Five years ago today...

From my April 16th, 2003 Livejournal entry:

"Elizabeth was born at 2:37 AM, April 16th, via c-section, about 20 hours after we'd arrived at the hospital. Labour was going nowhere, and the baby's heart rate was crazy-go-nuts, so they made the decision to do a c-section around 8:30 PM. Then we have to wait 6 hours for that, and the whole procedure took 30 min. We couldn't get a private room - there's a rush on babies apparently - so I got sent home at 4:50 AM. And now I'm going to bed for 4 hours, and heading back out.

Pictures later when I dig out my Chinon-3000 P.O.S. digital camera, and content when I haven't been awake 27 hours straight."

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth. We love you!

Hmm.

I had lunch with anidada. We bought some sandwiches from a new Middle-Eastern place at Church and Dundas that's running a week-long $1 sandwich, $1 salad special. We took our sandwiches up to the Ryerson campus, and sat talking as we ate.

As previously noted, Ryerson is where I got my bachelor degree. I occasionally wander around the campus on my lunchtime walks, noting the many changes that have been made since I was there. Anytime I'm there, I am plagued with a sort of ill-defined regret that I didn't live on campus. I regret all the missed opportunities and life-experiences. I made exactly one friend in those four years, and spend most of time between classes in the library, writing RPG adventures or reading.

However, as I expressed some of this sentiment over lunch, I realized suddenly that the regret was entirely baseless. I was a very different person then. The personality traits that prevented me from socializing with my classmates would not have disappeared simply because I was on campus. I can remember, for example, being invited out for drinks, or to the game club, and refusing simply because I felt vaguely superior to my classmastes. If I'd been on campus, I'd have simply been seeing less of velvetpage and my gaming friends, and been lonely.

The regret just sort of vanished when I examined it. Also, the sandwich and conversation were both good.

And, here's an image - a better angle of track 2, with the spring sunshine pouring down.