Mindfulness

What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?

PUMPKIN PI!

All jokes aside, I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving with all of your families and/or friends! The holiday has grown to be about more than just celebrating harvest, but for spending time with the people that you’re thankful for! Whether you went home or not, I hope you all got the chance to reflect and think about the everyday things in life that you’re thankful for.

With the hustle and bustle of college, we often don’t take the time to be mindful and think about what we do appreciate about our lives. It’s easy to focus on the negatives, especially during times of high stress (*cough* finals). So to get the ball rolling, I’ll talk about a couple things that I’m thankful for that hopefully you all can resonate with!

I love my family and friends to death, and being away from home for the first time wasn’t easy for me. I moved into college so excited and I thought I wasn’t going to be homesick at all. I was definitely wrong. College can be lonely sometimes, but that’s why it’s so important to be thankful to the friends that you have on campus to keep you company! I know a handful of people who didn’t go home for Thanksgiving but had a friendsgiving on campus instead! I think that’s such a cool concept -- we’re all one big Trojan family, so celebrating such a holiday together is just filled with a lot of fun (and hopefully a lot of food too). So, not only am I thankful for the friends that I have made on campus that have made USC feel like a home for me, but I am also thankful for the unwavering support my family has given me from miles away.

Even with the strenuous workload and stress that come from classes, it’s important to take a step back and be thankful that we all get the opportunity to attend USC. From the helpful Trojan family to the amazing professors to the free concerts, USC does a lot for us students. We are so lucky to be able to attend such a great university, so we should use every day to take advantage of these opportunities that USC has to offer!

All in all, there are so many things that we can all be grateful for. It just takes a little bit of awareness and time to sit back and recognize it. It’s a nice mental exercise to keep yourself thinking positively! Well, I hope you all got the chance to have fun this Thanksgiving break and actually take a break and relax. There are only three more weeks until the next break, so hang on tight! I wish you all the best of luck with finals. Fight on!

Michelle Phanfall, fall17, misc