I have known you since the summer before our junior year of high school, when we were in the same debate lab together. I had a cringe worthy scroll back session where I read through all of our old Gchats starting in freaking 2012.

<transitions to third person for no logical reason>

People saw it from the get-go. Though she came from a school in Washington that had a small debate program, Sarah didn’t let her circumstances define or limit her. She worked super hard to utilize debate camp to its greatest extent, asking as many questions as she could even if she thought they sounded dumb, speaking up when no one else felt like answering questions, and working overtime to learn.

Yours truly was off chasing boys and butterflies and eating sushi…

She has the debate community’s unwavering support, all wishing nothing but for her to succeed, as she’s done nothing but give give give back. She teaches younger students from her high school and coaches small debate schools on the high school circuit, helping bridge the gap that exists in the community between schools with huge budgets (mine) and schools with just a few members and no coaching staff.

During junior year, she’d ask me lots of questions about debate concepts, making me ask myself, why is this girl wondering about these sort of things, and how does she expect me to know? Not to worry, I bullshitted as well as I could.

Eventually I realized that I was in the midst of one of the smartest, hardworking people to ever live in the 21^st century.

I can now confidently say that Sarah WILL GO ON TO DO INCREDIBLE THINGS IN THE FUTURE. Some people have one or the other (smarts, natural talent, resolve to succeed), but Sarah has just the right combination of all three.

<transition back to first person unexpectedly>

Not sure if you remember this, but I actually gave you love advice. I remember feeling especially important and insightful because when you and your then-boyfriend first hit it off, you kept referring to me as “good luck”.

You also sent me my very first guest post.

Up until then, I’d never even considered the idea of other people writing for my very young, very premature blog. You were the one who first got the ball rolling by sending me what I initially thought was a curiously long and wordy email.

You provided a fresh new voice with something I never would have had the ability to write. You’re technically the inspiration and reason I went on to reach out to others to guest post for me.

I didn’t realize that until very recently, and haven’t gotten to chance to thank you for that, so here goes.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

The summer before our senior year, I had the ABSOLUTE PLEASURE of rooming with you. We looked forward to binging on Asian snacks every night. I brought lots of Pocky, dried green peas, lychee jellies and ramen in anticipation of this. I remember both of us consistently stay up late at night, even after lights out¸ you on Gchat with your then-boyfriend, and me just searching the webs as usual, ignoring my responsibilities.

We both had some weird, intense love interests at the time. Towards the end of camp, I would stay up on the phone whispering silly love things to the guy I was infatuated with at the time, as if you weren’t even in the room. I can’t imagine what you thought of me for doing this. I never brought it up between us because I had completely forgotten that I even did that until last week. I was much too “in love”, after all.

I keep chuckling when I think back to my behavior that summer. From going back and reading through every single one of our Gchats, it is evident to me that we’ve both changed so much since that time.

And now…we go to the same university.

You are a human representation of my favorite community, and now we’re at Northwestern together. Even though we lived at different ends of campus and didn’t have many overlapping friends during freshman year, it was still awesome to occasionally meet people who know you, although they got to know you in a completely different way.

I know you as a debater and as a roommate, and every time some Northwestern kid says, “That Sarah Lim is so cool,” I just chuckle and think to myself:

“If only you knew what sort of a modest superstar Slim was back in high school.”

I cannot say enough good things about you, and THAT’S WHY THIS POST IS SO LONG OVERDUE.

No, I’m lying. This is overdue because I’m a lazy pig that kept a doc called “sarah post” on her desktop for over four months now, and finally had the audacity to follow through on a promise she made approximately three years ago, after a lot of poking and prodding.

I dream of me, you, Bryant and Callahan going to get crab rangoon in downtown Chicago.