Beginnings

It was an awful average day of a long winter semester and I was late for class. I ran in just as the professor started his lengthy introductions and ran to my seat. But it was taken. I'm sure I only stood there looking like an idiot for a moment, but I felt like I stood there stupidly for longer than necessary. Yet what was I supposed to do? It wasn't often that someone broke code and sat in a seat different from the one they claimed during the first couple weeks of classes, and it was well into the semester. When the professor raised on eyebrow, I looked across the aisle and up a row and found an empty seat which I slid into immediately.

From then on, that's where I sat - but my Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule was ridiculously busy and I didn't manage to muster more than a few words with my new neighbor - I was always late to class anyway.

A few weeks later I actually came to class early enough (I got off work early) to get to class on time, early even! Walking into the classroom with a normal breathing pattern put me in a good mood and I immediately turned to my neighbor to start a conversation. Luckily my neighbor was a devastatingly handsome blonde-hair, blue-eyed wonderful individual. We've been best friends ever since and in August we'll be getting married.

SO THERE I WAS...
Sitting in a new spot in my World Religions class. Some punk stole my old one...oh well, gotta roll with the cards the dealer gives you, at least that's what my time in the Birsk, Novosibirsk taught me. I had been in exile in Siberia for the last two years, all I knew was cold...cold, cold, and more cold...but I had grown to love the cold, I understood it. However, being at BYU was one thing I didn't understand. It had been almost two months and I didn't know a single soul. I was surrounded by people...at least I think they were people...they were so intent on going from one place to the next that they seemed more like robots, robots that were just as lost as me. At least in Russia people wore their emotions on their faces; they were easy to read...here you could read them about as easily as a two year old reads Hebrew...but that's a different story for another day...
So THERE I WAS...
Sitting in a new spot when a new neighbor sat down next to me. We exchanged smiles and got on with the lecture. After two days of sitting next to this cute little stranger we struck up a little conversation during one of the breaks, probably something about some Hindu fertility god (I think even then we knew one day we'd reproduce together (I hope its ok if I put this Beb)) well anywho, we exchanged names and got back to the lecture. For the next few periods we talked and got better acquainted, the only problem was I totally forgot her name. Every time the role came around I would try to see what name she checked off so I wouldn't have to ask her what her name was; I was sly, but not sly enough. I can't remember who asked who but we got each others names again. Aubrey, Aubrey Sirrine. Well then she invited me over to watch Pocohauntus, it was then that I knew I had finally made a friend, and not just any friend...a friend who was a girl...a girlfriend! Well after a summer of separation, she in Jerusalem and I in Europe and a rough fall semester she finally became my girlfriend, then she rolled my car and became my fiancee and well, soon she'll be my lil' wifey...moral of the story: talk to your neighbor