Home Ceremony Reception Registry Bridal Party Engagement Party Our Story Photos		I met Ben January 1998, between years 11 and 12, at the National Youth Science Forum in Canberra. Ben recalls that the first time he saw me I was running past him after being bitten by bull ants. I remember meeting Ben the next day, and remember thinking that he was really entertaining and unique, and was fun to be around. After returning home two weeks later, we saw each other several times in Melbourne where we lived with our respective families. In June 1998 I was really thrilled to be invited to Ben's year 12 formal—I liked him a lot and hoped that he liked me too. I remember shopping for a dress for Ben's formal, hoping that the dress would impress him. Little did we know that our feelings for one-another were reciprocated and we started dating after Ben's formal. In 1999 we began combined Science/Engineering degrees together at the University of Melbourne. While spending some time living apart—Ben interning in Sydney and on exchange at Stanford and myself interning in Sydney & Adelaide and on exchange at Carnegie Mellon—our bond only grew stronger. During our years together in Melbourne much of our personalities changed: our fashion sense, musical interests, tastes and much more. But amazingly these characteristics have continued to evolve harmoneously. In 2003 we applied to graduate schools in America, hoping to get into schools in the same city. Fortunately we were both able to move to Berkeley to start school in 2004 together. Ben has always encouraged me to pursue my interests, to 'go for it'. For example I recently started taking introductory German at Berkeley and we are now planning a trip to Germany for our next Spring Break. Living together has seen our relationship grow in new ways, and we are both so happy together and are excited to be getting married in Melbourne. I first saw Juliet on the first or second day of NYSF'98. Much to my delight we met the very next day and hit it off. I immediately thought that Juliet was very cute; and despite tireless prodding from my new-found friends in Canberra, I didn't believe that Juliet liked me too, so six months passed before I asked her out on a date. In the meantime our friendship continued to grow as we discovered the many passions we had in common such as classical music (Juliet on violin and later piano, myself on viola/piano), amateur physics and even Star Trek. Luckily for me we both decided to undertake the same combined degree at Melbourne Uni, and we started out by taking a number of general-interest classes in Computer Science and Physics together, which was really fun, later specialising into slightly different majors. In 2003 we decided to apply for doctoral programs in the States, and began to undertake the arduous task together. After landing offers at coinciding universities, we were very fortunate to enter Berkeley's Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences department in August of 2004. This was an exciting time for us, presenting both opportunities and challenges. Coinciding with our moving in together, was making many wonderful new friends, getting to know our way around a new country and a new university, taking challenging but stimulating graduate courses, finding advisors, starting research and performing teaching duties. The mutual encouragement and support shared between Juliet and I has been extremely rewarding during this time. Besides our studies we have also enjoyed interning in Silicon Valley, several skiing trips to Lake Tahoe, Salt Lake City & Whistler, and trips around California, Florida and Hawaii.
		3 JUN 2007 04:00:00 UTCsince our wedding!! Updated $Date: 2007-06-04 08:43:37 -0700 (Mon, 04 Jun 2007) $