Jill

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit. ~Aristotle

If there's one word to describe Jill, it is "resilient." The girl is tough. Sometimes it seems like everything bad just happens to her, and yet, she powers through like a champion. Coming to Memphis from Atlanta those first days after institute, she had a lot of car trouble, had to stay with various people because our house wasn't ready, and had to drive out to the suburbs in pouring rain to make sure we got our deposit in. During the first weeks of teaching, she found out that there was something wrong with her certification status in Memphis and was unable to teach for several days. Then, over winter break, when a pipe burst in our house, whose bedroom was the only one damaged? Yup, you guessed it - hers.

She's also got mad soccer skills (she played for her college team and coaches the team at her school), mad pancake-making skills, and mad bird-capturing skills (for when the occasional feathered friend comes flapping through a fireplace, as three did last week). She's the definition of a Midwestern, all-American girl. Which makes it kind of amusing that she's ended up living with three people who are, on paper, very different from her. (The last time the power went out, we played Never Have I Ever, and Jill won against me and Jeff with "Never have I ever been considered an ethnic minority.") But it works. By some cosmic magic, we all get along famously and have more in common than meets the eye.

Jill is one of those just plain good people who inspires you to be a better person. We're lucky to live with someone so kind and generous. One of the most admirable things about her is her passion for her kids; it knows no limits. The systems she's created for her classroom are so well-thought-out, and her students (7th graders!) are getting invested in the ACT already. I wish I could get the chance to see her in action in her classroom.

Jill is one of those people you want good things to happen to because she deserves them, but you know that even if they don't, she'll still be smiling.