My blog is born...

My cousin "Eve" in Montréal, a seasoned blogger, introduced me to this site. I've always wanted to leave behind some sort of legacy for my daughter when she grows older, that she might know more of her father, since we don't live together--that she might know more of the world into which she was born.

But since this is my first entry, I suppose I'd better give some context to my musings. So I apologize if this first post is rather lengthy and personal, but--hey, you don't have to read it!

My name is Robin L. M. Cheung. I was born in Alexandria, Ontario, Canada--a small hick town halfway between Ottawa (Canada's Capital) and Montréal, Québec. With a population of just over 2,000, my family were the only four Chinese members of the community. Being a farming town, my father, one of the four town physicians, led a busy life looking after not only the 2,000 town residents, but all the surrounding area residents.

I have a sister, 13 months younger, and a half-brother whom I have not seen since he was born in the late 1980s.

In 1985, my family moved the short hop to Ottawa. What shocked me the most, I guess, was that we were moving from one family home in Alexandria to two separate homes in Ottawa; my parents had legally separated years before and only now revealed it to my sister and me. Before I had a chance to deal with this shock, I realized also that my grade four education from Laggan Public School, about 15 minutes outside of Alexandria in Dalkeith, was not equivalent to the "big city" grade four. Still, I was placed in the enrichment program. When I went to high school, Lisgar Collegiate Institute, I was placed in the gifted program, to which I attibute much of my social ineptitude.

Having graduated from Lisgar, I commenced studies at Carleton University in Biology and Biotechnology. During this time, my life as a raver, DJ, and skydiver took over most of my life and my studies fell to the wayside, unfortunately. By some stroke of luck, I managed to graduate with a Bachelor of Science, Honours, in Biology and Biotechnology. By yet another stroke of luck, I was admitted to McMaster University's Master of Business Administration (MBA) program. I had only applied to McMaster because my sweetheart and later wife (and still later, ex-wife) and soul mate lived near Hamilton and I wanted to be near her always. We first met when I Ashley was 16 and I was 23 and fell in love immediately.

Completing my MBA, Ashley and I moved to Toronto where I worked as a Performance Measurement Consultant at CIBC head office.

November 17, 2002, I married my sweetheart and soul mate, Ashley, and later, July 6, 2003, our daughter was born. She was named Kaitlain Rita Lai Yee Cheung. Ashley and I chose the name Kaitlain because it was as pretty as she was. Lai Yee was chosen as her Chinese name by my father's mother--by then my sole surviving grandmother. I had been extremely close to my maternal grandmother, Rita Cheng, and always knew her to be a fighter, but she passed away in May 2003. She had only seen ultrasound pictures of her great-granddaughter. In her honour, my daughter's Catholic Saint's name became Rita.

Because I wanted to become a teacher, we moved to Ottawa and I began studies again. But the honeymoon was short-lived and September 12, 2003, Ashley returned with our baby to her parents' house in Smithville, Ontario. My heart was broken.

And thus began the rest of my life....