Olivia and Vaman first met in 2016 in South Korea. Olivia was there interning for the World Wild Fund for Nature and staying by herself in a 90 sqft apartment with no air conditioning. Vaman was deployed with 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines to South Korea and staying in a flooded parking lot in Pohang with 1000 of his best friends. Wanting to explore this strange land, Vaman used one of his scarce liberty days to take a train to Seoul. It was there that he stumbled into a karaoke bar. Amidst the deluge of incomprehensible k-pop, "Gold Digger" by Kanye West began playing. Vaman quickly looked up from his bottle of soju to see who was performing and to congratulate them on their excellent taste. It was then that he first laid eyes on Olivia. Due to English being her 4th language, Olivia was struggling with a few of the verses and trying to muddle through by sheer force of will. As the only American in the bar, Vaman felt a duty to help out Olivia and hopped on stage to finish the song with her. They quickly hit it off and exchanged phone numbers and emails promising to stay in touch. Little did they know that the next time they would see each other was at the orientation for the Yale School of Management...

2016

The Proposal