You taught me the meaning of the word tomboy. You were crass, push, often inconsiderate, and so so very loud, but I have to say, you were the kind of friend who would go to the ends of the Earth for someone they considered a friend. You were the only other girl in our year to take year 12 physics, and we both had plans to go into engineering (though at the time, I also wanted to study mechatronics alongside you). You introduced me to Naruto, and were always trying to get me to go to the WWWA events. The day before our final chemistry exam, you convinced me and |b| to head over to Melbourne University to go to a marathon, and I won my very first anime wall scroll.
It's funny how those little things you don't think about much may have made a huge difference. If you had never gotten me into anime, I might have thought that MrMan5.5 was just some otaku loser. I probably never would have taken up Japanese and gone to Japan twice (and I still want to go back again for their delicious cup noodles and vending machine corn soup. Oh, and vending machine red bean drink. And how can you forget convenience store anpan? Plus warm, delicious curry udon).
It's because of you that I already had some friends at uni before I even started, as you, being the incredibly outgoing person that you are, had already scoped out all the cool clubs and started meeting new people - even though you ended up moving interstate to study law instead.
Thank you for being one of the butterfly flaps that ended up with me being in the happy situation that I am in now.
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We got to know each other during my darkest time. I refused to go to school, saw a bunch of therapists, I'm surprised at how many people jumped out of the woodwork to try and get me back on my feet, but I was being an emo little shit, and all I wanted was for it all to end. Except I was too cowardly, and couldn't face the pain that would come from something like cutting myself, or jumping onto the train tracks (though I did get pretty close to that one).
I knew of you, though since you taught ESL, and English is my first language, you never taught me. However, you did live 2 minutes from my house, and I don't know why, but you volunteered to drive me to school every morning. All of a sudden, it was an "authority figure" coming in every morning to drag my ass off to school, rather than my mum. I guess years of bowing to the power of teachers had me unable to pull the same, "Leave me alone" crap I did with my parents.
I was not very good at talking back then, but you gave me a notebook and told me that I should write things in it. Thus began my very first diary. In true emo fashion, I vented about how bad the world was, and how it felt like only I could see everything that was wrong, and why didn't anyone understand me?! After I was done, I gave it back to you for you to read. You wrote me a letter in response, and I don't remember a lot of it, but you addressed something that came up in my diary a lot. "A bore is a man who, when asked how he is, tells you" was one of my favourite quotes. I was absolutely convinced that I was a boring person of no consequence, and the world would probably be better off without me. Well, I alternated between that and saving the world with my crazy band-aid scheme. You told me that when someone meets you and finds you boring, that just means they do not find you interesting - it doesn't mean you are not an interesting person.
That advice really stuck with me, and I'm glad I never lived out my emo fantasies, as when I finally made it to university, I did meet people who found me interesting, or at least others who shared the same interests as me. So thank you, for turning my life around.
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It’s hard to boil down this friendship into a few moments that have meant a lot. I wouldn’t call us besties in the sense of “BFFS 4 LYF”, but I’ve always considered you my best friend. Despite some of the crappier things I’ve done, like be a complete lazy bum on a holiday in Queensland and drag you around to the dodgier part of Brisbane to meet some guy I met in a video game, you’ve never complained about anything. You just seem to take everything in your stride.
You're one of the most compassionate people I've ever met, and I think becoming a doctor is really suitable to your personality, so I'm glad you finally achieved your dream.
Oh! I'm also super grateful that you're a bit of a studying bum like me, and that we'd spend ages at the library not really doing anything. And you got me to read some pretty awesome books. I don't think I'd be half the bookworm that I am without your influence.
I don't really know what else to say, other than thank you for everything. I'm incredibly glad that one of the teachers decided to pair us together on orientation day.
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