Ashley Renee Huff, M.A.

It is unbelievable.

After everything you faced, everything placed against you, everything that set you up to make it so tempting to fail, to give in -

- you succeeded.

I can't even begin to describe how amazing you are, and how amazing this is.  You took a great, great risk coming to a place in order to make your life better.  A place completely unknown, a place filled with people completely unknown, with so many questions left just weeks before you moved here (like, where we were going to live for example), and you beat it all.

Remember when we first came here?  The struggle you had to go through, making the decision on your own to leave home after years away, working do get your degree?  You didn't want to leave, you didn't want to move so far away from home.  Away from the people who loved you and supported you, just so you could take a risk on a program you didn't know much about, at school you knew nothing about.  It wasn't your first choice -

- 50% would have given up there.  Stayed at Sherwin Williams.  Kept looking for jobs.

It wasn't your second choice -

- 80% would have mailed it in there.  Stayed at Sherwin...maybe imagine thumbing through the classifieds.

It was your third choice.  Remember what happened next?

You still came to Michigan anyway.  You knew then that, in order to do anything you wanted in your life, to even have a chance, you had to do it.  There was no moving forward UNTIL you did this.

Then...the program sucked.  It wasn't what you wanted at all.

...and this place was filled with idiots.  Do I smell bacon???...
                                                            I'm a fly-ass-bitch...
                                                               Two-fifty a CAAAEYYEAYYYNNNN...
                                                                   She is...impossibly ugly...


- I believe 100% of the rest of the world would have, after they burned this place to the fucking ground, quit and went home.  And you know what?  I wouldn't have blamed them.  I wouldn't have blamed you.  You had endured more than anyone else would have through only the first year, and going home would have been a fine option.  You could have tried to go to school somewhere else.  You could have just washed your hands of this experiment, these Michighingherans, and went on your merry way.

After all, people were still looking at you like you were from Mars.  It's like they didn't understand the language you were speaking.  Their mouths were half-open, their brows were furrowed...they'd never understand you.  Friends?  Try having a normal conversation with anyone.  It didn't seem possible.


And yet.

Never did you seriously waver.  Sure, you said you wanted to go home, but you knew what was waiting for you if you did.  So you did what no one else - no one else - would have done.

You pressed on.  You tried harder.  You made people see what a good person you were, and they had no choice to become your friend.

You worked harder than anyone else in your class, and your grades showed it.

You fostered more good will than anyone else could have in your place.  Christ, you led a student organization here!  Who the hell else would have worked so hard with so little in your place???  Honestly, I guarantee you can't think of a single other person.

Even still, after that - when no one lifted one fuck finger to help you with anything in AMP - you didn't quit.  I don't know how many times I told you to tell those dumb, lazyasses to go fuck themselves when you told me your horror stories, and you would have been fully justified in taking my advice.

Lots of people would have.  But you knew better.

You always knew better.

You kept us here when things seemed at their worst.  Your sheer determination even kept me going.  I know it doesn't seem like I worked hard enough, and I haven't finished in time when I definitely could have -

- but no one.  No one in my life has helped me get farther than you have.

And I'm going to finish college.  It's all because of you.

It's because of your perfect example.  Your optimism that you were going to make a difference in this world.  You are definitely going to do that.  I know you will.  Nothing will hold you back.  You've shown me that these past two years.

And now, because of all that:  because of everything you endured, everything you faced, every challenge you have risen to here, in Michigan -

- you have your Master's degree.

You, Ashley Huff, are now:

Ashley Huff, M.A.

(I hope I'm spelling that right.  Haha.)

I love you.  I am unbelievably proud of you, and I am honored you are a part of my life.  You are the greatest person I have known, or ever will know.



Thank you for being my role model my love.


With all my love,


Me : )
     (and Bryn!)

Miscur!

How was the week back at home????  Awesome I know...don't worry, you'll be back super soon!  Hopefully you'll get to stay home this summer, and try out Tim's go-kart!  Zeppy kitty will be fine till you get back!  AND, when your birthday comes back around (47days!...?) your present will hopefully be amazing!!  Maybe your Lloyd Dobler present...I hope!

I like you somewhat miscur!!!

; )

Hello again!

Hello!  This thing is going to be filled with fantastic thoughts, many of which will be laughed at, such as - I looked up the definitions of 'adverb', 'pronoun', 'noun', 'verb', and somehow they're all nouns...hmmm, makes you wonder.  Uh oh, I smell weed in my place: let me explain.  I moved up to Michigan to go to school, and be with Ashley.  I moved into a place with two other guys I didn't know.  I met one of the guys the first day I came here, and he told me about everything here.  We all share a living space, but have our own rooms and bathrooms.  When I moved in, I was told the guy who used to live in my room got kicked out because he couldn't pay the rent.  Yeah, that's ok I guess, it can happen to anyone - you lose your job, fall on tough times, get kicked the fuck out of your place.  It's tough in the real world.  Guess what though?  The fuckin loser still lives with us - yeah, he's still fuckin here...mind you this has been two full months since I moved in here, and he's still here somehow, living in our living room, sleeping on a shitty air mattress, laying around in his underwear all day, gettin high at two in the afternoon like any real good piece of shit does, not looking for a job or anything else to do with his life.  He's gonna live on that air mattress till he rots, and that's great.  If he wants to do that, cool.  But it's NOT cool when he fucks with my life - he makes the whole place stink like shit with his nasty ass funkin up the whole living room, the kitchen is so god damn awful - garbage everywhere, floor disgusting, nothing is clean...he brings girls over, which is cool, I'm alright with that...but what kind of fuckin girl would come here, see what a piece of shit he is, and think to themselves, logically, "Ok, yeah, I wanna chill here with this guy!  He's got what I want!"  Basically, this guy has squatted in a place he got kicked out of for two months (in the worst way imaginable), I'm pretty sure he doesn't pay rent or anything to his friends, and basically has just been a waste of a human being, and no one seems to have noticed in the office at this place!  Either that, or his friend, who is my roommate here has kept them from doing anything, since he used to work in the offices here - no matter how he's keeping his shitty existence under wraps at this place, it's even MORE mind boggling to think about how this is going on, when Ashley has been basically hounded by this dumbass place for a 25 dollar application fee they said they never got from her (which is impossible because you can't turn in an application without paying), and in her place they've gotten called on TWO noise complaints in two months without it being bad at their place at all - but the bass shakes the ground so bad in my place (which is on the top floor, so I think that makes it worse) all day, cuz my buddy here loves to play the same 6 songs over and over again all day as selfishly loud and fucked as he can, loosing his shit B.O./weed stink all over the place so thick anyone within 100 feet could smell it, and NO ONE has said anything or come to us.  Maybe I should file a noise complaint right now: I gotta wake up in less than 4 hours.  Actually it makes sense tonight: it is Thursday, he doesn't have a job, tons of weed apparently - those 360 games aren't gonna play themselves on his 13 inch screen while his girls clean up his mess!  Wow I really got on a tangent there...