(l-r) Me, Allan, Marie, Bob, Rehmat

I spent five years at this institution, learning in one way or another. Of course, the best part was meeting the people I would never have met if I had decided not to come here.

My favourite story of all time is the story of how I met Marie. It was my very first day of university. My parents had left the day before, and I was totally alone for pretty much the first time in my life. I was sitting by myself in the residence cafeteria, eating breakfast, when two girls approached me. They asked if they could join me, and, being in the "get to know you" state of mind, I said sure. Their names were Sarah and Marie, they were roommates, and, as fate would have it, they were in my class. Later on, I discovered that Marie was already kind of annoyed with her new roommate, and so the two of us slowly ditched Sarah for the duration of Frosh Week. The relief of meeting someone new for the first time in a strange place and getting along with them was overwhelming, especially since I hadn't done that since I started kindergarten. I'll always remember Marie as being my first official Waterloo friend.

Rehmat was in my Engineering Frosh group as well as my class, but we didn't really become close friends until after first year, when she and Marie and I ventured forth in search of our first off-campus house. At that point, I had very few university friends who were from Toronto, and so this common element helped us to bond.

The three of us became the Chemical Sisters. The best part about this relationship was that each of us came from very different backgrounds, and yet we all got along really well. It was also great to learn about our different cultures, and to help each other get through those difficult episodes in our lives, both academic and personal.

Bob and Al became permanent fixtures in our group since first year. Bob was my personal IT support guy. There was nothing he couldn't do with a computer. He also had the ability to thoroughly scare me with his artwork. Something about body parts in a sea of blood kind of creeps me out. Now that he's studying to be an architect, I'm sure he'll be able to frighten the masses much more effectively (insert Bob's evil laugh here).  Bob taught us that Bob Standard Time (BST) involves going to bed at 4 in the afternoon, waking up for breakfast at 9pm, working through the night, and still make it to class in the morning (sometimes). He also showed us that it is possible to survive on a cookie diet.

Poor Al. After years of torture, I'm surprised he still talks to us. If we weren't making fun of his beloved Ottawa Senators, we were giving him birthday beats with a paper tube, or taking photos of him in uncompromising poses, or devising a point system to award the person who could diss him the best. But as we always said, since he's the only one of us who's an only child, our job was to be the substitute siblings and make up for years of abuse that he missed.