Four years ago, I was presented with the opportunity to join the St. Norbert College Honors Program. Now, we all know the pros and cons of the Honors Program well enough, being in it ourselves – one of the smaller dorms on campus, but early class registration slots; certain extra required classes, but early class registration slots; a reputation on campus just based on your building, but early. class. registration- we get the point.
I always tell people that the best part of being in Honors is, you guessed it, the early time slots for picking classes.
This is a lie.
The best part of being in Honors was meeting one of my best friends.
People always say that being in college is not about finding your groom, but your bridesmaids. Although I haven’t found my groom, I am blessed, lucky, and grateful to know at least some of the people who will be standing with me at the altar whenever that fateful day comes. One of these such people is my dear roommate of four years now, Erin Brown.
Erin and I first met in the heat of Covid, both of us coming together at a Culver’s in between our two-hours-away homesteads, while her parents dropped her sister off at the airport near where I live. We had just committed to rooming with each other, and it was like a first date – let’s meet for food, talk about everything and nothing at all, and hope the other one isn’t a psycho killer. After lunch (we both hate cheese, and she loves pandas and the color yellow), we still had time to kill. We decided to walk around the strip mall next to the Culver’s, and I don’t really know what happened next, other than we kept talking. Erin and I had the same three favorite fruits – kiwi, banana, and pineapple – and we both eat the skin of kiwis. Erin and I were both in Slytherin, and she used to play softball. Erin loves cinnamon and pumpkin spice, and is so excited for fall. Erin’s birthday is November 16th, right before our semester was scheduled to end that year. Erin loves her siblings and her family, especially her cousins, whom she gets to see a lot.
Erin and I were scheduled to be in the same general biology class, but she didn’t have to take chemistry because she had already taken it for college credit at her high school. Fast forward to that class, and Erin and I had a great semester with a great professor, who still asks after Erin to me, despite Erin switching to be an accounting major after a flawless, top-grade semester as a bio major.
Erin cares a lot about climate change, and recycles things I didn’t know could be recycled. Our recycling bin was always full, and I loved dumping it in the chute at the end of the hallway (back then, we didn’t have to take trash outside). We lived in a tiny room together, but we made it big with our bunked beds. Despite the four-person limit per dorm room due to Covid, our room was always full of laughter and a lot of craziness. Erin has this laugh that makes everything funnier, and makes me feel like I could be a stand-up comedian. She claims she has an RBF, but she cracks it so easily, she could have fooled me.
When housing came around, I was ecstatic that Erin wanted to room with me again. We picked up another Bergstrom friend and a foreign exchange roommate, and created another room of happiness and fun. Erin and I and our other roommate took Honors theology together that fall, and giggled the whole way through (sorry, Dr. O’Connor). Erin loves life, and always made sure that the rest of us did, too. We all had friends over to our room all the time, and were so, so grateful for the extra storage space that VMC provided us. Our beds remained bunked, hers still over mine, creating a spacious back room that we used to watch movies and shows and paint our nails, which we did nearly every week as a stress reliever from class work.
It was after that semester that our majors took over, and we didn’t get another class together until the next fall, with Dr. Ford’s Honors queer theology class (we weren’t quite roommates that year, but we lived in the same townhouse on the same floor, so… same difference, really). Erin has always said that although she’s smart, she can’t think of things to say in the moment, so she thinks she appears dumb in class. I would like to disagree. People who know me know that I can’t shut up, and I will run my mouth during the best and worst of times. Erin says precisely what she means, and it’s always worth listening to. By not talking as much as, say, me, she creates a priceless commodity– her well-thought-out ideas. Anything she says in class is something she has been ruminating on for a while, and is therefore infinitely more valuable than the million little things that I might say.
Erin and I haven’t had a class together since, but we still learn from each other every day. Now in an apartment in Gries, we have plenty of storage space, and no bunked beds in sight. We do have a bunked table in our living room (pushed against the wall, holding our TV and games), where Erin schools me several times a week in Just Dance, her favorite Wii game and amazing, not-so-hidden talent. She taught me that you actually have to grease the pan in an airfryer (that was on me, sorry, Mom), and I taught her that you can’t put metal in a microwave (that was a very strange, unlikely day). We share cups (just try this!), clothes (every once in a while we need to shake it up), and laughter (always laughter). Our rooms are right next to each other, and now that I think about it, we probably sleep closer to one another than we did freshman year, with the way our beds are aligned (discounting the wall between us, of course). Even on bad days, my other roommates and I can always get Erin laughing, and that always makes everything better.
Erin says she’s not a people person, but she is so easy to be around. Between the two of us, we almost always know someone when we walk into a room, and conversation flows easily. She can always find something to talk about; we’ve never had a dull, awkward, or quiet moment.
I am so blessed, lucky, and grateful to have met and lived with one of my favorite people ever (for four whole years!), made possible only through the Honors Program. So, to the Honors Program: thanks for the early registration, but thank you so much more for my best friend.
Below are photos of Catherine and Erin together each of their four years of undergrad; their first year on the right and their last year on the left.
