Hi!! Today’s the day after Thanksgiving and I hope every one had plenty of turkey and pie.

To celebrate, we hosted a little party at our house with my parents college classmates and some coworkers. To be honest, the food was mediocre :(, but that didn’t dampen the spirit. Everyone had a blast. I conked out at 9, but the adults kept going well past midnight. Its honestly amazing how long college memories stay.

Since a food post isn’t in order, I’d like to take this opportunity to honor what Thanksgiving is truly about: Giving Thanks!

Top 5 Thing I’m Grateful for 2017

1. Family, financial security, staying alive, education…. These are the cliche responses that every child puts down to satisfy parents, teachers ,etc, but no matter how cliche, I can’t emphasize enough how important these things are to me. I mean, I wouldn’t exist without my parents, right? I can’t travel or eat if I’m not alive, right? I won’t have a future without an education, right?
2. My  Classes- This is the first year I don’t have a prescribed courseload, so I got to choose the courses I wanted to take. I really couldn’t have been happier with my choices. First, I get to do 5 research projects, on topics of MY choice. More importantly, the courses themselves are AMAZING. I’m even enjoyng Calc BC, and I don’t even like math! Even better, my history teacher (IB History) gave us the best gift ever. We were going to do an Americas unit for Paper 3, but after a “coup”, she switched to an European Unit focused on WWII and the USSR- literally my two favorite topics.
3. My Teachers- On a related note, the classes wouldn’t be half as good without great teacher. I struck gold this year. My Calc teacher, in his 7 years of teaching Calc BC, has only had 1 student score below a 5 ( that student got a 4). My Chem teacher is the same science teacher I’ve had for the past three years. He loves food and cats just like me, and even let me sous vide scallops during a lecture once. My Capstone teacher is the kind of teacher that will go through 5+ drafts of a college essay with a student he doesn’t even teach. My favorite has to my my English teacher. He’s may have taught AP English for over 15 years and read the test for over 10, but he has more spunk and energy than most college Frat boys. (On an unrelated note, he looks like Tony Stark)
4. The New Apartment- I don’t think I’ve mentioned this on the blog, but we moved to a new apartment in June. The neighborhood is literally less than 2km from the heart of LuJiaZui; the newly build riverside path is less than 400m from the house and the views!!!!!    . Recently, we also got the kitchen renovated. My parents actually got me a fancy new oven- I didn’t even ask!!!
5. Mao Mao- Technically,we (my brother) found him last October, but since he’s only gotten cuter, smarter and more affectionate, I’ll mention him. Of course, pictures speak better than words:

That’s it for this (long) post. I hope every one had a great celebration and plenty to be grateful for! See you next time!

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