Auspicious Ox Year To All!

It's kind of strange for me to wake up in the gray cloudy morning (which seem to warn me anytime soon it will start to rain) with occasional gusts of wind pounding at my room's glass windows. The morning after yesterday's eve of the Chinese New Year is... looking rather dull and uninviting. The streets below is almost void of people (now I see a couple of two people walking slowly, hand-in-hand). It's awfully quiet that it starts to bug me in a strange way. Well, the only sounds I currently hear are the gentle wind and occasional birds twittering (and now the passing MRT train).

I always find the Singapore celebration of New Year (may it be the traditional Chinese or the worldwide version) quite emotionless for most part of the island nation, as not all seems too giddy to celebrate with happy sounds like laughter, family or friend greetings, and such. I know that there is a law (not sure about the exact details of this but I just heard from local friends and strangers alike) that prevents people here from engaging themselves in noisy activity that disturbs the peace and quiet of their neighbors (unless it's a wedding party celebrated below the HDB flats that I mostly observe). New Year celebration is the exact opposite of the New Year celebration that I'm used to and miss back in my home country, the Philippines - the the laughter, the boisterous shouting of happy children and young adults, the mini-street and house party noises, and of course the firecrackers (not fireworks, which are mainly done in the city areas) blasting all around us. I miss all of these noises, minus the firecracker noises which I've dreaded and hated since my childhood days.

Anyway, I hope to see and experience good fortune this year. A short prayer will come a long way to ease anyone of their tensions felt from the previous year. Resolutions are a passe; careful plannings are the way to go this year. I could not clearly see a bullish year (pun intended for this 2009 Ox year) ahead, but who knows, with careful plannings, hard work, and a kiss from lady luck will help us to achieve anything we wish and hope for ourselves, our friends, and for our families.

Xin Nian Kuai Lei (uh, did I say it right?).

A bit of trivia I've learned recently as I curiously pondered why people like to start their New Year greetings with the word auspicious (sometimes playfully as "Ox-picious") - the word means to bring or augment good fortune and sucess. So in way, we wish each other good luck and success in life.

We also have no work today and tomorrow. Yay, a long vacation here! :-D.