Hello and welcome back to ΣΝΖΟ’s (Sigma Nu Zeta Omicron) thanksgiving special edition, (part 1).

I’m writing in the beginning of the holiday week to register my plans and expectations. For starters I would like to say that we don’t have thanksgiving in Brazil, by that we can conclude two things. This is my first thanksgiving and I have no idea why people celebrate thanksgiving. To solve this mystery I asked my American friends. Their answers were basically: “to celebrate that we are grateful for everything that happened to us this year and for the things we have”, “Back in the day, the first settlers to come to America were starving and near their death, so the natives helped them by giving them food and showing how to survive here, and we are celebrate this day because we are thankful for their action”, “It’s a special holiday where you can eat a lot of food”. Of course I went to the famous Dr.Google, but he gave me a lot of different versions and so I decided to come with this conclusion: “In the past everyone had their reasons to be glad something happened and that’s no different today. So let us take a week to appreciate all things that make us happy and eat a lot while doing it”.

Where I come from we also have a holiday that last a whole week. I would translate its name to “pissed of week” (semana do saco cheio- in Portuguese), as the name say; it is a week that you just don’t do anything because you are pissed of everything. But not many people “celebrate it”. I never was able to miss school because of it, for example.

Let us come back to the U.S. For international students, like me, the name of this holiday is: “go on a trip somewhere or stay at the dorm alone”. My original plan was to go to Chicago with my Indian friend. But we still haven’t got the money to do so, Hence we decided to stay at our dorm. I think my floor only have 5 or 7 people left, including me and my friend, still some of them are going to Chicago today (lucky b@$!@#%$). So it will be the two of us against a whole week on the dorm. But we made our plans too. They are not as good as going to Chicago but at least it’s something.

The plan is: MONDAY- do homework and find out where Hyvee is (it’s about time); TUESDAY- go to some exhibitions for my first year seminar; WEDNESDAY- go to a job fair(because my friend want to find a new job, I’m perfectly fine with the one I have, but that’s story for another post); THURSDAY- go to a thanksgiving dinner with one of our friend’s family (she had to insist a lot for us to go, because we don’t want to be a burden to anyone, neither we want to interfere with family meetings); FRIDAY- go to the mall, grab a chair and a popcorn and see the madness that the black Friday is (where I come from we have a fake black Friday, where the owners of shops rise the price of the products before putting them on sale, so their price stay the same while the say it is on sale. Also, I want to see if all the crazy stories I heard about black Friday on the U.S are true); WEEKEND- procrastinate on life and finish any pending homework.

We can say that the climax of my week will be Thursday and Friday, I think I will be able to have a good time. Next Monday I will write about the outcome of this week,(If I survive the black Friday). See you next week!