beyond the satellites; chinese new year
it's clear and all the stars are out tonight here. earlier this evening i was out driving on the interstate and saw the stars in the sky...shining, twinkling, glistening. normally i don't really think twice about it, but tonight i took in the beauty of the winter nighttime sky and was awestruck. one of my favorite elementary school field-trips was to the local planetarium. i used to think it was so cool that we could sit back and watch night fall and then the sun rise again within an hour. i guess all that glitter in the sky is like magic, luring some little kids to dream of being astronauts when they grow up...that plus the mystery of the unknown.
i'm rambling...not sure about the point of this entry. i heard about the columbia shuttle this morning when i woke up and turned on the t.v. i just finished reading the diary of someone in one of the texas towns where all the debris fell. it's all kind of surreal.
you know, this is pretty random, but hearing about the noise of today's explosion reminded me of a conversation i had w/ my sister back about 6 or 7 yrs ago, when she lived in chicago for med. school. one morning she had heard what sounded like a clap of thunder. but it was a clear sunny day. turns out it was the sonic boom of a space shuttle re-entering the earth's orbit and headed to florida.
speaking of celestial bodies and astronomy, i wanted to switch gears to astrology....chinese astrology. today is the chinese new year. the year of the ram (or sheep). according to the chinese zodiac, i'm a tiger. yeah baby! if you don't know your sign according to this zodiac, go to this page. a lot people of asian-american heritage know their chinese/lunar calendar birthday. in fact, a long time ago, apparently people in asia went by their lunar birthday. i happen to know my lunar calendar birth date. want to figure out yours? i just found out there's a way to figure out your lunar birthday using an on-line lunar calculator . you enter your actual birth date, month, year and click "submit" and it spits out your lunar birthday. turns out my birthday on the lunar calendar is april 24th. but, i'm not telling my real birthday (for now). if you go to that webpage, you can probably figure out my actual birthday if you're bored enough to want to know when emeraldtiger was born. a ha! some people might be able to guess my year of birth. but b/c i've never explicitly told what year i was born, there's another piece of the puzzle to put together if you're *that* curious.
i'm too tired to type more so i'll leave everyone with that. have fun!
