And here we have another account of a random incident that exemplifies the sort of encounters I love the most in life. About an hour ago I finished the first essay (of 4) of a take home exam and decided that a nice run would get my blood pumping to finish the other three. So I take off running through the chilly but clear afternoon down to the riverwalk. Once I get down there I take a left, like I normally do, and see that about twenty feet of the riverwalk is under water. I leap up on a bench and survey the distance thoughtfully.

Two girls are already at the waters edge, balancing on their bikes as they look into the water. They look back and see me standing on the bench and laugh: “Are you planning on crossing,” one says.

“Hmm, I don’t know,” I say. “It probably pretty cold.”

We have a short exchange then they start to walk away…but then one pauses. She looks at the other girl and says, “If you do it I will.”  The other girl looks uncertain. I decide I should hop in and make this interesting. Why not?  ”If you two do it, I’ll come too,”  I say.

So we did. We took off our shoes and waded across. It was freezing cold and came up to the tops of my knees–one of the girl’s waists–and went on for about twenty or so feet. The whole time an older black gentleman was watching us from the other side laughing. After we got across we introduced ourselves as we put our shoes back on and joked about how we’d remember this forever. I think they’re names were Lisa and Alena. We were all USC students. They went on their way and I walked home, thats it.

But that is truly the amazing sort of occurrence that I love. Not only did I do something absolutely insane–wading through river water in the middle of December–but I did it with strangers. Doing so we established an immediate connection. I’m sure that if I wasn’t moving to Raleigh, I could have gotten their numbers and we could have hung out some more. I love it!