Allow Me To Introduce, Tobie

So some of you have been reading this blog for a while, and may have noticed the name "Tobie" popping up every now and again. Rather than wondering if he/she is my cat/turtle/lesbian lover/stuffed animal I thought I'd write a post about him.

He. Yes, Tobie is a human male (and quite a lovely specimen of that variety in my humble opinion).

We met on Canadian Thanksgiving last year.

This photo was taken about 10mins before we met.

I had just come in the party, with yet another turkey to add to the carving room. He walked up to me and said, "Hello, my name is Tobie and I am not in the medical program but I am a Canadian". I think he was justifying the fact that he had essentially crashed our party but I was more than happy about it. I gave him the 'welcome' greeting and then proceeded to ensure his plastic cup never became low on wine for the rest of the night. I'd seen him around campus because he lived in my building, and had even met him in passing on the day I moved in. I was very very sleep deprived that day and forgot his name and what instrument he played. Just knew that it was something that could be carried in a small-ish case.

He had been invited by Jack (his roommate, my classmate) to the dinner. I think Jack took pity on his French-Canadian roommate that Thanksgiving weekend and told him to come to our big med-student pot-luck-and-turkey extravaganza. Yes, that was the night we really met. If you enlarge the group shot there is Tobie to the far far left with a >0.5 filled plastic cup in his hand.

Apparently the man knew who I was though. He told me months later that I'd caught his eye at the international student day orientation. As proof he described in detail what I was wearing and the question I asked about scholarships in 3rd year. This stayed below 'creepy' on my radar though because by that time I was already in love and just found it amazing that he could remember so much about me before we even knew each other. The kicker to that story is that he also told me that he'd had a very long chat with another international student during the tea-break. Tobie says he would not know the girl if she walked up to him today, nor does he remember where she was from or what she was studying. Yet he remembers my raisin colored Arcteryx rain coat.

The first conversation he overheard me having with my friend Ryan that day was me dropping a list of expletives while conveying my disdain for the liquid sock-juice that Ireland calls "coffee". Yes,  I know, so classy. I was on one of my rants about the poorly constructed brown drink à-la-Emerald-Isle. He noted my hefty travel mug and knew that I took this beverage very seriously. Apparently this scored points with him though and didn't scare him off.

Six weeks later, a lot of turkey, and a discussion regarding random facts about Chip Taylor (that I thought no one else knew) I decided I wanted to get to know this Frenchman without 60 of my classmates around.

Tobie is an extremely dedicated and passionate musician. He is a violist, though he is also a crack mandolin and violin player. He is studying his masters in orchestral string performance in Ireland for one more year. He studies, he plays, he practices, he writes, he teaches, and then he practices some more.

We've had to spend most of the last 3 months apart and it has been really difficult. This time apart makes it onto the blog because it is part of the struggle and sacrifice that comes with me becoming a physician, i.e. the main thread that runs through my posts.  I write a post about him today because he is part of this journey with me now and where I go in medicine and in life will be with him. Also, I decided that if he was going to have his own label on the blog he deserved a proper introduction.

I should add that like me, he gave up almost everything to pursue his dreams so he gets it. He also prepares a mean BBQ trout, makes me laugh, likes shoe shopping, loves his family, and listens to great music (though he does have questionable taste in podcasts--has anyone ever heard of Fretboard Journal Podcast? Yeah, I lovingly refer to it as the Fretfully Bored Journal Podcast.)

So in a brief handful of paragraphs that is Tobie. When (if) he reads this he is either going to kill me or kiss me! hehehe

This photo was taken about 6 months after we met.