Thursday, July 2, 2009

The wedding registry has been updated! Access it here. We use MyRegistry.com, which Sheila and I have populated with items found at different stores online such as Crate & Barrel, IKEA, Staples, etc. When you order an item through it, you ship it to my home address, and we receive an e-mail informing us of the purchase. The item is then marked as purchased for other users of the registry.

One problem we had with the registry was that Amazon.com purchases could not be shipped to Canada... kind of a problem. I've now either removed those items or replaced them with similar items available from other stores.

We set up the registry so that people uncomfortable with giving monetary gifts could have some idea of our needs and the kinds of things we'd like to bring into our new home. To make it easier for out-of-town guests and others to make donations and help us find our feet financially, we've set up an easy way to give through paypal. You can find it on our gifts page.

So with Sheila away for a month on medical elective overseas, I have become tasked with continuing the wedding preparations. I've been working on wedding details for the last week and it can be a frustrating task. Each aspect of the wedding has many details that can take hours to deal with. I spent at least two hours today looking up car rental information for the honeymoon. Not used to projects of this magnitude, I joked to a friend I had studied physics with at Columbia: "I feel like Oppenheimer at Los Alamos."

He responded: "You let me know if you find yourself saying things like 'I am become death, destroyer of worlds' -- I'm pretty sure wedding planning should not elicit that feeling." Certainly not! I hope physicists aren't the only ones that can appreciate this joke.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

I was supposed to be on my way to Africa...but our flight from Newark to Brussels was delayed for 4 hours, and we missed our Brussels to Entebbe flight. Soo now I'm stuck in Belgium for 3 days having waffles and chocolate, wandering the streets and sampling the beer...I'm a little bit in disbelief. Continental put us up in Novotel Tour Noire for a night, staying in a hostel tonight. We're flying out to Entebbe tomorrow morning first class though, which is good compensation for keeping us delayed in Europe for 2 days. Oh well, an unexpected vacation in Belgium. I need to convert some money to Euros.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Our beloved photographers have now posted some of our pre-wedding shots here
Check them out and comment! =)

Monday, June 1, 2009

Today:

It is a moment of light surrounded on all sides by darkness and oblivion. In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another just like it and there will never be another just like it again. It is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious it is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.

"This is the day which the Lord has made," say the 118th Psalm. "Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Or weep and be sad in it for that matter. The point is to see it for what it is because it will be gone before you know it. If you waste it, it is your life that you're wasting. If you look the other way, it may be the moment you've been waiting for always that you're missing.

All other days have either disappeared into darkness and oblivion or net yet emerged from them. Today is the only day there is; let us, indeed, rejoice and be glad in it!

-Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark

Thursday, May 21, 2009

In New York I celebrated my commencement ceremony yesterday, completing my undergraduate studies and receiving my bachelor of science degree. There are two sides to this experience: yesterday the immense rush of marching among my peers in a long procession until campus swelled with a sea of students in full academic regalia, watching as president, provost, officers, trustees and faculty descended the steps to their places on the stage. It was a long commencement, with many honorary degrees being conferred. The university president, in his address, spoke on the need to secure our freedom of access to information in the 21st century, in an era when civil liberties are under threat and our ideals must compete in a growing global marketplace of ideas. (The graduates from the Journalism School absolutely drank up this speech. Students from other schools seemed less enchanted).

After the long ceremony and a few photos, I made my way over to my department office to say farewell to my professors and pick up my diploma. My professors were kind and congratulatory. We joked about how in physics nobody wants to talk to you about what you study. Astrophysics is a little kinder, but then people assume you're a rocket scientist, which isn't accurate. With that, and a few more greetings, I left and returned home. Much of the rest of the day and late into the night, I was busy packing the rest of my things.

The good vibes don't last long. Today my university housing officially expires. My ID card is already being rejected from every security access point on campus. I returned my mailbox key and with that resigned my New York address. I think that was the hardest part.

I'm excited and somewhat anxious for the summer. It will be good to rest, pursue reading and hobbies, prepare for the wedding and the move into the new apartment. I would wish that the summer were more low-key. If there is time, I'd like to do some more photography and editing, some reading, and try strengthening my background in astrophysics and programming before starting graduate school in the Fall. Sheila and I will keep you posted.

Monday, May 4, 2009

We found our new place!!
This is all very super exciting. It was the most unexpected thing, just like everything else that's happened to me over the past year and a half I guess... the marriage and the med school, McMaster, my own personal growth and my friendship with a certain friend of mine.
The whole apartment episode started less than a week ago, one night while I was waiting for a ride outside my current apartment building. A lady approached me, asking if it would be worth looking for an apartment in the building. The conversation ended with her offering to sublet my current place from me and our exchanging contact info. She signed the rental agreement within the next few days. Then came the flurry of searches on Kijiji, Craig's List, and every other apartment rental site indexed in Google, looking for 2 bedroom places with parking in Hamilton off mountain. When Melissa came this past weekend, we scoped out a bunch of places on Friday including a brand-new 2 bedroom with skylight on the top floor of a building, right in the center of downtown. It seemed perfect: convenient, trendy, big, new, priced well, upstairs of a coffee shop. Throughout dinner and our girls night in that night though, I grew increasingly unsettled about signing that place even though I couldn't really explain why. I didn't like the layout of the place...or something. I decided to keep looking for another week or so. After a delicious crepe brunch on Saturday morning, just as Melissa was going to take off for Toronto, I got a call from the apartment next door, which I'd wanted to scope out sometime that weekend. We went up, took a look, fell in love, and I signed the lease the very next day. 12 post-dated cheques for the next 12 months.
So now I'm packing up my current 1 bedroom place (in between wedding planning, searching for electives and learning about infectious disease) and I'll be relocating in a little less than 3 weeks! I'm so excited about the place! It has these fat black and white tiles on the kitchen and bathroom floor, detailed hardwood flooring everywhere else, two walk-in closets, fireplace in the living room, clawfoot tub, glass-paneled bookcase in the study built into the wall, south-facing windows, 10 ft. high ceilings, central AC...and importantly, I finally have parking.
Photos to come when I move all my stuff in...