OK, so today is my 29th birthday, but by no means this is the most important thing on my mind. Let me reflect on life shaping events of the past week.
Most of all I got engaged with Ji. As I wrote it in the email:

"Last night (Thursday, January 31, 2002) we went out with Ji, played in the snow on the beach, had a lot of fun, then I proposed to her in beautiful surroundings of the snow-covered park, I gave her a nice platinum three-diamond ring and now we are engaged to be married."

Today we watched "Forces of Nature," a very appropriate movie for the occasion. I mostly doubted myself if I will ever be a good partner to such a good girl as Ji is, I hope I will, people do change, contrary to what my sister said, and I think I changed a lot.
I have no reservations to whether I made a right choice, if ever, anybody, Ji is the best that could happen to me, a real treasure.

Also, after the ten years in the country, of which four I served in U.S. Marines, I finally got my US citizenship, which is very good news, for me and for Ji.
With the citizenship I changed my legal name to Uki Dominque Lucas, boy, I still have to communicate that to my father....