Of all these things, I think I will miss the Magnum Bars the most....

All of the work that I'm doing with developing (and implementing) the preschool curriculum has been going incredibly well, but MAN....it is GRUELING. The GOOD thing is that I love the work that I'm doing. The BAD thing is that it feels a bit like I'm diggin' a hole in a bucket of water. I worked for FOURTEEN HOURS yesterday (most of it at school, but some of it at home), and let me tell ya.....even with all of those hours I still feel like I can barely catch my breath.

In order to keep things positive (as that's just how I've been living my life lately....ewwww, that's probably the most obnoxious sentence ever written.....anyway, moving on....), I would like to share some things that are rocking my world right now:

-Magnum ice cream bars (in classic or almond). Holy lord. These things are *orgasmically* good. I'm plotting ways to ship some to the U.S. over winter break so that I don't go into withdrawal and get the shakes.

-Motorcycle taxis. Now, Peter does not approve of this mode of transportation, and neither does my mother after reading about one particular motorcycle trip, but these things are awesome. When you are traveling by motorcycle, your days of sitting in Bangkok traffic are over! Your (orange vest-clad) driver just zig-zags through the stalled vehicles while you try to compact yourself as much as possible in order to avoid the various mirrors and fenders other car extremities. What would take a half hour in a regular taxi can take ten on a motorcycle (or "motosai."). Plus, well, forgive me for this, but sometimes I just like to close my eyes and breathe deeply as we zoom through the muggy haze of Bangkok air. It's difficult for one's mind to wander out of the present moment while on the back of a motorcycle.

-Pirated DVDs. I'm looking forward to stocking up on more tomorrow, and wondering what the hell I'm going to do when I move back to the U.S. and DVDs are $20 bucks a pop (and, yes, I can download and burn and all that jazz, but I have no idea how to do any of that, nor do I have the patience to learn. Did I mention that I worked for FOURTEEN HOURS yesterday??).

-Street vendors. Now, the street vendors selling various roadside delicacies are nothing new. You can't swing a fake Chanel purse without hitting ten of them. However, it hasn't been until recently that I've really NOTICED them in all of their fabulous (and filthy) glory. While I will most likely never eat from one again after suffering through many street vendor-induced bouts of tummy issues, they really are SOMETHING. Raw chicken and beef dangling like ribbons from a rusty bar, peppered in flies. Fresh fruit stacked in such a way that you wouldn't want to buy any of it and disrupt the symmetry. Ice cream vendors with their little bells, putting scoops of coconut ice cream into hot dog buns (yes, HOT DOG BUNS!!). Pomelo and dragonfruit and rambutan and mangosteen and lychee and durian....all fruits that look and sound like they should be in a Dr. Seuss book. And always, right near by, are the plastic chairs and tables, where people are hunched over, scooping mouthfuls of food into their mouths ever so slowly. Savoring it. Breathing between bites (something that the American coding in my DNA still has not allowed me to learn how to do. Especially not during a fourteen hour work day).

-Preschool curriculum. OMG. Loves.

-When I asked my students what would happen next if the main character in a story (who is a dog, and who goes to sleep at the end) decided to NOT, in fact, go to sleep at the end, one of my students responded that he would wake up with "panda eyes" the next day from not getting enough sleep the night before. Panda eyes. That is awesome. Three-year-olds rock.

-Paying the equivalent of $1.00 for a very full meal.

-Scrapbooks that are covered in Thai silk. And, um, scrapbooking. Revisiting old trips. Adoring Asia through pictures. Writing silly captions. Giving crumpled ticket stubs a special place of honor.

What is rocking your world right now?