My santa from Bavaria sent me these awesome handmade gloves (I'm wearing them right now! :3) and a letter about their life filled with encouraging words.

This is my first year doing SS and in the match description I said how I was worried about choosing to go into a male-dominated major for college (Computer Science) and a career. Santa told me about their work environment and how many of the managers they've had so far had been girls just like me. I'm struggling to find the right words to describe how much just reading that made me feel. Relieved? Excited? Happy? Probably something that's a mix of all of those.

There's even more stuff in the letter that I'm having trouble describing, so I'll just share some of it here:

"All the best with your career! And even more with finding and keeping friends and SO's who value and respect you for who you are."

"One more thing. I studied some Greek and was amazed how they would have sometimes many words 'for the same'. It was more than 2000 years ago and they would think years about defining 'simple' words! This really is amazing! Only by having an idea about words will allow one to structure one's feelings and enable one in turn to express these. Therefore I am a fan of learning new words."

"Check out for example the Wikipedia page for 'Greek words for love'.

Santa then wrote out the word φιλία (philía), which when I looked up on the page they recommended means "affectionate regard, friendship," usually "between equals."

I've been smiling ever since and I think my face is gonna be stuck like this for awhile.