We started this blog as a tangible (hm. Internet? tangible?) record of our friendship. We hope it will function in much the same way as middle schoolers like to keep “friendship notebooks,” albeit in a much less exclusive way. And so, here goes. Our friendship.
As often happens in small towns, everyone knows everyone else, usually through yet another friend. I met Varsha through our friend, Elaine. I have gone to the same school as Elaine since the seventh grade. Here we are, in our third year of college, and we are still friends, still schoolmates. Freshman year, Elaine told me about “this cool chick in Geometry.” Believe me, if ever there were a place to find cool chicks, it was in Honors Geometry. And so, I met Varsha.
And she was cool! She went from friend-of-a-friend status to, you know, real friend status. Our conversations were filled with the gossip of high school girls, but also some smidges of insight into world politics and movements. We thought we were très chic in frequenting the downtown coffeeshop. Maybe not, but let me tell you, we still go back there every break that she’s home from the East Coast, back to the scene of the free Sprite (ooh! is that like buying you a drink? remember, this was before the popularization of T-Pain’s indelible mark on our culture!), of our group crossword sessions, of college application (but really talking to the boy and ignoring the essays) fests. That coffeeshop is far from the birthplace of our friendship–no, that honor is reserved for KFC High School. But, in that epic struggle of nature vs. nurture, that coffeeshop triumphs, with nurture never failing to shock us with technological upgrades, artistic innovation, and unfortunately, sometimes-stale baked goods.
All this from a Geometry meeting. Come to think of it, math class has fostered many a friendship. Some of the girls in my Algebra class played middle-school volleyball together. They named their ball after the teacher! Geometry: Varsha. Algebra II cast me in the role of loud-girl-in-the-back. (Okay, I have never not been the loud girl, but it hasn’t always been in the back.) My group then had so much fun, and it was through one of them that I met my college roommate. So, thank you for evil math teachers (and the cool ones, too!) and for blogging about our trans-continental friendship.
Somewhere, tucked away in a memory album, I have a picture of Elaine and Varsha outside that very math classroom. Posting to follow!
