<ol>
	<li>I am me.</li>
	<li>My MoM and dAd.</li>
	<li>This adventure.</li>
	<li>My brother N. who I often don't understand but who I love all the more for it.</li>
	<li>My little sister C. who while she's five years younger than I am no longer seems like my baby sister.</li>
	<li>Work that is meaningful.</li>
	<li>Coffee.</li>
	<li>Extended family.</li>
	<li><em>The Golden Notebook</em> by Doris Lessing.</li>
	<li>Laughter. <!--more--></li>
	<li>That I decided to learn German in high school and continued to study in college.</li>
	<li>Trains and planes and automobiles.</li>
	<li>My English teachers. Both in high school and in college.</li>
	<li>My partner in crime and fellow Fulbrighter R. R.</li>
	<li>Walla Walla, Washington. It's the town so nice they named it twice.</li>
	<li>Oatmeal.</li>
	<li>My various roommates at 1324.</li>
	<li>The Fulbright.</li>
	<li>The New York Times (and the column Modern Love).</li>
	<li>Skype.</li>
	<li>Being able to dance and loving it. Even though I think I am questionably good at it.</li>
	<li>Living in Bulgaria.</li>
	<li>Wittenberg University.</li>
	<li>Martin Luther, the 95 Thesis and the Reformation.</li>
	<li>Building birdhouses.</li>
	<li>Simone de Beauvior.</li>
	<li>Love in all of its iterations.</li>
	<li>Learning how to drive a combine.</li>
	<li>Being about to joke around.</li>
	<li>Red lipstick.</li>
	<li>Homemade. Anything.</li>
	<li>Having the lucky of time, money and heart to be able to travel.</li>
	<li>Mixed tapes/cds/playlists.</li>
	<li>Hot showers.</li>
	<li>Wearing sunglasses on a bright winter day.</li>
	<li>My birthday buddy B.</li>
	<li>French fries with serine cheese.</li>
	<li>The Obamas.</li>
	<li>My first best friend in third grade Maria and all of the other best friends I've had in my life whose first names also somehow started with the letter M (Maya, Meghan and Megan, Meredith, Marissa, Melissa, Maryam)</li>
	<li>My heart and the fact that it has the capacity to grow and expand in ways I never imagined.</li>
	<li>Everyone who has taught me Bulgarian.</li>
	<li>Anyone who has put up with me using really atrocious Bulgarian.</li>
	<li>Yoga.</li>
	<li><em>A Portrait </em><em>of the Artist</em>, James Joyce.</li>
	<li>The color blue in all shades and tones.</li>
	<li>Georgetown University.</li>
	<li>Dancing in my old kitchen with my friend and roommate M. late on a Friday night.</li>
	<li>Espresso and the Americano.</li>
	<li> Pumpkin: roasted on the street, baked into a pie, bread, muffins, pancakes or even oatmeal.  It's both the color and the flavor.</li>
	<li>A new notebook and an inky pen.</li>
	<li>Dresses in the summer and dresses in the winter with jeans, tights or leggings.</li>
	<li>Winnie the Pooh and his misadventures.</li>
	<li>The fact that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/books/26colvin.html?em">crucial change is often ignited by very plain, unremarkable people who then disappear</a> (NYT on Ms. Claudette Colvin).</li>
	<li>My strength and health.</li>
	<li>My aunt who taught me how to sew.</li>
	<li>And all of my aunts who've fostered my creativity and imagination.</li>
	<li>Banitsa.</li>
	<li>Large cups of coffee.</li>
	<li>The experience of volunteering for a year in Washington DC.</li>
	<li>A Room of One's Own and Virgina Woolf.</li>
	<li><em>Madeline</em> one of my first inspirations.</li>
	<li>Law &amp; Order: SVU. It's the best mindless tv ever.</li>
	<li>The idea of an odyssey.</li>
	<li>Two of my very best Bulgarian friends J and G.</li>
	<li>History.</li>
	<li>Sweatshirts with hoods.</li>
	<li>The sounds of rain falling on a roof in the middle of the night.</li>
	<li>My breath.</li>
	<li>Book stores.  Used, new. It doesn't matter.</li>
	<li>Sunshine.</li>
	<li>Mittens.</li>
	<li>Typewriters and rotary telephones. Cellphones and computers.</li>
	<li>My students.</li>
	<li>Well lit cities at night and how beautiful they are in a yellow glow.</li>
	<li>Flowers.</li>
	<li>The book: They Say/I Say: Moves that matter in academic writing.</li>
	<li>Washington State and evergreen trees.</li>
	<li>Art galleries.</li>
	<li>Hard work.</li>
	<li>Being able to play--even though I am no longer a child.</li>
	<li>Forgiveness.</li>
	<li>The first sentences of a new book.</li>
	<li>Wool socks on cold evenings.</li>
	<li>Iambic pentameter.</li>
	<li>Water: bottles, oceans, sprinklers, rivers, rain drops and muddy puddles.</li>
	<li>Fireworks on the 4th of July.</li>
	<li>Potlucks with friends.</li>
	<li>Being able to dream without limit.</li>
	<li>Writing.</li>
	<li>The fact that I can't do everything but that I can do a few things well.</li>
	<li>Music. Songs. Radios. Concerts. Itunes.</li>
	<li>The first snow.</li>
	<li>And the first sign of spring.</li>
	<li>Google: gmail, maps, reader, calendar, igoogle.</li>
	<li>The rush of the new.</li>
	<li>Blue birds.</li>
	<li>Memories and a healthy nostalgia for the past.</li>
	<li>Learning something new about myself each day.</li>
	<li>Flexibility.</li>
	<li> My existence.</li>
</ol>