A Thanksgiving Thought

This year for Thanksgiving I went to the family I stayed with last year. It was a quiet Thanksgiving comparing to last year’s twenty people; this year we had a small nice dinner with only five people. The food was easier to prepare and conversations just came out more naturally. Of course since college is new to me this year the conversation consisted elements of my college life, roommate, friends, and major. I just read Enich’s blog about his Thanksgiving dinner and his conversation with his parents about his new religion/theology major. I believe that for all of us, the conversation on the dinner table for sure had something to do with college and majors. I enjoyed talking about my life at St. Olaf a lot as if all the hard work were worth it when I could proudly show them my achievement and all my future plans for success. I had to explain what American Conversation was when I was telling them about my classes, and they were particularly interested in it because unlike other class like biology and Spanish I have right now that is self-explanatory. Then blog showing was unavoidable after talking about blogs. They enjoyed reading them and made some really interesting comments. It was not until then that I realized that people appreciate the work I have done. Today when I was talking to Will and Enich, I realized that they have been reading my blogs, which really made me feel good.

Another thing that was new to me and to the family was that the dad is taking some classes at St. Thomas this year. It really surprised me when I found out about it. For such a privilege family and a successful businessman, I didn’t expect him to go back to college and take more classes. When I asked him why he did it, he said something that I had probably heard a million times but hadn’t really got it until that moment: “ It’s never too old to learn”. I once told myself that after I graduate I would burn all my textbooks and never study ever again, and I would like to be someone like my host dad, who is wise, successful and generous.

It is such a coincidence that one of the assignments for tomorrow is about good conversation, and the conversation we had over Thanksgiving was definitely a good one.