ignore it, thinking it was a wrong number. However, we hear the girls in the room next to us giggling.)

Friend #1: “Ugh, are they calling everyone? They’re so annoying.”

Me: “If they call again, hand the phone to me.”

Friend #2: “Why? What are you gonna do?”

Me: “You’ll see.”

(We wait, and they call again a couple minutes later. I pick up the phone.)

Me: “This is Mrs. [Teacher]. If you don’t stop calling people, we will call your parents to get you. Goodnight.”

(We could hear the girls next door get quiet. During breakfast the next morning, they were all sitting silently and avoiding eye contact with the teachers. Later on the bus, I start talking with one.)

Teacher: “Yeah, we heard some people were calling other rooms, but they said they called a teacher by accident. Funny thing is none of us got a call all night.”

Me: “Uhm… that might have been me.”

(I told her what happened. She laughed, and bought me lunch that day.)

(I am getting ready to start my freshman year of college at a Catholic university. As part of our orientation, we are taken on a three-day retreat in large groups. I’m on the retreat with the international students since I’m an international studies major. It’s the last night of the retreat and people are going on stage to talk about things they learned about their group members.)

Girl: “I just think it’s so brave of [International Student] to come all the way here for college! It must be so different in the central US because it’s landlocked and the seasons are the opposite of Australia’s!”

International Student: *whispering to me* “I’m from Austria.”

(She thought he was Australian the whole time he was studying there!)