The City of Angels: The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.

Today Ben and I checked the planetarium and science museum off the bucket list. What a fun way to start the day. We were most definitely the oldest people in the “museum” by a solid 15 - 20 years, but we tried out every interactive exhibit none-the-less. We explored “Petroleum Land”, adventured into Robot Technology territories, crawled through a human kaleidoscope, (Ben) laid on a bed of nails, we made vortex rings, saw large plastic dinosaurs, learned where Hawaii is on a map (ha) and encouraged some school kids to break dance in one of the exhibit halls. We walked on an aerial photograph of Bangkok, found Mercy and stared at 3-D molds of Thomas Edison’s face. Only about 30% of the buttons actually worked and yet we pressed them over and over and over again like the grade schoolers next to us.

Due to the influx of seven and eight year olds, we were able to watch on as some of the “hand-off” exhibits were demonstrated for the kids. One of which was the G-force simulator – it’s the hamster ball, in which someone gets strapped into the seat in the center and it spins around in every direction until that person wants to puke. It brought me back to my days at Space Camp – yes, I was that cool. Memories of my childhood came flooding forward, from my first movie in a theater: Jurassic Park, to sleepovers at Boston’s Science Museum with my Brownies Troop 1000 and our night shows at the planetarium. It was a morning of curiosity, goofing around and lots of laughing.

At 11AM we headed to the planetarium for “Humanity and the Stars” or as it is now know, “Space men and the Stars” narrated by Tom Jones (dubbed into Thai). Not convinced it is “the” Tom Jones, but it was quite a special moment to see his name flash up on the black dome above. The kids talked through the entire show, but not in whispers, or kid’s that think they’re whispering, we’re talking loud, non-stop chatter. This provided endless entertainment for Ben and I because they kept the temperature of the production. If things were getting crazy, you could hear the “OoooOOooOOo”s and “AHHHHH”s and if they were bored, it just went back to the buzz of whatever it is 8 year olds talk about.

It was nice to see the night sky since, due to the abundance of smog and light pollution, it is nearly impossible to see the stars clearly in Bangkok. Ben and I both confessed we could only truly spot Orion’s belt. This made me smile, as it reminds me of my beautiful sister some 4,000 mi away. Like most standard planetarium shows, the room went dark, the stars appeared and then someone with a microphone used a laser pointer to identify constellations. This went on for quite some time and I think held Ben and all of the middle schoolers’ attention for about 10 minutes. Ben had Mexican food on the mind.

By the end of the hour people were itching to go. The last half of the show had been a warped omni-theater viewing of asteroids colliding into earth marking the end of human kind, or humanity, as the title suggests. It left kids sitting outside the planetarium crying. Is it bad that I laughed? Ben and I spent most of the second half watching the kids, rather than the screen above.

Next stop, Mexican food- a meal we both enjoy and can eat together. From there we crossed Planetarium off and added “Cinnabon” to Ben’s list, as well as a Bodyslam concert, since the Chick Music festival is sold out. At lunch I was reminded that Ben also loves root beer, but has never had a root beer float, so that has made it’s way to the list as well. (Notice a trend? Ben and food. And he already has an extensive Thai food bucket list, which probably contains cats and dogs, since he has no idea what they girls are telling him to order…)

Khun Usanee is off to Korea for the week, so while the kids are at school my days are much quieter. This allowed for time to finalize my trip to Cambodia. So here is the plan: I leave a week from today (Thursday) and fly into Phnom Penh. I’ll spend the night in the capital and hopefully see a bit of the city. Early the next morning I head to Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat, where I will be meeting Bret Crafton and Noam Ron, two of my friends from home. We’re going to explore Angkor Wat for two days and then find our way back to Bangkok, seeing where the road takes us. I’m ready for the adventure and to see some familiar faces. Then I get them on my turf for two days before they fly out to Hong Kong. Visa run, Cambodia, Angkor Wat, the S’scott boys – game on.

Finally, my day ended, as it does every weeknight, with three hours of homework help. It’s such a great way to end the day. Ben and I sit in one of the back meeting rooms, at a large conference table with eight Mercy kids who are all studying at International Schools. My three super-stars are back, along with three of Ben’s students and two new kids. We work our way through algebra, lab reports, vocabulary tests, reading comprehension worksheets and geography quizzes. Remember when you were in middle school and you asked your parents for help and most of the time they had to try and re-teach themselves the material? Well, that is the fun game Ben and I get to play. Yesterday I had to relearn active and passive voice (don’t tell Westergaard!) and the steps of the scientific method. Of course, it’s nice to feel useful and even better when you see the kids grasping the material and improving.

Tonight I helped one of the girls make up ways to remember the definitions of her vocabulary words, the way my mom did when I was in 8th grade. We joked about associating words with people and it worked- she remembered them all! Every day these kids make me proud; I know they’re tired, they get up at 4am to go to school Monday through Friday and come straight back to us at 5pm for three hours of homework. They have English lessons all day on Saturdays and occasionally Sundays, but they push through and always make the best of it. Ben and I try and make it as enjoyable as possible too. Tomorrow we are taking the entire group to dinner – after they finish their homework.

The kids have really opened up to us and trust us, they know how much Ben and I care about them, but what I don’t think they realize is that it’s going to be so hard for us to leave them. I can already see it in Ben’s eyes. He’s mentally taking pictures and making memories to hold on to. All the kids at Mercy hold a huge chunk of our hearts. Every day they make me try harder, they push me to learn more, they test me in every possible way, they make me question things I’d never before thought about and when you’ve finally earned their trust, they let you in with open arms.

I’m not really sure what this all means for the future, but I know I am a better person for having met everyone at Mercy.

Today Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford University (2005) was recommended to me. Need something to get you going this morning? I suggest YouTubing it.

I’ll leave you today with some wise words from a pretty rad guy:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever, because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference.” (Steve Jobs)