A Tale of Two Lovers

      September the fifth in the two thousand and seventh year of our Lord is a date that forever lives in infamy, because it does indeed rival the significance of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  On this historic day, I walked into English class and met my true love and future wife, Katherine Ashley Pope.  To this day, I even remember what Kate was wearing during our fated first meeting.  She sat down in her window-side seat sporting a purple and black striped dress, and her ravishing beauty was undeniable.  Though I did not know it at that moment, Kate would grow to be a very important part of my life.

     The chemistry between Kate and I is undeniably the stuff of legend.  But how did such a magical relationship begin?  It all started one day in Mrs. Boswell’s critically acclaimed English class.  As Shin Woo Park and I sat discussing the motifs of Beowulf, as well as Angelina Jolie’s unique ability to spike our interest in the storyline, he decided to write a note to Elena.  His crude and simple note lacked the personality of a true love note, and I knew I could do better.  But who should I write to?  It had to be someone I knew, which significantly limited my options.  After a lot of thought, Kate was really the only girl that made sense.  She was always nice to me, seemed very outgoing, and is easily prettier than Jessica Alba.  So with deep thought and immense concentration, I began writing my first love letter since the fifth grade; it was certainly not to be my last.  After sneaking my amazing note into her backpack, I moved on with my life.  Little did I know that my sweet Kate not only enjoyed my note, she immortalized my apparently-not-lame attempt at humor by making it the cover of her binder.  I immediately knew that a tradition was born, and Kate Pope was to be no ordinary friend.

     Friendship can be developed in many ways.  In the case of Kate and me, it was cultivated through months of spending time together; specifically, I hit on her every chance I got.  Just as ridiculously cheesy pick up lines break the ice between new acquaintances, my absurd but unique recognitions of Kate’s inner and outer beauty helped our relationship grow stronger every day.  We bonded over various romantic topics, ranging from 15th century poetry filled with conceits to Macbeth’s morally justified decapitation.  We also endured through not-so-romantic times, usually categorized by Shin Woo saying something.  But through it all, I continued to write love notes to Kate.  When we would read an especially romantic poem in class, I would think of how I must have a greater inspiration than whatever medieval author we were discussing.  I even made a brief venture into the land of poetry, writing Kate an original poem in iambic pentameter.  By December, it was safe to say that, if Kate had a MySpace, she would be in my top eight.