It all started when...
Stephanie Chow
Burnt her hand in Chem...
Stephanie just began her winter quarter at UC Davis and first couple weeks in Intro to Chemistry. Putting on purple latex gloves and plastic safety goggles, she was excited to get her first taste of college chem lab. Little did she know that in the blink of an eye, her first chem lab would be very short-lived. Within the first hour of chem lab, she accidentally picks up the burning hot crucible with her hand off of the Bunsen burner flame and drops it in pain. The loud shattering on the countertop alerts her TA and Stephanie rips off her latex glove to check her hand. The TA instructs Stephanie to leave the lab and have the school nurse examine the injury. Leaving chem lab hours earlier than expected, Stephanie hops on her bike and dashes to the closest nurse’s office (next to her dorm building, Bixby).
Kevin Louie
Added UC Davis to his Monterey roadtrip...
Having saved up lots of money from his $12.50/hr job at the bank (it was a lot for a 17-year-old), Kevin decided to spend it on a roadtrip to Monterey County. Towards the end of the trip, he spontaneously added UC Davis to the itinerary to meet an old high school friend. She rallied other old high school friends in the nearby area and coordinated a sushi dinner in Downtown Davis. As Kevin was waiting for the other friends to arrive, she took Kevin on a walking tour of the campus near her dorm. Seeing Stephanie unexpectedly dashing by on her bike, she yelled, “Hey Steph!” Stephanie replied, “Hey! Going to see the nurse. I’ll see you later!”
When Kevin asked his friend who that was, she replied, "that's my roommate!"
Stephanie and Kevin Meet
After visiting the school nurse, Stephanie returned to her dorm room to find her roommate chatting with five friends. Stephanie eyed each of her roommate’s friends--lingering longest on one with a particularly attractive smile. As fate would have it, that smile belonged to Kevin.
One evening following Kevin’s visit, Stephanie’s roommate shared that she was in the middle of a conversation with one of the friends that had visited. Only remembering the one with the nice smile, Stephanie asked if it was Kevin; when her roommate said yes, Stephanie bashfully shared that she thought he was cute. Jumping at the expressed interest, Stephanie’s roommate offered to ask Kevin to reach out to Stephanie. Nervous, Stephanie hesitated and asked, “What could Kevin and I possibly have to talk about?” Initial talks started with their past experiences on swim teams, and eventually their talks became about anything and everything.
6 MONTHS LATER
August 16, 2008
Stephanie decided to surprise Kevin after work in Alameda. In shock, he asked how she got there and she joked that she flew. Knowing that she couldn’t drive yet and had never taken BART or AC Transit before in her life, her explanation of “flying” was almost more believable. (Kevin was incredibly touched later when he learned that to make this trip happen, Stephanie braved BART and AC Transit for the first time and traveled 45-minutes on Muni, 30-minutes on BART, and 30-minutes on AC Transit).
After getting lunch, Kevin decided to take Stephanie to the Mormon Temple in Oakland. This was a place his parents took him to as a child since it had beautiful gardens and offered a wonderful view of the Bay. He thought it would be a lovely place to take his date. A Sister at the Mormon Temple approached them and asked Kevin who he was in relation to Stephanie. Not yet defining their dating status, he stood there frozen and speechless--he wanted to say “boyfriend” and felt saying “friend” would send Stephanie the wrong message. Staring at Stephanie and awaiting her reaction, Stephanie looked back at Kevin, smiled, and gave him a firm nod. Both nervous and excited, Kevin said, "I'm her boyfriend."
The rest, as they say, is history. =)
(A coworker once thought Kevin was Mormon because of this story. Kevin is not.)
