The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon, Spring 2003
by Jeannie
Chris and I met for the first time in a journalism class at Carnegie Mellon. I was an eager sophomore who talked a lot in class, and Chris sat with two of his fellow editors from the school paper and never said a word.
Our first interaction was after class ended one day. A particularly incendiary columnist at the school paper had written yet another controversial article and I wanted to ask one of the editors about it. Chris was the first one I bumped into as we shuffled out the door into the curry-scented hallway of the Old Student Center.
“What’s his problem, anyway?” I asked Chris, of the aforementioned columnist. Chris shrugged and gave me a non-answer answer and walked away with his cadre of editors.
And that was it. I had, then and there, developed a monster crush on the aloof Christopher Chung.
I joined the school paper, of course, and tried every which way to get his attention. I took every story assignment, attended every meeting, stayed up late finishing stories by deadline. But I rarely saw him outside of his managing editor’s office.
Little did I know that an aside one day my junior year about taking a squash class would finally be the thing to get him to spend some time with me.
Throughout the rest of that semester, Chris and I would occasionally meet to play squash. After playing, we’d sit and talk for a while. It was nice and friendly, but nothing beyond that. Chris graduated a year before me and eventually we lost touch.
In 2007, Chris was living in Brooklyn, N.Y., and I was living in Temecula, Calif. We randomly started emailing again and chatting on the phone on occasion. It was gradual, but slowly and surely we became friends again. And then, of course, more than friends.
The great thing is that the core of our relationship remains firmly rooted in friendship, and I’m thankful for that. We are best buds. ♦
What a strange, circuitous route we have taken.
by Chris
Jeannie finds this incredibly embarrassing. But my first impression of her when we first met outside of class was that she was, well, earnest. "Whaaaaat?" she says now, indignant. "Earnest?"
Yes, earnest—but also funny, inquisitive, and thoughtful, and she had—and still has—an unmatched generosity of spirit. Now she must REALLY be embarrassed.
Anyway, believe it or not, all those things were my first impressions. And despite her claim of my aloofness (see above), I liked her from the beginning. I'm pretty sure others at the school newspaper did too, weeks later when she joined the staff at my and my editor-in-chief's urging. Little did we know—that was just the beginning of a long, circuitous route, to here.
We became friends, coworkers and occasional squash partners. We once attended a dance performance at Carnegie Mellon's main performance space, hiding our laughter as the freshmen girls on stage actually pretended to run while Daniel Bedingfield crooned "I don't want to run away... " We chatted at Tartan parties, took silly photos, met some of each other's friends along the way. My last semester, we worked together on a front-page article for the first time, sharing the byline.
After graduation, I stuck around Pittsburgh for another week in a sentimental funk, reluctant to leave the place I had grown to love over four years. Jeannie was one of the last people still in town since she was a big-shot in R.A. circles, so I accompanied her to the downtown Greyhound station when it came time for her to depart for her internship in Washington, D.C. "Good luck. It was great knowing you," I said melodramatically as we hugged at her gate. Jeannie told me not to be silly and that we'd see each other again.
Boy, was she right.
We ended up back on each other's radars in 2007, and for a few years it was exciting but also a struggle to make things work. Time zones, poor mobile-phone signals, financial constraints, and the bloody New Jersey Turnpike all conspired against us in our efforts to build something good. And yet, it happened. In 2010 I moved to D.C. (after she had done so in 2008) so we could finally be in the same city. Reunited, we reveled in squash, Moby Dick's kabobs and D.C.'s other delights, and we found a great community as well.
It seems now that all the years of waiting—starting from the moment I met this funny, sweet, earnest sophomore on the sidewalk outside of the Old Student Center—had given me (and us) a patience and a faith that would get us through rough times and challenges that faced us as we moved toward marriage.
These days, Jeannie runs around town, asking pointed questions of politicians, interviewing strangers, observing the motley masses filtering through the city. I go to my job as an editor. After work sometimes, if we can resist the urge to goof off, we will talk about her stories. What else did you ask? You had to go to the Bronx, again? That's a great quote!
After more than 10 years of friendship, nothing has really changed all that much. And yet, everything has. ♦
