The Company I was working at here in Canada understandably needed a date that I was leaving, so I gave them my best guess. I told them I was leaving Canada on the 25th of August. So I finished work on the 21st. This week, I have been relaxing, trying to find things to keep my mind busy while waiting for My visa letter, We cannot go without that. I have been in contact with my School In China, addressing concerns about our re-emigration. Right Now all we can do is sit and wait, and this is the thing that drives my wife and I crazy.

Now to be fair, the lateness is not the school’s fault. When they sent us the requirements for a visa we had difficulty on our end. They were told that we needed a medical Check, but only from doctor that had been screened by the Chinese Embassy. That was were the problem arose. According to the Chinese Visa Center, Medical checks have not been needed since 2012. This information was not available online. I had to take a day off work to go to the Visa center to find this out as it is in downtown Vancouver. Then we had to have the school verify that it was still needed, so they had to talk to immigration there. After this we had to find a doctor to request the medical tests, which was no problem, but the tests could only half be done nearby, we had to travel to a different town to do the x-rays. (The local X-ray center won’t do any immigration requested tests.)So it took us longer than we had hoped to get the papers fed-exed to the school in China.

Work begins next week, and classes start the following Monday, September 7th. I am pretty sure we will be late for class. I’m not 100% sure of what classes I will be teaching, but I have asked so that I can spend some of this free time preparing classes. That is what the rest of the teachers will be doing next week., My being late should not be an excuse for being unprepared in my mind. I have Digital copies of the lower grades English and Science books from when I taught them last time I was working there. I would like to touch up my old lesson plans, but I want to focus on the classes I will actually teach.

We have worries about where we will stay for the first month or two, while we look for our own apartment. Coming late doesn’t give us any time to find a place of our own. Since The kids and I will be in class most of the day 5 days a week. That leaves only Irish to look most of the time to look. Unfortunately she cannot speak Chinese, and is really shy, almost cripplingly so. So we need to spend some time finding our place together.

I won’t lie, financial concerns for the first month are a big stress. But Once we have gotten past the first month, we should be fine financially. We have budgeted out enough for our expenses in China and enough to pay our debts in Canada. Irish and I have both learned a lot about family financial planning in the first 8 years of our marriage, and even though we both started off terrible with money, we are confident that we are going to be able to do all this. The hard part about finances is when you move to a new place where you don’t know the cost of things or the amount you will have coming in.

We will be fine, and when paperwork is finished we will be returning to Canada. Please be patient with us, and we will keep you all updated as we go.