Where did we go? Here's a clue:

OK, if you want to know more, click on the Picassa link on the right. Do you want stories to go with the photos?

Marge: Homer, is this how you pictured married life?
Homer: Yeah, pretty much, except we drove around in a van solving mysteries.

Well…

It's really hard to know how much my life will change tomorrow. How much and what ways.

I'm feeling calm at the moment but I think that is mainly because I haven't been thinking enough about it. Perhaps I still don't realise what's about to happen. I've found that it is easy to stay distracted by thinking about and doing (and not doing, of course) all the little things I need to get ready. I've had to pack up and clean my flat (I'm in the middle of doing that now), organise a holiday :) and generally get ready for 'the big day'.

I'm not worried about tomorrow. I think it will mostly be fun. I can do events and I can be the centre of attention if I have to. So taking part in a wedding is fine. But then what? What does that mean? I'm somewhat prepared for a wedding but I'm not sure how prepared I am for a marriage.

OK, with God's help we can work it out together as we go. I just need to work out how much I need to change and to learn to love Katrina, making her needs and interests a priority, even though I won't always understand when her mind works differently to mine.

Some advice that we were given for the wedding also applies to the marriage: remember to have fun!

(Meanwhile, you can look forward to honeymoon photos…)

A dark, lonely Monday night...

This is the scene at 6pm tonight, outside a lecture room, waiting to have an exam. My first exam in 6 1/2 years. I got out of the room at 8.50pm.

Despite being a bit distracted (in thought and deed) and not always having motivation to study, I was satisfied and found that I had done enough study and thinking about the subject. So yes, it went pretty well I think (but no promises about what mark I'll get). I just finished the first subject of my post graduate course :)

Good to have it out of the way so I can concentrate on... other things... for the next week and a bit.

And at least it didn't start raining until after I got home and was relaxing in front of Futurama :)

indecisive because I'm not emotional enough?

I like Ross Gittens. It could be partly because I'm discovering that economics can be interesting and he explains concepts well. He also looks at things from a more human perspective rather than a purely rational one (as in economic rationalism). This article is an example of that.

But the reason I'm putting it here is because of something he mentions briefly. I seem to have a bit of a reputation for indecisiveness. Yeah, OK, it's often true, I'll admit. But it's not that I can't make decisions. It's more that I'm not good at making random ones. I need to have a certain amount of information before I can decide that option A is better than option B. If I don't have enough information, what can I do?

I also have a reputation for not being very emotional. Hmm... yes and no... It's true that I have a preference for rationality. It's true I don't have extremes and there are a lot of things that won't affect me very much. But I definitely have emotions (you'll be pleased to know) and I can be emotional. I even make emotional decisions sometimes. But if you put me on the scale from emotional to rational I'm definitely placed to one side...

So, it turns out that these things might be linked. If I'm indecisive about something it could just be because I can't easily make an emotional decision about it.

5.5 weeks

In 5 weeks, 3 days, and 12 hours the ceremony will be about to begin. It's only just starting to sink in that I'll have a fair bit to do in that time.

This month will be pretty busy so I'm expecting that there won't be much time to play with people - we'll hopefully make up for that in August... Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

I've got my uni course to finish, my wedding to arrange, my fiance to support and a new flat to renovate. I'm swamped.

J. R. R. Tolkien on marriage

Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.

Katrina sent this to me. It comes quite close to some of my thoughts on marriage. Well, especially the first part - we'll have to work on the second part…

New photos…

Follow the appropriate link on the side...

She is such a girl…

From an email:

And I've realised that one of the benefits of having taught myself many years ago to touch-type is that I can type while looking at my pretty sparkly ring... :D

Studies

Bart: Look at me, I'm a grad student. I'm 30 years old and I made $600 last year.
Marge: Bart, don't make fun of grad students. They've just made a terrible life choice.

Yes, I am technically a 30 year old grad student.

This is old news, and I meant to write about it closer to when it started, but I'm currently studing development studies at Sydney Uni. I tried to enrol in the Masters but they wouldn't let me. They did, however, like me enough to let me start with the Graduate Certificate (if I go well enough - prove myself - I'll be able to transfer to the masters). I was going to do the grad. cert. in one year, doing two subjects each semester, but I've already dropped a subject...

What I'm learning is all very new and all very intersting and I'll hopefully try to write about some of it. Anybody out there know much about economic theory? Or can tell me much about the relationship between the US and China now that the US is starting to impose countervailing duties on certain imports from China? (I'm kind of doing an assignment on that one.)