Happy Year of the Dragon! I can’t believe it’s been a full zodiac cycle since the beginning of the new millennium. Yes, I’m mixing together my solar and lunar calendars haha. Lunar New Year is, no doubt, the largest and most festive holiday in my culture and many other (Asian/Eastern) cultures as well. It’s a nice time for family reunions and see the people that I don’t get to see on a regular basis.

However… today was pretty mundane…. Usually on holidays like today, my parents make me and my sister eat together with them at the dining table and whatnot with all the dishes laid out on the table. On all the normal days, we’d all just eat separately, wherever and whenever we please, each at our own computer or TV o.o Today though, despite it being Lunar New Year, I ate dinner alone at the dining table with my precious laptop. My parents were at my aunt’s house with the rest of the big extended family while my sister lives in her dorm at UCLA (so she comes home like once a month or whenever she feels like it). The importance of Lunar New Year just seems to have vanished today. Today just seems like any other day.

This is not the first holiday where celebration has decreased so much to the point of nonexistence. The Mid-Autumn Festival that took place a few months ago was pretty nonexistent for me. We usually have a few boxes of mooncakes at home but this time, I didn’t even eat one mooncake. Well, I did eat a quarter of a mooncake… the most mooncake I ate between then and now is 3/8 of a mooncake a couple days ago (yes it’s a mooncake from a few months back and yes it was cut into 8 pieces lol). I didn’t even really know that the festival had occurred until it had already passed.

Anyways, back to Lunar New Year. Well, there’s nothing much left to say. May the year of the dragon be awesome! Since it is the start of a new year and I didn’t really work on my New Year’s resolution yet… let’s give it a shot!

1. Do well in the 4 classes that I have left this quarter before I graduate (by well I mean strive for A’s!)
2. Obtain a mediator certificate through an internship with the Orange County Human Relations
3. Obtain a TEFL certificate
4. Find a part-time job and/or full-time career
5. Apply for EPIK in April and hopefully get in

I think that’s all I really want to get done this year. Not too much right? Hopefully I can accomplish it all 🙂

Happy Lunar New Year! Chúc Mừng Năm Mới! 새해 복 많이 받으세요!