Studette of the Month - November 2011

I wake up, groggy, feeling like I've been hit in the head by a truck. It isn't a hang-over, it is just the way I feel most mornings. I can barely get my body to shuffle itself down the stairs. I head to the kitchen, expecting to pour myself cold cereal and maybe while I crunch away at breakfast the clouds in my brain will slowly disapate.

As I round the corner into the kitchen my puffy eyes spot a milk shake and a plate covered with cloth. My tired brain registers that Etanim has done it again, she has left me breakfast. A wave of gratefulness registers as I take the breakfast and mosey my waking self into the dining room to eat.


(Photo of actual breakfast left for me this summer)

If this were an isolated event, Etanim probably wouldn't be Studette of the Month. In the two and a half years I've lived with her and Max, she has always been this way.

When I first moved in she asked me if I was excited to live there with them. I was thrilled, actually. She said - we are excited to have you live here with us too - in a thick Spanish accent of course. I couldn't not express to her at the time, and I am sure I haven't since, the gratefulness I felt just being around someone so kind.

The remarkable thing about Etanim is that she is endlessly thoughtful. If I am planning on attending a formal dance, she will have prepared a little gift of jewelry that matches my dress. Dinner often awaits me when I come home from work. Kindness, patience, natural generosity - these are not just things she aspires to, but honestly just who she is.

Max locked himself out of their room last week and I was on my way out to a Halloween party. I had a black wig on with hair down past my waist and a dress that nearly went to the floor. Of course, selfishly I really wanted to go to my party. On the other hand, I could hardly leave a single mother, flustered at the idea that they might need to sleep on the couch until they could figure out how to get back in. Thankfully, I've locked myself out of more than a few doors in my life time, and I couldn't just selfishly leave so I set out to help them open the door. An hour and a half later, with about thirty flicks of this rediculously long hair over my shoulder, she told me to go. She had another friend coming and she didn't want me to miss my party. I felt bad, but she insisted. She insisted and she looked me in the eye and told me she was not just saying that. That is the beauty of Etanim, there is no hidden agenda. She said it, I could feel that she meant it, and she did. But that is Etanim, there she truly keeps the best interest of the people around her in mind. (Thankfully, when I got home, they were safely in their room.)

We are different but similar. Similar in that we both love to travel and have a natural sense of ambition. Different in that she loves to cook and is endlessly creative. She is artistic and loving. She can dance better than I can ever hope for. She has the long wavy black hair I always wished I had. She has that rare ability to be utterly selfless. I wish I could even capture well in this blog entry the levels of genuine human greatness found in her character...but I can't. Just know that this is the tip of a very large iceberg and that it has been, and continues to be an honor and a privilege to associate with this amazing person.

(I'd add a picture, but I can't find one that honestly does her any justice.)