My first real winter

In addition to this being my first full winter, locally it was one of the coldest winters they have had in a while, but I unually enjoyed it, besides the fact that 2 out of the school's 3 furnaces broke midwinter leaving my apartment colder than it should have been. Overall a great adventure, though, and you'll see pictures around campus, Christmas trees and a snowman at different restaurants, a music staff drawn into the snow, and some pictures of the Olympic areas under construction when I passed through last January.

The characters to the right are the Olympic mascots, and are named Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. If you take the first part of each name it says, "Beijing huanying Ni" (Beijing Welcomes You).