She looks upward quickly, pen in her mouth and brow furrowed in concentration. After a brief pause, she gazes downward again, scrawling phrases and arrows in blue ink over the white sheets. Her pen dances across the pages, unapologetically invading the sterile spaces between the straight black lines of text. Unassuming in nature yet intensely intelligent, she has gained the respect of her teachers for her inquisitive and questioning mind, and the affection of her peers for her playful sarcasm and genuine concern for the people around her.

It is certain that on the day she emerged from the womb, she made it her mission to purge the world of injustice and discrimination. Though sometimes misguided, (for example, despite offering rather insensitive comments towards Jews during the Holocaust, Gandhi was not really anti-Semitic,) she defends strongly her ideas of equality and feminism, and is quick to examine her own assumptions and ideas for inaccuracy. She has little tolerance for bigotry; if you believe in the superiority of your race, gender or sexual orientation, it would be better for you to cut off your own leg and eat it, than to have to face the disillusioning experience being torn apart by the sharp blade of her highly critical but undeniably intelligent words. When she enters discussion, her hand roam of their own accord, each as an independent being trying separate from the oppression of her arms. Her voice rises in volume and urgency to match her flailing her hands as she explains her ideas. Each of her statements is concluded by “yeah?”, and I wonder what she is questioning - other than her place in society, of course.

We walk together, two tiny people in a city that seems to strangle the sky. Our entire journey to the library is filled with her excited words, and she weaves around the various street posts, garbage cans, and the occasional person. Her red nails are bitten short, and her hair is dark brown, cut short and dyed with henna just a week ago. A thick sweater sporting panels of bold red, yellow, and blue is draped on her slender shoulders. She belongs in the dynamic metropolis of movement, slipping comfortably into the streets whirling with people, and I am sure that she herself will move the world one day. Once we enter the glass-walled library, the slick lime green walls of the escalator reflect onto her face, lending a sickly tinge to her profile.  It is certain that her only true loves are books; she places little faith in marriage and is reluctant to admit or express her romantic feelings towards anyone. Those who have been partial to her were dismissed with very little consideration. In this towering building, we are alone in a world of transparence; the city falls below us and streets race incessantly on the other side of the thin triangles of glass that confine us. Surrounded by a thousand expressions of life, she is truly at home.

Raised by German parents who lived through the separation of Germany into the east and the west, she is uncommonly aware of her country’s past. She knows German, English, and thanks four years of schooling, French rolls attractively from her mouth.

Later, perhaps after an hour or maybe even a daa camera hangs on her shoulders, encircling her pale neck. Her short, dark brown hair blows haphazardly in the slightly smoky wind, and the sleeves of her thick sweater have been pushed to her elbows. The gentle lines of her face and soft lips are outlined in the dusky lights of a fading day and a city beginning to glow. Despite the dark around her, she is brilliantly lit, drawing the attention of the people around her into her agreeable effervescence. We are quiet, and as the muted sounds of city life drift indolently behind us, I am sure there is no one I would rather have the opportunity to spend time with. We are wrapped in satisfaction; a feeling of restlessness but also deep content permeates the thick, warm, air.
Despite our constant conflicts, I am certain that she is too important to be lost, too extraordinary to ever let go of, for her genuine honesty has embedded her in my heart indefinitely. Even if we were to be separated, to leave our homes and reside miles and miles from each other, I would treasure the times we have had; they were beyond any value the world can place on them. She will most definitely make better the world, just as she incontrovertibly done the same to me.