energy, awareness, and academics.

Guacamole+quesadillas+steamed cabbage+apple pie+beef = Thanksgiving 2006

Last year I happened to be living in Athens, Greece during Thanksgiving and this year I have been lucky enough to yet again experience Thanksgiving in a place outside of the U.S. That always makes for a good time and an interesting meal. I think last year I had something along the lines of fried cheese, turkey, spinach and olives. This year I had a mix of Mexican, Russian, Hungarian and Romanian foods as my meal. There were some Turkish friends present so we ditched the idea of eating turkey. HAHA. We went for beef instead. It was good :) Although all the foods on the table were pretty different from a typical traditional Thanksgiving meal, the energy around it was the same. All my friends and I were together in a warm cozy apartment on a cold November evening laughing and drinking and eating together, sharing stories of our recent times together and hoping for more good times ahead. There is always a moment on those nights where if you just stop what you are doing for a minute and observe, you can feel the energy. I love that. How did I get to be so lucky?

At this school, the quality of intellectuals and academics whom they can attract to give lectures and talks on various issues is always above average and I like to try and make it to 3 or 4 each week. This week I went to a PhD defense on global distributive justice, a lecture entitled "When Socio-Cultures Clash" explaining radical Islamic youth reacting to the assimilation of their parents into mainstream British society, a talk on the French Declaration of Human Rights (of 1789), and a film on how gays are treated in Hollywood. Maybe in a different time of my life attending these functions may have seemed like one more thing to add to my day, but here in this time now, I cannot get enough of them. I am constantly and consistently stimulated on a range of topics and issues. I hope I can keep this up for the rest of my life, that this is not a trend or phase I am going through. I don't think it is though, I have always been interested and intrigued in learning--when I was 7 I was kicked out of our local library because I tried to spend the night there reading armloads of picture books.

Hope you had a warm and Happy Thanksgiving.