Thanksgiving/bday/finals/misc

Thanksgiving:

Went to Tai Po Market (basically a food court serviced by actual restaurants, they serve you and everything) with a bunch of friends for a Thanksgiving tradition that probably won't catch on - Thanksgiving fish (hah see what I did there? Catch on? Fish? Ah humor is wasted on you guys). So for the record, here are the things that I'm thankful for:

1 - Family (parental support, brother actually giving useful advice ((I'm sorry but "That window is vulnerable to zombie attack" doesn't count, brother of mine)))
2 - Friends (to talk to, to eat with, to bet dinners with)
3 - Good health (here's to avoiding whatever HK maladies seem to be running rampant, family is doing well, friends are mostly still alive)
4 - Good fortune (I'm studying in Hong Kong, I'm still amazed by that fact sometimes)
5 - Well, I could go on...

Birthday:

Friends showed up at my door at midnight, and almost managed to surprise me (they whisper too loudly + my uncannily accurate sense of hearing. Yeah, that...) - I got cake, candy, tupperwear, and pictures! Then later that evening they paid for my dinner, and we got to play on a playground. Good times, thanks guys.

Friends from home (you guys know who you are) sent me a box full of goodies - more candy (I need to stop telling people I like candy), cards, pictures, and books! Again, good times, much love to those Oxy kids.

On Facebook birthdays - if I haven't talked to you in months, if not years, I always think it's kind of weird to just pop up and say "happy birthday!" It's nice, don't get me wrong, but it seems kind of disingenuous. I know I always feel kind of awkward about it and have to think "is it socially appropriate for me to say happy birthday to this person?. Ah well, by the bonds we once shared

Finals:

Done with classes, slogging through papers and finals - only two finals (Mandarin and English - crazy language classes), but a boatload of papers. It breaks down to something like:

English: 3 page paper (I wrote five, I blame my postcolonial literature course for that), 8 page paper

Microecon: 5 pages for a research paper

Anthro: 8 pages

HK/China/World econ: 4 pages

But the weird thing is that I'm not even complaining - I seem to be moving through them at a decent pace. Hope that holds up, or I'm going to end up swamped...

Misc:

Called the company that I booked plane tickets through, and though definitely sketchy, seems reputable enough...Still need to go shopping for cold weather stuff - maybe a coat and some gloves...

And that's all, back to work