i don't mean to seem like i care about material things – like social status

Through a D.I.Y. Foreign Aid NYT article, I recently discovered Maggie Doyne, a 23- year-old from New Jersey who took a gap year before college and ended up living in Nepal, starting and running a children's home and school. My favorite part of her story is when she won a CosmoGirl Leadership contest and they sent her $20,000 for her school. They also flew her to NY for a makeover, which she laughed about, saying that at the time she had lice in her hair and rarely wore makeup.

Her story is awesome. Watch the video.

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"Last week you had it out, and the week before you had a hat, but now it's up –" Carl made a gesture, pretending to pull his hair back.

Yes, my eight-year-old pays more attention to my hair than I do. This weirds me out because a) he's a boy and I'm all about gender stereotypes and b) he's eight.

My friend Natalia, also a teacher, frequently posts statuses about comments her children make on her physical appearance – clothing, hair, eyes, everything.

"Yesterday one of my little girls patted my tummy and said "wow, big!"--great. Today, however, a different little girl said, "miss Natalie has nice eyes, and nice mouth, and nice ears!"--THIS is why i teach little kids...they're good for the self-esteem--at least most of the time. hahaha :P"

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Simply Sweden.

"I love this ad!" Amadeus showed me a Snickers advertisement from her student issued scheduler. "Snickers is amazing!" I looked. "Peanut power!"

The ad had a Kama Sutra book with a bunch of post its inside it. "Got a big job to do?" was the slogan.

"That's the Kama Sutra!"

"What's that? One of those holy texts?"

(snickers kama sutra ad)

So the photobooth shot I took is backwards, but you get the point.

Welcome you Sweden.