A New Beginning

Know what? My engagement ring is sitting on my girlfriend's finger. And you all know what that means... Woohoo! I'm now engaged and no longer available (not that anyone else really cares whether I'm available or not...).

And that's not the only thing that's marking the start of another phase of my life. We just placed our booking for a rather nice house; it comes with a rather big price tag but we have support and encouragement from both families so we went ahead.

Wow, two big commitments in a single day. Time to really grow up (and tighten my belt... no more snacks and supper). Have to budget things really carefully now, both to pay the initial payment as much as possible, and to leave enough to get some basic furnishings as well as preparations for the coming marriage.

Thank you Lord for such a wonderful family. Thank the Lord for my beloved. And thank the Lord for all His blessings.

Wedding Rings

In case anyone's interested, and since I remembered neotrax's post on diamonds, I found a little primer on the wedding bands as well. More importantly, it talks about platinum versus white gold, and another on platinum wedding bands.

In summary of those links, here's are a few points which I think are interesting and rather significant:

• A ton of platinum ore only produces about an ounce (~28.35 grams) of platinum.
  
• Platinum is at least as strong as white gold, if not more.
  
• Platinum 950/1000 means 95% platinum. The other 5% is alloyed for casting and shaping purposes so it doesn't matter. But do note that some are 900/1000 (90%) platinum.
  
• White gold and yellow gold are the same metal, but different alloy.
  
• Yellow gold is gold alloyed with copper, zinc, and silver.
  
• White gold is gold alloyed with copper, zinc, and nickel.
  
• 24 karat gold is 100% gold. Pure gold is actually quite soft, softer than silver. It scratches easily. 18 karat gold is about 75% gold, while 14 karat gold is about 58.33% gold. The less gold in it, the more scratch-resistant, but less "gold-looking".
  
• A scratch on platinum or white gold is not an actual visible scratch. Platinum scratches causes furrows to build up on the metal, making it look frosted. Scratches on white gold actually removes metal, causing it to lose its whiteness and look yellow-ish.
  
• Apparently, burnishing a platinum back to shine is actually cheaper than doing the same for white gold. Platinum burnishing involves pushing or flattening the built-up furrows. Burnishing white gold usually involves coating on a layer of Rhodium (white-ish metal), possibly every 2 to 3 years. Platinum will always be white.
  
• Most interesting is that it tells of retailers biasing towards white gold due to reasons of economy. It makes more business sense to get rid of their white gold stock (since it's cheaper than platinum) than to order a new platinum band.
  

Marriage

I'm sure all you dating people out there have given thought about marriage right? I guess I'm in a dilemma. See, my girlfriend's older (a small number, but in years) than I am; so naturally, she'll start getting all that pressure to get married earlier than me. On the one hand, I don't want her to have to go through them each time she meet up with relatives (luckily her parents didn't); and on the other hand, I don't want to get married before I'm financially secure and ready. Solution? Work hard I guess. This lecturing contract, supplemented with part-time research claims, is probably not enough. Night job? One more part-time job? Sigh. Like a good friend of mine said: "You just have to make sure you grow up faster."