I finally learned an invaluable skill this semester.

I learned not to take myself so seriously, to laugh at my mistakes, to realize I’m human. No matter how simple it sounds, it’s hard to accept what you’re not good at.

I laugh the most at what I forget.

The ease at which I am distracted, at which I can get up in a single task, at which I can do the one less important task over the 100 other timely chores, never fails to produce the heartiest laugh.

I chuckle remembering the time I stowed my shoes in the fridge instead of the ketchup. I left the condiment in the closet.

I remember how my phone bill looks after a night of drinking. Some can relate to the phenomenon of drunk dialing. No matter how many people you’re around at the time, when you mix a phone with blood alcohol content it’s like you can’t stop dialing.

Your finger is glued to the digits, pressing countless numbers and searching through contact names to have conversations with friends who likely aren’t near as intoxicated, but interactions you know you can laugh at later.

One weekend after returning home to visit friends, I passed out from alcohol and fatigue in the middle of a party and starting snoring. I woke up surrounded by other partygoers who had also picked the living room floor over their beds that night. We were all curled up in sleeping bags and blankets.

The real shock was when I looked at my cell phone. I had dialed half my phone book and I couldn’t remember what any of them had said.

When I didn’t hear any tales from friends, I figured I was clear. I had likely heard only hang ups and answering machines.

Except one friend ruined it all. He told me I had tried to start a conversation with his mom at 2 a.m. after hearing he wasn’t there.

I laughed. All my friends had already learned not to take their cell phones with them to the bars, not to make calls that would be funny but regrettable by daylight.

One time I carried a full bottle of rum in my book bag to a friend’s house. We drank some and I accidentally left the bottle in my bag, covering it with school books and leaving it there to age until it’s smell came back to haunt me.

Three days after I had put it in my book bag, I smelled it sitting in class. At first I smiled, thinking someone had drank too much the night before and still reeked of rum. Then I realized it was me.

I casually reached my hand into my bag and felt the slimy stuff. The cap had come unscrewed over the course of a few days and doused my books in Barcadi. I screwed the cap back on and cringed.

I sat through over an hour of class, gasping every time the instructor walked by, hoping he wouldn’t think it was my breath omitting rum fumes.

I laugh at the way I wake up most mornings. Whether it’s evolution or conditioning, I can’t casually wake up and roll out out of bed; I have to make a scene.

Every time someone wakes me up, it’s like a war briefing. My half-asleep mind wants information right away. I usually sit straight up in bed and look frantically around the room, mumbling something about wanting to know where I am and what’s going on.

I hear it’s so entertaining I could do it as party trick.

Everyday there’s something we all can laugh at about ourselves. Maybe it’s always being late to the same class or meeting, forgetting to order McDonald’s without pickles or running out of gas in a busy intersection.

Especially around the holidays, when cheer is heavily encouraged, it never hurts to laugh every once in a while at your own expense.