Star of the Week: Angele!

Hello Gold Star Revolution Squad and welcome to Gold Star Friday! It's time to announce our Star of the Week!

My very strong preference is to choose our Star of the Week from reader nominations! However, I will nominate the Star of the Week when there are no reader nominations to pick from, which is the case this week.

I would really love to hear about the fabulous people in your life, so please send me your nominations, and please see the end of this post for more details on how to do that!  

All recipients of the Star of the Week award who live in the US can choose to receive a free gift from my Gold Star Award Winner collection** on Zazzle!

This week, I am proud to present the Gold Star of the Week award to my dear friend Angele! Angele and I have a very long history together – she was my best friend growing up!

Angele was born in Vietnam in the city of Saigon (now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City). She and her family fled Vietnam in 1975 and came to the United States. They ended up in the tiny area of Pennsylvania where I lived, and at six years old, Angele entered my first grade class at St. Ann's elementary school.

I remember that Angele joined our class after the school year had already started. Beyond that, I honestly don't remember too much about how we got to be friends. But that is in fact what happened, and we soon became besties!

Even though we went to the same school, we did not live in the same town, so we spent a good deal of time talking on the phone when we weren't at school. Our friendship continued straight through high school, where we had many of the same classes together.

Here are a few washed-out photos of us from high school. I'm pretty sure that they were all taken in the school cafeteria, which in retrospect had a real bomb shelter look about it! 😂 We normally wore uniforms (like I'm wearing in the photo on the right), but for "special occasions" we were allowed to dress up, which was something we always looked forward to.

Sadly, Angele and I lost touch after high school. Back when we graduated in the late 1980s, we didn't have the benefit of cell phones or the internet like just about everyone does today.

So once we went off to college, our communication options were limited. You could send handwritten letters through the mail. Or, you could attempt to talk to a friend by calling the lone pay phone that was used by each and every person living on your friend's floor in the dormitory.

This would inevitably result in a busy signal since so many people were trying to use that one phone (do kids today even know what a busy signal is??). Needless to say, Angele and I completely lost track of each other's lives.

Flash forward a couple of decades, and the two of us were reunited through the power of Facebook! If I remember correctly, Angele was the one who found me. I am not the biggest fan of social media, but in this case, the use of it led to something wonderful!

Angele continues to live in PA, but we have still managed to see each other a couple of times over the past few years. We got together once when I was up north visiting my sister, and we also met here in NC when Angele was on a client visit. I cannot adequately express in words how lovely it has been to reconnect with someone who was such an important part of my past.

Angele grew up to be an amazing woman! She is a talented occupational therapist who has built an extremely successful career for herself. Like me, she is an AVID traveler (when we aren't in a pandemic, of course). She is even more gung-ho than I am when it comes to traveling, which is not an easy thing to accomplish! She is also a fantastic photographer, so I always look forward to seeing photos of her latest adventures on Facebook.

Angele is the biggest foodie I personally know, and she has eaten in many fine dining establishments (including various Michelin star restaurants!) around the world. Again, I absolutely love seeing pictures of her culinary exploits!

And, very much unlike me, Angele is a fashionista who has a penchant for shoes in particular. I can't wait to see what fabulous outfit she will be wearing next!

Angele is also infinitely braver and more courageous than I am – she has been bungee jumping and skydiving in recent years (so not when she was 20 years old!), two things that I don't think I could ever do!!

Angele is incredibly devoted to her family. Her parents live with her in her home, and I know that she is very happy to spend time with them on a daily basis.

Not too long ago, Angele was interviewed by her local PBS affiliate about her family's flight from Vietnam to the United States. I highly recommend giving the interview a listen, which you can find here if you are interested.

I am so grateful to have Angele back in my life, and I am thrilled to present her with the Star of the Week award! Congratulations my dear friend!! And now for some final photos of us as adults:

Please join me in congratulating Angele as our Star of the Week! ⭐

Would you like to nominate yourself or someone you care about to be our next Star of the Week?  To read the rules about the nomination process and get more information about the free gift that U.S. winners will receive, please click here.  Then submit the Nomination Form!

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