December

It gets dark before 5 now. It's a little sad, but I suppose that makes the candles and Christmas lights in our apartment seem pleasant.

I hope you are all enjoying/persevering this next stretch to Christmas break. I know I will be.

Cheers.

My Brain Is Going To Inflate!

It's a Friday afternoon, and although there's a paper about borate transport in plants I should be reading, I can't muster the motivation or the focus to get such feats done. Yes, the gentle feeling of a Friday afternoon, where its soft velvet cushions and gentle elevator music whispers, "it can wait until Monday". Responsible? Probably not. Enticing? Definitely.

It's three weeks until Christmas. Wait, no...that's not right at all. It has to be at least 4 weeks. But it feels like three weeks, and for that I'm grateful. This weekend will most likely see our apartment decorated with the most festive of things: soft white lights around windows, green organic material around banisters, and most soothing of all, hot apple cider. I'm wondering if it's worth it to bring up the argument of "fake vs. real" for the Christmas tree, as I recall a similar argument about 7 years back when my parents made the switch to synthetic. I can see the draw of it. But, the good husband that I am, I feel the real scent of pine (is that what Christmas tree's are?) will be lingering in our nostrils this holiday season.

This will be my first Christmas away from BC, but thankfully it won't be the first Christmas away from family.

Look Into The Old Apartment

This is where we used to presently live.

I find place to be an interesting concept. For the majority of my life, I was brought up in the place of Surrey. After leaving the nest, place transformed into a dirty dorm and has finally (or should I say currently) taken the form of my apartment with my wife.

For a fraction of a second today I heard a sound that reminded me of the garage door opening at my parents home. That sound was the key which allowed a parade of soothing thought monsters (Figure 1) to bombard my head and heart with flombloozers (Figure 2), causing me to think of the comfort of BC.

Figure 1: Thought Monsters.

Figure 2: A yellow flombloozer.

However, an exciting part of place is the opportunity to harvest the sounds, smells, objects and process them into memories which will inevitably be dug up years later by those marauding thought monsters. I'm sure this small bachelor pad will play a large role in how we remember our first year of marriage. After all, memories need to be contained in the glass jars of place, else the memories quickly seep away into the dry ground of time, erasing the original context.

Side Note: The other day I saw a poster at McMaster for a presentation whose purpose was to present research looking at the evolutionary relationship between the human responses of crying and laughing. Why would you want to take two genuine and fine woven human responses and try to reduce them into a neatly packed explanation. I wonder if the presenter just didn't like laughing and wanted to do away with the joy of it by explaining it with naturalistic causes.

Back On Track: I feel like I'm in a good place right now. I've got the container, now I just need to fill it.

Raindrops

This summer has been a weather delight. I'm a fairly temperate person, which extends to my preference for weather. Mainly the two things that get me uncomfortable is excessive heat and excessive humidity. My first summer in Ontario had a not-so-pleasant mix of both which you could liken to an irritable child and a can of paint. This summer, however, has been cool. Yes, maybe not as hot as it could be as beach days have been limited, but at least I can sleep at night with a blanket. For that I'm thankful.

Work has been great. Majority of work for me today involved a hot glue gun, straws, a sheet of mesh, and a creative side of my brain that I feel hasn't been activated since my days doing crafts in Sunday school. The only thing that could have topped the day would be if glitter wouldn't interfere with the experiment. Pretty much I needed to make floating cells which can be used to harness and harvest floating plants for an experiment I plan to run. With much brainstorming and two prototypes, a successful structure was found. The rest of the day involved me making four of these contraptions while listening to Ravi Zacharias and Tim Keller. Possibly my best day of work yet.

I may have lied about my creative side being dusted off in the description above. Truth be told, it's been slowly awaking for the past twenty or so days like a bear in spring. At work we have a birthday countdown for whoever's birthday is next in the lab. For the past twenty days, I've been doing the countdown, starting with general numbers. However, since then I've been doing animals in the shape of numbers. For the first five or so days, this mostly consisted of eels, snakes, and worms - the gentle stirring of my creative self. For the past week and a bit, the snakes have all but disappeared, leaving mice in the shape of sixes, eagles in the shape of threes, puffer fish as spikey zeroes, and best of all, a hygienic flamingo in the shape of a four. Oh, the creative mind.

I'm getting married in less that 30 days. I've been alive for far longer than 30 days, so in perspective, this period is relatively short. I'm very much looking forward to it.

Dusting Off A Thought Dumpster

Too long? Perhaps. I suppose there is a season for everything. I mean, some people never write down their thoughts, dreams, quirky anecdotes, or obscure stories. I figure a five month hiatus isn't the end of the world.

I've found learning is a slow process. Some parts of it are quick, like learning not to touch a hot stove, or possibly not to strike cow when standing behind it. However, most pieces of wisdom seem to seep into who you are, festering themselves without your knowledge until one day they infest your brain, causing a eureka moment. Though, the moment doesn't always need to be spontaneous, as much as it can be a reflection. My heavy breathing after climbing one flight of stairs could be an oversize arrow pointing towards the gym, which can easily be mitigated by the use of an elevator. Only when the elevator is broken does the lesson reappear.

Quite frankly, I don't want to do a summary of how I've been over the past five months, nor is it my desire to look forward to contemplate how much my world will change in a couple of months. However, the present is a good place to start.

I'm satisfied right now. I'm content. I'd imagine the feeling I have right now compares to that of a full grown hungry panda who had just finished eating a mountain of bamboo. Now, although my satisfaction goes quite beyond that of feeling full, but if there is anyway to transmutate that physical fullness to that of a "wellness" fullness, then I suppose that would be the best description of my satisfaction.

Work is good. Friends are good. Fiance's are good. I'm healthy. I have little stress.

Granted, I hope my contentment isn't grounded in the above five circumstances, as we all know those things are not static, but instead are plastic and can change as quickly as a streaker after a run though a bingo hall on seniors night.

That is all.

Too Much To Chew On

Mondays are my busy day. I have ~ 9 hours of class, and I end off the day with a three hour philosophy night class. I've enjoyed the variation of my classes this semester. It's been nice to have a philosophy and a psych class to break up my sciences. The philosophy course I'm taking is an elective; something I've chosen as a free "no-strings-attached" course. However, taking a philosophy is like sitting in the hot tub. It's nice to do it for 10 or 15 minute sessions, but three hours of it will make you feel exhausted and uncomfortable. Last night in philosophy, albeit the great content, I longed to hit the showers of the skating rink, or possibly, if I needed to stay in the aquatic center, to at least dip my toes into the refreshing pool of science. I feel like the hot tub is important, but bite size time slots fit me best.

I kind of feel like Calvin coming home from school. I know Hobbes is going to jump me, but the suspense keeps me jittery. I'm fairly busy, but not as busy as I know I will be. I'm just waiting for my assignments to drop kick me when I'm not paying attention.

I suppose I'll leave you with these three options.

If you could fly, would you do so with:
a) Wings (think birds)
b) Some sort of jet pack
c) Nothing at all (kind of like superman)
d) I wouldn't want to fly

So This is the New Year

Greetings.

I'll spare you the "I can't believe how fast time flies by" act, and dive right into this sea of text.

I've had a great month so far. It started off with a memorable night in the pub with Stewie, Bron, and Dan, then continued over the next few days with more conversation, coffees and ice caps. Then came the plane ride in which I encountered (I imagine) the pain experienced by someone giving birth from their forehead. That is to say, the changing cabin pressure due to landing made me think my head was going to explode because of my sinus infection. It wasn't that pleasant. What was pleasant, however, was the sight of Rebecca and Janelle waiting to pick me up in Toronto at 2 am. What troopers.

I'm happy to announce that Rebecca and I are getting married. I am thrilled. Too thrilled for words. Possibly even too thrilled for calligraphy.

Since then, I've been balancing school, research symposiums, and wedding planning while making time for community. I should have put an asterisks behind "wedding planning", however, as Mrs. Sikkema is so on her game that I don't think we've felt an ounce of stress over bookings or reservations. A big thanks goes out to her.

I went to Quebec to present some research these past couple of days. It was really good. It was kind of interesting to be in a room with other students and professors discussing research. It definitely put me at ease to hear some of the trends and questions that arise from research.

I swam in the pool and sat in the hot tub when not discussing research. It was pleasant.

And now what to say? My courses are great. My courses are challenging. My courses are coming to an end as I finish up my last semester of my undergrad and move into the foggy corn field of my future, only knowing that I'll have the hand of Rebecca to hold onto as I venture forth into that moist sea of grain.

However, through it all, one truth stands out, like Vlade Divac standing in a busy street in Bejing: God is good.

I hope to keep this up.