Word: ellen
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Asia, and discovered that one actually made me think, as opposed to regurgitate. Eventually, I became an East Asian Studies major. While I still hated Stoughton, I discovered that laughing at the crazies made them less threatening, and I found two women there who eventually became my best friends. Ellen and I even worked out a cautious detente--she realized that I was not a preppie socialite and I began to see what was underneath her eccentricities...
...trudged up the four flights to my room, Ellen's half bare and spotless, my own strewn with notecards, crumpled typewritten pages and books. Sorting through the mess. I discovered a note addressed to me in Ellen's spidery handwriting. It read...
...Ellen Anne Warner...
...Thanks, Ellen. I felt a twinge of guilt about my aloofness toward her, but it's easy to feel compassionate when you know you're never going to have to deal with someone again. I put the note away, packed up the last box, and headed for the door. I did not dread returning to Harvard the following year; I had made good friends and found a niche in East Asian Studies and The Crimson. I looked forward to starting over, out of the Yard. But I savored every last step down the stairs, past Chuck's room...
...that I was going to hate living in Stoughton anyway. The spring before, I had carefully filled out Harvard's rooming form; after three years at boarding school I had a good idea of what I wanted--and didn't want--in a roommate. Three minutes of conversation with Ellen convinced me that some joker in the housing office had read my thorough, if slightly arrogant, application and gleefully selected someone with every trait I detested. In our brief, mutually wary encounter, I discovered that she was a chemistry fanatic who went...