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Trip Down Memory Lane: Installment #2

April 27th, 2011 cmcurr11

From about June until the end of July of 2007, I checked STAR religiously every day to see my housing assignment. I wanted to know where I was living (well, I knew that because I was in FYP) and who was going to be my victim er…roommate. Day after day, STAR kept on reporting that there was nothing to report. Then, the facebook group for the Holy Cross Class of 2011 sent out a message one day in late July – roommate assignments were published on STAR. I immediately logged into STAR, clicked on my housing arrangement, and saw the following two lines:

Hanselman Hall 318

Carrie Staab

Being the cool kid that I am/was, I immediately went back to Facebook to find this Carrie Staab figure. Turns out that she had already found me, though, since I had a friend request from her. For the next month and a half, we talked about our sleeping preferences, who was bringing what, and tried to get to know each other (people before facebook: how did you do it?). We met on move-in day (maybe one day I’ll actually document how awful of a day it really was).

For the first semester, we lived well together, but we weren’t the best of friends. We got on just fine, though. We had classes together and we went to Kimball together; she introduced me to some of her friends through her clubs, and I did the same. Toward the end of first semester, though, that all changed. As I lamented going to our mutual 8:00 CRAW Poetry class, I said, “But, Mommy, I don’t want to go to school! I want to stay home and bake cookies with you!” Carrie stared at me in disbelief, and asked me, “Wait. You say that too?” “Yup. I’ve been saying it since I saw Space Jam.” “Same here!” After that, we became the best of friends.

Please don’t mind my weird hair. I don’t know what was up with it that night.

The man, the myth, the legend: Professor Kee. Little did he know exactly how much of a role he’d play in my life after that simple FYP course… He’s also Carrie’s thesis reader.


We decided not to room with each other sophomore year since we both had already made arrangements with other girls. But we still continued our friendship – we took classes together, hung out all the time, and even made pecan pie at the end of first semester.

Carrie and I were able to talk about things that no one else really understood about us – I was thinking more about the medieval period as a profession, and she was thinking about academia in general. In keeping with this academic theme, we were even inducted into the English Honors Society (Sigma Tau Delta) together.

Yes, I’m trying to be tall. Give me a break.

Then, we studied abroad together in Oxford last year. We were constantly hanging out with each other – we usually had tea breaks with each other, studied with each other, and ranted to each other when our tutorial assignments seemed too much to handle.

Welcome to the Theology Library at Mansfield College!

And welcome to the Botanical Gardens. We went there on Midsummer’s Day at noon and sat on this specific bench for  a reason…any Philip Pullman fans out there?

We also went to Sutton Hoo together in the middle of winter, which was definitely an adventure.

Then, we returned to Holy Cross for our senior year. Between our classes, discussions about the future, and tea sessions, we’re still the best of friends.

So, dear Residence Life staff that was responsible for placing us together: Thank you.

And, yes, we’re still crazy.

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