Always Want What You Can't Have

My countdown on my widget screen tells me that I have 42 days 3 hours and 24 minutes until I'm on a plane headed for NYC. Maybe it's not good to be counting down like that, but my schedule here and the busyness of this next month prevents me from checking out. I am however starting to make a list of things I cannot wait for once I hit US soil. I'm even beginning to see things that I am actually going to miss and will notice the void.

Things I'm excited for: mostly you will see this pertains to food, of course.

• soy milk-yay! no more boxed long life milk!-don't ask if you don't know what that is.
• cereal-cheap yummy goodness-my staple
• FLAVORED, LIQUID coffee creamer
• Mexican food of any kind-the price I must pay for a simple avocado and a bag of chips here makes me long for the mounds of near rotten avocados at Winco.
• burritos-they deserve a category all on their own
• fruit-fresh, yummy crunchy fruit.
• skirts, t-shirts, tank tops, sun on my skin
• working electrical outlets and no need to plug in 5 adapters and extension cords just to plug one thing in
• driving a car
• hanging out with my friends at all hours of the night.
• seeing my dear friends and family
• Target! and basically anything related to shopping
• New clothes-these that I've been wearing for a year have been eaten by the weather, smoke, and my washing machine

Things I might actually miss:

• knowing specifically what time it is when each call to prayer goes off-while haunting and sad, its reminds me all the time why I'm here and what is important.
• good Middle Eastern food-shwarma and falafel-you are the death of me, but what will I do without you?
• my friends here-they have become my family, I can't imagine surviving this country without them
• being in the center of the action-the ME is changing-things are happening-I dread going back to the bubble of America
• my students-while crazy and make me crazy-I will miss them greatly.
• I'll miss my corner dukkan(stores) where I can always run to buy anything I need at anytime.
• Quiet Friday mornings-people actually taking a day off

Things I WILL NOT miss no matter how much you pay me:

• gas tank trucks driving by the house every 2 hours playing the same ice cream truck music-but trust me, it DOESN'T sell ice cream.
• the call to prayer going off at 4am-and you can't forget the guy who proceeds it by saying over and over that praying IS better than sleeping.
• the 5 million comments a day made to me by bored shebab (young men) who have nothing better to do than shout out to women on the street.
• hot weather + completely covered up=sweating all the time
• the immense amount of skanky cats screeching, piled up in the dumpsters spreading their manginess all around. sick.
• smoking inside and everywhere-I cannot express to you how much I HATE putting on clean clothes after a shower only to catch a taxi and emerge reeking for the rest of the day.

As you can see the things I will not miss may have turned out to be a slightly bigger category, but I really did try hard to think of things I'll miss. Probably more things than I care to realize.

42 days 3 hours 2 minutes 14 seconds....but who's counting.