Study carrels were arranged with one student from each BSMD undergrad school plus one direct entry. My friend, Maureen Leist, was assigned to a carrel with George George, a direct entry. We never saw the guy! From August to mid-October, he never stepped foot in the carrel. We began to think the school had made him up (after all, George George seems like a made-up name) just so other classmates wouldn’t get jealous they had an extra spot in their carrel.

In the meantime, there was this direct entry that sat down in the first or second rows of the lecture hall. He had a touch of gray that hinted out of the FIJI fraternity cap that he wore every day. I know some direct entries are a bit older, having picked medicine as a career later, and I thought that was the case for this guy. I thought it was a bit silly that he was wearing the FIJI cap every day, trying to recapture his youth, attempting to relate to his younger classmates.

Then October rolled around. Maureen would travel to Purdue as often as possible to visit her high school sweetheart and future husband. She invited me to come along, possibly for a double date with one of his friends that I had been interested in.

We were cramming for an anatomy practical in the gross anatomy lab prior to leaving. We were holding a de-capped skull in our hands, attempting to identify landmarks from above. We came across a marked area that neither Maureen or I knew. She looked up and saw a guy nearby “There’s George George, he’s really smart, let’s ask him.” He had his back to us, and I recognized him as the older guy from the front row… and then he turned around and walked towards us.

My heart stopped right there and I couldn’t catch my breath. Maureen introduced us (I guess he had finally started using the study carrel!) and I’m pretty sure I didn’t speak at all. Those. Eyes. When we asked about the skull landmark we were questioning, Maureen had to do all the talking as I just flushed with embarrassment.

Then we took off for Purdue. On the ride there, I tried to be subtle, but I asked Maureen everything she knew about George George. Needless to say, I had zero interest in the pre-arrangements with the guy at Purdue, and it made for a long weekend, just wanting to get back and see this George George, and those eyes again.

The three of us started studying together, and during a break at Rockne’s in Kent about a week later, George and I were talking about our families. We had sooooo much in common! We both had older fathers, we both had half-sisters in San Francisco, and we even figured out there was exactly the same age difference between he and his sister as between my brother and me… down to the week. I knew right then and there that I was going to marry this guy.

While there clearly was mutual interest, I wanted to get through exams without any distractions, so we kept each other at arm’s length. I even baked 12 dozen cookies to give away to half the people in our class, just so I could give him a dozen without it being too obvious that I liked him. He wasn’t fooled though. His dad took one look at the cookies and said “this girl likes you.”

We had our first date right after the last exam… and the rest is history. Thanks to NEOUCOM for bringing us together, I couldn’t have asked for a better partner with whom to go through this crazy life! From Akron to Georgia/Carolina to Cincinnati, we’ve had fantastic adventures together.