Happy New Year!

How many times have I said that in the past few months? It seems like every week, there's a new New Year's to celebrate. . .

But this one's different. This one has a billion people shooting off fireworks. This one is the Lunar New Year. Sunday begins the Year of the Dog. The Fire Dog! Year 4703!

Up until a few minutes ago, I thought it was the Year of the Wood Dog, but I checked and found out I was wrong. Apparently the 60-year cycle doesn't go through all the animals each element, but instead does them in pairs: Earth Tiger, Earth Rabbit, Metal Dragon, Metal Snake, Water Horse, Water Goat, Wood Monkey, Wood Rooster, and now Fire Dog.

Hm... I was born in the year of the Fire Dragon. Pretty impressive, huh? Just picking a couple other years at random, 1948 was the Earth Rat and 1974 was the Wood Tiger. I wonder if Chinese astrology somehow makes those sound as good as Fire Dragon. . .