Friends: They're Good for the Soul

     Lately, I’ve been feeling nostalgic for friends that I haven’t seen in a while. Luckily, in the past few weeks, I’ve been able to see a few old friends and have made plans to meet up with others. It started a few weekends ago when a friend from home was up on business in San Francisco and called to meet up after work. This friend is more like family to me and I hadn’t seen him very much in the last two years. He pointed out that we did see each other on New Year’s Eve but other than that, not much else. We had a great time and I really hadn’t spent time with him “out” so it was all an adventure. We had always hung out in the comfort of our family’s company and now that we’re “grown-ups” (still makes me smile to think that) we can do things on our own. Well, he’s a bit older so he’s been out on his own for some time now.

     Then, yesterday, I got a call from a friend from junior college informing me that he was en route to SF and would I like to meet up with him. I laughed at his never changing way of making plans, aka NOT making plans and flying by the seat of his pants. We met up at a bar/café a few blocks from my office with two of his friends, one of which I went to junior high and high school with (small world in Southern California…small world) and we had a great time and then got a bit lost in SF trying to drop one of the guys off. It was great because we are all trying to convince him to choose SF for law school and he had said he didn’t know if he had seen enough of the city. Well he certainly did last night. On the drive back down (he was staying with a friend in the South Bay and drove me home) we talked about junior college and caught up on each other’s lives. It was nice.

     I’ve realized that I have the sorts of friends that I can go ages without talking to, then see them and it’s like no time has passed at all. I think that’s what a true friend is made of. Of course, I would much prefer to see these wonderful people on a much more regular basis, but the fact of life is that we grow up around each other and when college and adult life hits, we can get far flung. The important thing is to hold on to the fond memories you have and make sure to catch up once in a while as well as make a few new memories. I like it that way. I have a verrry busy life right now and I don’t have much time for a social life. It’s nice and comforting to know that I have friends that I can just call up after a while and chat.

     I also found out that some old high school acquaintances are moving up to the Bay Area soon and I offered to show them around. It’ll be good to see some old faces. Yay for being an “adult” J.

Where Were You?

     Last night, May 1, 2011, Osama bin Laden was confirmed dead. It's one of those chilling "where were you?" moments that we'll be talking about for years to come.
    On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was in 8th grade and getting ready for school that Tuesday. I knew something was up when my dad turned on the TV to the news. Then the images flooded in. It was horrifying and scary and oh I still shudder when I think about it. That day at school is a blur but everyone was talking about it. Naturally, being junior high schoolers, we didn't really understand the huge significance. I just remember a teacher saying that our trip to Washington D.C. most likely was not going to happen. The news around what was going on in New York came out more and more.
     A few days later, my family learned that my mom's cousin, who is a doctor, had been at Ground Zero for three straight days. She finally got home on the fourth, burned her bloody clothes and slept for a day. A guy my dad knew from high school was one of the firefighters killed and a distant cousin was killed in the towers. We saw their names on the wall of the memorial a few years later when we visited.
     Now, nearly 10 years later, the evil man who was the mastermind behind it all has been killed. Gone. But the war on terrorism is not over. There is no way in hell those who supported him will take this lying down. The country is once again on high alert and now my 22 year old self is much more aware. And admittedly scared.
    I was watching TV with my roommate and as our nightly routine, both of us were sitting on our respective couches with our laptops up. We were watching "Real Housewives of Orange County" because, well, we need to watching something mind numbing once in a while. I refreshed my Facebook page and 7 new statuses popped up, all about Osama bin Laden's supposed death. I gasped and my fingers flew to Google. With Google tentatively confirming it, I said something to my roommate, who by the way is studying for her LSATs and had an internship on Capitol Hill last semester and knows more about government and foreign policy than I ever want to know. She said if it's true it's huge, turn on CNN.
      It was 7:59. I read that the president was supposed to have made an address at 7:30 ET. Obviously, that didn't happen. Finally, at 8:30 President Obama delivered a quick 7 minute speech that confirmed what all of social media was blasting. And I mean blasting. Watching Twitter auto-refresh along with Facebook was surreal. It was history at my fingertips.
     I stayed up until about 11 pm watching it all unfold. And of course this morning told more. It's a huge moment in history and one that will certainly affect us in the coming days, weeks, months and probably years. We'll get through this.

So where were you?