About three months ago, David and I "celebrated" our 10th anniversary. We would have celebrated it, without quotes, had we remembered it, but it wasn't until 10:30 at night that David interrupted himself and said, "Wait, isn't today our anniversary?" I replied that it couldn't be, because 5 hours previously, sitting down at the computer, I thought, "I have to remember our anniversary is on Tuesday." I have no idea why I suddenly thought we started dating on the 9th and not the 7th of January, but I'm guessing after a decade of remembering not just your own stories, but someone else's too, your memory suddenly deserts you.

David suggested that in order to make up for our forgetfulness, we should celebrate for the entire year. That suggestion very quickly morphed into traveling for the entire year, so here we are: planning a round-the-world trip starting May 15, and returning sometime next May, or maybe June. We can't actually buy return tickets until we've been gone for a few months because airlines only put their schedules up 10 months in advance, a fact I find somehow incredibly amusing.

Those of you more inclined to explore websites in your free time may noticed the added Map and Calendar feature on the right sidebar. David's been working within Google's applications to do all sorts of neat things, both for this trip and for previous excursions, so you can poke around to your heart's content, but in addition, here's a brief itinerary of the RTW.

We leave May 15 for London, where we don't plan to stay, but will scoot up to Scotland for a week of hiking and camping. Then my entire family will join us in Edinburgh and we'll travel together for 2 weeks. Then the poor saps who have jobs will return to the states, while those of us who are gainfully unemployed (retired or otherwise) will travel in England for another 2 weeks, before David and I callously leave Mama and Papa to their fate and head off to Madagascar at the end of June. (I'm so excited!) Then we go to Italy to see friends for a couple of weeks before leaving for Doha, Qatar, for a week. We have no idea what we'll do here, but it should be fun! Then it's off to India for two months and Malaysia for three weeks before arriving in Australia the day before Christmas. We're currently stuck there, because of the airline schedule posting problem, but we plan to stay for about 6 weeks before going to New Zealand for another 6 weeks and then to Argentina for about 2 months.

Happy anniversary to us!

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Thursday morning was nerve wracking because I had to (successfully!) defend my thesis. It was fine, really, helped largely by the fact that I adore each of my committee members, which is, of course, why I chose them. It was not helped by the fact that I got absolutely no sleep the night before because I could not figure out a better way to write up half the 'results' of my research, something I'd been trying to do all week. I gave up and went to bed at 1:30, so of course that's when inspiration finally struck and 5 minutes later I was up and rewriting. In sympathy, David didn't sleep at all well and woke up at 6 having just had a nightmare in which I tripped going down stairs and badly injured myself. I think he's more relieved the thesis is over than I am.

The picture to the right is an example of how much the thesis has taken over our lives. Instead of the normal things we're supposed to use it for, like eating, it's overcome with paperwork. It's been like this for about three months now. I wish I could say it will be cleared very soon, but we're now in the process of packing up our stuff for the year we'll be gone (more on that later, I promise!), so that's not actually going to happen. It's currently littered with thesis detritus, as well as packing tape, books that haven't made it into a box, a set of electrical converters/adapters and other miscellaneous items awaiting a new home. Some day it will be a kitchen table, again, but probably not until Irene rescues it in a month, when we leave most of our stuff with her for the year that we'll be gone.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (3)

Saturday, Leah and I completed our first race: a 5K run/walk fund-raiser, sponsored by SLIM, to benefit kids in Malawi. And, "completed" really was the appropriate word. (We had no idea what our time should be finishing the race, but since our goal was to complete it, we feel pretty pleased with ourselves.)

You may recall that we were following a 13-week run/walk program last semester. Well, we managed to stretch the 13-weeks to nearly twice as many weeks with a series of missed days for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which was Pittsburgh's unpleasant winter weather. We also cleverly repeated some days due to Leah's tendency to get side stitches. So by Saturday, our program called for 8 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking, repeated 5 times. Rather than skip ahead for the race, we fulfilled the 5K's namesake and ran/walked alternately for 8/2 minutes for the length of the race.

For me, consciously switching from running to walking during a race required some mental deconditioning. How incongruous was it to not strive to win a race? But, the race was a fund-raiser, at peaceful park to which we had never been, and our first race; all of which calmed my outlook. In the end, we were pleased with our run and complimentary T-shirts and are looking forward to our next race on April 21st, for which our only goal is to beat our current time.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (0)