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.