"It" moments pt. 3 (an awesome moment)

Now college was awesome. No other word to explain it, it was just awesome. However there were a couple of people (and many more than I don't have the energy or strength to name) that made it that EXTRA special for it. Anna P., Victoria, Marquis, Wanda, Tim, and Nancy. So today I have been thinking about all of them extra hard so I figured there would be no better tribute to them than to write about them and tell they WHY I think they are so special and important to me...

1. Anna P. I loved this young lady from the very first moment I ever saw her. I knew she was awesome and special from the moment we met and I made sure that we were going to be friends whether she liked it or not. If it was ever possible for someone to "glow" it would be this young lady. I had never until this point met someone more opinionated and cerebral for lack of a better word. She was the first woman I can ever remember who was not content to accept what YOU thought she would be. She didn't care what you thought or expected because she was determined to question authority and the traditional ways people thought about things. If I could sum her up in a movie line "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn." That literally describes her. I have two favorite moments that I shared with her. One she knows about and one she doesn't. We had a rave party at school and when she showed up in the schoolgirl get-up (and if you know ANYTHING about her personality you can see the humor in this) jaws dropped and we danced the night away like crazy people. But my favorite moment? She played the piano for me and sung. Hands down...it was amazing.

2. Victoria. Let's understand something. Her name is not Victoria to me. I ONLY call her that because that is what her name is (legally anyway) but to me she will always be my Vicky Secret. There are a couple reasons why I came up with that name, but that's who she is to me. She would always come bounding down the stairs in our residence hall (where I decided that the dorm couch was mine and mine alone to rule) and she didn't just walk anywhere she brought a WAVE of energy anywhere she went. The thing that made me love her more than anything else is the fact that she had the outgoing free spirit that I only dreamed of having. Every single time I saw her it was like a Lord of the Rings book or a Pirate of the Carribean movie come to life. To this day I am convinced that she has a time machine that she used to come from another era so that she could share her awesomeness with me. No matter what I was going through, no matter how my day went before she got there, she made it better by being there. She never asked me for anything in return but she always made me love seeing her :)

3. Marquis (Cloud): This is a case of someone that I have grown to love and appreciate after we had gotten out of school. The thing he will never know is how much I had already admired him even when we were in school. Have you ever seen someone who is so uniquely their own person? I never even knew how to just process him. I have never been the best at being (or making for that matter) friends so I had no idea how to tell him how much he rocks but he rocked. He has been so awesome and he set the standard for how to treat people and whether he knows it or not I have tried my best to treat people the way that he does and just appreciate the wonderful folks around you. I may not have gotten it right while we were in school, but you have helped me take the steps to get it right since then so for that I will forever be grateful.

4. Wanda: Wanda was my rock in school. She was my go to girl at all times. Ms. Jones was one of those rare friends that you make and you know that if the sh@# goes down around you she is going to be the person next to you ready for whatever. She was there for all of my good days and especially all of my bad ones. She drove me crazy because she would bang on my door whenever SHE woke up in the morning. Notice I said whenever SHE woke up. The first thing that I learned about her was that she has a voice that must have been handed down to her PERSONALLY from an angel. I loved being around her because she could sing about everything and just sounded incredible about doing it. Another thing that I learned about her was about relationships and how males and females relate to each other. She gave me a perspective, an insight if you will into what goes into female thinking. I loved having someone who I could bounce any idea off of an know I could get an answer that was credible. Most of all, Wanda was always there for me anytime I needed her in school and I will always appreciate that and I love her dearly because she was one of the few people I would ever consider a "best friend."

5. Tim: This guy was like James Dean come to life all over again. From the day that I met him he lived with a certain fearlessness and recklessness that bordered on insanity. Tim and I did some absolutely crazy things that people would not even believe if we told them. I loved him because dude was was the outlet that I needed in school to the crazy part of my personality. Tim was another one of those friends that never asked for anything and I always knew that I could ask him for any of everything and I always had 100 percent confidence that he would come through. Tim is always going to be my buddy and I hope he knows that. He is one of the very few who could ask me for anything and I would try my best to come through.

6. Nancy: You know what I loved about Nancy? The strawberry drinks (which I still don't know the name for) at Starbucks. I would let Nancy talk about whatever and she got me strawberry drinks. But my Starbucks habit aside, what I always loved and admired about Nancy was her drive. I have never seen anyone work so hard in school and she was one of the primary reasons why I started to bust my butt towards the end of my college career because this girl was HARDCORE about getting her schoolwork done and she was always coming and going. I still don't know if she ever went and slept during school. We became much closer after school for different reasons (she is one of my very best friends), but if I could point out something that influenced me while we were in school it would be how hard I always saw her work (and the Starbucks drinks).