So I feel that I should document my Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving: Yet another sunny day, high 60's (actually cooler than it had been the rest of the week). Justin, James, & I headed over to our Stanford-sponsored Thanksgiving dinner around 4. I perhaps unwisely had us sit outside (the novelty factor, you know), since it did get chilly once the sun set. It was hilarious. James signed up to work -- his job? Taking pictures of everyone eating. (And he's from New Zealand so this was his first Thanksgiving.) Highlights: hearing about Justin's camping trip ("I was trying to fall asleep, and I thought 'that d--ed M!' "), the quickly-melted whipped cream on pumpkin pie that looked rather unhealthy, and my ill-timed comment of "I keep eating this, and it's not even that good" as people were walking past to get in the food line. Oopsy.

Friday: Lots of sitting about and working.

Sat: More sitting about, until the afternoon when I decided to be proactive. Borrowed The Piano from the lib. for mainly academic reasons. James came over to watch with me. Painful movie at times.

Sun.: Eek break coming to an end! But, I did get my paper done, the three novels read, and much of the intro reading done... Anyway, in the morning was my usual farmer's market expedition. And Desperate Housewives was excellent.

Mon: Double eek. Last day of break for me! Went to discussion on curiousity, Adam, and the fall of appetite... Awkward moment as one of the profs. said that it was the only lecture he'd followed, while someone who'd lectured earlier was in the room. Strange, because while I think the talk was brilliant, the prof was like me with talking too fast... but with the level of complexity of her ideas, well... difficult for a first year grad student to follow. And the prof who had spoken earlier in the quarter I thought was much better at conveying her ideas.

Anyway, watched Medium. Excellent!

Tuesday: Meeting about intro presentation... drugstore.com delivery (thank God, was running out of toilet paper. (Have you ever tried transporting toilet paper via bike? Yeah, that's why I resorted to online.)

Weds: Awesome pedagogy class. Prof. J gave us a litany of things that can go wrong, and Prof. L gave us readings that recommend listening to "rousing music" before teaching.

Today: I'm also done with my Intro presentation. I was rather nervous starting out... usually it takes me like at least 30 minutes to settle into a class and feel like talking, so basically talking first thing was uncomfortable. I stumbed at the beginning... I can always picture how horribly things could go, and then get worried, and then nervous, and that's not good. I think I recovered a bit as I kept going. I much more enjoyed talking during the discussion though! Must get over this nervous tendency... something about the Intro class is intimidating though... Perhaps because the room has no windows. Or because there are only 9 of us along that thin narrow table. I guess it's something I'll just gradually learn to work with. I am much better than I was back in middle and high school though!! So that seems to speak to the capacity for progress... right??

Rained tons today. Dumped. So after our Mantis meeting, Jill & I hung out over at the TA lounge. I read some Wilde. Definitely want to do something with socialism for my final project...

The OC... excellent.