Birthday Blues

Yes, on this day when I should be very happy I've been rather sad, though to be honest it's not because I'm a year older (19 really isn't a big deal). I'm just feeling a bit distant from everything and everyone especially since it's that time of year when everyone is getting together. It's almost Thanksgiving!

I know that in the past I've made it clear that Thanksgiving is not my favorite holiday, it tends to steal my birthday thunder, but as I've gotten older I've come to enjoy it more and more and this year, seeing as I'm not with my family like everyone else, I really am going to miss it. It really is a beautiful holiday, a day to give thanks for family and friends...a day of the year when everyone makes time to get together and laugh, joke, eat way too much turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy and then still manage to stuff in that slice of pumpkin pie. There really is nothing like it here, they've gone straight to Christmas and I'm really seeing what I'm going to be missing this Thursday.

Even though I am planning a Thanksgiving meal for my host family there is no way that it will be the same. Honestly, I'm not looking forward to cooking all of it tomorrow by myself, I get done with school too late to cook it on Thursday. It's something that I want to share with the people here but the disheartening truth is that I can't. Not really. Yeah, I can cook yams and turkey and pie and everything else, I can tell them the story of the first Thanksgiving and describe what it's like at home, but there is no way I can recreate it, they don't understand it, not really. And all of this together along with all the other pressures of being a foreigner here has definitely increased my feelings of isolation.

On the bright side, I received a package from Spain today :) A little something that created a feeling of "birthdayness" for the day and gave me a distraction from my depression. "The Mother Tongue-English and how it got that way." I know that I should be studying my French rather than reading a book, in English, about English but I'm feeling a bit anti-French in my craving for an American Thanksgiving. Anyways, the book (or at least the 60 pages)is fascinating! It's extremely well written, entertaining, and informative, I didn't know there was this much to English! I highly recommend it. And since it is the time of year for giving thanks, thank you Viola!

I know this wasn't the most upbeat post, who am I kidding, it wan't really upbeat at all, but no one can be happy all the time....well except Mom haha, but I already feel better having written it, so thank you for listening to my homesick ramblings.