Thanks!!

2008 has been, beyond all measures, the most eventful year of my life. So what am I thankful for?

• Seeing lots of incredible places in China, including (but not limited to) the Great Wall and Mt. Everest
  
• Experiencing not only a different culture, but that culture's take on my culture
  
• Experiencing everyday/non-tourist life here -- waking up, getting to work, paying bills, eating dinner, buying clothes, going grocery shopping, walking in the rain, learning the layout of the city, etc.
• Learning a bit of Chinese
• Phreaktion and Void
• 2 kuai zhu rou baozi on the street
• The chance to do something completely different at work
• Staying in touch with friends & family back home
• Sichuan food
• Fried bees, fried scorpions, yak's eyeballs, rabbit, pigeon, duck's blood, spicy duck neck, etc.
• Baseball (the O's notwithstanding)
• The Shelter, Garden Books, LoGo, Thumb Plaza, Taikang Lu, Moganshan Lu, Fuzhou Lu, People's Square, Bonbon, Zhongshan Park, and all the other places in Shanghai that help keep me sane
• Same goes for Big Bamboo in Jing'an
• All the restaurants and their yummy food
• Liang Jian
  
• My Sony DSC H50 and flickr
• My Lenovo T61, wireless router, and Google (Blogger, Gmail, GCal, and most importantly, Reader)
• Facebook, last.fm, and Friendfeed
• My iPod Classic, decent headphones, and iTunes
• HandBrake
• My China co-workers and friends and all the help they've been in making sense of this crazy city
• All the cabbies, barbers, retail workers, watch/bag/DVD salesmen, and others who've complimented my Chinese in one way or another
• Wii!
• The Shanghai transportation system -- seriously, it's really really nice
  
• Books and movies
• Music! Oh wait, I already said iTunes.
• Xiao Xu
  
• My immune system -- it's help up amazingly well over here
• My fleece jacket and scarf (it's cold over here now ...)

There's a lot more that I can't think of at the moment, but this is a pretty good list, I think.

So kids: what are you thankful for?