We are attending two Thanksgiving dinners tomorrow, which are at about the same time. One of them will be an Indian feast and the other will be a regular Thanksgiving feast. How, you ask, are we going to attend two dinners at nearly the same time? Magic.

Every year at A&M the administration closes the campus at noon and lets the staff leave early on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It is not on the school calendar, though, and does not show up in our time cards before Wednesday. This is because we have to have the campus open a certain number of days to meet all of the state qualifications. So every year at this time, the air is abuzz with rumors and questions, "Will they really let us go this year? They didn't send us an email about it last year until 10:00am. We have a new interim president; perhaps he will be a curmudgeon." But the campus ALWAYS closes at noon on Wednesday.

It is 3:15pm on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and we have received no email yet. If we are not released early tomorrow then I am stuck here all day by myself or, even worse, all day as the only staff member with the head of the department and some confused professors.

This is a very strange tradition. They do this on Dec. 23, too.

I can't wait until I'm a grad student.

*KatieW*

It's very hard to get out of bed in the morning when your partner is warm and you are cold. Saturdays are the worst. We made it to the coffee shop in the morning, though.

David and I might participate in our first black Friday shopping together: Half-Price Books (2 miles from our house), 7am, first 50 customers get a book bag with a $5 gift certificate inside and one customer will receive a bag with a $100 gift certificate.

I finished Middlemarch this morning. It was very enjoyable, more realistic than Dickens--though not at all funny--and  nicely paced. I highly recommend it. If you want a less humorous, more realistic Dickens, I recommend Great Expectations, which I would place slightly above Middlemarch.

That is a very short review, but I'm not going to pretend to be a great reviewer.

*KatieW*

I am addicted to the "Missed Connections" and "Strictly Platonic" pages of Craislist. They made me sad. They remind me that there are a lot of lonely people.

I check these pages with great dedication and wish that I could help. This is probably not good for me.

Our local Craigslist has a lot of ads of all types that are very interestingly worded. The best ones are usually found in the "Farm+Garden" page. I highly recommend reading through some craigslist ads to brighten your day.

*KatieW*