Tuesday, March 6, 2018

New Host Family

The last month I've around moved a lot. I was in a home for three weeks sharing a room with a friend that spends week days on her university campus. Within those three weeks I also went to Shifen, a town in the mountains of Taipei district (the story is in my last blog post) then back to their house. Then moved again to a more permanent home. I stole my host brothers room for the time I am here but he also tays on campus at his university the majority of the time. I believe he will not come back for the time I am here. Ten minutes into being in the house, one of their dogs already liked me and the other not very much. I ended up being bitten by the meaner dog, his name is Cocoa, and have a nasty looking bite mark on my knee surrounded by small bruises. Thankfully he is a small dog so he isn't able to do much damage. If he were a large dog and still that mean I would maybe have a chunk out of me right now. They locked him in the bathroom for the rest of that day with his water and food. The next day I came downstairs to see he had a duck looking mussle on. He continued to try to attack me even though he wasn't able to bite me and his nails are too short to scratch. As I've been trying to get used to a new family and not being able to speak any enlgish with them, only chinese and a new neighborhood, the dog being this way was not helping but the other dog is so sweet, his name is Happy, and loves everyone so I enjoy his company a lot. Everyday I walk to school, about a half an hour walk and bus home. Yestaerday, I came back and had bought some curry dumplings from my favourite dumpling house. The dog was barking and attacking the door until I opened it and he smelt the curry dumplings. He then began to rub and jump on my leg trying to be cute in hopes of getting food. I didn't share my dumplings with him but I did give him and Happy treats. Later on we took his mussle off and he was fine for the rest of the night to be without it. This morning I woke up to his barking and after I was ready, went down stairs to see he was trapped in the bathroom again. Even though he was barking I thought it would be fine to let him out and give him a treat to keep him more calm towards me. So as I ate breakfast I fed them their treats as well. He is now more used to me and I can stop worrying about making everyone stress about it and stressing him out. I really do miss living with a dog and now I live with two so I am happy that they both like me now. Although I cannot wait to get back to my big chubby puppy in Canada.
This morning I skyped my friend Keyle for a few hours and we caught up on everything thats been happening in eachothers lives. She is now back in Brazil because she finished her year in December. We talked about everything and how she is doing back there with her final year of school and how the rest of my exchange is going. We also talked about my trip to Brazil in early 2019 and if my school in Canada will help me to graduate on time for that. I am currently waiting on a reply to my email of the courses I need. I was very blunt in the email though, I specifically said that I need these courses because I will leave the country again right after January. Hopefully it didn't sound too demanding but thats what I need. If they think its not possible then I will have to call the principal to explain furhtr in depth and make it more clear what needs to happen. I am very tired of all the years struggling with the public school system to get what I need. It's the last time I will deal with this, I cannot wait until university when I get to choose what I am studying, which will be translation and linguistics.
Also, I have a new favourite bakery where I get my favourite brownies with cheesecake on the inside. Lantern festival was last weekend and I saw it in the daytime and night time, although I kind of wished is was sky lanterns and not these ones but they are prtty too and there were way too many people there at night. There are beautiful flowers and cherry blossoms everywhere since it is now spring. Last but not least my Chinese culture class is teaching us how to paint like a traditional Chinese artist, although we will never be THAT good.