What are you thankful for?

So, I haven't updated in almost two weeks, sorry for that. I've been really busy with, well, mostly vacation. The week of the 12th-18th (ish) I went to Upper Egypt, which is actually south, but upriver. I saw a bunch of temples and statues and tombs and hieroglyphs and, well, old stuff. All the stuff was cool, but the trip was really drama-y so i definitely could've had a better time. Whatever, it's in the past. Then we had 3 days of class, which were pretty uneventful except for a guest lecture in my Human Rights in the Middle East class, this man named Joost Hilterman who talked about Iraq. It was pretty interesting.
Then it was Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays for a lot of reasons, ranging from the almost spiritual to the incredibly materialistic. First, and my most important reason for loving Thanksgiving, is that I think people too often forget to be thankful for everything we have by getting caught up in what we don't have, what we want, etc. I'm including myself in this. I can certainly be just as materialistic as anyone else, and I think I all too often forget, while wanting a new gadget or whatever, that I have so much to be thankful for. SO MUCH. And so I want to remind everyone who takes the time to read this to thank you for caring about me. Even if I don't know you or know that you're reading this, knowing that my day to day craziness might bring a smile to someone's face or that knowing what I'm up to might make you miss me less (I miss y'all too) helps me to feel a little more connected to everyone back home. Some things I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving include the opportunity to live in Egypt, this crazy, amazing, infuriating never dull place I'm beginning to call home; I'm thankful for my friends everywhere, especially those back home who've kept in touch; I'm thankful for my family, it was great to talk to y'all Thursday; I'm thankful that, as much as I love studying in Egypt, I get to go home in May and that I am afforded the rights of an American citizen (more on this later); I'm grateful for the internet keeping me sane while here; I'm grateful for the American Embassy for providing me with a turkey day dinner that made me feel right at home... (my bus got to where it was going at this point and I've lost that really awesome train of thought)