As college students we have enough responsibilities. For me, it’s taking classes, working a part-time job and spending more time on the student newspaper than I should. But no matter how busy I get there’s always one thing I have time for — spending time with my cat Serena. My two-and-a-half year old Turkish Angora has lived with me for more than a year now, and was my mother’s birthday gift to me after my first semester at the University of Idaho.
As any cat owner should feel, to me she’s the coolest cat in the world. Her personality is never boring, she’s personable, she loves to play and of course she’s lovable.
Her breed is rare, athletic, curious, very social with humans and very intelligent for a cat. She loves to poke her nose into whatever I’m doing, as if she gets jealous or upset that I’d do anything without her when I’m home. If I’m on my laptop she’ll lay on the keyboard.
“That’s cool, Serena. It’s not like I’m trying to be productive or anything,” I tell her.
I can’t even play video games without her nudging herself onto my lap and pawing at the controller.
I put up with it because it’s adorable. Besides, it brings up tons of photo opportunities. I’d estimate I have more than 100 pictures of her on my phone … or my Facebook page.
I can’t really help it, since every day with Serena is an adventure. She’s always trying to explore and discover. Like me, she hates being bored, which is why we probably get along so well.
Even getting her to Moscow was an adventure. She staunchly refused to stay in the makeshift cat-carrier I had, instead breaking herself out of cat-jail and crawling into the trunk where she calmly hung out during the five-hour trek from Seattle.
From there she made herself at home at my apartment, which I’ve lived in and will continue to live in for my entire time in Moscow. It took her all of five minutes to explore every square-inch of my place — she takes the cat curiosity cliché to a different level.
She loves to try to be an outside cat, even though I don’t let her. Of course she’s stubborn, and my attempts don’t stop her. Many a time I’ve come home to an empty house and gone outside to look for her. She’ll eventually find her way home if I don’t find her, in which case she’ll put on her princess hat and act like she didn’t do anything wrong.
All in all she’s made my time as an Idaho student all the more fulfilling. There’s nothing like coming home from a stressful day of school or work to see her run up and start obnoxiously meowing. I still like to tell myself it’s because she misses me, but most of the time it means she’s hungry (sometimes I think she eats more pounds of food per day than I do).
And sometimes it’s a nice hangover remedy to wake up to fuzz and purrs in your face.
Maybe one day you’ll have a cat as awesome as mine.
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]