thank you notes (c)(6)

i’m thankful i learned out to use bibtex today after unsuccessfully struggling to get it to work for the past four years. i’m thankful for the joy this brings me and to think that my life maybe just got a little bit easier, but also because i now have a project: figure out how to create a citation style in bibtex that most closely conforms to MLA 8 as possible.

i’m thankful my friend FaceTimed me on monday. i’m thankful this was the first time we’d FaceTimed in almost a month. i’m thankful for the fact that we got to talk about so many things that i haven’t really had the opportunity to talk much about. i’m thankful for her reassurance that my roommate is just a dick, and to think how comforting that was to hear; to no longer be worried that the things he’s said to me were actually true (e.g. you only care about yourself, you don’t think about what you say to others, you purposely try to separate yourself from the majority). i again just want to affirm how thankful i am for my friend and how kind she can be even when she’s not necessarily trying to be.

i’m thankful my friend and i stumbled onto the topic of sex where we’d both read a buzzfeed article on first time sexual encounters that summed them up as: bad. i’m thankful we could both agree that that is the polar opposite of both of our encounters and to have recounted the stories, giggling as we did. i’m thankful for all of the times i looked over my shoulder during out facetime call because i was in a park and afraid someone might overhear what i was talking about. i’m thankful for the fact i consider myself pro-sex, but am still too afraid to talk about it too loudly and only with certain people. i’m thankful this is generally my approach to topics which can be seen as taboo (e.g. politics, sex, religion, etc.).

i’m thankful to occasionally become conscious of the checks i’m always running on myself to ensure i’m not discounting people too quickly or dehumanizing them. i’m thankful that i usually become aware of the check whenever i realize i’ve failed it. i’m thankful to think that this failure doesn’t come too often—though certainly less thankful for the flood of fear that i’m filled with whenever that does come along.

i’m thankful that whenever picked up my lunch from the quick health-food fast-food place today the person that had prepared it had overfilled the bowl. i’m thankful i wasn’t carrying my bag today because i wouldn’t have had enough hands to carry both the bowl and my bag back to my room to eat it over netflix.

i’m thankful to have finished the latest season of black mirror today. i’m thankful to remember two episodes which truly stuck out to me: (1) an episode wherein disabled persons are given an almost second-life style alternate reality which they can move around in and interact with outer second-life style avatars and (2) an episode wherein the military implants devices within soldiers so they don’t see their enemies as human. i’m thankful for the generally dark tone black mirror takes on, even if sometimes it makes me a little cynical of the future of technology. i’m thankful that black mirror exists however because it serves as a medium to raise important questions about the development of our species alongside the continued evolvement of technology.

i’m thankful for the evolvement of technology however. i’m thankful that technology brings me this newsletter which i read every day when i’m commuting to various places or waiting. i’m thankful to have read it this evening at panera while i ate macaroni and cheese and bread. i’m thankful for the hesitation i had whenever i was asked which side i wanted because i thought about how much starch was in all of the food. i’m thankful for the film, big night, which opens on a woman asking for spaghetti with her risotto and how upset the italian chef is that the woman “like starch.”

i’m thankful i like starch. have a great rest of your week.

- c (10/26/2016).

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