I’ve been thinking about it, and I have so very much to be thankful for this year!<\/p>\n
I’m truly fortunate to be a successful doctoral student who is currently ABD (All But Dissertation). This year is the one where I finish both comprehensive essays (I have two weeks left on the second one), which I was warned repeatedly would be a terror of overwork and anxious reading and writing. I haven’t found it so, though — I’ve deeply enjoyed reading about some extraordinarily fascinating research, while writing seems to come more and more easily for me. My sole regret is that I had to skim some of the wonderful books, and even then I’ve promised myself some leisurely reading time during the upcoming summer — my scholastic off time — so I may linger and more fully savor those books I had to rush through.<\/p>\n
This has also been the year where I celebrated my 25th<\/em> anniversary of togetherness with the kindest, most encouraging, and most patient man I’ve ever met! I know he is all of these things because let’s face it: he’s successfully put up with me for the past 25 years. :) Love you, Bob; I couldn’t have made it this far both scholastically and intellectually, and through my emotional development, were it not for your calm and steadfast encouragement.<\/p>\n On a more pragmatic level, I am so very grateful that I am a citizen of a relatively prosperous country that is predominantly at peace. I live in paradise! California is warm and beautiful and tolerant, and I am very fortunate to be here. My home is a nice house with wonderful housemates who care about me and who I care for; I have friends and family who I also care for, and who are healthy and prosperous as well. I can eat food that is good for me, go to school and learn fascinating things, live in a fashion that is not the social norm without fear of violent reprisal, and indulge my growing enjoyment of cooking — and not only can I do all these delightful things with relative ease, but I also do not have to fear for my life on a daily basis.<\/p>\n I am so glad that I live in good health on this beautiful, ancient, breathtakingly balanced planet, as an integral part of Her miraculous ecosystem! I am grateful that Mother Earth freely<\/em> grants me, each day, Her life-giving gifts of air to breath, water to drink, food to eat. Most of all, I am profoundly grateful that I have the opportunity and ability to say thank you to Her, and to work towards a world where She is perceived with gratitude and respect by all.<\/p>\n I am truly blessed on this beautiful, calm Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been thinking about it, and I have so very much to be thankful for this year! I’m truly fortunate to be a successful doctoral…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,5,7,1,26,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-firestarter","category-ethics-questions","category-family","category-uncategorized","category-spirituality","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4871,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4870\/revisions\/4871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}