born to be....

...a veterinarian/animal rescuer?

I visited Animals Taiwan, an animal shelter in Taipei, today for orientation because I want to do something with my weekend mornings instead of sleeping in til 11am. The shelter is a little bit outside of the hustle and bustle of the city and more in the "countryside" as my dad calls it. Lucky for me, it's conveniently located behind the metro bus stop. The shelter is smaller than what I had expected and stinky as heck. I was plugging my nose almost the whole time, but I knew I had to endure it for the sake of injured dogs of Taiwan. While reading the shelter's brochure and flipping through the ready-to-be-adopted binder almost brought me to tears. There were pictures of dogs that were rescued and brought over to the shelter at near death, but are fortunately healthy and happy now. The shelter was founded by a British expatriate in 2004, and since then has rescued over 400 animals. Seeing these dogs, happy and healthy who were once very malnourished and near death point, touched my heart and felt like relief.

After visiting the shelter and walking around the neighborhood looking for a bus stop, there was a mommy dog with three little pups. One saw us and started to follow me. He was sooo cute--a yellow lab and looked like Marley (from Marley & Me film, and well don't all yellow lab pups look alike?). That was the moment that a light bulb went off in my head--I should be a veterinarian or something relating to rescuing animals, not someone dealing art or working in marketing. And, ugh, it took me this long to realize that I should be doing that?? My mom always said to me, since I was pretty young, that I should be a veternarian or zoologist because I love animals SO MUCH. But I always shrugged off her suggestion and would say "nah I don't think I can see myself doing that. I see myself living in a big city, wearing stylish clothes..." You know, living the high roller life.

Well, I guess I still have a while to figure it all out. Although I only have two years of undergraduate study left, and I am studying/majoring in something totally unrelated to animals, I know that whatever I study doesn't necessarily have to do with my career. I study X, and can still work in Y job (Raul's insightful advice).

Now onto updating posts from Macau/HK weekend...FINALLY :0)