happy thanksgiving!

It's Friday, which means it's still Thanksgiving. In case you didn't remember the little tid-bit from grade school... the original celebration was a three day festival. So Happy Thanksgiving!

I might not have remembered this yesterday, like some friends who answered incorrectly on the "Thanksgiving Quiz" (prizes included) we took after dinner. Of 19 questions, the Americans present (mostly English teachers) obviously missed the fewest. There were some hard ones though...for example, what president/founding father wanted to make the turkey the national bird? I guessed George Washington, and I was wrong.

Anyway, the English teachers surely had an advantage, but this isn't so much related with our heritage or our impressive memory of things we learned as kids. Instead, it really comes down to the fact that, with every American holiday + St. Patrick's day that hits the calendar, we squeeze out as much English-teaching-material-juice as possible.

I somehow ended up with one of my private class's notes from yesterday afternoon. This was a follow-up lesson of Tuesday's, where we learned about the history of Thanksgiving (AKA why I only missed five questions on the quiz). My little student is an 11 year old who, though sometimes difficult, is SO cute. Always needing to be especially creative with this age, I came up with the brilliant idea to make an acrostic of the things he is thankful for. We chatted, brainstormed, filled in the gaps, and finally, made revisions. I was surprised to witness slight swells of excitement submerging over things like his Nintendo Wii or his cousin's new puppy. He is not one to show much emotion, being a rather shy and reserved little boy.

Now that I think about it, it's possible that it was just my own enthusiasm over the puppy that I was perceiving, but either way, I sure do think new puppies are a pretty damn good thing to be thankful for.

And I (because this my blog, goddamnit) am thankful for my far-away friends and family, who I talked to at 5 a.m. this morning. Even though it is incredibly lame that the new Skype allows for group calls but not group video calls, it was so nice hearing some of the voices for which I feel so affectionate!

Let's live in the present moment, but also look forward with bright eyes to the future : can't wait til my next Thanksgiving with you, whenever and wherever that may be.

I'm also thankful for my nearby friends and family, with whom I celebrated last night, and will be celebrating again on Sunday. I had to special-order the five-kilo turkey, and I am hoping Pilar remembers something about cooking these birds from her days in the US of A, because I haven't the first clue.