Gong Xi Fa Cai! That's Happy Chinese New Year, to you. The Year of the Rat - also known as the Chinese year 4706 - began on Feb. 7, and residents of Chinatown in Philadelphia spent two weeks ringing in the new year in style. Chinese New Year is the most important of traditional Chinese holidays and is accompanied by parades, feasts and family reunions.

This summer, many Penn students will pay hundreds - even thousands - of dollars to work for free. Companies have long used college students as a source of free labor by offering unpaid internships. Still, employers are often wary of violating labor laws in the process, so they want to compensate students with academic credit.

Since hiring Tommy Amaker, Harvard has improved in a few areas. Closing out games has not been one of them. Going into the weekend, Harvard was 1-9 in games decided by ten points or fewer. That one win came in November, and since then the Crimson (8-18 overall) have lost close games in the most criminal of ways.

Penn Democrats will endorse a candidate for president next week, the organization announced yesterday - but there is still debate about whether it is too soon for such an endorsement, or whether the group should endorse at all. Penn Dems will hold an endorsement meeting on March 5 for all active members.

Inexperience and a season opener proved to be an unstable combination for the Quakers - one that blew up at just the wrong time. Up by three with 10 minutes to go, the men's lacrosse team looked primed for an upset win over No. 18 Drexel. But a bevy of mistakes let the Dragons score the game's final four goals to pull off a 9-8 comeback victory.

Having a roommate often means learning to live with differences in sleeping patterns and music tastes. For some, it can also mean getting used to someone else's eating habits. When living together with someone, dietary differences - such as being vegetarian or keeping kosher - require a degree of compromise between roommates to avoid potential flare-ups.

Amira Fawcett is an Engineering junior from Houston, TX. Her e-mail address is fawcett@dailypennsylvanian.com.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System is doing a little spring cleaning, rearranging and remodeling this year. In addition to the expansive new Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine - set to open in June next to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania - Penn Medicine at Rittenhouse, located at 18th and South Streets, will also see some development and expansion.

Engineering junior Peter Beltramo couldn't help but look up and stare as he walked down Walnut Street last week. He walks this way often and has observed Penn's newest off-campus housing option, The Radian, take shape from the start. But while Beltramo says he has enjoyed watching the construction, he doesn't like what he sees.

Debate was in the air at Sunday evening's Undergraduate Assembly meeting, which ran for four and a half hours and had a significantly higher attendance than usual. About a dozen students, mostly from Lambda Alliance, the umbrella organization for all LGBT groups on campus, and ALLIES, an on-campus gay-straight alliance, were present to support the much-anticipated Blood Donor Discrimination Proposal, which was ultimately passed by the body.

For some, the costs of studying abroad include more than just plane tickets, hostel fees and European bar tabs. With some study abroad programs in the Southern Hemisphere beginning as early as mid-July, students heading below the equator for fall semester will see their breaks cut in half and formal summer jobs and internships possibly impacted by their academic calendars.

The second largest group of physicians in the United States sees evidence that marijuana can relieve severe pain and supports its medicinal use, according to a recently issued position paper. This paper from the Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians urges the federal government to acknowledge and sanction research into the plant's medicinal uses.

Data breaches and identity theft have become a prime focus on college and university campuses. A recent report by Educational Security Incidents found that the number of data breaches on college campuses rose 67.5 percent last year, compared to 2006. But at Penn, officials say, a number of measures are in place to protect data.

Last Friday, the chapter presidents of Penn's sororities and fraternities met with a team from the University to discuss next year's facilities budget for the Greek houses. Every year, each chapter meets individually with the University facilities team to discuss fixed costs, projected utilities, rent and any additional small projects that need to be done around the house for the upcoming academic year.

One telling sign of a veteran team is an ability to put together a complete game - 40 minutes of solid play in all phases, offensive and defensive. The youth of the Penn men's basketball team is no secret, and it has most often manifested itself away from the Palestra.

This Sunday night, the fate of over $1.7 million will be unveiled by the UA Budget Committee. Every spring, this mammoth sum is doled out to each of Penn's six student government branches, which carve up the money until it finally trickles down to you - the constituent.

HANOVER, N.H. - They enjoyed it. Good thing, because it didn't last. On the eve of their Saturday clunker against Harvard, the Quakers went to Leede Arena with all the answers and walked away with an 88-62 rout of Dartmouth. And even if the Quakers hadn't shot a better percentage than the Big Green from the foul line and out-rebounded them by 20, they would have had little trouble.