Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!!

And by everyone, I mean the like... three people.. who read this thing. :) And the world in general!

I am currently in the kitchen, having peeled (or as I like to say: shaved--I feel like Sweeney Todd) three bags of potatoes. We're (Javi and I) boiling yams and potatoes at the moment, so I have a break. I feel really strange making the meal, but I suppose it's fun. Yay!

Our full menu consists of:
-Turkey
-Cranberry sauce
-Yams
-Mashed potatoes
-Gravy
-Stuffing
-Corn
-Caesar salad
-Apple pie
-Cherry pie
-Chocolate cake

A full day of cooking, here we go!!
As I do every year, now is the time to make the "Things I'm Grateful For" list. :)
-Awesome food
-All 10 fingers (thus far; *knock on wood*) after cooking for almost a whole week
-Florian: For being the most amazing, kindest, happiest person in my life and always making me smile no matter what. My favourite times include just being in my room, with Florian in his natural habitat on my bed with his poetry, and me at my desk doing work. No one else (except perhaps Shayne) is quite as snooty about literature as he is, and it's amazing. We can wax about Keats for hours, and then fight over Dickinson vs. Keats. Yesterday morning, he banged on my door for four minutes to wake me up, and the only reason why I didn't just kill him was because when I finally opened the door, he apologized profusely in his hoarse, sick, but cute voice and said, "If you want, you can do this!" and promptly hit himself in the head like you would an alarm clock.
-Shannon: Oh roomie mine (once a roomie, forever a roomie), thank you for making so much effort to stay close despite not living together and me always being busy. I still heart thee, and you're like a sister. I'm sad when I don't see you every day, but when we don't, there's always a billion things to tell you. And I'm so glad you're on newspaper now!
-Camille: First of all, thank you for all the coffee! And I don't think I could have survived (though not sure I'm through yet) logic without you tutoring me and keeping me awake with the note-passing in class. But more than that, Camille is always there to listen to me, lie on my bed talking about boys till 3 am on a school night, freak out over Asian boy on Glee, listen to my sleep-deprived rantings ("I'm the Pope!" and "I'm so cool I can drool ice") and tell me I'm so amazing my name should be Grace. :)
-Javier: For spontaneously creating awesome things out of my hair from just bobby pins, for always trying to take me shopping, for dragging me to Starbucks, always dancing in the kitchen (and everywhere else), talking in the baby voice, analyzing anyone and everyone's style, giving awesome advice, speaking in Spanish, and being uno de mis padres.
-Ethan: VE DAY!!! Oh Sparkles, my Tuesdays and Thursdays would be nothing without your retirement home hours. Hehe. Thanks for always looking so happy when Robert and I turn up at your room, for talking about movies no one else has heard of, for wearing a fedora, for lending me your jacket, for adapting Keats on Facebook, for being the person who always asks me how I am and genuinely listening, for agreeing to see "Bright Star" with me even though it didn't work out, and for being the only slightly normal person I know.
-Southies in general: Jaclyn, for being consistently neurotic and psycho whenever I actually see you and for "giggedy giggedy." Robert and Brian: You two are insane. Puns, D&D, "Ethan, you have two choices," all those things I've never heard of that you talk about, etc. Robert, thanks for keeping me awake in history, and having the second most beautiful voice since Jesus. :) Jorge, for the crazy laugh and for being absolutely adorable. Simon, you're insane. Enough said.
-My newspaper staff for sticking through it despite all the bitching and late nights
-All my SoCal friends who I know I'll have a blast with when I get home in a month! I love that we sometimes lose touch for a while, but when we get back together, it's like we haven't been apart.
-Shayne: For everything that I know about linguistics now, all the paper editing, listening to me complain about opening the scary Evergreens, for being one of my best friends.
-My dad for being amazing, for thinking he speaks French, for teaching me Chinese, for randomly singing, and just being crazy.
-My mom for being insane. She just is. But I've (kind of) come to terms with it.
-Amherst College: For providing me with the means and the ends to an amazing education at a most beautiful place filled with beautiful people.
-Emily Dickinson: For not throwing her fit and collapsing her ceiling while I was in that room
-John Keats: For filling my soul with beauty and light
-Danny the Penguin, The Authority, and Dotty: for always being squishy and cuddly
-The Chinese Lady at Val: I know her name, but I feel like she's more recognizable this way. For always greeting me with a smile at Val, for fussing over what I eat, for already having cucumbers ready for me to take away the Friday before break, for driving us back to Newport with our groceries after bumping into us at Big Y
-Professor de la Carrera: For employing me and for jumping up and down like a five-year-old and hugging me upon seeing me. There's nothing more touching.

Of course, this list is far from exhaustive, and life has never been better, no matter how stressful, so I'm grateful for all of it! Happy Turkey Day! Our turkey is about to go in the oven!