It was a warm October morning when for the first time in my life I realized how painful it would be to be a shy person. There I was, nine years old, in class, right after my classmates and I had read a story called “Malagueta Pepper John.” It told the story of a little boy who would instantly blush whenever he went through an embarrassing situation in his miserable life. The problem was that that morning I too had gone through some sort of shameful experience. Don't ask me what it was; All I know is that within minutes of it happening, a fellow student of mine started calling me "Malagueta Pepper John" and everyone in that room of stone-hearted children followed suit. This opened my eyes. My perception of myself was so distorted and vague that I had never realized this kind of reaction in myself before. I was exactly like the character, John, in that children's story; every embarrassing situation I had ever faced in my life made me blush immediately. From that moment on I began to notice how the “process” unfolded. It was actually kind of funny, in a way, because...