Su Yeon Kim/ Character Sketch First Draft/ Thursday 1-3pm

There are only a handful of people I can confidently say that I truly love and my best friend, Taniah, is one of them. She is my longest friend of almost 9 years and counting. I suppose like any other normal friendship we started off with common interests but this bloomed into something more. When you get to know someone for so long, you start to notice the things that make them so special. It's easy to be friends with Taniah because she loves everyone and everyone loves her but it's the details that matter. I cherish the little things that only I knew about her such as her little Orlando Bloom cutout in her purse or the fact she used to call her grey bag Christian because of the book 50 Shades of Grey, yes, she loved those explicit romance novels, particularly Mills and Boons. For whatever reason (maybe because of the price), she literally would not let her bag touch the floor. She was so bent on safeguarding the bag from getting dirty, despite knowing it was inevitable, that she even got a special chair for it. She loves chicken pie and lamington cake. She dies laughing over weird comic strips found in newspapers and is quite a believer of horoscopes (she's a Taurus). Her favorite holiday is Christmas and loves Disney movies. Her favorite kinds of movies, however, are fantasy ones such as The Lord of the Rings. She was always quoting lines by her favorite character Smeagol particularly "My precious" or "Nasty little hobbitses." She is Catholic but she is also very sceptic about religions in general. Back before we became friends I knew her as the girl everyone loves. She was and still is a very loveable person with her chubby stature and curly, dark brown hair which she used to style with a navy blue bandana. She has a small round scar below her right eye which she got from a dog bite. Interestingly enough, that dog bite didn't traumatize her and to this day she fawns over dogs. She has slightly crooked teeth but it never stopped her from flashing one of the brightest smiles I know. Additionally, she always had perfectly groomed eyebrows even back when nobody knew that eyebrows could be shaped. She was definitely a trendsetter. She is of Fijian-Indian heritage and she would always get annoyed when people questioned her mixed heritage even though it was relatively common. I distinctly remember her raging when she was filling out a form for a survey at school. We had to check our nationality and the options were either Fijian, Indian, Chinese or Other. She said, "I don't get it. How is it that they don't provide other options? Not everyone is one thing." She was right because I had to tick myself under the 'Other' column. This is when I realized we could be friends. She questioned things that I would usually just overlook.

Our first 2 years of friendship was that of a simple one where you basically just sit together during recess and lunch. I had moved to a new school when I was in 4^th grade and that's when I first met her because we were in the same class. We didn't become friends until early 7^th grade. Also, when we did finally become friends we were much too young to have deep conversations about anything so our conversations were either about what to buy from the cafeteria or celebrities. This obviously changed as we grew older, her insights about the world are so profound at times that I really think she should voice them for other people. She isn't very chatty or straightforward because she utterly despises arguments or conflicts. This frustrated me due to the fact that she never really fought for what she thought was right and was at times a pushover. She was very careful with what she voiced and would always add "But I don't know for sure! It's just my opinion, you don't even have to listen to me!"

Even though she doesn't voice her opinions, Taniah is very expressive about making a statement with her fashion. She has distinct likes and dislikes. Because her favorite color was orange, she always sported something orange on her even though it was against school rules. Her sporting orange was always very subtle but this rebellious side was what I liked. If I had to choose two things she's obsessed with it's the boyband One Direction and glitter. We were desk mates back in school but her love of glitter almost drove me away. She was absolutely resolved on putting glitter all over her body and I would face the aftermath. Glitter on me, my books and desk. It made her feel pretty so I never said anything. One more important thing that bothered me when we were desk mates was that she was left-handed. While writing notes our elbows always bumped and she would declare, "Su, please, respect my space when I'm trying to write." I was flabbergasted because majority of the world is right-handed and she would claim that I was in the wrong. Taniah is the one who got me into scents. I always liked perfume but I've become obsessed with them since the day she told me, "Su you smell like cupcakes. I know you're nearby when I smell cupcakes." It then became our thing where we would try to recognize people by their scent. She would be taken back to a memory when she smelled something familiar. Out of the many things I enjoyed sitting next to her throughout my high school years, it's her love of singing. She wasn't one of those people that enjoyed singing but sounded like a dying horse. She genuinely has a beautiful, clear voice. She was the class radio. Not only that but she was like a people magnet. Wherever she sat, people would gather around her. She claims she's anti-social but it was the polar opposite.

She is also very smart, perhaps not academically but just as a person. She was a cultured person. I was a very negative and explosive person back in high school but her positive ways really changed me. She never blamed anyone for anything and never complained. I would always dump my troubles on her and she would listen but she never did the same to me. She would suffer alone and only when she was done dealing with whatever issue on her own she would tell me what had happened. She is also a foodie, she loves to eat but when our friends put together our lunches and dug in, she was always shy and ate very little. Another thing is that while I know she tries to be very cautious with gifts and personal items, she was helpless. Many a times I was hurt because she either lost or somehow damaged whatever I gave her. Being the apologetic person she is, she would say sorry a million times but the damage was done. I never got angry with her for that but I guess it's just something I don't understand but simply came to accept. Another thing I love about her is that she laughed at my jokes. Actually, because she was such a happy person she cracked up at everything but she understood my humor and for a nerdy, awkward Asian kid that I was, it meant a lot. For the record, her laugh was contagious because it was a snorty type of laugh. She is very approachable and her being friends with me attracted a lot of other people. Eventually our friend group expanded but of course, she and I remained especially close. I'm so grateful to have met such a bubbly person and thanks to state-of-the-art technology, still have her in my life.