Courtney

Courtney being the first awesome person is about as appropriate as having Frou Frou's "Let Go" on the Garden State soundtrack. It's funny - about a year ago, I remember having a conversation with her after English class about how it's simply not a social norm to go around telling all the people you care about why they're awesome. I do remember saying something like, "Well, in case you need to actually hear me say this, I do think you're pretty awesome." I stopped short of actually saying why so I guess I'll do that now.

I once decided to spend an entire summer working at a summer camp down in New York. The only catch to this was that I had to miss almost the entire orientation period of the job because of a wedding and didn't arrive at the campsite until something like 2 or 3 days before the actual start date of camp. I've always had a terrible history of making friends and missing orientation was actually a terrible idea (hindsight being 20/20 and all). To make a long story short, I spent a lot of my downtime on my own (my co-counselor was off gallivanting around with a girl on the waiting staff) and were it not for Courtney, I feel like I might have been very unhappy (I remember being unhappy at any rate but I think it would have been worse).

Courtney, you see, was temporarily living in the States at the time and we spent most of the summer corresponding through letters (and occasionally facebook/MSN when the clouds at my camp weren't blocking the signal from the satellite dish that represented our only source of internet). She even made a few mix CDs and sent them through the mail. It was one of the most memorable gestures of friendship I can remember from the years we've known one another.

I always bring up this anecdote when I want to encapsulate how great of a person Courtney is. It's just a good example of how she is a fundamentally kind person and how it manifests itself in funny ways sometimes. I remember her sending care packages to a soldier in Afghanistan (or some such place) with whom she had become pen-pals back when we were in undergrad. It's just one of things, you know?

She also uses exclamation points when she types. That's pretty cool, I think. The difference between using exclamation points when you type and not using them is akin to the difference between being greeted by someone flying into your arms and someone waving and saying "Hey." I mean, I'm sure the same greeting sentiment is there but it's nice to emphasize the point sometimes; especially if it's positive.

Courtney's also gifted at seeing and understanding inter-personal relationships in ways that run parallel to my own. It's nice because I spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that we establish and maintain connections to other people and Courtney's always been someone who's interested in hearing what I have to say about them. Not only that, but she often has her own interesting perspective to add to the whole idea and I usually walk away from those conversations feeling like I've made progress on my understanding of the particular issue at hand. And that's always a nice feeling.

She's good at making you feel like you matter. In some ways, it's a combination of good conversation skills and the aforementioned demonstrations of excitement. Courtney won't just tell you that something you've said or done is cool or interesting, she'll also tell you why she thinks it's cool or interesting. And this is something that you really have to appreciate about someone like her. Not only can you feel good about the fact that someone appreciates what you've said or done, but the fact that she's taken the time to explain her reasoning to you makes you feel like she's appreciated it in the right way. Furthermore, she empathizes well, I think, and she isn't too proud to recognize her own flaws. She's got great taste in films and literature and is probably going to end up as a lot of students' favorite teacher. I don't know what she lauds my teaching "skills". Given the choice, I'd send my kids to her school over mine. She was also kind enough to befriend me in first year and considering how few reasons I usually provide to complete strangers to do this, I think it speaks to her ability to make something out of very little.