Well well, it’s
been a while since we wrote here!
As expected, once we came back from India in October, things have been mad busy.
But it’s the end of the year, time to reflect on 2013 and plan for 2014...so thought I'd chime in a quick update of what we've been upto:
Me:
- Driving Exam + Prep : Got my G license 1 week before my G2 expired! Finally!! It did help that our good friend, Jeff, was able to loan me his car (Fiat 500!) for practicing and the test, which made parallel parking a joke!
- Professional Engineering Exam: Ethics exam. Pretty open ended and I think it went well…need to wait for the results till February 2014.
- Canadian Citizenship Exam (yep!!): This one came out of nowhere. I applied only back in April/May 2013 and the anticipated processing time is usually 2-2.5 years, so when I got the notification to write the test late in November, I was pleasantly surprised. With all this other stuff going on, I hardly had any time to study for it, or realize how seriously I should really be taking it! With a mere 2-4 hours of distracted studying and practice exams, I decided to “wing it” on exam day and PASSED! Only after looking at the implications of failure (re-test followed by an in-person interview, which could take up to 2 years in wait time!) did I realize how stupid my approach was! Ah well, at least this ended well!
Movember 2013!!
Garima:
- Professional Engineering application: Same as me, except Garima is a year behind. She wrote up all her experience summaries and dealt with the complicated application procedure. It changed a lot since I applied for it last year.
- Driving Classes (G2): Not one to be ‘taken for a ride’ all the time, Garima bit the bullet and signed up for driving lessons this year. It’s a combination of in-class lessons and driving sessions. She’s had some frustration dealing with her driving school, but we can’t say that we should have expected any better for what we paid! ;) Long story short, she’s still attending classes and hasn’t sat in the driver’s seat after 2 months of these sessions…
Both:
- Wedding planning: We’re really thankful for our parents and families for this as they’ve been doing the bulk of the work on this front. We sorted out most of our clothes, outfits while on our last trip to India and provided our inputs on any other logistics where we could be useful (very limited! Haha..). We’ve been thankfully spared from all the nitty-gritty details and attention to detail that goes into planning an Indian wedding!
- Planning our trip to India: Wedding invitations, buying gifts and other miscellaneous formalities
- Planning our honeymoon: An all inclusive trip to a MALDIVES resort for a week! Booyah!
- Working like mules…really busy times at work in the past few months.
Both of us
have also been doing a lot of SHOPPING. I'm generally dragged everywhere really
like a whiny kid when it comes to shopping, so you can imagine how scarring the
past trips to the Eaton Centre have been like! Again, these were mainly for
gifts and household/wedding related stuff.
However,
there was something I bought as an early present for myself:
A NEW BIKE!
:D
Welcome Cervelo
S2!
I got a good
deal on it and couldn't pass it up. I'm still getting used to riding a road
bike position again after training solely on the triathlon bike (P2C) for 2
years. My hamstrings have been complaining a lot more...
On the training side of things, we’ve been
able to squeeze in a few long runs, bikes and even some ‘endurance’ swims
somehow in the past few months, but this one ride on a fine and snowy Christmas
day takes the cake!
(You were
longing for some data plots, you say? Well, your wish is granted!)
 |
| Christmas Workout! |
Appropriately
named “Disaster” on TrainerRoad, this workout is deceptively hard, even after
you’ve mentally gotten over the fact that it’s a 4hr 10min workout. I was tired from 2 days of intervals before this workout and couldn't hit my power "targets" most of the time. Those 2 min VO2
max intervals after 3 hours left me cross-eyed until the following 45 mins at
85% had my legs feel like useless pieces of flotsam.
After Christmas comes Boxing Week, and yep…more shopping!
And some fun seeing family, hanging out with friends...!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TORONTO!
