If this were a word-association game, the first thing that would come to mind is “perception,” because Amanda possesses a great deal of it.

I originally met her because she had perception enough to call off a date with Jordan. As he has mentoined before, we have been through some good times and bad times. That was one of the not-so-good times, and after hearing she shot him down, I decided I had to meet this girl. Amanda has perhaps the most vision of anyone I’ve ever met. Somehow at the age of 19 she had already figured everything out. When someone does something, she doesn’t see an action, she sees intent. When there’s a subject of controversy at hand, she doesn’t see opinions, she sees facts and how they’re being neglected or supported. She’s predicted a lot of things since I’ve known her, and she’s always right. She just knows.

Now this is saying a lot: she caused me to respect the liberal arts. Never have I seen an LAS student work so hard, or with so much determination. She’s always saying that it’s too much, that she can’t do it, that she isn’t doing the right things, but it’s all for no reason. Her professors love her, her grades rock, and deep down I know she knows that she’s incredibly good at what she does. I can talk to her about biomedical stuff even if she’s never heard half of it before, because she’s down with the Latin and Greek roots. If there weren’t already a Latinator, it would be her. She’s going to go to some kickass grad school, probably her top choice.

Amanda can ask the hard questions, like, where do things go when it rains? Would you rather have your whole family die, or be the Elephant Man? Vanilla or Chocolate? (Actually, I know that one’s easy.) She has excellent taste in music, verified by , much better than mine as long as his opinion is the standard. Great ideas like putting liquor in a camel pack are par for the course when hanging out with her.

She has her own foundation to help ensure the ideological solidity of her frarority (sp?). Oh yeah, she was also the president of said organization during what many might call the heydey of the Tulane chapter of Phi Sigma Pi.

Amanda made a valiant effort to ‘go into the light’ as put it and use Linux, but largely due to inadequate set-up on my part, it didn’t really fly. Speaking of computers, she’s the best employee Jason ever had (except maybe E. Bui). Not only will she get on someone’s case for abusing lab privileges, she also shows up on time, and is there when she’s supposed to be. That may sound asinine, but trust me, comparitively that’s fantastic for the job.

She inspired me to run. Did you know that she ran a half marathon? She used to run all the way downtown and back, regularly. Even in the summer, in New Orleans. It seemed insane, but she pulled it off.

I’m not doing so well at this. I’m pretty tired. I’ll try to finish this up.

Amanda is a very thoughtful person. She put a lot of effort into making love buckets for staff events, always well-tailored to the person. She is an excellent gift giver, and if I remember correctly was the one who pointed out to me that a good gift is something that someone likes, but would never buy for themselves.

One strike against her — she likes to squish bread 🙁

Eh, I may amend or add to this later.