My friend, my sister - this is for you.

Five and a half years ago I started my first day at the University of Calgary and I was completely nervous about meeting people and starting something different from what I was used to. On my first day of school, I met this great person who has now become a sister to me. This blog is a dedication to my close friend Tara who is now leaving Victoria to go back to Calgary.

I remember that she had moved out here in December 2005 and I was debating about moving to either Toronto or Victoria in the summer of 2006. As the tricky person she is, she convinced me that Victoria would be the *best* place for me and that I should move out here.
"Lenie, it just yells your name everywhere," she said, "the campus, downtown, the ocean - it just screams your name!"
Well, I listened to her, only to find out that this city is *not* for me! To her amusement, she had a hay day laughing her ass off about the fact that she tricked me into coming here.

Regardless, her convincing me to come has been one of the best things for me and I'm grateful that her tricky ways made me come out here. Even though we didn't hang out on a regular basis due to our hectic schedules, having her here has made things so much easier and it was a little piece of reminder of my life back in Calgary.

I don't know if we will end up in the same city again nor if we will ever live in the same province once more, but, Tara, I hope you know that you will be more than greatly missed. You are like a big sister to me and even though I hate to admit it, you were usually right about a lot of things when it came to giving me advice about situations that I couldn't deal with at the time. I'll miss hanging out at your place and doing nothing, or going for Pho in downtown, or hitting up Russell Books and the cute little store that was located by our favorite Pho restaurant. I'll miss not having someone to drive me to the airport at 4 in the morning after you worked a shift that ended at 2am (dude, I owe you one - big time!) But more importantly, I'll just miss seeing YOU! It'll be odd not seeing you in this city anymore and it'll be even more odd to see you back in the city that we first met. However, I sincerely hope that Calgary has more to offer you than Victoria and that you'll be able to start your career there.

So my dear, cheers to you - cheers to all the fun we had here and back in Calgary and cheers for a new, exciting beginning. I wish you all the best and I can't wait to see you back in the city that started it all.

With lots of love,
Lenie.

PS. If someone is reading this who isn't Tara and you're wondering about the dog, well, if you knew her, you would know why the dog is there.