Kapjagi Canada

The pride and joy of our apartment

1st day of school!

Hey, it's been a while!  A lot has changed in our lives since our last post and perhaps some of you are interested to hear about it.  Trevor and I are now in Winnipeg, Manitoba all the way up here in Canada! A lot of people have asked us why in the world we would come here of all places.  Seems a bit random eh?  It's all due to the fact that Trevor got into graduate school here.  The professor he is working with wanted Trevor on his research team which means he is basically getting paid to get his Master's Degree.  And guess what else? My little smarty pants is so amazing he even got a scholarship (which doesn't directly give us more money but helps the school make up for the tuition they're basically paying for)! Isn't he just the best?!?

So, the past couple of months have been spent planning, fretting, apartment searching, worrying, packing, moving, unpacking, packing again sort of (long story), stressing, moving, unpacking, starting grad school (for Trevor), and an abundant amount of job searching (for me).  I can't begin to thank everyone who helped us on the journey especially Trevor's family for letting us store all of our stuff in their house, helping us pack up our u-haul and helping us haul our trailer all the way to South Dakota.  I also have a heart full of gratitude to who used to be complete strangers to us, the Smith family.  Even though they had never met us, they reached out to us and let us stay in their home until we found our own apartment.  They were extremely kind, hospitable and crucially helpful in our move and adjustment to the city.

There is so much to talk about concerning the first couple of weeks in a new city, but there's too much and if I start going into all the frustrating things, it just makes me not want to be here anymore (moving to a new city is hard!) so I've been really trying to think of the fun and positive things we've been doing!

One of our first excursions was of course (who can guess...it was Trevor's pick...it has to do with animals...) to the zoo!  The Assiniboine Park Zoo is especially known for its polar bear exhibit (it is Canada after all, eh).  Aside from the pristine polar bear exhibit, my favorites were the butterfly greenhouse (I wish I would have taken more pictures there) and the snow leopard (gotta support my love for felines).  Another favorite excursion was to a sculpture/botanical garden.  I guess you can say Trevor and I have a mutual adoration for living things.

Most of our time so far has been spent getting to know the city and going here there and everywhere to stock up our new apartment with new furniture and food.  If you ask me though, it's a lot easier to do here than in Korea because guess what? They speak English over here! Yay!!! Otherwise, Trevor has been busy getting things started at school and has even gone out in the field doing data collection on bats (gross, I know ;) ).  I am still looking for a job and even though it's been almost 7 weeks, I'm still waiting on my work visa to be accepted so basically every time employers hear I'm still waiting on that, I never hear from them again although I've gone to several interviews.  Ah well, patience is a virtue I guess.  My patience doesn't run out very fast but the people at the visa office are making it wear very thin these days!

Well, that's it for us for now.  I don't know how often I'll update the blog now because hopefully I'll be busy with a full-time job and Trevor will be busy with grad school.  I'm thinking that the next place we move has to start with a c/k sound so we can keep up with this kapjagi alliteration theme!  Here's to hoping the next blog update is about a job offer!  Until then, any prayers pointed our way are extremely appreciated :)