Eriko told me that she doesn’t like cooking and I shouldn’t expect her to cook for me. That’s tough stuff. I have to admit that I hope she will cook but I can manage if she doesn’t. I received a counter-offer today but the bastard barely lowered his price. The realtors talked and supposedly he is willing to go lower but I’m not convinced I want to go that high. I wonder how I will sleep tonight. ;P

i put an offer on two different properties today. naturally i cannot buy them both, and it is quite possible that neither party will want to take me up on my offer. nontheless, i’ll either get a yes or a no and a solid answer will help me sleep. ;P

I recieved an email from Eriko today asking when the best time to have children was. I have suspected that the impulse for marriage would grow stronger the more she desired children and that a child would closely follow marriage (in fact, when she would mention having a baby, I would remind her that we have to get married first). Specifically, she wants to know how having a child will align with me achieving a PhD. This is a tough one. I’m not 100% committed to a PhD but the gut desire is there and I think it is highly likely I will be committed soon. I told her a year or so ago that I wanted to wait 5 years after we were married. She took that to be 5 years after we met and that is fine. That would put a child about two years after marriage, which should correspond to the time frame in which I finish my master’s. I figure it will take me about two years to actually be enrolled in a PhD program – because I’ll want to take a break and I’ll need to do sufficient research and study. It will be a financial challenge to have children and go for my PhD but I think if we are modest and lucky, we can do it. I’m planning on making an offer on two different places this weekend. They are both in the same building. One is a more quality place while the other has more square feet. They are both overpriced so we’ll see how the owner’s react to my low-ball offers.

i started to write this early but was interupted by my co-worker. now i’m here in the UW hardware lab with music tones playing in the background. i did not make time to read the suggested material for tonight’s class. it was a very involved paper with quite a bit of mathematics. my mind is still lazy and i wish for it to engage itself but i must be patient. there are so many things i wish to learn and understand that it can be a bit overwhelming to think about. as it stands, i need to be more disciplined.

boy, this stuff is confusing. mortgages, rates, ARM, brokers, etc, etc. i’ve had a good time visiting with mom and dad. last night we talked about religion and spirituality and that is always kind of an awkward subject. i’m beginning to accept that they just may never understand how similiar, if not identical, our views of the world are. especially dad; he always gets frustrated that he can’t help me more but i don’t think he realizes that he has already helped me. i’m not interested in learning the particular tenets of the Catholic faith, i’m interested in learning and hearing about their own particular spirituality. i think a lot of the misunderstanding is my fault; i learn much more about their spirituality by not specifically mentioning the topic (or it’s sister, religion). i love to just dream and theorize and debate about the nature of the cosmos but they have a very fixed definition (of the details, in both cases). underneath the details, we have the same innate sense and understanding. i do a lot better when i ask about challenges, joys, and memories where i am then able to sense and feel rather than process things intellectually. which makes more sense for me anyway; i only think about spiritually ! as an exercise since one is a subset of the other. anyway, i’m learning. ;)

“Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics.” there is probably a lot of truth to this…