It's official.

As of today, these SMAG's have lived in the city for four years. It's crazy to think that we've now been out of college for the same amount of time as we actually spent there. Four years, man. Who could have predicted that the girl who I only knew as "that other Asian girl" up until the third grade, when Lydia dressed up as Ping for our library class project and I was Jemima Puddleduck, and we eyed each other suspiciously as we stood in line to give our presentations (Lydia dressed all in yellow, me in a shawl and bonnet, both of us with fake beaks strapped to our faces), would become my four-year roomie and one of my best friends?

We've been through a lot together these past 4 years, including:

- 2 apartments located within 2 blocks of each other, including 1 crazy uncle, 1 non-functioning kitchen, multiple creepy neighbors and asthmatic dogs, 1 pidgeon-infested/owl-guarded balcony and 1 pidgeon home invasion, followed by a floor-to-ceiling steam cleaning of our entire place

- 3 jobs apiece, and at least 3 certifiably insane bosses, total

- 2 boyfriends, half a dozen other persons of interest, and at least as many cringe-worthy pick-up lines (i.e., "hey shawwwwty" and "what's your SAT score?")

- 2 surprise parties, all the decorations we still haven't dismantled, plus at least 2 cake-ings (Lydia only), 1 involving a diaper

- 1 bottle-service birthday and all the rest at Cheap Shots, including an immeasurable quantity of free bday drinks

- one too many mostly Asian birthday parties of friends and friends-of-friends, with 1 occurrence of dancing near/around Governor Paterson and 'that really tall aide guy who was later arrested for assault'

- 2 run-ins with homeless men, resulting in what are now known as "The Corndog Incident" and "Happy Easter!...No, thanks."

- 2 roadtrips, plus 1 trip to D.C.

- 3 Secret Santa gift exchanges

- 3 Halloweens (surprisingly, I only wandered away and got lost once), 2 terrible costumes and several blackmail-worthy pics

- 1 especially memorable stay-in New Year's, with 2 bottles of champagne but only 1 person drinking them (hint: her name rhymes with 'chlamydia')

- countless concerts, BBQ's and Yankees/Mets/Rangers/Knicks games - most notably, 1 Mets game where they clinched the NL East, and 1 Yankee World Series win (ok, so we were at a bar for that second one, but it still counts!)

On a related note (this part goes waaaay back), I want to thank my fellow SMAG for introducing me to the SMAG-ier things in life, like hot pot, lychee jellies, Pocky's, bubble tea, Sanrio, cheesy photobooth pics, H.O.T., Gen X Cops, congee, DDR, cherng fun yuew don and for teaching me everything I ever needed to know about Koreans. I'll never forget sleepovers at your Chinese church, or playing in the orchestra for all those Chinese New Year celebrations. Or your badass grandma killing that garter snake with her dustpan by chopping it up into little pieces.

It's been real fun, HLM!

**Edit from Lydia: Al, you forgot: 1 evicted neighbor family who had a kid that was horrible at the saxophone; 1 World Series game (Game #4 - 2009) AT Yankee Stadium, watching them in Philly via jumbotron; 1 smelly refridgerator; a bajillion long black and dark brown hairs all over our cream carpet (cuz we shed like animals); 206 total netflixes; 4-7 new TV Series obsessions on DVD - including Veronica Mars, CSI:NY/Miami, Chuck, HIMYM, and Arrested Development; 5 lockouts - split between me and Alex; and probably a total of 5000 votes between the two of us for American Idol, SYTYCD and ABDC.