Guest blogging by the wife

They say Thanksgiving is a time for families to be together so it seemed like a fun idea for Marbs and I celebrate this holiday after 3 months of being apart. Eating a whole turkey on our own was out of the question, but we made do with a menu of pumpkin soup (no butter or cream), artichoke pasta, grilled chicken with tomatoes, and pumpkin pie (only $3.99!). Thankfully, there were no crazy crowds at the supermarket and the whole town was strangely quiet given that all classes were cancelled for the holidays. Here are some life lessons we learned from this experience:
1. Walking to the supermarket in Syracuse is not like walking to the supermarket in Singapore. Especially when this means a temperature difference of more than 30 degrees.
2. Snot freezes if you don’t wipe it away quickly enough
3. Buy chopped butternut squash even if the fresh one is only 80 cents per kilo. It is not fun to peel this vegetable.
4. You can buy a readymade turkey with all the trimmings for just $57 (we hung out by the butcher’s counter and watched people come by to pick up their dinner).




We also invited Yaying, one of the other Pinoy phd students here, and had a nice dinner talking about student life and the dilemmas of moving across the world. We had a lot of fun – and it was easy to feel nostalgic about being together again. In a way, 3 months is really not that long a time to be apart. But for some reason, it was every bit as difficult as the time we first started our long distance relationship five years ago. There’s a lot to be thankful for this year. It was nice to sit down, have a nice meal, and appreciate everything.