Thirteen years ago, I met my best friend Jennie while I was on a walk in my neighborhood with my father. From the moment Jennie and I met we had an immediate connection and we became best friends within minutes.

We were so excited to have met each other that we wrote our phone numbers down in chalk on the blacktop of the basketball court, so we would not forget to call each other. There was not a day in our childhood that went by that we did not talk to each other. Our home phones were always ringing off the hook, and we would spend hours on end on the phone together, if we were not already at one of our houses.

As you start the next chapter of your life as a nursing student in college, I would like to thank you for your friendship and for the valuable lessons you have taught me about life. Thank you for always being there to make me laugh, and for creating memories and inside jokes that neither of us we will ever forget. I will always remember attending our very first concert together to see Panic! At The Disco, and running into the band Fun outside the concert venue. I will never forget our day-trips to the beaches in Rhode Island, or our trips to art museums in New York City.

I would also like to thank you for teaching me what it means to be a true friend and how to recognize a true friend in life. A genuine friend is someone who is there for you when you need support the most and when you need a shoulder to cry on. I will never forget the day we both lost a friend to a heart condition, and how we spent the day in remembrance. We were able to support one another and stay strong as we moved through the painful grieving process together. We were able to grieve because we had one another. I attribute you and your family for helping me discover my passion to learn about other cultures and learning foreign languages. I spent half of my childhood in your house listening to your parents speak to you in Russian, and I was always mesmerized when you spoke back in both English and Russian. I spent five years of my life learning the Spanish language, and I began studying Italian my freshman year of college, as a result.

I would also like to thank you for sitting through the collection of movies I have played for you over the past thirteen years, including my all time favorite movie, "City Island".

Thank you for being able to magically find my dog every single time he goes missing. Thank you for being such a wonderful friend, and for being the person I can always count on when I need you.

Lastly, I would like to wish you the best of luck on your college journey as you accomplish all of your dreams.