my life abroad: Updates and Stuffs

So I haven't written a blog post all year and had the urge to do it today to update what's been going on in Taiwan since being back.

When I got back to Taiwan, Aaron and I moved in together. I love living with my best friend. He's always there when I need him and knows exactly what I need on any given day (whether it's a movie night in, a glass on wine, a hug, you name it).

Our second year of teaching started off as any other; a whirlwind. Unfortunately it seems like that whirlwind hasn't stopped (or even slowed down) yet. It's definitely easier than last year, that's for sure. Last year I really struggled with classroom management but this year it's easy because I'm basically doing the exact opposite of what I did last year. On that note, it's also extremely helpful to have administrators who are very in-tuned with the students and have been holding those students accountable from the start of the year.

I'm teaching all ninth grade this year and I love it! I love 9th grade Literature and have been expanding a lot on activities and projects. The students are so much more engaged and, I like to think, they're learning more than my 9th graders did last year because of this.

After two months of solid teaching, we finally had a break! Aaron and I went to the beautiful city of Hong Kong with the Perezs and had a wonderful time! They had been to the city before so they knew where to go for the short amount of time we had on vacation. We ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp (I haven't been to a BGS since going to Universal Studios in 2009) at the Peak and even got to spend a day at Disneyland! It was Aaron's first time in a Disney theme park and, let's just say, we're definitely going to go to another Disney theme park again.

Then we had to go back to work and had another two months of solid teaching before another break. During those two months, we read Romeo and Juliet, wrote countless papers and got a lot done.

For Christmas Break, we went to Malaysia. Aaron and I went last year for Christmas and loved it. We said if we were to go back, we would bring our friends so the Perezs and Rymans joined us! We took the red-eye flight to Langkawi (always a treat), got to our hotel and were able to relax before going out to dinner.

Little did I know that Aaron would FREAKING PROPOSE!!!!!!

That's right. We got engaged.

IN MALAYSIA!

ON A BEACH!!

We spent sunset overlooking the beach and surrounding islands celebrating our engagement which was amazing!

Everything about it was perfect.

After that, the rain came. And it rained, and rained, and rained. But that didn't stop us!

We went to the alligator farm and fed some babies and hung out with the mamas.

There was also a giant lizard that ran on the path in front of us and made me almost crap my pants.

We went on the catamaran with Rampant Sailing again on Christmas Eve, which was wonderful, OF COURSE! Even in the drizzle we still had a blast and spent the day on a catamaran.

We also went zip-lining on Christmas Day. It wasn't hard at all and I definitely didn't hit my head.

We also went into a bat cave.

There is a hell.

By some miracle, I survived.

The last day of vacation we didn't have any rain so we went to the beach! We stayed completely sober the whole time and definitely didn't have a hangover for the flight back to Taichung the next day.