“Is SpongeBob made out of cheese?” And so began our two-day lunch debate in freshman year.
Though our personalities and hobbies could not be more different, like Amelia’s love for thrillers and Annika’s love for cheesy romantic K-dramas, we’ve remained close and shared many memorable experiences together through the years. We’ve been through the blissful days of elementary school at Argonaut Elementary School and survived the ordeals of middle school friend group dramas.
As we write this, we’re coming up on 10 years of friendship. Here are some phases of that friendship.
Phase 1: Frenemies to friends
Annika: Let’s be honest — I didn’t like Amelia (“strongly disliked,” according to Amelia) when she moved from Foothill Elementary to Argonaut Elementary in second grade. I thought she was just another one of the “popular” kids following a certain Queen Bee girl everywhere. I was a loner, and my second-grade teacher was so concerned that I had no friends that she called my mother in.
Amelia: Truthfully, I didn’t even know Annika existed. I was happily making my way through second grade and only learned years later that she was glaring at my back the whole time. We became friends a year later in third grade. I think it was because we were in the same class. When you’re younger, it’s very easy to become friends with other people with the same teacher since you’re stuck in the same room with them five days a week. So I saw Annika, thought she was cool and the connection began.
Annika: Slowly, our small interactions became regular yap sessions. When the bell for lunch rang, we would run as fast as we could to the cafeteria with our sparkly Pottery Barn lunchboxes. Our group of friends would pry open Amelia’s lunchbox, which, in addition to her main meal, included ring-shaped potato chips, fish snack strips or Hi-Chews. Amelia’s lunchbox was like a free vending machine, and thanks to her generosity, it excited us every day. Another thing we frequently bonded over was reading graphic novels, specifically a book called “Real Friends.” Little did we know that the book would help turn us into real friends.
Phase 2: The musical era
Annika: Our first experience in singing and dancing was in the fourth-grade musical “Seussical Jr.” I got the role of a background Bird Girl while Amelia played Bird Girl #3. But, eventually, I got promoted from Bird Girl #5 to Bird Girl #3 and picked up a few lines because Amelia was a bit shy. Even though my sole line was “He was wet. He was tired and hungry and cold,” I am pretty sure Amelia still holds the promotion against me to this day. (Amelia here: No, I literally don’t).
Amelia: In sixth grade, we were in “Lion King Jr.” together. I remember being somewhat jealous that Annika was a lioness while I had to be a hyena. It’s not any fault of hers, but more so because I wasn’t very enthusiastic about crawling on the floor pretending to be a rabid hyena while Annika got to sit on fake rocks and be graceful. In retrospect, doing musicals in elementary and middle school is not something that I remember fondly, but it gave us a few more shared experiences that we can look back on together.
Phase 3: #getalife during COVID
Annika: During the pandemic, which, for us, began near the end of sixth grade, we would call pretty much anytime we weren’t on Zoom classes or texting in Google Hangouts or the Zoom chat. Bored out of our minds, we would make YouTube videos together. When we weren’t stuck inside our homes, we went to the park or to someone’s house to film skits. One such plot focused on two sisters dealing with jealousy and friend groups after their parents divorced.
After we grew out of our acting phase, we turned to creating YouTube channels, including vlogs and challenges popularized by the child influencers at the time. Amelia made an art channel, while I created a lifestyle channel of vlogs and piano covers. We even had a joint channel where we would share art and cooking projects. This time in our lives was quite mundane, and while it meant missing half of our middle school years at home, our online adventures together kept us sane.
Phase 4: “Thou art a villain” — our very Shakespearean era
Amelia: In high school, Annika and I have been in the same English class every year except for our sophomore year. That means that we ended up doing the obligatory Shakespeare performance together for three years. We did “Romeo and Juliet” as freshmen, “Hamlet” as juniors and “Much Ado About Nothing” as seniors.
Along with the rest of the group, we would spend countless hours pouring over our scripts, trying to analyze and memorize our lines before the performance date. Meeting up outside of school to read Shakespeare was surprisingly fun because we got to play around and goof off a little even as we practiced our acting.
Annika: It was always entertaining to realize we were saying gibberish because we feared we didn’t quite understand all of Shakespeare’s words. My favorite memories were editing Amelia as Azula in our MAP class (insert fire power effects) and proposing to Amelia in front of our AP Lit class as Claudio in “Much Ado about Nothing.”
Phase 5: The high school experience … and beyond!
Amelia: I feel like over the past four years, some days felt like they were sludging along, but now that I look back on everything, I realize how fast time went by. Whether it was the quiet moments like going on walks in the evening (or in the morning if Annika could drag me out of bed), or the more thrill seeking adventures like hunting down people during Senior Assassin, Annika has been part of my high school core memories.
Annika: It’s easy to get wrapped up in the competitive, college-driven nature of the school. Learning how to balance the work with the high-school experience of Homecoming football games, off-campus lunch runs and prom is just as important as academics, and I’m glad that we got to spend those moments together.
As for after graduation, the initial plan was to both move to Boston for college and live in a brownstone together after graduation. (But as of now, Amelia is committed to staying in sunny California — so much for that plan). We’ll probably still call each other when we have some life-changing discovery about the purpose of life, like every other social interaction or when I see an intriguing shaped tree down the road.
Amelia: I’ll be in the entertainment industry if things work out (probably living on the West Coast), but I’m stating it for the record right now: We will be meeting up at least twice a year to catch up. Annika has been such a constant in my life for the past 10 years that I can’t imagine a life where we don’t keep in touch after high school.
Annika: As we reflect back on our nearly decade long friendship, we’ve realized that the most cherished parts have been the small moments, not the dramatic crashouts or life-changing experiences. To have someone I can always rely on and finish my sentences without my saying is something I’m extremely grateful for.
Amelia & Annika: (Not) the end.
