Chúc mừng năm mới!

Title Translation: Happy New Year!

I admit that growing up, I did not embrace a lot of Vietnamese culture. I did not like most Vietnamese food, did not like going to Little Saigon, loathed watching Vietnamese music videos when visiting family, cried hysterically when my parents entered me into a Vietnamese pagent, etc.

However, I loved Tết. The candied treats, dragon dances, the firecrackers, and of course the red envelopes of money. I also thought it was really cool when my mom came to my third grade class to explain our traditions. It was nice to showcase the Vietnamese side since everyone just associates this holiday with the Chinese. No, for the millionth time, I am not Chinese.

And along with the New Year's traditions come the superstitions. I have never seen my mom be superstitious about anything, but one year she freaked out when I considered getting a haircut on New Year's. Apparently it puts a curse on maternal uncles.

Since I am actually superstitious and have a job interview tomorrow, I wore my red today to scare away the evil spirits. I also looked for cues of how my year will be, since apparently what happens today is supposed to be an indicator of the rest of the year. So here's to hoping that I will do well academically (I got 100% on the pop quiz in my business law class, which made me happy even though it did not count), do well in work (finished most of my assignments today), overcome my technological woes (my computer died but came back to life and I fixed the scanner problem at work), and have a healthy (cooked 3 healthy meals and got in physical exercise this weekend) new year.