So today was Thanksgiving and it has been a tough day for me, being away from the family and all. Every year, I come home from school the day before Thanksgiving. I walk into a home filled with 2 smiling parents, ready and elated to have me back home! Wednesday night is Desai bonding time. Although I do not have the biggest family, the three of us really bond the most on this day, more than any other day of the year. Family time is different for me. I never eat meals with my parents on a normal basis. When I am at home, my dad will eat first, then I will eat, and my mom will eat a few hours after us. Thus, meals at the Desai residence are lonely ones. It’s usually just me and the TV. So, you all can imagine why the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is special for me. We get some nice Thanksgiving food from Boston Market and enjoy a nice meal with funny jokes and cheer to go around the table. The next day, the three of us head over to Palo Alto to enjoy another Thanksgiving meal with my cousin Supriya, and her family. She makes all the yummy food from scratch, and I enjoy every morsel of her meals! This year, I got a phone call from my mom telling me how much she misses me. I can only imagine how hard it must be for my parents, with their only daughter being away from home when everyone else’s children are coming home for the holidays. For my mother especially, this must be the hardest. I was sad because I cannot bear to see my mother sad. I felt the disappointment in her tone of voice and she was trying to be strong, but I know she missed me a lot. Even my dad. I have not talked to him, but my mom will give me updates and he really misses the father-daughter bonding time that comes with Thanksgiving. This is why I was a little excited to be spending Thanksgiving in Hong Kong with my friends, sharing a nice, traditional Thanksgiving meal. But, unfortunately, these plans changed and turkey and the works were eliminated from my Thanksgiving plans. My friends decided to go to the party that my program had organized, and I had to scramble together a last minute T-giving plan in order to make sure that I would not be alone. I am thankful. I am thankful that my Thanksgiving was not spent alone. That is the one thing I was dreading the most and I am so happy that I did not have to spend one minute of it alone. I woke up this morning and began my day working in the nice sunshine with my friends Alice and Justin. We worked all day and I got a few pages of my paper done! woohoo! I then went to go play some tennis with Justin. It felt sooo good to play a few sets and I worked up my appetite for some goood food! We went out to an Indian restaurant near our campus (I found it’s ratings online) with Alice, Justin, Wil, and Kobe. It was an eclectic mix of people, but they were all delightful company. The food was pretty decent and I will definitely be hitting up the spot in the near future. We got 10% off our meal for being CUHK students AND free drinks! 
After we started singing Christmas carols and sang in the mall and the MTR (we got a few stares, but it was well worth it!) I came back and here I am now.
Though I did not get my traditional Thanksgiving feast, I am thankful for having such wonderful friends who made my Thanksgiving everything BUT lonely! I am very happy and content and I think I will call it a night so I can wake up super fresh, ready to start my new day with some homeworkin! Hope all of you have a fantastic T-giving and please eat some extra turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pie for me! LOVES!
