What Country Did I Just Wake Up In?

So after many months and years of resisting the Blog bandwagon, I've finally been convinced by my good friend Elizabeth in B.C., who incidentally, I've never met. Yet. Nonetheless, I could go on to give you a really controversial blog entry, but just the standard "What side of the Earth did I fall off?" catch-up blog entry will have to do. Your name might be in it!

• Got a degree at the University of Waterloo
• Met some people, played some music, got really really scary good at original NES Tetris with Donny
• Got a job at GM, did lots of travelling on the company tab (Japan, Europe and U.S.A mostly), and now have over 20 stamps on my passport (yes I'm still a citizen in my home country for those who have questioned my allegiance to Canada)
• Told some jokes, got paid some more, two ski trips to Vermont
• Started being in Ann Arbor, Michigan a lot somewhere along the line (its a lot like Toronto!), John and Marika visited me here, too.

Over the course of the last couple of years, I'd have to say I've definitely furthered my goals. If you don't have goals, get some - they're highly underrated! Here's a smattering of things I have done, in the field of accomplishing goals and doing significant things in life, which I'm a big fan of:

• Increased my nationage ratio to 15/26 or roughly 58 percent thanks to Italy this year! This is calculated by dividing the number of countries you've visited in the world by your age. My goal is to reach 100 percent at some point in my life, so it gets harder every year you wait. I need to tour Africa I think.
• Learned to speak German. Actually I can do pretty well conversationally, if you don't believe in grammar. Probierst mich! Jen, you will not believe it until you hear it (and welcome back)!
• Learned to swing dance. I've been doing that at the University of Michigan for several months, on and off, when I'm not overseas. I'm getting pretty good. And its a great place for women to meet me. If they're lucky I call them back.
• Was the best man at John's wedding. Being a best man is a tough responsibility, but also its very rewarding, and it was a significant experience in my life, and truly an honour. I get to be best man again soon at Alan's wedding, and if there's one thing I learned, its to just do it from the heart and everything will go well (no, not my brother Alan, who wrote this hilarious article)
• Got my masters degree! Actually, I didn't but I feel like I did. I assisted Pearl with programming expertise for her mounds of statistical data in respiratory rehabilition trials at the University of Toronto. I am now officially a VBA tutor, sort of.
• Joined a jazz quartet in Michigan that didn't have a pianist. This was the most rewarding musical development in Jazz I've ever had. Too bad our quartet just broke up last month when we lost our drummer... so much for the CD (I do have mp3s though). Well, we might have a reunion recording session I hope. It was awesome playing anyway. If you play jazz, get the Real Book -- its quality!

So, I've been pretty busy... and from the whole travelling-for-2-years-straight-with-no-vacation thing, I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to sleep! Why not give the comment function a whirl, and make my blogging experience that much more enjoyable!

Daniel [Life_]