More Facebook Magic!

I was checking my Facebook account for the 17th time last night and was thrilled to receive a note from ANOTHER old friend from college. This time it was the ethereal and enigmatic Tom.

Tom was one of the first friends I had at the private dorm/apartment complex where I lived my sophomore year called The Regent, where I also met Kari (who would later be my roommate extraordinaire), as well as a whole slew of Singaporeans. It was like the UN there, really. Here's me & Tom, right before everyone left for Christmas break in December 1992:


Guess who had had a little too much White Zinfandel that night? - and nearly missed her flight home the next day (from Chicago to Charlotte on Christmas Eve)... But got lucky, RAN to the gate where they HELD THE PLANE FOR ME, and got to sit her severely hungover self in First Class due to some very sympathetic flight attendants!!! That doesn't happen anymore, does it??

Here's another one of Tom - this time at a party at my apartment on Johnson Street that I threw when my Mom came to visit one weekend. He's sitting next to another of our good friends - Felix - of the Singapore contingent. I've always loved this picture and think it captures their personalities so perfectly. Felix was always trying to explain something, Tom was always thoughtful and introspective.



To prove conclusively that IT IS a small world after all, listen to this story. Tom's mother is American and was in the Peace Corps in the late 60's/early 70's in Kenya. She met a Kenyan man who she later married and had a family with - Tom's dad. They now live in the States, but Tom grew up in Kenya went to High School there sometime in the late 80's. His high school was a very international place where lots of ex-pats sent their kids for an "international" education.

So fast forward to the early 90's when we were all at UW Madison, a patchwork quilt of backgrounds, hanging out together in the TV room watching Star Trek every night and talking and playing pool til all hours of the morning - on a very regular basis. One night, Kari, who you may recall is from Norway, pulled out her high school yearbook and 'lo and behold, one of Kari's friends from Norway had gone to the International High School in Kenya, and was a classmate of Tom's. Is that INSANE?! Coincidences like this don't "just happen". It just proves we're all interconnected in some way.

Tom was part of my support system in Madison - part of my college family - since I was so far from home myself. He was so good to me, and helped me navigate a number of crises related to boys, classes and too much beer... He was with me when one of the most embarrassing episodes of my life took place - the afternoon that he and I together drank 3 entire pitchers of beer, then proceeded to go out to dinner (at a nicer than usual restaurant that you wouldn't necessarily think college kids would go) with a couple other friends - whereupon without a second's notice - I spontaneously combusted after being seated - and vomited the entire contents of my stomach onto the table top of said restaurant. Did we leave said restaurant in shame, slinking out the door never to return? Did we clean up said table top - to make amends with the server and bus staff?... No. We did no such thing. We simply got up and asked to be seated elsewhere, after getting cleaned up in the rest room. My dining partners simply said - it happens to all of us. Now THAT is what I call friends for life. So happy to hear from you Tom!