NOW, It's the New Year

            Being Asian and all, today is a pretty big deal. Why is that??? Because it's the Freakin CHINESE NEW YEAR. It makes me happy for obvious reasons. The food is usually the main stimulus, but the opportunity to spend time with the family and carry out age old traditions during the new year are also a big plus. Usually me and the family have a grand feast of home cooked chinese food together and then vegetate in the living room. This year was no exception. However, this year was a little different because we paid homage to our ancestors by burning fake money and incense in our house before we ate. We also offered them wine and food and setup everything in a special way. It was just interesting to see. Every year we would usually do such homage at my grandparent's house but since they died we moved it to mine. It's just a little strange to see life go on without them, especially during events they usually took charge of like the traditions of Chinese New Year. However, things are exponentially better than last year. This time a year ago I was so swamped with work I couldn't even come, and my grandparents had just died and I broke open my chin and broke my wrist in a bike accident and it was horrifyingly freezing. This year everything felt fine and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. A good amount of time today was spent talking to my parents about a number of things and just lying around together on our couches. If anything those are the moments I really cherish. Sure we laid around like a sack of potatoes but that was part of what made that moment for me. It's back to reality for me, but it was a pretty good day today. Just too bad the rest of the world treats this as another ordinary day.

-C.C.