The End is Near

So our boss emailed us back and our last day of work is January 26th. I will be booking my flight home in the next week or so and then we can all start the official countdown. The second I told my mother, she started counting the days. 

I don't think I mentioned it on the blog yet but Rick is not coming back to Canada at the same time as me. He wants to stay in Taiwan for a few more weeks to do some more travelling around the island. After that, he is planning on going to Sri Lanka, then Vietnam and possibly Cambodia. I still don't believe he will actually go through with this travelling alone thing but only time will tell. If anything, I really hope he does go to Sri Lanka. One of our very good friend's (Tarisha) is from there and her father had told us before we came to Taiwan that if we wanted to go to Sri Lanka, all we would have to do was book our flight and the rest would be taken care of. So Rick is taking him up on that offer. I really don't have any interest in doing any more travel than we already have done/will do. Plus if you take into consideration my debt from school, along with the fact that I will be making more school debt when I come home, I can't justify travelling any longer. I also just really wanna get home.

I think I have found a friend to watch Atlas while we are in Thailand. He said yes but on the condition that his roommate is okay with it. His roommate has allergies and was concerned about Atlas staying there for two weeks so we are doing a dry run this Sunday. Let's hope it goes well or off to the kennel for my baby!

This Sunday, we are headed to Taipei so it worked out well that Kyle wanted to watch Atlas for us. Rick is participating in a research study, he will be getting an fMRI procedure done. They will be watching how his brain reacts when he is shown English words in comparison to someone who is a non-Native speaker. Originally, we were both supposed to do the study. But when they called to confirm, they mentioned if there is a history of epilepsy that you cannot do the procedure. While I didn't have epilepsy, I told them about my seizure disorder. They then said I couldn't do the study because the procedure has the ability to cause a seizure. So I will go to support Rick and watch him get poked and prodded. Before the study, we are going to eat some nice Greek food and cupcakes. I am pretty excited. 

I leave you with pictures of the cutest dog in the world...

My own personal minion

He really needed a haircut!

Goodbyes, Manhood, and Teachers' College

We have been back from Hong Kong for about a week now and we got right back into the swing of things! This week I am planning on writing the blogs about Hong Kong. We did SO much while we were there, that I feel like it was for more than 4 days so let's see how long these blogs take me to write.

In the past couple days, we have had to say goodbye to some good friends leaving Taiwan. Saying goodbye is kind of surreal but really sad. And the goodbyes are nowhere near finished. Still have more friends leaving in the next couple weeks and it will be really hard to say goodbye.

In other news, we have booked Atlas' surgery to have his manhood removed. Our vet speaks a little English so we went in to book the appointment. Getting your pet spayed or neutered isn't that popular in Taiwan, a lot of people think it is pointless and they don't have it done. But the government here is really trying to promote it because of the massive stray dog problem that Taiwan has. So it is really cheap to get done here. In comparison to the $400 CAD it would cost us in Canada, it will cost us $62 CAD in Taiwan. So we are going for it.

The funny thing is when we went in to the vet, we kept saying to her we want to get him neutered. And she didn't understand the word. So we keep gesturing and nothing. I have an app on my phone that does translations for me so I search it and show her the Chinese character for what we want and she goes, OHHH. And then proceeds to write down "castration," on the calendar. Which I thought was interesting because even though I know that is what they do to him, I've never heard it called that before in reference to a dog. And then I realized we probably call it neutering in Canada/America so that pet owners don't feel bad about what they are doing to their dog. Regardless, the date has been set. October 5th. Atlas will go from a boy to a man to a boy. He doesn't seem aware of his fate.

Next piece of news is that I have officially applied to Teacher's College! Said goodbye to $423 (I cried..), and I have applied to three schools; Brock, York, and Western. Brock being my first choice, obviously seeing as I would love for my mother to continue making my meals when I return. York is my second choice as Toronto is super convenient for people from Niagara to come see me and easy for me to make my way home. Western is my third choice because I love the city of London and a lot of people there. The easy part of applying is done, they have taken my money. However each school has another form I have to fill out. I will basically be writing the same essay three times about why I want to be a teacher and how my experiences will help me. Anyone want to do some editing for me? I am already 75% finished the Western supplementary form, just one part to go. Western is nice enough to make their form available online ahead of time. I have to wait until mid-October for Brock's and York is supposed to make it available to me once they have received confirmation that I have applied.

Other than that, nothing is new here. Keep an eye out for what we did in Hong Kong, that will be up soon! And just wanted to say Congratulations to my cousin Chris and his amazing wife Chelsea! They got married today and I wish them the best! Sad that I couldn't be there but I was thinking of them all day today!