Mardi Gras

When it comes to Mardi Gras, we think masks, feather bowas and green and purple everywhere!

The French translation is Fat Tuesday, referring to the practice of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season, which begins on Ash Wednesday.

At home, we usually eat pancakes until we burst but being State side, it has advanced to a whole new level of eating!

Northeastern crams food into the Levine Marketplace eattery at Stetson East and people queue for their space inside!

Waiting in the queue, you could see all the dining hall bursting with decorations and you could hear the bands practise!

Upon entry, you were greeted with beads, loads of them and handed carnival accessories including hats, masks, glasses, feathers and more BEADS!

Tables were lined with sweet treats and lines were forming  at the other counters for savory dishes.

There was one table with mountains on cake and the servers shouting, "Find a baby and win a prize!" Little mini baby toys were hidding in random pieces of cake and if found, you would receive a bag of carnival delights.

There was also a photobooth and a whole box of dressing up accessories to be used to get the perfect picture. In the first round of photos, I used a cute feather mask and secondly, a deep purple hat with a huge string of lets say Christmas baubles in various colours. And they actually printed them out for you, in a strip o f 4!

Three competitions were on the go. The first was a pancake filing contest followed by a cereal eating contest - 10 mini boxes of cereal had to be eaten and finally a contest where you put your face in a whipped cream pie and try and find M&Ms!

All of this created such a fun and exciting atmosphere for everyone, so many student were there enjoying themselves, as were myslef, the girls and Anthony Pan. He very kindly paid us into Stetson as we don't have access to a meal card. He will be rewarded very shortly. He was also our photographer for the night, taking loads of photos in ensure that we did not forget this celebration!

Check out his blog here: http://anthonypannu.tumblr.com/

Also check out Northeastern's photos from the event: http://www.nudining.com/photos/mardi-gras-2013

Great night! Wish all Mardi Gras (or pancake days at home) were like this! 

Weather update! Saturday, February 9th

Well the snow keeps on falling here in Boston!

MBTA is still shut down and many businesses are still closed.

Check out my latest photos!

Update later with what happened when we went....OUTSIDE!

Wicked Weather

Being here, I have experience many different variations of weather. Sun, Sandy, Snow and now Nemo? 

This snow storm has led the city to be shut down and given us a day off! 

As off 10.30pm, Friday February 8th, this was outside our door; 

And this was sent over Facebook by a concerned friend! 

Chinese Pronunciation

Francis Griffin has many talents as my supervisor. 

One of the most impressive traits is his fluency in Chinese. At our Faculty Meetings this week, he showed off this skills to our instructors and to me! 

He had a slide with initial sounds of letters then final sounds which would finish the word off. 

He laid out examples for everyone and I was asked to pronounce Li Qinxian. 

It would be pronounced as Lee Cheen Shwan. 

You learn something new everyday! 

Xièxiè Francis!