Engaged!

If you haven't heard yet, I guess now the news is out. Benjamin and I are engaged and we're getting married in February! People have been bugging me for the whole story, so here goes.

Benjamin and I met in our singles ward last summer (August 2009) when I had just received a new calling as a Gospel Essentials teacher. He was the Sunday School teacher and had been told to give me a copy of the manual our stake uses. The way he tells it, he asked a friend of mine, Luke, who I was, and Luke said he would point me out. I'm really glad that Luke didn't just take the manual and pass it on to me. Luke pointed me out to Benjamin at the beginning of a Sunday School class, and Benjamin came over to give me the manual just as class was starting, so he took the seat beside me.

I remember him commenting at some point in the lesson something about learning Russian on his mission, so after the lesson was over, I asked him where he had served. He replied that he was in the Donetsk Ukraine Mission, a mission where several of my friends had gone (it's interesting to note here that I asked about an old boyfriend of mine who had served there—turns out that the old boyfriend was Benjamin's trainer). We talked about our respective missions and the difficult languages we had to learn and seemed to have a pretty good connection.

The quality of the connection was confirmed when he called me a little while later and asked if I would go to see "The Importance of Being Earnest" with him at the Pumphouse Theatre the following weekend. We had fun, but the way things were in both our lives that semester, we didn't go on another date for quite some time. I thought of asking him to Preference, but he got asked by another girl and we even ended up being part of the same group date.

During this period of time, we sat together at church most of the time. He liked to sing the hymns in Russian, and I love to bring my Finnish hymnbook to church, so it seemed to make sense that we would sit together and not distract everyone else with our foreign language hymns. I found out later that a lot of people in the ward thought we were dating then—nothing like a singles ward for gossip! I also remember the wife of our bishop repeatedly telling me that I should date him, to which my response was usually, "Maybe. He seems like a nice guy, but I'm not sure how interested I am."

By the time Christmas break rolled around, I was thinking that it would be nice to go on another date with Benjamin, who had turned out to be a good friend. I knew he was planning on a semester abroad in Hong Kong after Christmas, and I would be taking a trip to China and Thailand with my family over the holiday, so when my mum suggested that I propose an evening of Chinese food and comparing trip plans, I decided to go for it. That date ended up being a lot of fun, but he still just felt like a good friend.

When I got back from my trip, he called and invited me in my jet-lagged stupor to go see "Fiddler on the Roof" and eat Hungarian food with him later in the week. I wasn't super coherent due to the jet lag, but apparently I said yes, and we had a great time. At the end of the date, I was starting to think that I wanted to stay in touch with Benjamin while he was away, so I contrived to trade email addresses with him so that I could send him some of the information about my trip that he asked about, like the part of the Great Wall that we visited. We kept in touch for the whole five months that he was gone and I looked forward to his emails.

At the end of June, when Benjamin came home, I was excited to see him but wasn't really sure how things would go—we hadn't seen each other for so long and I was pretty nervous. The first day we saw each other at church, he asked me out on a date, but I was busy with work and visiting teaching every night that week. I was disappointed, but hoped that he wouldn't take it to mean I didn't want to go on a date with him.

When my tutoring fell through on Tuesday night, I decided to call Benjamin and ask if he was still free. I ended up driving to the other end of the city to play board games with him and his cousins. Despite the general exuberance of his cousins (one called me a deceiving vixen when I claimed what he deemed to be "his" route in Ticket to Ride Europe), I had a nice time and decided that I'd be interested in going out with him again.
All through the summer, we met for lunch downtown when he had a day off, we went for walks and other dates on the weekends, and in general had a wonderful time together. By the beginning of August, we had determined that we were interested in dating each other exclusively and had a very happy and fun relationship. About a week after we had starting dating, we were already getting comments on how tall our kids would be (with me at 6'1" and him at 6'6", it's a valid observation).

We had determined that we would be spending the weekend after Thanksgiving down in Cardston for his sister's wedding—I had already met some of his family the weekend before, and I was excited to meet the rest of them, but dreading a tiny bit the inevitable jokes about "You're next" and "So when are you guys getting married?" which we'd already been getting from our friends. Whenever we discussed putting up with the teasing, Benjamin always said, "We just look too happy together, we can't help it!"

The wedding was wonderful and despite the teasing, we managed to stay looking happy. The night before the wedding, we decided to go for a walk around the temple grounds and take some pictures. It was apparently then that Benjamin decided to go ahead with his planned proposal for later in the weekend, despite the fact that the ring hadn't arrived yet.

Sunday morning, Benjamin wanted to go see the sunrise from the temple grounds, so we bundled up, drove over, and waited in the car until a few minutes before the sun came up. We moved to a bench on the corner of the temple grounds and waited for it to come up. It was really cold, so we were snuggled together, trying to stay warm. We watched the sun come up and talked, I can't even really remember what about. I just remember as the sun came right up over the horizon, Benjamin turned to me and said,

"I have a question for you." after which he got off the bench and down on one knee. My reaction, in typical Janine fashion, was to blurt out excitedly, "Are you serious?!?"

After reassuring me that he was, indeed, entirely serious, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. I was so happy! And still am, as a matter of fact. We could hardly wait to go home and call family to tell them the good news.

There you go, the story of Benjamin and me. Sorry it took so long.

Another Reason to Love the iPhone

Today I'm spending a lovely day off in the business library, studying for my Finance midterm tomorrow. After going through a ton of review questions in the textbook, I decided it was time to tackle the practice midterm. Our professor was very clear that we should time ourselves when we try it, to make sure we would finish the exam on schedule. He has written the exam perfectly so that it should take us 3 hours to write at five minutes per question. He was very clear that if the practice midterm takes us more than five minutes per question, we are not sufficiently prepared. I was sitting here thinking what would be the best way to time myself as I write the exam and then thought, "I could put on a stopwatch on my iPhone." When I turned it on, I realized that I could do one better. I could put it on stopwatch and hit the "Lap" button every time I finished a question. That way, it would seem like a race. And I would have the added bonus of being able to calculate my average time per question. I'm doing the exam in ten-question intervals and so far, have scored 10/10 with an average response time of 3:23.47. So far, so good.

Adventures in Boston... Part II

I realized that I should probably tell you all the rest of my adventure as a victim of Bostonian crime, so that you can all learn from my mistakes and NEVER keep your passport and wallet:

a. in the same place

b. in the coatroom of a Stake Centre

and also, if this does ever happen to you, then you can learn from my exciting experience the process of getting your new travel documents. Trust me, it's not all fun and games.

We left off in the previous post with me spending a lovely evening and night with a sweet older couple in suburban Cambridge. Well, I woke up on Monday morning, ate some cornflakes, and headed off for the Cambridge police station to get my police report. I was feeling chipper and looking forward to getting home later that evening. My plane ticket had been changed, Benjamin had been called to update my pick-up time from the airport, and all was well. I approached the friendly-looking officer at the reception desk and asked what I needed to do to file the complaint and get my report as soon as possible.

"When do you need it by?" he asked.

"In time to get to the consulate, get emergency travel documents, and get to the airport by 3:30." I replied.

The look on his face sent my heart plummeting down to about my knees.

"We usually can't get a report approved and ready for release until the day after." he said. "Why didn't you do it yesterday?"

Because Officer Callinan told me I could do it today! I wanted to yell. Instead, I got a terrified look on my face, told him that I had no money, no place to stay, and needed this report as soon as possible. I tried to stop from crying and looking like some crazy hysterical girl at the police station, but I couldn't help it. In the end, I think the tears were what really saved the day.

"I'll see what I can do." he mumbled.

Ninety minutes later, I was out the door and on my way to the consulate.

Unfortunately, the consulate didn't have good news for me, either. Apparently, the emergency travel documents that I had been told about no longer exist. The only way to fly from Canada to the US when one's passport has been stolen is with a fancy white temporary passport, which takes anywhere from 24 hours to three days to process. So now I really was stuck in Boston for another night, and tears weren't going to get me anywhere.

The people at the consulate were super helpful, they contacted my family and told them how they'd have to take my birth certificate over to the Calgary passport office and how they could wire me some money to tide me over. They lent me money for lunch and found me a charger for my cell phone. I was especially grateful for the latter when I got a phone call around 2:30 pm (while still waiting in the consulate lobby).

It was a Bishop from the Stake Centre from the previous day. His wife had helped me look for my back pack and had written down my number in case anything turned up. He told me that the missionaries had been at the building that morning when a woman showed up with my backpack, claiming that she had found it on a nearby dumpster. It was still missing my wallet, my money, my travel snacks, and the few souvenirs that I had stuck in there, but my journal was back, safe and sound. I couldn't believe it. That kind Bishop even offered to drive the bag into Boston from his home in Cambridge during the rush hour so that I could have it back as soon as possible. There were so many kind people that helped me out during this whole process.

Another one was the Generous Restauranteur. I met him in the consulate lobby, where he was also waiting for an emergency passport. He had overheard my discussions with the consulate staff about how I had no money and was without any form of ID. we chatted a little while we waited, and just before he left, he turned to me and asked,

"Are you ok for money and everything? Do you need any more help?" I assured him that I was ok, that my parents had been able to send me sufficient funds. He then persisted, "I still want to help if I can. I own a restaurant here in Boston, so I'm going to call my secretary and have her call the restaurant and leave a giftcard at the front desk for you. You can eat there as long as you're stuck in Boston." I thanked him profusely and then spent the next day - until I was eventually able to leave - eating the tastiest food at the Elephant and Castle.

Since I had been told that my passport would take anywhere from 24 hours to three days, I was prepared to wait a while. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the consulate the next day and was handed a shiny new white passport, ready for travel. I called Delta, got my flight rebooked for later that afternoon (for free!) and had enough time to stop at the Elephant and Castle for lunch before heading home, after a very exciting adventure.

A Long-Awaited Photo

Ok, ok, so I've heard enough people bugging me to see a picture of Benjamin that I finally insisted on taking one yesterday (I realized that I didn't actually have one). Here's Benjamin and me when we went for a walk on the bluffs above the Bow River by our old house in Varsity. It's not super flattering of either of us, since we're both squinting, but it gives you the general idea.

Adventures in Boston: Part I

I'm pretty sure all of you have heard about my mishaps and adventures on the way home from Boston, but I figured that some people might enjoy a full account.

I was scheduled to fly out on Logan airport on Sunday at 6:30 pm, so I figured that I had time to check out, go to a 1:00 sacrament meeting in Cambridge, and get to the airport with plenty of time. I lugged my luggage (I just noticed that those two words are remarkably similar - can any English/linguistics majors illuminate me on that?) to the Stake Center in Cambridge and arrived about an hour early. Since I had three bags including my backpack, I searched the building for the always-present cloakroom that one finds in Mormon buildings. The one I found was kind of hidden behind some walls and so I figured that it was a safe enough place to leave my bags. Since my backpack contained my wallet and passport, I debated bringing it in to sacrament meeting with me, until I remembered how awkward I had felt with my big bulky backpack last week at sacrament meeting in Washington DC. I ended up deciding to put it under my other suitcases and calling it good. Besides, I was at church! Churches are safe! Luckily, I decided to take out my phone so that I could work on typing up an email to my missionary cousin while waiting in the foyer.

When I came to get my bags a little over two hours later, my backpack was gone. I looked all over the cloakroom and everywhere I had sat. Not finding it in any of those places, I went to both Sunday School classes and asked if anyone had seen of moved it. No one had. I think it was at this point that I first called Daddy in a panic. Then I enlisted the help of the Bishop and a few people helped me look. When we didn't find anything, I called the Canadian Consulate to see what my options were. A helpful man named Mark told me that we should probably cancel the passport and that I would be able to get an emergency travel document the next day. So I went ahead and rescheduled my flight, canceled my passport, and got all the necessary information to go to the Consulate the next day. Mark told me I would need a police report as well, so we called the Cambridge police.

When officer Callinan arrived, he told me in a great, classic Bostonian accent that since I needed a copy of the police report ASAP, my best option would be to go to the station first thing the next morning where they could take my statement, get it approved in person, and print out a copy.

Faced with the prospect of an extra night in Boston and no wallet, I was eternally grateful when a retired couple from Cambridge offered me their spare room for the night. I was able to use their wireless and their phone to finalize all my arrangements to leave the country. They also fed me a delicious dinner made with fresh vegetables from the farmer's market and washed down with the most incredible fresh Massachusetts apple cider.

People have asked me what i was able to do with my extra two days of vacation. Mostly, it was spent at the consulate and running from one official to the other, but the one extra touristy thing I was able to get in was with this older couple, and ended up being on of my favourite things in Boston.

The couple I stayed with both had PhDs. His was in chemical engineering and he taught at the university of New Hampshire and then I think at MIT before he retired. Hers, finished after their children were in school, was in American History and she currently teaches at Harvard. After dinner, they asked me if I wanted to go for a walk, since they live only about 5 minutes away from the main Harvard campus. They showed me around Harvard and she was the best tour guide I could have! She knew the dates of all the buildings, who the architects were and whether they were actual Georgian, revival Gothic or revival Georgian. She had interesting facts and stories about each building, for example, in the freshman dorms (which are mostly buildings from at least the early 1800s) they keep a list of who has lived in every room and when you arrive, they tell you which famous people lived in your room as students. A freshman might write home and tell their parents that they're living in the same freshman dorm room as John F. Kennedy. The tour of Harvard was amazing and one of the best parts of my trip.

I was so grateful to the ward in Cambridge for all their help. The couple who had me to stay were so kind and thoughtful and accommodating. One theme of my whole experience with theft (which I think I'll finish in another entry) was the kindness of people that I met.

The Lone Wolf on Vacation

Sorry that there's no pictures on my vacation posts. I realized en route to the airport that I had forgotten the cable that plugs the camera into the computer, so you'll have to wait until I get home for photos.

I've always wanted to go on a vacation by myself. I'm not really sure why, but I just thought it was a cool and grown-up thing to do. Well, it's gotten me some weird looks since I've been here, from most people who are not Australian/German backpackers at the hostels. It started with the US Customs lady in Calgary. She asked me who I was travelling with. No one. Who was I meeting there? No one. Do I have any family there? Nope. Then she gives me a very suspicious look and asks dubiously, "Why are you going to Washington DC and Boston?" The even more suspicious look she gives to my answer "for vacation" leaves me thinking that unless I elaborate, I might be put on the terrorist watch list and then it's goodbye to passing through the border ever again.

I hot similar looks from most Mormons I've met on my trip, other than one girl in the Washington singles ward that seemed to think I was some sort of Mormon hippie just travelling through the states ojn a prayer and a song. Which I fully am not.

It's been nice, though. I've been free to do exactly what I want every day. If I feel like getting up early and being in line for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for the first tour of the day, I do it. If I feel like sleeping in and then wiling away the morning in the antique shops and boutiques of Beacon hill, I do it. The only downside is that I don't particularly like being out alone when it's dark and getting late, so pretty much after dinner (which I've been eating late to maximize my time), I don't have much to do. I've mostly been reading and going to bed early, which is also nice because on the hostle mattresses and with 5 roommates in the hostel room, I'm never going to have a great sleep, so it might as well be a long one.

The trip alone has been great, but I can't help wishing every once in a while that there was someone to share my giggles when the tour guide said "the Hahvahd Yahd" for the twentieth time in five minutes.

Greetings from the Nation's Capital!

No, I'm not in Ottawa. I'm actually in Washington DC, which is not my nation's capital, but I've seen enough "the Nation's Capital" signs to make me think that this is the capital of something larger than just the USA.

So far, I have managed to take the plane by myself, check into the youth hostel, make my way out to the suburbs for the biggest singles ward I've ever seen, ride a bicycle from the Capitol building to the Lincoln Monument and back, eat two cans of tuna for two separate meals today and yesterday, visit the Holocaust Museum and the National Museum of American History, and take pictures by the White House, all without serious injury or mishap. Which is good, because I only recently (read: today) acquired health travel insurance. Tomorrow it's off to the museum of Crime and Punishment and then the Washington DC temple - if I can navigate two jurisdictions' worth of transit systems, that is.

You'll hear from me again in Boston!