Countdown.

20 days until the last day of school.
23 days until I am back in Canada and can party it up with family and friends.
35 days until I leave Canada for Iceland.
37 days until Liebling comes to pick me up at London Heathrow and we begin our European adventure.

20 days until the last day of school. I am excited to rid myself of students, grading papers, editing report cards, staff meetings, dealing with unsavoury colleagues, parents, “situations, and the low-grade stress of always having “something else to do”. I am excited to be able to sleep in past 6am, still be in bed at 7am instead of already being at work by 7:15, and have my afternoons free to do whatever I want at my leisure.

23 days until I am back in Canada and can party it up with family and friends. I am excited to go home, back to “normality”, good fast food, good friends who just “get” me, going shopping with Mom, mega-malls in general, and movies that you can go to with having to purchase the tickets in advance (like you do in Hong Kong). I am excited for clean air, blue skies, wide open spaces (amen!), patios in downtown Toronto and going out to clubs with no smoking (eureka!) and good hip-hop music.

35 days until I leave Canada for Iceland. I am excited for discovery, craving the new-ness and change of pace/place, looking forward to the adventure. I am excited to have some alone-time on this trip, even if just for a short while, excited to see the Blue Lagoon, and have my skin benefit from the therapy that the country’s pristine thermal baths have to offer.

37 days until Liebling comes to pick me up at London Heathrow and we begin our European adventure. I am excited for summer loving, discovering the treasures of London, walking hand and hand with Liebling in narrow cobblestone streets, and retiring my Skype account and long-distance phone cards for at least for a little while. I am excited to explore new and familiar territories in the company of my partner, go home with him and meet his loved ones and visit his old stomping grounds, and have opportunity to practise my German with real-live germanophones. I am excited to try Swedish meatballs. I am excited for pasta and limoncello in the Italian sun and practising my breaststroke in the shallowest parts of the Mediterranean just off the Dalmatian coast.

In summary, I am excited about life and anxiously anticipating what’s to come.
Thankfully, time is ticking.