Hawaii, Friendship, and a Forgotten Bra
She's from New Zealand and I'm from the Philippines. We would have never met under normal circumstances, but life has its way of putting people together at the right place at the right time. It was Spring 2008, our first semester in Hawaii. As international students and recipients of the university's scholarship program, we were required to live in the dormitories. The living arrangement shouldn't have been a problem, but because we arrived a few days earlier than expected, we found ourselves living in the piano lounge at the start of the new semester. Maybe it was destiny or perhaps just a coincidence, but meeting Lena in that unfavorable situation 11 years ago was a blessing in disguise. She has become one of my valued friends and has taught me one of the greatest lessons about friendship and sacrifice. Lena and I became inseparable after our piano lounge confinement. We were basically each other's emotional support when school felt like it was too much to han