Lunar New Year

Ah yes, it's that time of the year again. The time when you go out to an area surrounded by Asian markets, and you hear the almost ear deafening sound of firecrackers, accompanied by the smell of smoke right afterwards. And the drums. And the cymbals. Then come the lions. Ah yes, what type of Lunar New Year celebration would it be without the lion dances?

Lion Dance Costumes.

Have you ever wondered where this all started? Why 1/6th of the world's populations celebrates two new years instead of one? Well you've come to the right place, my friend.

The Ancient Chinese Calender dates back all the way to 14th century B.C., way before the western calender was adopted in 1912. It was based off of many concepts, the lunar positions, yin and yang, the 12 zodiac animals, the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. The order of the animals are ranked in the order that they each arrived in a "race" between the 12 of them.

During the New Year, which was celebrated on the last day of the lunar calender and the first day of the new year, businesses halted, and family gatherings were strongly encouraged. Festivals were held here and there, houses were cleaned to rid of "evil spirits" of the past year. Firecrackers were lit and Lion Dances were performed to also frighten evil spirits away, and for some, the most important part of all, the red envelopes were given out.

Example of some Red Envelopes with some familiar faces on them.

The color red in Asian Culture is generally regarded as the color of good luck. Back in the day, elders would give their grandchildren money with a red string tied around it, to represent money scaring away the bad spirits. As time went on and more inventions were made, the red string tied around the money evolved into a red envelope, hongbao, or li xi, with money stuffed inside. The amount of money inside varies from family to family. Usually its a few dollars, or if you're lucky, it could be a twenty dollar bill. But it actuality, it's not really what's inside the envelope that matters. It's really the respect you give towards your elders and family members, and the togetherness that really matters during this time of the year. 

A happy family eating dinner together for the New Year.

Source

Procrastination extreme?

You know that magical word. You know that magical feeling. The feeling of putting a homework assignment, feeding the cat, studying, changing the light bulb, cleaning your room, anything, to the side in exchange for doing something much more satisfying. You tell yourself "Eh, I'll do it later." Later comes. "Hm, maybe in a bit." Time passes. "Oh look, a much more interesting activity that seems interesting. Looks like I'll have do put aside doing _______". Except feeding your cat. Don't put aside feeding your cat.You know how grumpy Mr. Whiskers can get if he doesn't get his food.

But why do we do this? Why do we cause ourselves the pain of staying up until the wee hours of the morning, most likely scrambling to do homework that we could have done, ages ago?

It is just in the human nature to put more interesting tasks in front of the less interesting ones. In fact, procrastination has existed longer than the word "procrastination" was created. I guess even  someone put off making a word for it until the 17th century.

Some people can control their urges, however, and manage to stay on task, most of the time. Others, not so much.

Though does procrastinating affect the outcome of the task? It really depends on the person. On one hand, you have the last minute-shove everything onto a piece of paper and slap my name onto it so I can get a decent amount of sleep- procrastinators. On the other hand, you have the- stays up until 4:00 AM to finish everything and make it look like I didn't do this the night before it was due- type of procrastinators. No matter which type you are, it doesn't change the fact that you could have done the task much sooner.

But why do it so soon when you can do it later?