Nexus'ed

Last week (actually, probably for the last 3 weeks), the tech world was focused on the release of a particular phone, the Nexus 5. I generally am not too focused on releases like this, but somewhere between general unhappiness at cell phone contract, my phone's likelihood to spontaneously combust crash, and the fact that tech nerds like myself just likes big numbers. After refreshing the inventory page hourly for 30 hours (minus sleep time, of course), Google allowed me to place an order.

Of course, Google doesn't have these phones right now. They're shipping in 3 weeks. They just released the website to placate people. But it worked. Much comparison has been made to the Google server crashes back for the Nexus 4 launch. All people wanted was to have their place in line. Instant relief, when I clicked on that Checkout button. I'm sure there's some bio-chem at work here. Dopamine and all that good stuff.

I'm not a big spender, and as I was reflecting after making the purchase, and the urgency to which I wanted to do this, I had to remind myself that it's just a phone. A nice, state-of-the-art phone with a mediocre camera and average battery life (rated 8.8 on Mobilesyrup review!), to which I've read half a dozens of reviews to, but still just a phone nevertheless. I was surprised at how strong my own consumeristic sentiment was, especially since I constantly use the excuse "grad student budget" to extract myself from making big/spontaneous purchases and live within means. For those 30 hours, I was reminded where my heart is. I remember laughing and shaking my head with disbelief when I heard about people lining up for hours for a gold iPhone 5S, but here I am, refreshing away, not any better.

Don't get me wrong. I was brought up with the mentality of "if you need something, buy it". I think people should buy technology that they'll be happy with. They should pour over reviews and make informed decisions. They should wait a few weeks to make sure the first batch of the product is actually decent. They should reflect on their purchases. I did that for my last laptop purchase. But at the end of the day, it's just a gadget.

A few weeks back, Grad Cell did a bible study on Matthew 6, so we have excerpts of this passage sticky-noted all over my house, so I've been reading it every time I brush my teeth. I don't consider myself materialistic, and whereas I like reading about technology, I've never been the type to line up to buy the latest-and-greatest. But the verse certainly struck home for me, now, especially with a defense as flimsy as "grad student funding".

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

- Matthew 6:19-24

Accumulation

Grad students in general complain a lot about grad school (see: PhD comics), but I think one undeniable fact about it is the accumulation of knowledge. I worked for a prof during one of my co-op terms, and he's now applying for a Canadian Research Chair, which is pretty cool. One of the requirements for the CRC is that he had to give a seminar on his target application, so I decided to drop in on the seminar.

Not that much of the seminar was that new to me. I've seen them either in his course that I took, or when I was co-op'ing. Certainly, having a stronger algorithms, machine learning and robotics background, I can appreciate the ideas and models more, and ended up talking to him at the end, pointing out different algorithms that is probably worth trying. Felt super weird, telling a prof that I've got some ideas for him to try.

I think a big part of growing up is that we don't see that we're growing up. I still refer to my parents as the "adults" and us as the "kids". PhD has been tough because really, my prof is training us to be her peer (never going to happen), and the responsibilities and expectations are gradually shifting to me. But that's what real life is like as well. A reminder to raise to the responsibilities and expectations set before us.

As a side note, sometimes I get asked what PhD is like. I've come to describe it as this:

• Undergrad - Your prof asks you a question...then he answers it
• Masters - Your prof asks you a question...then you answer it
• PhD - You prof looks at you. You ask yourself a question. Then you answer it

That, and I point them to PhD comics. 

Start of an amazing race

Joanna is a fan of the show Amazing Race, and has on occasion noted that it’d be fun to be part of something like that. Though, the chances of that is pretty low, given that neither of us are fans of the camera. As such, I thought it would be nice if I set up something similar for her to go through. Nothing big, maybe a few things to find, some tasks to complete, some places to go to.

I decided to separate the Race into three components: Joanna's Toronto house, Toronto people, and Waterloo people. 

Toronto House Scavenger Hunt (Sat)
This was fairly easy to set up. I hid several items in her house, and had her search for it. Some of the more interesting items included:

• A can of Campbell soup under her computer desk - For some random minor anniversary (like 2 years and 5 months or something like that), we bought some food at the local grocery store and went over to her place, intending to cook. However, this is during that crazy November 2012 storm and power went out at her place. Luckily, we bought emergency food: a can of soup. Unluckily, the microwave and the oven didn't work because the power was out. Thus, the dinner was unmicrowaved canned soup. The only reason why I knew that wouldn't give us food poisoning is because the UWO guys did it all the time. If any of those guys happen to be reading this, I formally apologize for that one time where I renounced your practice of not using the microwave when it was just around the corner at Taylor.
• A University of Waterloo teddy bear with a shirt that says "Someone at Waterloo loves me" - A while ago, she got me a similar bear from McMaster. It seemed almost like regifting if I just got her the same thing back, so I hid it behind some other stuff animals that she has. Except for she found it randomly, way ahead of schedule. That took some quick improvising on my part.
• Fundamental Nursing - I hid a note in one of her nursing textbooks. The clue pointing to it was encoded by a shifted alphabet cypher that she figured out...of course, I proceeded to misspell the name of the textbook in the cypher. Good thing it was close enough. 

Now that I've made her run around a bit, I had planted the last clue so that she ends up calling one of her friends...

Toronto People Meeting ups (Sun to Fri)
 I met up with several of her friends, of either people she grew up with, or people she's became close with over the span of university. I was only able to include a handful (I did want to propose relatively soon, ya know) of people, but it largely involved me letting them know that Joanna will call them in some general time period, and that they should arrange to meet up in another time period, and when they do, she is to be handed some clues that leads to yet another people. 

A fair bit of running around for her. But it sounded like it was relatively interesting. This lasted two weeks, where she met up with 4 groups of people.

Waterloo Events (Sat)
I scheduled her events around two weekends that she would be back at town. She worked at Mikey's when she was younger, so we got her to clean, so that was kind of amusing. The big event here though, is a photo scavenger hunt, where she had to sift through Facebook photos. That took quite a while. 

Her family is also big into dumpling folding and board games, so I asked her sister to host such an event...then crashed it. It was her sister's birthday earlier in the week, so we thought it would be funny to show up with a cake in the middle of their party. Our insiders worked out well. 

Proposal (Sun)
After church and lunch, we started the last segment. For her to get her next clue, I told her that she had to beat me at a video game. She chose Puzzle Fighter, and proceeded to wipe the floor with me. And here I thought we'd be playing it for a while...

Her clues led her to E5, where a bottle of Green Tea Frappuccino (melted and shoved into a bottle) was waiting in a fridge in the student lounge. I had bought this on Sat, and got it into an old Sprite glass bottle I had. Unfortunately, I used her Starbucks card so she gets points, and I didn't realize that she gets alerted when she earned a new drink on my purchase. Another moment of quick thinking was needed when she asked me the next day (I rarely get Starbucks). 

While in Japan, we had joked that the Arashiyama bamboo forests would've been a perfect place to propose. If I had done it with a green tea latte (it was pretty good) in one hand and the ring in the other, and had Kobe steak afterwards, it would've been amazing engagement. 

Waterloo Park, unfortunately, was the closest forest I had available to me. Before we started dating, we had chatted at length about the idea. These chatting happened 1) in a house I no longer lived in, 2) in a parking lot, and 3) in a playground at Waterloo Park. Obviously, the most romantic location out of these is the parking lot the playground, so the clues let her to the playground. It was pretty busy there, so we eventually moved on to a soccer field. 

We chatted for a bit, and I felt that it was appropriate to remind ourselves Eph 5, so we did a bit of reading. And talked about tangential things. And tangented. It was rather nerve-wracking. When it really came down to it, I was on my knee for a good 5-10 minutes, asking her if she was ready for it. Inside the ring box was actually my Iron Ring (which we also joked about), which we laughed at for a bit before I pulled out the actual ring from my wallet. 

We went to dinner afterwards, with some of the Waterloo people that helped me pull this off, at Golf's. Not quite Kobe, but steak nevertheless. 

Oh, right. She said yes.