Who is Kubo Queen, and why does she think she has the right to post here? What nerve! Well today, I will tell you a thing or two about her, as well as how we met, and the moment I decided that she was to be my queen someday. So read on!
How we met
I met Kubo Queen during my first year in university. I remember going to the first lab session of a computer science class I was taking and noticing how tall and pretty she was. She walked to the person teaching the lab to hand something over, passing by where I was sitting; and so I asked her, “how tall are you?” After a short conversation, I asked, “do you have a cell phone?” She said yes, indeed, she had a cellphone, so then I asked, “what’s your number?”
Kubo Queen and I became partners for the class we were both taking. We worked on the homework and projects for the class together; our friendship developed and, eventually, we started dating after a year. I have been with Kubo Queen for about six years now, and we recently married this past June. I love her and she is the greatest woman I have ever known, and is absolutely worthy of becoming the queen — she is smart, good looking, and, most importantly, a natural at kubo living.
She has no student debt
Kubo Queen was homeschooled until she was about 16 years old and her parents decided to enroll her at the local community college. She took various courses in the social sciences, the physical sciences, the arts, and mathematics. Kubo Queen was a very good student. So good, in fact, that she was nominated for a scholarship that pays for people’s four-year degrees (Bachelor’s) at any one of the state universities in our area. Kubo Queen graduated from her community college with a degree in sign language interpreting. Not wanting to go right into the workforce just yet, she decided to pursue a Bachelor’s degree since she didn’t have to worry about the tuition fees anyway — she had won the scholarship.
Kubo Queen still had to cover her living expenses to attend the university. The university was an hour and a half away from her hometown, so she couldn’t live at home anymore. Her parents were not wealthy so they couldn’t really help much. Money was needed to pay for rent, utility bills, groceries, and gas. She jumped at the first minimum wage job that was offered to her; it was at a place called Chick-fil-A inside the university cafeteria. She worked for 25 hours a week while studying mathematics and computer science full-time. You know, I didn’t have a hundred friends, but, I never met anybody else that worked 25 hours a week while pursuing difficult double majors… let alone doing so well in them.
There were many days when she would go to lectures in the morning, go to work in the afternoon, and then go straight to the library at 9:00 pm to tackle schoolwork. There were many sleepless and frustrating nights. But, things worked out pretty well in the end. Her hard work paid off. Not only did she graduate, but she also won the Outstanding Senior* award for both the computer science and the mathematics departments upon graduation. I was so proud of her, and I still am to this day.
She turned down a $100k+ salary to be with me
When Kubo Queen was about to graduate, the big search engine company called Google got a hold of her resume. The recruiter must have been impressed. They called her on the phone to ask if she was interested in a full-time software engineering position. Kubo Queen decided to go through their infamous interview process, not expecting much out of it. She did well enough during the phone interview that they decided to invite her for an onsite in Mountain View, California, where their headquarters (the Googleplex) is located.
The onsite consisted of four rounds of technical interviews where she was asked to solve programming problems on the whiteboard. She went home feeling like she didn’t perform well. After a few days, her recruiter finally called. It turned out that they wanted another phone interview to help them with the hiring decision. About a week after the phone interview, her recruiter called with the good news — it was an offer I personally would have taken. It wasn’t a simple decision, though.
I had done something stupid in university. I switched majors multiple times. First, I was a computer science major, but then I thought I wanted to be a doctor, so I decided to study physiology instead. After about a year of physiology, I realized that I no longer wanted to spend many years of my life training to become a doctor, and at the same time I started enjoying chemistry much more. I liked chemistry and engineers are famous for making a pretty good salary right out of school. So I thought the perfect major was chemical engineering, but after a year of it, I decided that engineering was not for me afterall. I had missed computer science and programming so I went back to it. Unfortunately, this delayed my graduation date and Kubo Queen was now on track to graduate before me. You see, kings make mistakes too, sometimes.
Taking the offer meant we would have had to be apart for at least a year. I never believed in long-distance relationships, but I was willing to give it a chance for her. After numerous discussions, Kubo Queen decided that joining Google and being apart while I finished my studies was not at all worth it**. I did feel bad about her decision because it was a lot of money to turn down just to be with me, and I thought that I was holding her back. I was afraid she would regret it and resent me in the future. On the upside, this was the moment I realized that she was the woman for me. I decided, to myself, that I would make her my queen someday.
* The Outstanding Senior award is an award given to a graduating student by each department in the College of Science at our university. The faculty of each department nominate students, every year, based on their academic achievements. The winner of the award is chosen from the group of nominees. Kubo Queen won the award from the department of computer science and the department of mathematics.
** Kubo Queen went to graduate school to pursue a PhD in computer science, and worked at Google for two summers as a software engineering intern. Her PhD is funded through her work as a research assistant; the work pays for her tuition fees, pays for her health insurance, and she also receives stipends (paychecks) twice each month.
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