I successfully hosted Thanksgiving this year for friends (fellow students who stayed in town) and family (my sister and her dog)! Here is the layout, in which you see: turkey (for the meat-eaters and Pickle the dog), dressing , brussel sprouts, Japanese dumplings, Korean savory pancakes, mashed potatoes (me!), Waldorf salad, broccoli rice and cheese casserole (me!), mixed steamed vegetables, and ginger tofu.

This photo is so weirdly fuzzy. God, how I need to learn how to use my camera. I've had it for two years and still don't know what most of the buttons do.

The above photo doesn't include the dessert: sweet potato pie (me!!!), apple pie, pecan pie (both from Yale bakery), and vanilla ice cream (Friendly's via supermarket). Man, dinner was awesome. And it was just as awesome today, when I had full Thanksgiving dinner + dessert #2. I LOVE FOOD.

And finally, some things I am thankful for:
- friends and family to share the holiday with,
- my Mom, for walking me through how to make mashed potatoes and everything else ("Mom, when I can stick a fork through the potatoes and they break apart, are they done? Yes? Are you sure? Should they be more done than that? No? So I should just go ahead and mash them, then?"),
- my independent study at the Paley Center when I can watch past telecasts of the Kennedy Center Honors,
- the life that the US of A makes possible,
- that I am not the Secret Service agent responsible for letting the Salihis into the White House, because I would be SO SORE from getting my ass kicked into humiliated unemployment.

I received a request -- that is, Karuna asked -- that I post my papers. So I'll link them here to Google documents and tag them "writing and stuff." 'Cause I'm eloquent like that.

First up, the Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana paper, located at:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYYy4mYjBN4zZGc4N3dwNXpfMGRncHJ2M3Fj&hl=en

By the way, I'm not bragging or anything, but my professor may have written in his comments that "It is exceptionally well-written for a graduate school exercise: not ponderous and overly-hedged but rather lively, supple, and compelling an an exposition."

Now, "supple" is kind of an uncomfortable word, I agree. But Agnew likes words like that, so what can you do.

You shouldn't feel compelled to click the links, much less read the papers, but if you do and have any thoughts/corrections, you'd be doing me a favor if you met me know. And no kidding, it's completely appropriate, even welcomed, to say, "Claudia, this is bullshit." Well, when it is. Otherwise you're just being mean.

THANKSGIVING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!
We have all next week off, and I couldn't be happier. (Except I have to go into the Paley Center on Tuesday, but whatev.) My schedule has been ridiculous this semester -- Saturday has been the only day of the week I haven't had class obligations. How I have re-learned the value of the two day weekend. They don't have to be Saturday and Sunday. But they do have to be back-to-back, because I don't do a damn thing on day one. So at this point in the semester, I need to wash and clean pretty much everything in my apartment. And run almost every errand I ever put on a to-do list.

But this may not be a very restful week. I'm hosting Thanksgiving dinner at my place. Martina's coming in from New York, and a few friends from school are coming over. It should be fun, but -- since my sister has to work through the afternoon, it's up to me to cook -- and maybe you don't know this, but I am no chef. I think I burned a peanut butter and jelly sandwich the other day. So I am scheduling my nervous breakdown for 3:45pm on Thursday, so I have time to recover before dinner at 7pm.

And of course I have to spend a fair amount of time doing work. I have a (short) paper due by the end of the weekend -- yech -- and one of my final papers is due two weeks later, and I have to write about five books I haven't read yet. I mean, I haven't even looked at the tables of contents. I did hold them in my hands when I retrieved them from the library, though.

You know, the more I think about it, the more this "break" kinda "sucks"... But NO, despite this depressing meditation on work, I won't lose the awesomeness of break! I just went to the Film Study Center and got some movies/tv -- John Adams miniseries, The Untouchables series from the 50s, and a film noir called Criss Cross. And I will catch up on Glee! And maybe Mad Men, too -- I have the entire season, but haven't been able to sit down with it. Geez, that feels like a lot of time in front of the television. I should make some kinds of plan to leave the house at some point.

I'm published! Well, on the Paley Center for Media's website. If you have any interest in Def Comedy Jam and/or hip-hop and/or me, read "The Def Jam Generation."

Tell your friends. And feel free to contact me with thoughts/reflections/corrections. Or comment on the page, if you're one of those people who likes to do that.

BTW: The music that plays when you load the essay is not my fault. I tried to tell those guys that nobody likes web page sound that you can't mute. Also, the CEO cut out the NWA video, "Fuck the Police." Apparently, the Paley Center for Media is afraid of media. Whatever.