-^-for posterity-^-

the holiday season is fast approaching and life here continues to plod along. there is no magic in the air, no consumerism and no family.

when i was young, the holidays were always such a wonderful time. there was so much anticipation surrounding christmas eve and christmas day. i used to sit on the counter of my home with my mother and bake cookies and any other goodie that would fatten us up for a long hard winter of sitting in heated homes.

we used to make fred's spread. it was basically ketchup with pepper. you would eat it with cream cheese on a triscut. what were we thinking?

so, this year, our plans are pretty simple. everyone here is leaving for home except for eric and i. a lot has happened since i was not able to post. we now have a total of 9 foreigners living here (and one more on the way). the newest member is mr. r. eric burdette. he is a fellow bluffton grad and is my mcc colleague. he's a wonderful person and we get along very well. we will stay here for christmas with the dog. we will have rice for christmas and will sit around at night and talk about how wonderful things were when we were children. we will live in the past for those few hours.

thanksgiving was wonderful this year. the foreigners that just arrived were fairly dedicated and organized an entire thanksgiving with stuffing and all. quite an accomplishment when you think about living in a place with no ovens.

vietnam is still wonderful. the view out my window has changed little. the trees have grown and the fish pond across the way has lost some of its water due to the dry season. other than that, we still have little children running about and screaming at the top of their lungs every morning at about 630 and the roads are still crowded with traffic. life is beautiful, but i live in a future world when i will return home to those i truly love.