It was a truly lovely event held at the Ramada. Everyone cleaned up purdy for an evening of commemoration of a wonderful semester together.
The top photo is of the staff, the one on the bottom left here is with Chuck. He kept me laughing and hugged throughout the semester. I'd come out of my room from several hours straight of studying and at the point of weep-laughing, and he'd look at me and just open his arms. A few weeks ago he told me that everytime he sees me, he knows there's always a 40% chance that I need snuggles. Goofy guy. His "friend" has a good catch in him.
The second photo there is with Erynn Lasse. At the first of semester, every time she'd walk in the room, I'd think to myself, "Oh my good Lord, that girl is tall." Turns out, she always thought the same thing about me. It took us until mid semester to realize we are exactly the same height. Her heels in this picture are higher than mine. Let me tell ya, it is really, really nice to have a tall friend.
Seating was arranged. I was positioned between four trustees and four best friends.
The trustees closest to me were one an old man with severe hearing loss and an old woman who was so soft-spoken I couldn't hear a single word she said.
Now, you may not know this, but when I fill out resumes, "small talk" is not something I add to my strengths section. It's so bad that my roommate sophomore year literally gave me small talk lessons each evening before she'd let me go to sleep. Laugh, please. It's funny, but it was invaluable.
Mostly tonight, I concentrated on looking pleasant and smile when spoken to (because I couldn't hear anything anyone was saying to me over the din).
The sweet couple really wanted to talk to me. Impossible.
My favorite moment with him was when he told me about his son. He'd talked about him for a while, so I asked various questions, leading to:
"So, how old is your son?"
*man outlines '78' on the table and says* "that many is how old I am"
"Oh. Okay. Wow. How old is your son?"
"Oh! The titanic district opened only about a year and a half ago."
At that point, I gave up and answered with feigned revelation about a year and a half ago being the anniversary of the ship sinking.
The whole evening, I channeled Lauren Ware, smiled, nodded, and tried to bury the completely panicked introvert inside me trying to escape to the nearest corner.
I am fairly convinced there is a special ring in hell requiring an eternity of alcohol-less/tranquilizer-less pleasant small talk.
It made for great story telling and big laughs later on with the students. Awkward small talk in the moment could not be more painful, but oh my goodness, save up several stories and pull them out of your pocket for the perfect ice breakers later on in life.
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