pig in, chick out

so according to the lunar calendar, we are now in the year of the pig. last year was the year of the rooster. i am of a chinese descent, but i never get this whole thing with animals representing years. does that mean that this year i'm supposed to worship the pigs and not allowed to eat them for the whole year? and that last year i wasn't supposed to devour chicken but make a shrine for them instead? if that's the case, then i guess i was disrespectful to the animals because i've lost count on how many chicken i devoured last year, and that this year i started the new year of the pig by barbecue-ing pork with my officemate joulien. we BBQ'd some chicken too. think of it as signalling the end of the rooster and the beginning of the pig. it's too bad that they both ended up in our stomach and later on got excreted and flushed down the toilet.

it's a shame, really

why only 12 animals? so they've got the tiger, the ox, even animals like dragons that don't really exist. why not bring in the elephants? or the giraffes? did these animal not exist when they set up the lunar calendar? they've got a rat, a monkey, why not chinchillas? or hamsters? or parrots? i wonder why animal rights activists haven't rallied together to protest to the chinese about discriminating thousands of other species from their lunar calendar.

i was born in the year of the rat. in november, to be precise. my mother said i'm a water rat or something. what the hell is a water rat? did they really have some amphibian rodents back then? i think we should all be able to pick what animal we want to be associated with. me, i'm gonna pick 1984 to be the year of the panda. and if i were required to associate a worldly element to the animal, i will then become a drunk panda. i can't believe that the chinese forgot about the pandas! they, of all people in the world, should know best about pandas! they were the ones who started the ruckus about how pandas are on the brink of extinction, and traded the remaining pandas with other nations as a sign of peace. if pandas meant that much to them, then they should at least put a darn panda in their lunar calendar.

what's the deal with red envelopes, anyway? after new year's, everyone always talks about how much money they get off the red envelope. i've never gotten any since i was fifteen or so since my parents told me i'm way too old for red envelopes. wikipedia, on the other hand, did not mention anything about red envelopes being age-dependant. does this mean my parents lied to me? should i trust my parents more? or should i trust wikipedia more? do i pick a trusty internet resource over the two people who have raised me for twenty-two years? i'm having a dilemma here. just now a girl messaged me and asked how much i got from the red envelopes. she said she got a couple hundred bucks. i said i got none. nada. null. and then she offered to give me a red envelope, but only a penny.

i read that sentence a few times, and then i asked myself: am i that pitiful? do i really need a penny that bad? i glanced over my shoulder and looked at the collection of pennies i've accumulated from buying by daily lunch that usually costs $4.76. i get FOUR pennies a day. do i really need your penny? maybe not. i have enough of them sitting around unused that if every single one of my friend gave me a penny, my room would be a fort knox of pennies.