It's March 2010. I'm standing before the prehistoric ruins of Stone Henge. It has been a long, cold, trip. Julian Richards, a well known archaeologist and author is explaining things about the stones. We've been walking for hours all over the cold windy plains of Salisbury England. My shoes are smattered with sheep droppings and I am not dressed warmly enough to be outside for so long. By my side, wrapped in a vibrant, green, plaid, English Heritage blanket she purchased at the gift shop, is Amanda Schaffer.
Amanda is the type of person you could say "Hey, let's go to England for Spring Break!" and she would do it. Her purple hair whipped in the wind as we examined the rocks which emitted an aura of proud indifference to our presence. The suffering ruin ignored us. There had been a long flight, several clubs, and a good deal of alcohol and drama between the day we packed out bags and set out to cross the pond and become scholars of the neolithic for a week.
As the rest of the students huddled with us around the Penn State Abington banner for the umpteenth time I reflected on everything that had occurred so far. Amanda sticks out a lot, she will always get noticed. Now this is a truly neutral state of being, but a highly catalyzed one. Good things and terrible things often happen to people who naturally receive a lot of attention, Amanda is no exception. There were no shortage of men and women who were very interested in her everywhere we went. Women in a feminist rally took a liking to her and marked the locations of the best gay clubs in London the first morning we were there. She was very happy about this. At the first of these clubs Amanda had been talking to a tall, and stunning blonde girl who was only there because her friend had dragged her for all of about ten minutes before they were making out. Her punk rock style and her mow hawk and her facial piercings were seemingly irresistible to other members of her sex, but it was enough to make our teachers more than wary. Perhaps it was not an unfounded concern, Amanda getting into spots of trouble was certainly not unheard of, but it always seemed unjust. Over dinner one night another student on the trip had lashed out viciously towards Amanda seemingly out of nowhere. The silence that followed seemed to morph the whole social dynamic of our group, heat and pressure melted our network like stones in the earth's mantle. And we all knew that when Amanda took off, facing forward, walking quickly, totally silent, that everything would take a different shape by the time it cooled. The girl who had made the remark went after her. I hoped things would work themselves out. But when she came back empty-handed, I knew trouble was brewing on the horizon like thick clouds over London. It took us a while to find her. She was upset but not as much as I had been, worrying that she was lost as we paced the streets of Salisbury by night. When the teachers got wind of things it really went downhill. And next morning the discussion of the nights events before breakfast was rather uncomfortable for all parties involved. I felt bad, I knew Amanda hadn't done anything to deserve this, but I couldn't stop other people from suspecting that she had. I became very emotional myself, I was defensive of her.
But the thing I liked most about her was that Amanda would absolutely always be friends with people who were good to her. She didn't care what you looked like, or what you were into. She was above such judgement. To me this made her one of the absolute best people in the universe. Someone you could be completely open with. When I first came to this school I had practically no friends. Amanda was one of the first people I talked to and we hit it off immediately. It felt like we were already friends as soon as we started talking. There are so many stories I could share about amazing times I had with Amanda but I chose the one I did because I think it reveals something about her character. Amanda is my best friend, but she is her own person too. And she is the type of person that things -happen- to.
Excellent!
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