Happy New Year!

Welcome to the Year of the Dog! (hmmm...maybe it's a sign: Year of the Dog, I want to get a dog...maybe it'll be this year!) Yesterday I celebrated Chinese New Year with Lisa and her friend Kali and almost everyone in the dorm. We had Chinese dumplings, barbecued chicken, broiled fish, and for desert, glutinous egg rolls, which are boiled balls of rice with sweet sesame (think peanut butter, but with a different texture) in the middle. And Tiger beer, which is a Chinese beer--and apparently brewed on the island of Hainan, which is where Lisa is from. There was SO MUCH FOOD, but it was great. I'm going to have to get some chopsticks though, because I felt like such a farb eating with a fork.

(farb, btw, is a word I learned from a book I just finished, "Confederates in the Attic." It's a derisive description for Civil War re-enactors who don't go all the way in their reenacting, as opposed to hardcores, who are, well, super-hardcore about it.)

I was going to go to Trafalgar Square today and watch the parade, but I still have this weird little sore throat which is spreading into my sinuses and applying pressure on my brain. So instead I went to the grocery store and thought, as I was passing packets of pre-mixed pie crusts, "why would I buy some shepard's pie mix if I can't sprinkle actual pieces of shepard on top?" and then I had to smack myself into remembering that I'm not actually in Sweeney Todd. I blame the odd little sickness, so I bought some paracetomol. Take that, odd little sore throat. I also bought some Haribo gummies, which aren't medicine, but do taste nice and coat the throat. Mm. I feel so optimistic.