Fay, does it sound sexy? Maybe do some radio work? Or telephone? IJS.

I think mostly it sounds like a whisp of a bit of a voice. I think I probably do a better job of sounding sexy with my actual voice, really. Um.

Oh, you mean Don Corleone, not Kathleen Turner, Fay. Yikes! Gris, not to get all Lake Wobegon on you(You betcha) but there is a saying "Marry in haste, repent in leisure," But if you're bound and determined, don't put rings in her food or glass. She could really swallow them and make your romantic gesture all alimentary and shit. Not pretty. it's great in the movies, but they have a prop department...that happened to a guy I know. I believe that the relationship survived, but the moment didn't.

"Marry in haste, repent in leisure,"

Well, I'm planning on waiting a while before the actual proposal part. Many, many months, at least. I'm pretty confident in the staying power of this one, but I'm not going to tempt fate TOO much.

Gris, I wish you luck, obviously. That said, let me say that my ex-husband proposed to me four months after we started dating, and I said yes in part because I was caught up in the moment and too young to really know how to say no. We waited a year and a half to get married, but I still spent the next five years knowing that though I loved him and he was a good man, we weren't the right match. The divorce was civil, but no less heartbreaking and traumatizing. The thing is? He never doubted. He was sure from the moment we started dating that I was the right one for him, and he now admits that he rushed me into something I wasn't ready for. I'm not blaming him, and I don't regret the years we spent together--but I also wouldn't wish the consequences of the wrong marriage on anyone.

Does quick proposal and marriage sometimes result in happily ever after? Absolutely. Some Buffistas here are perfect examples of that. But I would say that those instances are the exception rather than the rule.

My advice is to wait. A good long time. Don't propose until you've been dating for at least a couple of years, and preferably after you've had a chance to live together and to live through some of the NOT good times, some of the times after the shiny has worn off and you find yourself ready to kill each other (when you feel like you're living that Avenue Q song, "There's a Fine, Fine Line"). Then, if you still want to get married, if you still think it's right, ask.

I don't mean to come off too strongly, but I guess I feel pretty strongly about it. I really don't mean to rain on your parade, and I wish you every happiness.

I've been in my condo for over a year now, and I still get a little thrill when I do laundry. I mean, it's midnight and I'm doing laundry. And I can go to bed!

Vortex, it's 6 months for me, and I get the same thrill.

omnis, super-luck-of-all-kinds~ma on your date. As I said, I love the location and idea.

And, now.

Things are getting worse. I wonder what Dov Khanin will have to say about it, I'm gonna hear him speaking on campus soon.

IthisisafreakyuniworldN: seems like my TA is more excited about a paper I'm working on than me. He's actually suggesting me bibliography and almost pushing my gently forward, even though I still have a whole freaking semester to take care of that and test season is just about to happen. Seriously, I want to write it too, but this is a little bit scary, and I'm not very good with not living up to expectations of intellectual awesomeness people have about me. I aim to please.

Which brings me to my next question: again, long shot, but I'm keeping my faith in the 6-degrees-of-interwebs (and will ask again in Natter later, once I'll catch up there): do we know one, James Elwick? The man seems to have an unpublished paper which seems very relevant to paper I'm working on, and I'm trying to get access to. So, that would be great help.

Also, I may have found a way not to die during test season and slaying it by 22/3 (which will slide to the next semester, but only two weeks into it), with few days in the middle of it to rest.

And I'm afraid I'll have to kick out a member of my other board where I'm a mod. This makes me very sad.

Plans for today: pass by Dov Khanin and hear him talk for 5 minutes, study, get out of uni, have lunch with my family in Abu Gush, go to the memorial service for my grandfather's uncle (and hence, skip a class), go back to uni, study some more, get back home, study. And my sister's will be staying at my place tonight, yay!

This is gonna be a long day. Hopefully fun.

Gris - I'm not ignoring your very big question marks and thoughts. Relationships are never to be taken lightly, and I'm, actually, astound everytime I hear that people, around me, real people, are actually succeeding doing so. And I think it's awesome. And I'll think about it, and read carefully what you wrote and then write some things myself, but for now - I wish you nothing but happiness, to the both of you. I can understand your current vibe, and you know - wish I had answers or advices, but not so much.

I don't know if anyone knows him, but there are some folks around here with mad skillz in tracking down papers and journals.

Sorry there's so little else of that in our power to change.