Happy Days

Reza Shah woke up last Thursday and went outside for a cigarette. That's when the second-year Lambeth resident noticed the chalkings on the walls and stairwell of his building.

On the outdoor bulletin board was another surprise: a flyer showing a picture of him curled up asleep with a white teddy bear.

"Guess who's 19 today?!" the poster read. "Psst!! It's not Bear-Bear!!"

Beginning at the stroke of midnight, Shah's friends went out of their way to make his birthday special -- chalking, posting flyers and baking brownies for him. Parents and relatives can send cards and care packages when their birthday baby is away from home, but at school, it falls on friends to make the day festive.

Second-year College student Deanna Arble was part of Shah's decorating posse.

Chalking is "a nice way to surprise someone when they first wake up in the morning, and it's cheaper than a card if you can find someone with chalk," Arble said. "And birthday cards really stifle your creativity."

Shah's friends weren't going to let him get away without a little embarrassment, either -- hence the teddy bear photo. But at least they spared him more widespread broadcast of stuffed animal affection by not plastering the posters all over Grounds.

"We put them up [in Lambeth] to give him the idea that we put them up everywhere," Arble admitted.

In his defense, Shah said, "I was using the bear as a pillow, and somehow I ended curled up with it."

Although he could have lived without publicly displaying the photo, he said he appreciated the girls who tried to make his birthday special.

"Guys don't do anything. They're pretty much like 'Happy birthday, man. Have a good day,'" Shah said.

But Shah spoke too soon -- only a few minutes later, a friend, second-year College student Ben Walter, stopped by his apartment with a present. Walter gave him a cigar that he found at Cavalier Pipe and Tobacco.

"It's tradition. It's something we share -- an interest in cigars," Walter said.

Not only does Shah enjoy cigarettes and cigars, but a very ornate Arabic water pipe, called a Sheesha or Hookah, forms the centerpiece on his coffee table. The coffee table also is covered by an Ajrak, a traditional cloth from Shah's homeland of Pakistan.

In Pakistan, Shah said he generally celebrated his birthday the same way he does in America. One exception, however, is that he's supposed to take all of his friends out to dinner. To his friends' surprise, Shah kept stayed true to this tradition when they went out to dinner at Maharaja, an Indian restaurant on Emmet Street, to celebrate his birthday.

Early birds

With September birthdays, Hancock House roommates Julia Bottiny and Rachel Donahue were a little anxious about celebrating their 18th birthdays so early in the school year.

"I was scared that I wouldn't have met anyone to celebrate with, and then I'd be alone on my birthday," Bottiny said.

To make Bottiny's Sept. 7 birthday special, her resident advisor arranged for their whole hall to meet at Observatory Hill Dining Hall for dinner. Donahue's job was to keep Bottiny distracted -- she took Bottiny shopping before the dining hall surprise, and then everyone went back to Hancock for chocolate sheet cake.

The only catch was that Bottiny didn't have a chance to make a birthday wish -- candles can't be lit in residence halls.

Donahue, on the other hand, blew out her solitary birthday candle at the Hardware Store Restaurant on the Downtown Mall. Donahue and three friends took the trolley downtown to have a more formal dinner before the real celebration began after dark.

"We went to Rugby and toasted on my birthday at midnight," Donahue said.

Bottiny, meanwhile, made sure to return to Hancock before her roommate so she could decorate their bedroom with festive blue and white streamers.

Bottiny said that her birthday was better than what she expected.

"Everyone was a lot more enthusiastic about celebrating my birthday than I thought they would be," she said. "I didn't think that they would be enthusiastic because I wasn't close to them and I didn't really think they would care that it was my birthday."

Surprise!

Last year, Whitney Spivey was in almost the same situation as Bottiny and Donahue. Her Watson RA got her a cake for her Sept. 28 birthday, and she went to the College Inn for dinner with her suitemates.

But fast forward 12 months, and she was singing a different "happy birthday" tune.

On Sept. 26, pink and blue streamers dangled from the ceiling and balloons drifted around Spivey's Lambeth apartment. About 20 friends sipped soda and munched on pretzels, anxiously awaiting the second-year College student's arrival.

Andrea Doughtery, an apartmentmate and second-year College student, peered out of the blinds and spotted Spivey walking up with her boyfriend.

"We wanted it to be a surprise so we had to make sure everything was perfect when she walked in the door," Dougherty said.

The knob turned and the door opened. Spivey took one step inside and abruptly stopped as she heard several people screaming 'surprise' and saw several camera flashes going off in her face.

"It was like total shock," she said.

Laughing, and still trembling from the surprise, Spivey embraced her friends and began to celebrate. Someone turned up 'Faded' by Soul Decision, an old-time favorite of the Watson residents from last year.

After the initial shock died down, a large sheet cake decorated in pink flowers and lit with 20 flaming candles was brought out. Spivey blew out the candles in one breath.

Although Spivey had received gifts and cards from friends and family, the most important thing to her was to have all her friends together.

"It was incredible," she said. "It was the last thing I expected that night. Thursdays are my longest days, and coming home and being surprised by the people who mean the most to me was a great way to end the day."