We met when Joy interviewed for the MD/PhD program at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. When she then started in the program, we met a few more times at various mixers but didn’t really start getting to know each other until working together extensively at Einstein’s student-run free clinic, ECHO. During Joy’s first year, Keith was on the clinic board as Front Desk Coordinator and trained Joy to run the front desk, we worked together nearly every Saturday to provide health care to the thousands of people living in the South Bronx unable to afford health insurance. We continued to work together as Joy became Project Director of ECHO in the next season of the board. We also worked together on the board of the MSTP student council (nope, we’re not overachievers at all…) as Keith became President and Joy was Vice President.
Somewhere along the way, Joy decided she was interested in developing more than a friendship with Keith. She initiated this by cooking him a meal of Pad See Ew and Tofu Satė that didn’t turn out particularly well (in fact, looking back, it was a fairly entertaining debacle), but still let him know she was interested. We began dating in January of 2008 and essentially jumped in with both feet as our relationship built on a long friendship and history. Marriage cropped up in discussion probably 4 or 5 months in, and we knew fairly early on that we would be spending the rest of our lives together.
Since then, we have been building our life together, making a home in the northern tip of Manhattan, spending time with our wonderful friends, and sharing our common hobbies such as hiking, camping, dancing, sports, cooking, playing games, and, yes, science… as well as gaining an appreciation for each other’s hobbies such as gardening, bicycling, lindy hop, composting, public transit, hitting the snooze button, bowling, snowshoeing, and backpacking. We feel pretty lucky to have each other and be living such a great life.
Here are some pictures from our time together so far:
