Graduation #6

This past Wednesday was M1’s convocation in London, Ontario.  She graduated from the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.  She needed to be there at 8:00 AM, so rather than wake up at 5:00, we drove in the night before and stayed in a hotel.  M2 and I made the mini sojourn but M3 did not as she had school and final exams are just around the corner.

There were two separate ceremonies – one for Ivey students in the morning and the traditional one with additional students from other faculties in the afternoon.  The morning ceremony took place in an auditorium filled with the graduates.  The auditorium was not big enough for an audience so families and friends watched a livestream in various classrooms across the campus.  During the ceremony, graduates who made the Dean’s list were announced and M1 made it!  For Ivey, this means she was in the top 25% of the graduating class.

An interesting side note is that the student who had the highest mark was the daughter of my former manager.  We stopped working together way back in 2000, before our children were even born.  When the daughter’s name was announced, I wondered if she was related to my former manager because it’s not a common surname.  I hadn’t seen her in over ten years and we had a nice little reunion.  Coincidentally, we watched the livestream in the same classroom.

The afternoon ceremony took place at Canada Life Place, the local arena where the London Knights play.  This was the normal ceremony where each graduate walks across the stage to receive their diploma and families do get to watch live in the audience, and cheer.

The Ivey Business School is very prestigious and many times during this day it was mentioned that Ivey is the number one business school in Canada.  M1 graduated with an Honours Business and Administration degree and it was a tough road.  Through my conversations with M1, I can understand why Ivey is considered the top business school.  First, they teach a wide range of subjects from accounting to capital markets to entrepreneurship to marketing, and the list goes on.  Second, they focus not just on technical skills, but also practical skills, such as communication and collaboration.  After all, how many projects are there in the business world where you are actually working alone?  Also, after working for many years, I can say that I’ve seen more people succeed by just talking and not knowing anything of substance than the other way around.  Those who have the technical skills but can’t communicate often get hidden in the shadows somewhere while others get the glory.  It’s great that Ivey develops both sets of skills.  Third, there are a lot of extra-curricular activities where they guide and push the students to make contacts and network with people from big companies and small businesses.

Many times M1 called me to complain about how stressed she was with homework, mid-terms, group presentations, coffee chats, job fairs, and the list goes on.  So I know M1 is very proud of this degree that she worked so hard to obtain.  M1, Mommy and Daddy are very proud of you too!

Big Oh

Who's Your Soulmate?

Who is your soulmate?  What is a soulmate?  I have answers to these questions for myself but I’m not going to reveal the “who” yet.  If you’ve read blogs on this site before, you probably know who it is.

M1 just returned home from 4 years at the University of Western Ontario where she spent the last 3 years living with 4 other girls in a house.  At that age, there are lots of relationship issues and gossip happening.  M1 herself has been with a boyfriend for almost two years now.  She tells me about her relationship and about her friends’ relationships.  Sometimes more than I need to know, but I guess I should be happy about that since other parents complain that their kids never talk to them.

The topic has come up about how people should behave in relationships.  What secrets do you keep from your significant other, if any?  What types of things do you tell your significant other vs. your friends?  Can a good friend become a significant other?  When answering these questions to M1 (and M2 and M3), I brought up the concept of a soulmate.

I checked Google and AI, etc. and they have definitions of a soulmate.  I’m going to reject those definitions and provide one of my own, as I alluded to in the first paragraph.  To me, a soulmate is the first person you think of when something significant happens.  It’s also the person you want to text when something insignificant/frivolous happens.  If I were younger, I would say BAE instead of soulmate.  BAE = Before Anyone Else, meaning this person is my first priority, the first person I tell things to, before anyone else.  The special thing about a soulmate (or BAE) is that the identity of that person will always be in your heart.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m a logical person, but this is one area where emotion takes over.  From a young age, I’ve always said my parents are the most important people in my life.  They brought me into this world, raised me, and loved me unconditionally.  Therefore, they are my first priority.  I would side with them over anyone else, even my significant other.  That is what logic tells me.  Then how come when something happens, like a new Star Wars movie is coming out or I got a promotion at work or I saw cat chasing a dog, I think of someone else?  Because that is what my heart tells me.

Today is YC's and my 27^th wedding anniversary.  Ever since we started dating, she has been my soulmate.  Every time something happens, I would think of telling her.  I would tell her about my day at work – projects, meetings, lunch conversations, the commute home, etc.  If I hung out with my guy friends, I would tell her about the stupid things we did and talked about.  It doesn’t matter if it’s not important – like getting ice cream at work today.  It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t care – like the Leafs just won the draft lottery.  I always think, “Holy cow! I can’t wait to tell YC!”

This continued to happen after she left us.  Something would happen, I would think of telling YC about it, then I would be sad that I couldn’t do it in person.  When important things happen, I will visit her and tell her.  For example, M1 and M2 going to university, M3 getting a co-op placement, my niece and nephew getting engaged (not to each other, just to clarify).  But it’s telling her about all the little things that I miss.  Sometimes when I get a quiet moment, like at night before I sleep, I recall all the things during the day that I would tell YC.

I got a free sample in the PATH today.  Have to wash bed sheets this weekend.  It was so windy my umbrella broke again.  I forgot my water bottle.  I bumped into Fred and Ethel today.  My coworkers and I went to Chinatown for lunch.  A pigeon almost flew into my head!  There’s a new Toy Story movie coming out.  Pantene’s on sale at Shoppers’ Drug Mart.  There was a big lineup at Union Station just to go up the escalator.  Connor McDavid might come to Toronto.

YC, my love, I hope you have a good day today.  Happy Anniversary.  I will talk to you again tonight, my soulmate.

Big Oh

Paris Trip - Final Thoughts

We had been having croissants for breakfast every day and we weren't going to break that streak on our last day.  I went out to Pret a Manger again and picked up breakfast "take-away" before we took an Uber to the airport.  Our flight was at 2:55 PM Paris time so we had time for lunch.  There was a McDonald's so M1 finally got her Best of Chicken McNuggets (meal). 

On the plane ride, I thought about our trip and replayed many incidents in my head.  This is how I transfer thoughts from my short term memory to long term memory and hopefully the good ones will stay with me forever.

In each day's blog, I wrote about specific events of that day.  What about the overall impression of Paris?  That's one thing I thought about on the plane.  What would I say to someone asking me, "How was Paris?" I would say, "It was great!"  The weather was perfect - mid 20s, not too hot, no rain until the last day when we were driving to the airport.  The food was good (not great, but good) overall, but the pastries, croissants, and duck were amazing.  The people we met were very friendly.  We were warned by others that if we didn't speak French or say "Bonjour", we would not get good service.  But we didn't experience that at all.  I think everyone was very friendly to us.

The absolute value of the cost of food and activities would be comparable to Canada, I would say.  But the 1.62 exchange rate hurts you!  I mentioned the narrow streets, narrow buildings, and traffic patterns already.  The general feeling I got when I was outdoors was "cozy".  There was a rich, antique-like feel to the city and every restaurant had outdoor seating.  Even though the frontage of their restauant was not much, they would squeeze about four 2-person tables onto their "patio".  I know YC would love enjoying a pastry and a cup of coffee on a cool spring afternoon outside a cafe.

I thought about the stress and turmoil I experienced leading up to the trip with the strike and all.  My mood was completely opposite during the trip.  Things went smoothly for us.  Other than a last minute pee by M1 that caused us to be late for boarding, the flights went well - no real delays.  It was my first time ordering an Uber and I got $15 discount.  There were no hiccups with any of our bookings.  I'm always afraid that when I do things online, there will be a problem - like I show up at the hotel and they say I never booked.  Or maybe our City Pass doesn't work for one of the attractions we wanted.  But nothing like that happened.  Even with the transit pass we couldn't buy, it turned out that we saved 68 Euros by buying individual tickets.  We walked a bit more, but also got that free ride to the Louvre on the tour bus.  We also got to skip the line at the Arc de Triomphe.

So were there any negatives?  Well, the only things I can complain about have to do with toilets.  First, there aren't many free public bathrooms in Paris.  You have to pay to use them or be a customer at the restaurant.  In the shopping malls we went to, there weren't many public bathrooms.  So there was always a line up and never any soap.  I carried hand santizer for us after the first day.  Second, the toilet paper holder in our hotel was vertical instead of horizontal.  So the toilet paper kept spiralling downwards.  Okay, so if these are the only issues I had, I would say it was a very good vacation.

I never said which attraction was my favourite.  I mentioned the favourite foods and attractions of each of the girls but I could not decide on which one I liked best - the bike tour, the bus tour, the Louvre, Versailles, or the Eiffel Tower.  I'm going to pick the Eiffel Tower because prior to the trip, that's the one thing I wanted to see most.  The lights were really cool and I know YC would like it too.  I was really emotional when I saw it and I'm not sure what emotions I had but sadness was not the dominant feeling.  Maybe it's a growth moment for me.  I think all my girls had growth moments on this trip too.  We talked about Mommy on several occasions - would she like the bike tour, would she like the food, would she walk up all the stairs of the Arc de Triomphe, would she want to pay for any audio guides?  Well, I know she would like the bike tour, the museums, the pastries and bread, the escargots, the duck, and yes she would pay for and make us listen to the audio guide.  And I know what she would say when we got home.  After every vacation she says, "The best part of vacation is coming home."

Big Oh

Paris Trip - Day 6: Journey to Versailles

So far we've been lucky with the weather - mostly mid 20s and no rain.  Well, this morning it was raining and we had booked a visit to Versailles.  We took the Metro and then another train (maybe the equivalent of a GO train in the GTA) to get there - about an hour trip.  By the time we got there the rain had stopped and the weather was nice again.  Since we were going to visit a castle, the girls wore pretty dresses for this occasion so we could take some nice pictures.

The castle did not disappoint - it was huge, magnificent, and royally extravagant.  In fact, it exceeded the girls' expectations of how big and spectacular it would be.  They were amazed by the vastness of the palace, the gardens, and all the decor.  M2, in particular, wanted to jump on the king's bed, but she had to settle for just a picture of it.  She seemed more excited to get a photo of that than the Mona Lisa.  M2 continues to be the quirky one.

The entire property was about 8 square kilometers, which is twice the size of our Wismer Commons neighbourhood back home.  The "backyard" was huge, with lots of flowers, trees, and statues.  There was even a pond where tourists could go out on a rowboat.  We walked most of the grounds and were very tired.  When we needed to use the bathroom the building we were in happened to just have one bathroom - on the 6th floor, no elevators.  It seemed like everywhere we went we had to walk up many flights of stairs.

We had lunch inside the palace at a restaurant called Angelina's.  This was actually the true French meal - expensive and small portions.  I got a chicken pot pie that was only slightly bigger than an Chinese egg tart.  M1 got mushroom ravioli, M2 got a club sandwich, and M3 got a quiche.  The food did taste really good but the portions were too small.  M2 was complaining when she looked at the menu that there's nothing she liked so she settled for a sandwich.  It turned out to be her favourite meal of the trip!

We took the train back to downtown Paris and had dinner at a restaurant called Crepe Avenue.  We realized we had not had any crepes the whole trip, except for the freebie when we checked in at the hotel and that awful crepe on the boat tour.  Crepes are another one of M2's favourite foods.  We all got a savoury dinner crepe and dessert crepe to share.

After that we went back to the hotel to pack as we would be flying out tomorrow.

Big Oh

Paris Trip - Day 5: Chocolate and Banh Mi for M3

By now, we had visited all the important sites in Paris that we wanted to see.  So we had a later start this morning.  I went to Pret A Manger (3 minutes from the hotel) and bought breakfast for everyone to eat at the hotel.  Then we took the Metro to the Sacre Coeur Church.  Recall during our trip to Montreal in 2022 that M2 really liked riding the Metro.  Now after her first year of university and commuting on the Toronto subway system, she appreciates the cleaner and calmer Montreal Metro even more.  Well, the Paris Metro system is even older than Toronto's and more rickety.  But there was a singer on board our train car so the entertainment was a bit better.

The Sacre Coeur is on top of a hill and we had to climb many stairs to get there.  It was like the Arc de Triomphe all over again.  We passed by the stairs where John Wick rolled down in the movie.  My buddy, Wilson took a picture there when he visited two months ago.  I took a similar picture and now let's see if we can Photoshop it so that it looks like we were there together.

There were prayers going on when we went inside and we had to be quiet and respectful.  We walked around the perimeter, admiring the sculptures and stained glass windows.  Outside there was a man standing on a pedestal dressed in all white and even his face was covered in white make-up.  We thought it was a statue but we saw him move.  I'm not sure what the purpose of that was but he must have been very hot in the sun.

On our way to lunch, we witnessed a fight between construction workers and we walked quickly to get away.  Were we in the wrong part of town?

Lunch was at the Pink Mamma restaurant, recommended by one of my co-workers.  It was a nice Italian restaurant with lots of greenery around the walls, kind of like the Rainforest Cafe.  And the walls were really giant windows so it was very bright, unlike the Rainforest Cafe, and I liked that.  This seemed to be a very popular restaurant as there was a line-up to get in - we had reservations.  Again, the restaurant was narrow, but had 3 stories.  Buildings in Paris seems to build upwards.  I got spaghetti bolognese, M1 got a mushroom pasta, M2 got risotto, and M3 got grilled beef.  I'd say the food was okay, not great, given the line up.  (I liked the pasta at Zapi better.)  We did get a creme brulee to share (it was a big portion and we almost couldn't finish it) and it was very good.

We had one more attraction left on our City Pass and chose to go to a chocolate museum - my girls had enough of art and history museums.  Well, here we did learn about the history of chocolate.  A big plus, though, was that there were free samples of chocolate included with our admission.  So this became M3's favourite attraction of the trip.

We were planning to go to the Picasso Museum or Musee D'Orsay next but as I said, the girls didn't want to go to any more museums.  We looked on the map and saw that we were 15 minutes from Chinatown so we walked there.  But it was a disappointment (or we went to the wrong place) because Chinatown was barely even a street.  It was kind of like a back alley with a few restaurants and grocery stores.  It didn't even smell like Chinatown.

For dinner we went back to the Vietnamese restaurant by our hotel.  This time it was open and M3 was able to get her banh mi.  But it wasn't without difficulty.  You see, banh mi is only available for "take-away".  Perhaps they wanted us to order something more expensive if we are going to take up a seat in their narrow restaurant.  The rest of us were ordering entrees as well as an appetizer to share so I thought it should be okay.  I asked (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) if we could order it as "take-away" and just eat it here.  Eventually they relented and M3 finally got her banh mi on the third try!

Big Oh

Paris Trip - Day 4: Long Streets and Tall Towers

We're halfway through our trip and we haven't taken local transit yet, being able to walk to most destinations so far.  Maybe our inability to purchase the transit pass turned out to be a good thing since we probably didn't need it.  This would be our first day taking a transit bus - a 15 minute ride to Champs Elysees.  This included about 5 minutes of walking and walking the whole way would be just over half an hour.  We had breakfast at Pret a Manger again.  This time M1 got the bacon, tomato, cheese croissant because she wanted it first yesterday and I kept raving about it.  I just got an almond croissant (going to try as many different varieties as I can).

We walked up one side of Champs Elysees, which is almost 2km long.  It was like the Yorkville of Paris with lots of stores.  All the while the girls were singing the Champs Elysees song.  We went in several clothing stores and M2 saw a jean jacket that caught her eye but we planned to get it on the way back so we wouldn't have to carry it the whole morning.  At the end of Champs Elysees was the Arc de Triomphe.  We could have just admired it at ground level but we had booked this as an attraction on our City Pass and that allowed us to go to the top and visit the museum.  There was a pretty long line-up and we decided to ask security where to go if we had the City Pass.  He promptly escorted us to another entrance, scanned our passes and let us in!  Somehow we bypassed the line-up.  I wonder if City Passholders get priority, but it seemed like we were the only ones.  Also, children under 18 get free admission, so now M3 has an extra attraction she can attend on her pass.

There were no elevators to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and no warning that there were a lot of steps.  We had to walk up 284 steps to get to the top!  M3 kept complaining that her legs were broken.  Several people stopped part way through to take a breather.  It was a great view of the whole city from the terrace at the top.  I wondered if we were at the centre of Paris and the rest of the city just branches out in a circular manner from here.

After we came back down the 284 steps, we walked along the other side of the street and checked out those stores.  We didn't end up buying anything except for some souvenirs and M2's jean jacket.  M1 wanted to try fast food so we went to a McDonald's.  Much to our dismay, there were no meal combos.  M3 got to try the Grimace Shake, which she throroughly enjoyed.  Later we found out that there are meal combos, but they're called "Best of ...".  For example, you're supposed to order "Best of Big Mac".

Next we had a 1-hour Seine River boat cruise booked and the boarding site was a 25 minute walk.  Transit would take 23 minutes, so we decided to just walk - so much walking today!  The cruise fare included a crepe and a soft drink.  The soft drink was very much needed as this was the hottest day of the trip (28 degrees Celsius).  M1 saw that the crepe was frozen and just heated up for us.  It didn't taste good at all.  Also, we asked for strawberries and they just gave us sugar.  The boat cruise itself was enjoyable and relaxing; again M1 and M3 fell asleep.

Dinner was at Les Amours and this was going to be our true French meal.  I got a Parisienne salad, M1 got the duck confit (she's just copying me all the time), M2 got beef bourguignon, and M3 got escargots.  The food was okay but not great.  Only M3 really enjoyed her meal.  None of us were brave enough to try the escargots but M3 said it was the best meal of the trip for her.

This restaurant was very close to the Eiffel Tower and that's where we were headed at night so we could see the bright lights of the tower.  There were many people gathered in a field to view the spectacle.  After sunset, the lights flash for 5 minutes each hour on the hour until midnight.  It was such a beautiful sight and I was disappointed with myself for not coming here earlier with YC.  But I know she was watching with us on this night.

Big Oh

Paris Trip - Day 3: Great Food and Great Art

For breakfast on this day we found a place called “Pret a Manger”, which could be like their Tim Horton’s because we saw several around town already.  I got a croissant with bacon, tomato, and cheese, M1 got a slice of carrot cake, M2 got a chocolate croissant and an egg salad sandwich, and M3 got a lemon loaf cake.  I would say the bacon, tomato, cheese croissant was the best thing I ate so far in Paris – better than yesterday’s tart.

Our plan this morning was to attend a macaron-making class.  It was an activity we had pre-booked back in Markham already because one of M2’s favourite foods are macarons.  I find them extremely over-priced for something I can just inhale in one second.  So if we learn how to make them, we can save money in the long run.

The class was an hour and a half and the instructor was very nice.  It actually takes 5 hours to make macarons because you have to make the shells, let them sit for a while, bake them, and then make the cream for the centre.  So the shells were actually pre-made for us and we just made the cream centres.  She did show us the whole process but we didn’t bake the shells that we made in our class.  (Perhaps we were using shells from a prior class and our shells would get baked for the next class.)  The instructor demonstrated how to make the shells then each person would get a chance to try.  M1 and M2 did but M3 and I opted out.  At the end we got to take with us the 4 macarons for which we made the cream centres – we would chill them and have them for dessert at night.  They were very sweet, which was not surprising after seeing all the sugar we put into them.

There was another family where the kids were on their phone the entire time and not paying attention to the instructor.  When she asked for people to come up and try, the teenaged son was the first to jump up.  But when he got to the front of the class, he said, “What do I do?”  This infuriated M1, and she muttered, “Well, if you weren’t on your phone the whole time, you would friggin know!”  Then when another lady was going to have a turn and was having trouble getting her phone set up to take a video, the father of that family stepped forward and said, “Can I go first?”  This prompted M1 to silently ask, “How old are you?”  If you know M1, you’ll know she was complaining about this family the rest of the day.

Lunch was at a restaurant called Le Florentin where I got the famous duck confit, M1 got fish and chips, M2 only got a French onion soup (in Paris it’s just onion soup) since she had a big breakfast, and M3 got grilled chicken.  The duck confit was amazing and took the title of best food I had in Paris – it was a short-lived reign for that bacon, tomato, cheese croissant.

We got a pleasant surprise after lunch as we headed to the Louvre – the second attraction of our Paris City Pass.  The Bus Tour tickets from yesterday were good for 24 hours so we were able to get on before time expired and rode the tour bus to the Louvre instead of taking local transit.

When we got there, we made a beeline for the Mona Lisa.  This was the recommended course of action because everyone told us it would be so crowded, and it was.  We were able to squeeze our way to the front and take a selfie with the most famous painting in the world.  M2 wanted to know why we didn’t take our time and look at other exhibits on our way to the Mona Lisa.  She asked me if I’d rather see the Mona Lisa and nothing else or everything but the Mona Lisa.  I said we’d rather see the Mona Lisa and nothing else.  You can’t go to the Louvre and not see the Mona Lisa!  That’s like going to the Hockey Hall of Fame and skipping the Gretzky exhibit.  It’s not like we really know how to appreciate art anyway, we just want to say that we saw the Mona Lisa.  If no one told me it’s a famous painting, I would think it’s just an ordinary painting of some lady with an interesting smile.

The Louvre was about a 30-minute walk from our hotel so for dinner we went to a restaurant half way in between so that we could break up the walk into two parts.  We went to a Japanese restaurant called Lai Lai Ken (you may have heard of the affiliated restaurant - Truth Truth Barbie) on Rue St. Anne, a street known for good Japanese restaurants.  I had fried rice, M1 had an omelette on rice, M2 had ramen, and M3 got stir fry noodles.  None of us actually got traditional Japanese food but it was still very good.

Today was a packed day with several noteworthy achievements - the best breakfast item, the best food item overall, a free ride to the Louvre, seeing the most famous painting in the world.

Big Oh