Almost Christmas

It's almost Christmas, and I'm a little stressed. I don't have a lot of money, as I am currently dropping my students one-by-one to make room in my schedule for my buxiban (cram school) classes. That's right, I am about to embark on the road of small business. Vanessa and I purchased a small wenli buxiban (a wenli buxiban teaches subjects like chemistry, mathematics, Chinese as well as English), but we are changing it into an English-only cram school. We're still waiting to hear if our name is approved or not. The minute it is approved, I'll let you guys know what it is.

Home life is good. Vanessa and I are turning out to be a pretty good team. We have our arguments, but the fallout from them is less and less all the time. We're both a little stressed about the business, but I'm hoping that once the uncertainty of everything has faded, we'll be a little more sure of ourselves and more relaxed. In the meantime, we're enjoying our dog's company immensely. We got Gustav on August 29th, the same day we got back from our family reunion in Canada. We got him from a very reputable breeder in Australia, one Merrilyn Walsh, and we have been completely happy with him. He's a purebred chocolate Labrador Retriever, with a bloodline more distinguished than that of most people I know. His offical kennel papers from Oz list five generations of ancestors, and of the 62 dogs that have contributed to his genetic makeup named there, 39 of them are "champions", which is the official rank the kennel association gives dogs who have taken first place in 3 or more dog shows. Or something like that. Anyway, we didn't care about his royal status, we just wanted a dog that was healthy and sound.