Listening to: Diary of a Madman by Ozzy Osbourne
I've been trying to keep up with a new exercise routine for the last two weeks.. This is not the first time, but like this blog, I am determined to keep up with it. Every other day I have been going down to the track in the Smith Field House and running a mile. I must say, it's been quite intense for me, but I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life. Of course, given my track record (no pun intended) that's not very hard to do. I have surprised myself in more than one way by doing this. First of all, I have been running the fastest miles in my life. Around 11-12 minutes. I know that many would laugh at my pathetic attempts to "run" however, I feel great about it. I know that improvement will come in time and I'm not in a rush to get it to happen right now. I think the key for me will be patience. Unlike how I am feeling right now as I am waiting for the oven to heat up so I can cook a pizza. (I know healthy exercise and unhealthy food don't mix, but one major hurdle at a time. Ok?
Today I switched it up by running up to the gym afterwards and doing some weight lifting two. I've got two goals for myself:
Listening to: Stand Here With Me by Creed
The first one is to be able to run a 5K race by the end of next year. I don't expect to finish first. I just want to finish. The second one is to improve my physical appearence by loosing some excess body fat (especially the man boobs.). I don't think I'm being two hard on myself when I say this. I know that I'm not the worst looking person in the world, however, I see room for healthy improvement. I don't want to look like Hulk Hogan, or some other muscle bound retard. I just want to feel good about myself. Somedays I look in the mirror and ask myself who that good looking bastard is. Others I just wish to be better. I think it's more for my fiancee than myself. However it's changes that I want to make, and that makes all the difference.
Listening to: ???? by Jay
Did I not mention her? How stupid of me. It's time to Brag.
I met my fiancee while doing an internship at Disney's Hollywood Studios. I was assigned to work at the front gate taking tickets. After a week and a half of being there, the new international college students came in for training. I talked to
Listening to: ???? by Jay
Erica (name has been changed. I'll change it again as soon as I find a cooler nickname like mine) on her first night working at the park. That day, I noticed something different about her, but I could not put my finger on it. It wasn't love at first sight that's for sure. I just felt some need to try to get to know her a little better is all. So over the next week or so I tried to talk to her every once in a while. I found out that she is from Shanghai China. I also found that she had never seen half of the Disney Cartoons because they were not all imported into China. "BINGO!" I thought to myself. "That's my way in to get to know her!" So I invited her over to my apartment and rented Aladdin (at least I think it was). We had a nice evening with my roommates watching the movie, and I still did not fulfill the desire to get to know her better.
The next week I invited my brother to the park. As a last thought, I invited Erica to join us after her shift was over. She did, and we had a great time together. Of course, I ended up leaving my brother out by trying to ride with Erica on all of the rides, but boy was it fun to hear her scream her head off on the Rocking Roller coaster Staring Aerosmith. That evening we went to Hard Rock Cafe, and I ended up picking up the tab for our little trio. I didn't know it would make Erica mad, but it did. She wasn't infuriated or anything. She just explained to me in China
Listening to: Faint by Linkin Park
that they liked to go dutch. I had a great time, and it was that night that I decided that I wanted to try to date Alice. It had a lot to do with how cute she was. I also liked her personality. Her willingness to try new things
Listening to: ???? by Elva
and her fun loving attitude. It also didn't hurt that we ended up hearing the song "I Don't Want to Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith twice that evening. (One of my favorites, and very romantic. I took it for a sign.)
To make this long story short, the very next week I found a way to take her to EPCOT just the two of us. After a fun day of touring the nations, and riding rides, we watched the fireworks from porch outside of the fancy restaurant in Japan. When the fireworks ended, I hung back and waited for everyone around us to leave. I could tell that Erica knew that something was up because she was kinda tense seeing me stay behind like that. Most of the time I did not look at her. I was very nervious after all. More or less, our conversation went like this:
Listening to: Black Rain by Ozzy Osbourne (I've got the playlist on shuffle. Don't Judge me.)
Listening to: Promise by Kellie Koffey from the EPCOT Tapestry of Dreams firework show. ON REPEAT (Happy now?)
Me: "I've really enjoyed getting to know you the last few weeks. I really like you... What would you say if... if I asked you to be my girlfriend?"
Erica: "... I don't have a lot of time... I go back to China in four months..."
Me: "Well, what if we just tried it... Just see where it takes us. What do you s ay to that?"
Erica: "Well... I would have to say... (seconds seem like hours, and my heart is threatening to stop) ... yes."
Elated, I slowly put my left arm around her, and pull her close... My first girlfriend. My first meaningful hug... The first time in my life that I ever felt that everything was as it was suppose to be. We walked to the bus leaning on each other the entire way, huge smiles on our faces, and a few tears in my eyes. That moment, we found "our song". It was playing then, and it's the same one I'm playing now. It was also this moment that I knew that I loved this girl. I know it sounds premature. But every fiber in my being was screaming at me that this was right and something that I needed to try to see through. Of course I didn't share this information with Alice for another couple of days.
From that evening, we spent almost every free waking moment together. There wasn't 24 hours that did not go buy that we did not see each other, and I was happy. Erica had left her laptop in my apartment one night (She figured she would just end up taking it over to my place anyway) and the next morning before she came over for a visit, I looked up how to say "I love you" in Chinese. It really shocked her. She thought I was going very fast. I felt that if I had only four months with her, I wasn't going fast enough. I wanted to enjoy every moment that we had together wether it ended or not when she left, and in order to do that I knew that I needed to be honest with her about my feelings and not hold back anything. Every time I had thought about it, the feeling grew stronger and stronger. The more I learned about her, the more there was to love. Erica is very lovable like that. Even when she is disagreeable, it's hard to not love her. (Luckily my parents felt the same way when she finally met them). Soon after that, we shared our first kiss. It seemed like I was in heaven when I was around her, and it was a fairy tail dream come true. If it was a dream, I didn't want it to end.
After about a month or so of dating, I knew I wanted to ask Erica to be my wife. I didn't know how. I didn't know when. I wanted some kind of grand spectacle in front of Cinderella's castle. Every time I even hinted at the idea of us spending our lives together Erica would withdraw. It scared her for reasons I did not understand. On October 15th we had planned to go to the Polynesian Resort to sit out in a hammock on the beach and watch the fireworks across the lake in the Magic Kingdom. Before I met up with Erica after her shift that evening, I bought her a small present. It was a novelty ring that she had bought and decided to return. It was only meant to be a gift. She had liked the ring, but needed to return it because she bought it before figuring out her budget that week, so I bought it for her as a surprise. As we were laying in the hammock together I told her that I had a gift for her and pulled out the ring. She was very excited about the ring, and all night long she teased me that it could be her engagement ring. I was not expecting this at all. Just a couple days before she didn't even want to think about the possibility. It's as if a switch was flipped. She couldn't leave me alone about the idea. I was the one who wanted nothing to do with it. I knew that I was only going to propose to a woman once in my life, and I wanted to do it right. I wanted a real ring. I wanted to plan every aspect about it. I panicked and just went silent about the subject.
That night I couldn't stop thinking about what Erica had said. The next morning when we were together, I asked her a question that I had asked many times before: "What can I do to make you the happiest girl in the world." Again her answer came as a surprise. "I think you know." At that moment I knew that she wasn't kidding. I was silent a few moments while I said a quick prayer. The feeling was so strong... even stronger than when I first asked Erica to be my girlfriend. Again, every fiber of my being and then some was shouting at me "YES! DO IT! DO IT RIGHT NOW!" So I finally replied... "Alice... Will you marry me?"
If I have to finish the story for you to figure out the answer, then you haven't been paying attention. For the second time in my life, I was the happiest man in the world, and it felt as if everything was Exactly how it should be. Of course I soon got Erica a proper ring, and re-preposed properly. The way I wanted to. On one knee, ring in hand, in front of a grand castle... Well, the Washington DC Mormon temple counts in my book. Even better than Cinderella's Castle if you ask me.
It's been almost a year since I proposed to Erica. We are in the middle of the process to get her visa so that she can come back to America to marry me so we can live happily ever after. Just last week our first petition was accepted. We still have got some more paper work to do, but we hope to have the visa by next August. I truly look forward to that day. Every time I envision Erica in her white dress (no I've never seen it, but I can imagine) a smile warms my heart.
So now that I've said a *koff koff* little *koff koff* about Erica, I can continue on my original story...
However, I'm not feeling in it now. Right now I just want to bask in these warm feelings and memories... and dream a little about the future.
I'll write more later.
Goodnight.
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