Saturday, November 22, 2008

Birthday Girl: Annie Chatenka

I, without a doubt, have the best roommate ever. I don't know how I lucked out so much, but I can say with 110% certainty, that there are few people in this world that I would enjoy living with as much as I do with Annie. We laugh at the same things, get mad at the same things. We just get each other.

My all-time favorite thing that has happened with Annie and I involves me, Annie and a nun. Senior year, Annie and I lived together in our cozy little Turrell Apartment at Seton Hall. I had been asked to speak in front of this group of big time donors to Seton Hall and explain why I loved SHU, what made me go there, etc. etc. I prepared this whole speech that explained why I chose Seton Hall (because of my grandfather - for those of you who don't know, i'd love to tell you the story) and I asked to practice it in front of Annie. She listened but on the day that I was to make my speech in front of these big time donors AND Monsignor Sheeran (president of SHU) she came with me because she knew how nervous I was. There was nun (I still don't know her name) who was preparing to introduce me to the group. She came up and asked how to pronounce my name and the three of us got to talking. She asked about my major, I told her i was a PR major, and said, "you know who you should talk to?" I asked "Who?" as she was closing her eyes and shaking her head to remember. The thing is, she shook her head with her eyes closed for LITERALLY about 5 minutes. Around minute 2 I started to laugh. And then Annie saw me laughing and she started to laugh. we were both trying to do this silent laugh so the nun wouldn't hear us laughing directly AT her but after the 5 minutes were up, and she finally opened her eyes, we were clearly peeing our pants in this nun's face. It might not sound funny to anyone reading this but it was by far one of the funniest moments in my entire life.

After they introduced me, I walked into the room to begin my speech when the nun invited Annie into the room to join us. I told her to stay out of the room because I knew if I saw her I'd laugh. We have contagious laughs and its one of the things I love most about our friendship.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of us. It was taken at graduation, and yes, I wore an eye patch as I crossed the stage and accepted my diploma and yes, Annie had her dad deliver popcorn to us during graduation. So, Annie, today and always I want you to know how much you mean to me. Happy Birthday, I hope you had an amazing day.

3 comments:

Adrian said...

Amen to great friends, great memories, great roommates, and great laughs. But not licked cupcakes.

micahwave said...

I think I would make a better roommate - we could share eye patches.

Unknown said...

shan you're the greatest!! i love you (but not in the one-bedroom-in-clifton-sort-of-way!!!)

and no...mmmersnt definitely would not be a better roomate than me!!