du-du.du.du...du.du.du...du-du.du...

Thus is the sound of the ice-cream truck. It comes by, every night, at about 8:45 pm. Maybe some other night I'll get a better picture of it (I'm leery of using the camera out in my 'hood, I already stand out enough!) - I could use a better pic as I was just brainstorming a magical painting including it a few moments ago...that white blare at the top of the picture is actually a big fat florescent light...kinda like the one you might use to light the driveway at home out in the country. The light, combined with the music, combined with the hum of the music...mmm. It's something else. I generally don't mind it a bit.

For the past few weeks however, it's been extra amplified. The Ice Cream Truck usually stops across the street, on the corner. But our street as been half-way shut down due to a construction project (more of this later) and so now the ice-cream truck stops smack-dab in front of my kitchen window!

And on a night such as tonight...and every other night this week...when I've been madly trying to get my statistics work done...it's been quite bothersome. In part because of the distraction it causes - but I think mostly because it reminds me of the time (it always comes about 8:45). And each evening I've been ever so aware that I'm far behinder then I should be and that normally at 8:45 I'm usually winding down for the evening and doing something enjoyable.

You know, in Thailand, out in the rural parts...I once asked a few people what they did for fun. The question kinda bewildered them. Fun?! Free time? What is that? There eventual answer was that they sometimes went fishing on Sunday. It's not that they were so busy. But they had real work to do - and when it was done, they were tired. So do they fill the rest of their evenings with "fun"...no...they sit around (on bamboo floors of their hut) and talk. They couldn't stay up late into the night and finish their statistics homework if they wanted to! So I'm both blessed and cursed!

As I've been in the flurry of the statistics this week...I feel like I haven't had a chance to breath...Go to work, come home and do stat's until I go to bed (It's an online course, and I never do begin work on it until the week before...but I'm working 5 days a week now instead of 3 1/2 so that makes a big difference and last weekend was the art show.) I tried really hard to start doing it earlier - but there's just been so much going on! It's like a day is full...and passes. Then before I know it a week. And then I look back and the whole month has passed in a jiffy! Time is funny. It can both be so slow and so fast. Slow I think because you want to see results...so you yearn for the future when you can see something changed or see the fruits of your labor. And fast because once you really get rolling with something, you forget the passage of time - or you have too much to do and never fit it in.

I think I want to be living in the present. Both aware of the future and the past...but steadily living where I presently am. There's a point when you just have to be done with your work and sit on the floor of the bamboo hut - and there's another point where you discipline yourself and persevere. In both of them though it's important to stay grounded in what you're here for. Not just to work. Not just to have fun. But to go about your life in joy - accepting the present and stepping forwards.

I think at the moment, I'll accept my present fatigue and get some sleep. An early morning breakfast will give me a good few hours to finish my statistics before the test :)