恭喜发财!

Today starts the Spring Festival marking the beginning of the Year of the Boar, just after I've moved on to the second level in my Mandarin course with a pretty decent test score (which wasn't bad considering that I practically didn't have time to study properly).

Given that it's my own sign, I find this particularly auspicious. Or maybe I'm just getting superstitious in my old age.

Anyway, it's nice to be able to relate to the holiday, and to dip into the culture surrounding it - not to mention spreading mayhem among non-UTF-8-compliant newsreaders...

A prosperous year to all!