Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanks

Home, stuffed, warm, and well rested. I like dark meat, particularly when drenched in gravy. This is a much needed break after a nearly catastrophic Monday trying to get my JET application in on time, baking 600 loaves of bread from 5:00 AM to 3:30 PM on Tuesday, and another marathon pre-Thanksgiving bakery clusterfrack on Wednesday. I am looking forward to further recuperation.

Given my current level of output, I decided not to try to maintain two blogs right now after all, and the link to my planned "serious" blog has been removed. In its place is a list of what I'm currently reading. This is an idea I stole from Susie, but did not feel bad about taking once I realized that she'd abandoned it. Thank you Susie.

Tomorrow we (my family) will schlep up to the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree. We will then eat at Our Daily Bread in Boone, and stop at an outlet mall on our way back. I will get some new clothes at the GAP outlet, despite having moral reservations about shopping there, and we will spend tomorrow evening decorating our Christmas tree and eating today's leftovers. I don't know how long we have been doing this, but it is my favorite family tradition. As we get older, such traditions can die out, lose their charm, or become routine; they may be necessarily altered because of changing roles within the family, or because family members no longer live within a convenient distance of one another. Next year I may be living in Japan; if so, I won't be able to return to the US to help pick out our Christmas tree. This bothers me because tomorrow is one tradition that I would keep just as it is for as long as I'm alive to enjoy it. Knowing that this won't be so makes tomorrow, and all the days-after-Thanksgiving that have preceded it, infinitely more precious. So although it's trite, and although I did not (I promise!) sit down to write about anything more poignant than the food I ate too much of, I guess this is what I'm thankful for.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

a. what is a JET application?

b. you're certainly welcome.

c. by "living in Japan" do you mean that you're moving there? or studying abroad? i certainly think that living in japan for a year world be worth missing a beloved family tradition once... but if you're planning on living there for a while, that's a bit different. either way, i'm nosy and curious. i do hope that if you are living in japan, you will blog about life there.

Aaron said...

JET stands for Japanese Exchange and Teaching. It is a program. It is my plan B for after graduation. Plan A is to get a Fulbright grant and do research on the tea ceremony in Japan. I should probably think of a plan C at some point because plans A and B are tenuous. By living in Japan, I mean that I plan to be there for about a year via either plans A, B, or perhaps C (though in the worst case, C will simply mean living in Greensboro next year while I apply to graduate schools). All plans will likely include blogging.