{"id":11869,"date":"2026-07-21T20:11:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/?p=11869"},"modified":"2026-08-01T15:48:53","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T20:48:53","slug":"lets-shake-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/07\/lets-shake-on-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s shake on it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I entered the cherubs program, I wasn\u2019t thinking about secret handshakes. I had bigger worries. How would I make friends? How would I de-stress from the academic rigor?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little did I know that handshakes would be the cure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">During an introductory conversation with Gigi Licari of Grand Rapids, Michigan, from my instructor group, I realized we needed an icebreaker. My mind went to an immediate solution: a handshake. As we artfully crafted a series of hand and arm movements, I felt the first-week jitters dissipate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After my success with Licari, I decided to spread my mission of handshakes across the program, greeting new friends with a bright smile and an open palm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">With Ruthie Gravelle of Columbus, Ohio, and Katherine Xu of Wellesley, Massachusetts, I created a three-person handshake that resembled more of an elaborate dance ritual. Rania Raj of London and I managed to incorporate a \u201cDirty Dancing\u201d-esque lift into our shake. I twisted fingers with Skylar Sachs of Toledo, Ohio, and now greet her with the same handshake every time I see her in a room.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These friends live far away from me. But I know I\u2019ll see them again, certainly before our 40th cherub reunion, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll remember the familiar rhythms of these handshakes. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getting a grip on lifelong friendships with handshakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":11675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[704],"class_list":["post-11869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experiences"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":704,"user_id":365,"is_guest":0,"slug":"venkat26","display_name":"Deeksha Venkat","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ef5ef05f95ce7ed5361fe093055fc5f1ebb8386630fc5deb21cefa26b42d41d0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Venkat","first_name":"Deeksha","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11869"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12835,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11869\/revisions\/12835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11869"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}