Before Facebook tipped them off to my whereabouts, there were only four people I kept in touch with after I left high school to go to the University of Kansas – Ryan, Jason, Cory, and Golnaz. Ryan was my best friend in high school and we still catch up on occasion. Jason and Cory – violinist and cellist in orchestra growing up, respectively – were too talented not to keep in touch with. Golnaz and I were both violinists in orchestra since middle school which meant we saw each other every weekday for 7 years. We also had the common bond of not being Norwegian in a Minnesota school system – I was half Ecuadorian, she was half Persian. She and I became better friends after all those social pressures of high school were past tense, and have tried to see each other from time even though we live 500 miles away.

Golnaz has had a busy year – she just graduated with her Pharmacy degree, and this past weekend married Deepak, her significant other of many years. I was happy to be invited up for the ceremony, and made the trip up to Minnesota to be there. I also got to catch up with many old friends, which was wonderful.

Of course since I love the ending of “American Graffiti”, here is a catchup of of the friends at the ceremony!

	Katie was one year ahead of me and played violin. She is now married and works as a nurse practitioner. She’s pictured here with her husband whose name escapes me. They are now proud parents!
	Laura and Katie were inseparable through high school. She now works for Best Buy as a technical writer. She just married her husband in July, and had a wonderful honeymoon in Hawaii
	Sarah was Katie’s little sister, so it was a surprise to see her all grown up (and with a baby!). She is a full time violinist, and she and her husband Luke performed the music for the ceremony.
	Parvaneh was Golnaz’s little sister. She and her boyfriend Joe just moved to Arizona, where Parveneh is starting as a school teacher (though I would love it if she did a few more animations on the side).

Since we’re in the worst energy crisis since the 70′s, one of my desires was to try to make it up from Lawrence to Minnesota on one tank of gas. This meant going 65 MPH on I-35 for 500 miles, but the Mini pulled it off. I even was able to make the rated MPG for the car. I know this shows proves I’m a NPR listening hippie snob but… take that hybrid’s! You’re not the only gas sippers on the block!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 5:28 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.