To be honest, one of my most frequent, easy, oh-so-fun and equally loathsome activities I partake in is complaining. To magnify every single one of my teeny tiny little annoyances into full-blown ordeals and to let everyone within earshot know about it. I viciously employ hyperbole so as to make all my troubles comparable to the coming of the apocalypse. That being said, you’d think that Thanksgiving would be my least favorite, or maybe my least compatible, holiday.

Well, despite my year-round propensity to complain, I enjoy Thanksgiving not just for the few days we get off of school, or the bounty of roasted bird, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce that I stuff my face with, but for the reason for the season, which is gratitude. Even a complaint-monger like me can think of things that I can only be grateful for. And it leaves me with a better feeling than excessive complaining ever did. Yeah, it seems like I’m going to launch into some preachy and self-righteous rant with a side of cheese, about how we all should appreciate everything and anything, especially in light of the fire-caused turmoil and devastation this quarter. I’ll spare you the lecture ‹ I’m sure there will be plenty of time for that at home with families this weekend ‹ and instead just elaborate on a few of the things I’m thankful for at UCSD.

I’m thankful for the Cityshuttle, because it makes going to school infinitely more convenient. I enjoy sitting/standing and listening to the music, conversing with other riders, or just being lost in my own thoughts. It’s like the elementary school bus I never rode.

I’m thankful for the Stuart Art Collection. As weird and unattractive as some of the pieces are, it adds a unique and cultural dimension to our otherwise sterile-in-a-good-way campus. I don’t particularly like the Sun God statue or the “”giraffe-catchera blue nets in the eucalyptus grove as much as the flashing virtues and vices on top of the Powell Structural Systems Laboratory in Warren, but all of them contribute to a colorful and slightly kitschy and random atmosphere.

Speaking of Sun God, I am thankful for the Sun God Festival. Even amid all the elevated drunkenness and debauchery, the campus turns positively vibrant for one day in May. I remember the water-balloon fight that broke out at Price Center this past year; it was a moment of uninhibited, joyful playfulness. Its nice to see the whole campus let loose once in awhile.

I’m thankful for professors who seem to exude an air of genuine passion for their subject and their students. Even though undergraduates probably rank low in their list of priorities, there are professors who seemingly just want to be your friend, even allowing the discarding of their “”professor”” title when students address them. They hold office hours in coffee shops and chat with their students like it’s fun; they understand and appreciate honesty when students admit to sleeping in on an exam. Some professors seem to be so intensely excited about a subject they’ve taught over and over again that it seems as if they are teaching it for the first time. It reminds me how fortunate I am to be at UCSD, or at any university at all.

I’m thankful for CALPirg, the fur coat haters, the feminist organizations, and any other groups (minus the racist or exclusively offensive and obnoxious ones) roughing it out there on Library Walk handing out fliers and trailing after rushed and annoyed students. I am usually among those students, but I admire these groups for being anti-apathy warriors. Regardless of whether or not I agree with their cause, it kind of amazes me that there are some so impassioned about their cause that they would man a lone table and hawk fliers day after day, despite inevitably brash rejection and reactions.

I’m thankful for the cliffs overlooking Blacks Beach. There’s also that monstrously magnificent mansion on the side of the beach that has been speculated to belong to everyone from the chancellor to the owner of Ralphs to a drug kingpin. It is quite a beautiful structure, but pales in comparison to the majesty of the Pacific Ocean. Just a five-minute walk from John Muir College, the cliffs offer a space of solace that elicits pure awe. The cliffs just make me more grateful for everything. Thank God for San Diego’s beauty, for the limitless horizon that seemingly beckons us all forth to experience its wonder.

The funny thing about thinking up things I’m thankful for is that there is no limit. I can think of many other UCSD blessings, from the immensely helpful Career Services Center to the brand new game room, to the fuchsia flowers crawling up the Engineering Building Unit 2 walls, to the quarterly Vendor Fair that brings familiar goods, to the still-sparkling RIMAC, to Price Center movies Š see how the list never ends? In the spirit of the season, I shall suspend my bad habit of complaining all the time and hope that it will be diminished by Thanksgiving’s purpose.

Those Puritans had something going on, and it isn’t a bad example to follow. Butterball turkeys and autumn decor aside, commercialism hasn’t really eclipsed the meaning of Thanksgiving the way some other holidays have succumbed. It’s a good thing, too, don’t you think? Thanks for reading.