Thanksgiving? ...When was that, again?

Yeah, Thanksgiving came and went, and I don't think I even stopped to think about it once until after. No reason to, really. I miss eating with my family and spending all day watching football (which in truth, I don't care about at all), and trying that one experimental dish on the periphery of all the classics. I miss the laughter and my constant assertions that Thanksgiving "just celebrates the theft of a country from its genocided inhabitants" and that "really, there's a whole lot more to be sorry about than thankful for,"....much to my family's constant amusement.
In short, I guess it just doesn't feel much like any kind of holiday. But, if I were constantly reminded of it, it might begin to bother me, only because I miss my family and I would note with a heavy heart their absence on a day that we used to share together. But, hey, it's over and done with and next year, I'll probably be carving up the tofurky ... much to my family's amusement.

Josh came to my house this weekend, and I'm thankful for that. I had a really long week, teaching Elementary school every day... just a sneak preview of what's to come next year. The kids were overwhelmingly great, actually. My Japanese is getting good enough to have conversations over lunch and I even made my first joke in Japanese! I'll relate it:
I had just finished class, but the room I was teaching in has a special flooring, so you can't wear your shoes inside it. I was putting my shoes back on, and one of the 6-grade girls pointed at my shoes and said "Gaikokujin" which means "foreigner", just to illustrate to her friends how big my feet are, I guess. But, I pretended I couldn't hear correctly, and replied "Eh? Nani? Gaikutsujin?" which means like "Eh? What? Foreign-shoe-person?" In retrospect, I should've tried for "Daikutsujin," which means "Giant-shoe-person". Perhaps next time.
Anyway, I had a long week of smiling and dancing and singing and washing my hands before and after everyclass (kids are germs in school uniforms, man), and it's so great to be able to sit around and drink expensive scotch (a little gift to myself) with a good friend and watch horrible horror movies all night.

Anyway, there's a whole lot to be thankful for, and I guess I am. Though, I still maintain that Thanksgiving is built on a strange Disneyfied American myth ... I guess I can afford to take a moment to reflect on how lucky I am to be here, as the first person in my family's history (like, genetically, back to the origin) to get drunk and watch the sunset over Mt. Fuji.