Penn 1993 Love Connections Part 4

Sanjay (nickname Bobby) and Vyjayanti were friends from the very beginning of freshman year. Bobby is pretty sure he met her at a party orientation week, although she doesn’t quite remember that. They were friends throughout Penn…studying together for hours (or trying to study) on the 4^th floor of Van Pelt or in Steinberg Dietrich, dancing weekends away with their same group of friends at parties, supporting each other through other relationships, taking Amtrak down to their hometowns together for vacations, and practicing bhangra past midnight with their dance troupe on the High Rise rooftop.

It’s hard to put a date on their official start of their relationship…she laughs at how many Saturday evenings she ignored his inebriated declarations of affection for her because she knew that on Sunday when they met up to study or grab a meal, he would not remember. Post college, they dated long distance as well as overlapped in Boston for graduate school. They got married in 1999 and live in Bethesda, MD with their 11 year old twin boys.

Christie Shaw Whidden, W’93, and Michael Whidden, C’93

Mara Turbiner Felder, C’93, and Alan Felder, W’93

Brian and I are both ‘93 grads. We met freshman year at the Quad, but didn’t start dating until sophomore year, when a chance meeting near High Rise North led to our first date—Bocce pizza & TCBY. We got engaged at the High Rises six years later and will celebrate our 20th anniversary later this month! Some of our favorite memories of Penn include late nights at Murph’s and Abner’s with friends, road tripping to see Penn basketball play in the NCAAs in Syracuse without heat in the car, and traveling together during our study abroad semester in Europe. We now live in the Washington, DC area and have two children ages 13 and 10.

Hilary and I met in the Spring of sophomore year.  She came to eat lunch with Katie Faunce at Smokey Joe’s on my first day waiting tables.  I recall they tipped pretty well.

Hilary and I didn’t connect again until the senior week pub crawl of our junior year.  That night, she was hanging with some dude on a double date alongside John Clement, C’92, and Christy Glass, C’93, W’93.  Somehow (thanks Clem), by the time we got to campus, I had replaced the dude.

After a steamy week together, Hilary left on a trip to Israel. She had given me her phone number, but I don’t think she expected me to call her. It was her home-home phone number! Her dad was very confused of why some gentile was calling all summer while his daughter was in the Holy Land. Fast forward to our 25th reunion, and we have been married for almost 21 years and have four great kids (and the oldest of them is a sophomore at Penn)!

Barry Mark, C’93, and Jorie Green Mark, C’96

Jorie and I met in 1995 at the candy machine inside the DP when I was visiting my middle brother Adam, C’97.  “Whoa, you look nothing like your brother,” Jorie said to me…. So I took the cue, nudged Adam aside, and spent the next few hours hanging with my future wife.

16 years of marriage and three kids later, we’re enjoying warm Florida winters and our sunny lives together. Jorie is the Senior Manager of Social Media for The Kroger Company, and I’m an Allergist in and around Fort Lauderdale.

Sejal (Tailor) Srinivasan, W’93, and Naren Srinivasan, W’94, C’94

Carol Wilkinson, C’94, and Dan Schoenholz, C’93

Dan and I met in line at the old Penn bookstore. After finding out my name and what building I lived in at the Quad, he looked through every floor of my building until he found my room. Then he left a note under the door with his 4 digit Penn extension. Our first date was at Beijing Restaurant on Spruce Street. That was 28 years ago!

During the fall of my freshman year, my 36 year old uncle passed away unexpectedly,  and I became sick from the stress. Dan was not big on making me go to the Student Health on my own and took me to get me checked out many times. He was a keeper! We were inseparable after that. Dan sat in on my classes and we spent all of our weekends in and around Philly.

 Richard and I met when we were both cast in the Penn Players Fall 1990 show The Threepenny Opera.  He was a freshman, and I was a sophmore. While he can tell you exactly what I was wearing at the first read-through; I can’t tell you much, except that I was trying to figure out how to say his last name. We became friends and he did ask me out, but at that time I had started dating someone else. We started to get closer when we began spending more time together through mutual friends and because we were both psych majors. In my junior year, we were both on the Arts House Theater board and that is when things changed. He became one of my best friends.

We didn’t start dating until second semester of my senior year. We call it the Billy Bob’s conversation because we were there when we realized we should go out. We had a few break-ups and make-ups over the next few years while we were both doing our graduate studies (He was in DC getting his Ph.d and I was in Chicago earning my MSW). We actually never lived in the same state after I graduated Penn until after we were engaged. Ironically, we were also never cast in the same show together at Penn except for that one show. We married in June 1997. We began the most important roles in our lives when our children were born. We have 2 sons (13 yrs and 10 yrs) and  and a Morkie.  Both boys would love to go to Penn.