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Today's Featured Biography

 
Sari Gralnick Awadalla

Holy crud – all those waves of insecurity that I thought I had out grown are coming rushing back :-) But I’m dying of curiosity to know where everyone is and what they’re up to!!! As for me….here goes….

After school I attended UW Madison. I did a year abroad study in Israel. Foolish me fell in love with the one guy over there that didn’t speak English (that’s how it turned into living there of course, blame it on love). It turned into a total of around four years there over a six year period (came back to Madison at some point to graduate college). So, after I got my wonderful BS degree in Genetics (yes it was truly BS), I moved overseas and started grad school in Immunology. I lived all that time in several different neighborhoods in Jerusalem. I did a LOT of traveling while I was there since everything was so close. I hit Greece, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan. I fell in love with scuba diving and that became my passion for a few years. Unfortunately, I can’t afford that anymore, but hope to get back to it some day. Got a crap job in a lab studying roto-virus. Crap being the operative word, since that’s where we got our samples from – frozen poo! About half way thru grad school I figured this was going nowhere unless I wanted to either be a lab tech or be in school for the rest of my life. I was missing the good life, so came back to Wisconsin along with Salamah, kicking and screaming. We moved to Middleton, then Beaver Dam, and have now settled in Sun Prairie.

I somehow stumbled into State service and got a job at the Computer Help Desk for the Department of Corrections. I was a ‘repeat offender’ for 10 years, working my way up to Field Technician, Server Team, and then Backup Administrator. The coolest part was working in the prisons. Wow – that’s a case study of a secluded society right there. I recently moved over to Department of Administration since they were taking over IT in Corrections anyway and am the Backup Admin there now. Wow – that degree in Genetics/Immunology did me good. In addition, despite my total lack of artistic ability, I seem to have also found an odd knack for decorating cool cakes. A shameless plug – www.SariCakes.com. I got licensed and do that in my spare time (what the heck IS spare time). The kids made me promise not to do too many cakes anymore. Maybe it has something to do with me banishing them from the kitchen when all those goodies are there – they claim they have no one to play with. Salamah has just recently started his own wholesale distribution business and I’ve been helping with that as well.

I married Salamah in 1996. We had Joey (1999) and Sofia (2001). We brought my step-kids, all five of them, over to live with us. Add water, instant teen-agers. Now that was an experience, some good - some bad!!!! But I am convinced teenagers are the devil in disguise. A few went back to Israel, 2 came back here, then 3 went back there and the last went back this fall to live with their mom overseas. The oldest got married and has a kid (just this last spring). How did I get old enough to be a grandma?!?!??!?!?! Okay, step-grandma, that makes it alright doesn’t it??? The next is engaged to be married on June 27th, 2008. So we will be overseas for her wedding during the reunion. Dangit!!!! I’m really hoping she and her future husband come back to live near us after they get married. She’s a super kid!!!

Summing up 20 years is a lot harder than I thought. Wish I could say I was out saving the world, but I’m barely saving my sanity. It’s all good though. Love the adventure.


FUTURE PLANS: Sari will attend UW Madison-PreMed, 4 years, get married and then divorced and then remarry.
10 YEARS DOWN THE ROAD: Sari will be lost, seeking psychiatric help, and trying to do something with her hair. She will marry John and think he kisses the best. She will also be Stef's family doctor(even if she's not one), then on to become a bag lady in a train station in New York. Someone also wants want her to still be cute when she gets angry.

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