So as Chinese superstition goes, the first day of the New Year is a reflection on how the rest of the year will turn out. My New Year’s day went as follows.

I wake up at 6:30 am to the sound of my phone ringing. Who in their right mind is calling me at this hour?!?! 4 rings later, the culprit hangs up. Thank goodness. At 8 am, I hear whining noises outside my door. In my dream, it sounds like squeaky breaks. But wait, it’s my dog! Actually, not mine, but a friend’s dog that I’m taking care of. A black head with floppy ears pokes his way in my room and requests to be let outside. Okay, out you go. Back to sleep. 9 am - my alarm goes off simultaneously with the phone ringing! Dazed and half asleep, I turn off the alarm and run out of the room to grab the phone. Ah, just a friendly morning call from a friend. We make lunch plans and I head out for the day.

Lunch time comes around and I’m ready to eat some dim sum. But my friend calls and tells me he’s missed the exit and is on his way across the bridge! Crap. By the time he arrives, we have 20 minutes to eat before he’s got to get back to work. By now I’ve spent almost 30 minutes sitting alone in the restaurant. I’m trying to remember what I’m supposed to eat for good luck. Noodles for long life, fish for bounty, sticky rice for… I forget. Oh well.

At least by mid-afternoon, things started to pick up. I get to play a few rounds of NBA Street 3 (won 2 our of 3 rounds of course), which include a few hilarious dunking sessions with Yao-Ming. By the time I get back home, I realize that my house is a mess. Shoot, isn’t it bad luck to have a messy house on New Year’s Day? Either way, it’s too late to clean, and it’s time for me to play some Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow! It ends up being a pretty fun night if you don’t count the few rooms where I got totally whooped on. My partners (BCA and Katscratch) and I had a few “Oops, did I just jump on you?! Sorry!” instances as spies, and as always, it always feels great to break a few necks.

All in all, I guess things went from hectic to fun. I’m not sure what this means in terms of the Chinese calendar year, but then again, I’m not superstitious.