Mapping my Mind

Landed in Hawaii yesterday. I am so excited to be going Scuba diving tomorrow. Will post some pictures of Hawaii later.

I have been planning on proposing to Sarah for quite sometime. We had discussed about getting married earlier and had rough timeline in mind.

I wanted it to be a surprise for her. It is very hard to plan for a surprise. She has ESP. She can tell with about 90% accuracy what I am thinking without even me having to say anything.

Anyway, I got an engagement ring. It has a beautiful sapphire stone. I will post some pictures of it when I get around to it. This in itself was very difficult to do without her knowing about it. I had it shipped during the time she was not in town.

Now for the background planning
I had planned that I would propose in Chicago. That is where I met Sarah. I thought about how I am going to propose to her back in June. I also made sure that I got her parents approval. I talked to her parents when I went to Denver in March 2005.

Now, the final thing to do was to talk to my parents. My parents were happy that I have finally decided to get married. I think that they are stretched to the limits of their belief system.

Thank you Mom and Dad for supporting me. You are awesome.

And now, the main story …
My plan was to go on a “Memory Treasure Hunt”. Sarah would get some clues about places that had some significance for us. Places that had some special meaning for us.

I was supposed to give Sarah the clue and she is supposed to guess the place. I will take her to the place and then let her know whether she guessed it right or not. But everytime, I was so excited when she guessed the clue that I was like “YES!”.

Anyway we went to the following places:

1. Victory’s Banner - A Vegetarian restaurant where we went for meditation classes together
2. Tamarind - A Thai restaurant where we had our first offical date
3. Hayt School - Where Sarah and I met
4. Sarah’s place in Argyle where she used to live
5. Magic Hedge - A world famous bird watching place by lake Michigan

The final stopover was at the Magic Hedge. It is right off Lake Shore drive. I had planned to propose to Sarah by the Lake. It was really cold and Sarah was very keen on getting back to the car. I kind of panicked. Immediately got onto my knees and asked her to marry me …

To the guys out there: Yes. She said yes.
To the girls who are wondering: Her ring is very pretty and she likes it

Flew to Chicago for the weekend. The flight was uneventful.

White Sox won World series after 88 years. People that I met here were excited about the win. There was a celebration parade. Someone asked me whether I flew in for the parade. Funny. I never follow baseball.

I am staying along with my friends Sathyga aka “Raj” and Kavitha. The have a kwel downtown apartment.

Kavitha promises that the view from top floor is awesome. Will post pictures later.