This semester has been a crazy one; the amount of classes, work and the paper have been overwhelming and the last thing on my mind was getting engaged.

I’m a third year at CSUSM and my fiancé and I have been dating since freshman year of high school. We plan on getting married AFTER college of course, just to ease the heart palpitations of those concerned citizens who have our best interests at heart.

The whole story is rather funny because the last time I had seen my fiancé so nervous was when he asked me out for the first time. We had dinner at a lovely place called 333, right on the beach. He barely touched his food. Right there, I knew something was up.

Afterwards, we took a nice long stroll on the beach, which is my favorite place, so kudos to him. He asked me if I wanted my birthday present and of course, I responded with an ecstatic “yes.” He then directed me to turn around and face the ocean and count to 30 seconds.

I slowly began to count. I had a good idea around 20 seconds what was going to happen so I started choking up, barely able to finish counting. When I turned around, he knelt down on one knee and shakily extended the ring toward me and asked if I would marry him.

Of course, I started crying and was still not sure if I had even said “yes,” but I’m pretty sure he knew what my answer was. Afterwards, our phones were blowing up because all our friends and family wanted to talk to us. (I figured, this is what it’s like to be famous).

We have received nothing but support and love from everyone we have told and our hearts couldn’t be more full of joy. Although there may be some people who claim we are too young, I refuse to let their negativity bring us down. Besides, if he is by my side who else do I need?