"How a Friendship Was Forged: A Simple Question"

Mario Vieira has been a friend since our university days. My memory of our first introduction is fuzzy, but I vividly remember him sitting down beside me when I knew no one. He broke the silence with a simple, "You don't know anyone here either, right?" to which I agreed. As we talked about our academic situations, I shared that I excelled in my specialized courses and analytical work but found general requirements like mathematics difficult. He kindly offered his strength in those very subjects and proposed we form a study partnership.