Come Gatherin’ Round People Wherever You Roam

Wow. The year is coming to an end. Changes are taking place.

Today I rescheduled our flight to Michigan. We recently found the apartment we want to live in next year in Taipei and this week we’ll seal the deal with the landlord there. Now I need to find someone who has a truck and can help us move and schedule a moving day. Also we need to go down to the immigration office and get our ARC (Alien Resident Certificate) cards renewed for next year. What do all these things have in common? They all signify the end of this year and our eminent departure for home!!!!!

I’m pumped! I’m pumped to eat Qdoba. I’m pumped to drink some real beer. I’m pumped to understand the sermons at church. I’m pumped to drive a car. I’m pumped to work without it being related to teaching English. I’m pumped to see family. I’m pumped to see friends. I’m pumped to just hang out in completely familiar surroundings with completely familiar foods, sounds, smells, and the rest of it.

I’m crossing over into “its been nice but time to go” phase. The “I’m not here but I’m not there yet” phase.

We’ve met some great people here in Taoyuan though. I’ll be sad to be in Taipei next year and therefore see a lot less of our good Taoyuan friends…..overjoyed to have a shorter commute but there are always trade offs as we’ve learned from Gregory Mankiw’s 10 Principles of Economics.

Emily and I, while we’re home, want to spend time at both of our families homes, make a trip south for the annual Muffett family-get-together, earn enough money to cover airfare as window washers/odd jobs doers, and visit as many friends as possible before leaving again.

By the way I’d just like to take this opportunity to say I’ve married an amazing women. She found us a primo apartment in Taipei in a primo location for an incredibly awesome price. The only hitch is its a shared apartment so we’ll have the ‘ol dice throw to determine good roomies or bad. I’m fairly excited about it and really grateful both to God and to Emily for all her hard work and taking the time to look and find a good one! I’d also like to take this opportunity to let you all she’s first in her class (or maybe its second?) and was accepted into National Taiwan Normal University which is one of the more prestigious universities here in Taiwan to continue her studies next year. I’ll let her tell you more about that but needless to say I am proud.