  Sometimes I notice little things about my friends that I haven’t taken the time to appreciate before. Case in point; Leigh. Leigh always finds the good in people. She can always relate to them on some level. She likes to fill silence with words, and she can go on this way for hours. I admit that I tend to get impatient with her more often than I listen to the weight of her words.
She speaks in a loud, declarative way, but with a sense of vulnerability and gentleness. I think its cathartic for her to talk, even about seemingly insignificant things. Tonight we were talking about people’s insecurities, and is it pointless to pretend you don’t have them(? ) She was telling me about how she steamed open a letter of reference from Coach Van Dyne (cross country) He said she was pretty insecure and self-aware to a distracting point. Which I would have cried about mercilessly, but Leigh’s thoughts were, “...wow, how honest!” For every Thursday from now on, we’ll have a student teacher from Eastern do writing exercises with us. I’ve struck gold in the teacher-department here. Let me give you a somewhat bias description of Hillary. She works in the Paper Garden first of all, which is this amazing store that sells, well, paper (among other things) She wore a stripped dress shirt with an argyle sweater vest over it and jeans. Her hair cut haphazardly, originally brown but with tiny streaks of white, red, and magenta all over.
She speaks in a relaxed way, but there is a hint of a lisp. I love people who have funny accents or strange word flow or lisps… just because I identify and find their speaking more interesting than others. She gave us slips of paper with sentences on them, from which we are to start a short-story. Mine is, “He didn’t think it was weird that she lived with thirteen cats.” (The story, so far, is about a UPS man who falls in love with an elderly shut-in named Edith, for whom he delivers daily packages. ) What a great writing exercise! She specializes in fiction, which is good since I have never completed a fiction story in my life… with the exception of fourth grade.
I wrote a story about a girl named Tess Williams who gets lost in the South-American rain forest and has to eat mushrooms and sleep on rocks to survive. I only wish I took the time to appreciate people, whether it’s Leigh or Hillary or anyone, more often. It makes me feel warm and happy about the people I surround myself with. Affectionately… Anna 
