the lucky orange

And so concludes possibly the most anxiety-ridden week I've experienced since ending my days on a college campus, living and breathing stress, notions of expectation and the grave consequences of academic failure. As it turns out, night school has moments of a similar nature. At the end of every academic journey, there is still a final exam, and this is night school, so that exam happens at night. Right there in between leaving work and getting up to go back again. And by "work," I really mean "that place where I go to pretend I am 'coordinating clinical cancer trials,' or 'managing bone marrow transplant data,' while really I am covertly studying like a madwoman (mad scientist?). So overwhelmed was I this week that the everyday quirkiness of my otherwise joyous life seemed clouded. I shall try to reminisce.

"Chan's Live Poultry." This reminded me of Tlapa, Mexico, a mountain town whose main road doubled as a riverbed during flash floods. On this main road there was a building that appeared to be a home, although most of the buildings were so dilapidated their structured gave no real hint as to their function, on top of which there was an extra story constructed of chicken wire. Inside of this top floor was a flock of turkeys, probably about 50 crammed into a living-room sized space, flapping up dust and pecking each other's wrinkly, grey faces. "Chan's Live Poultry," is, as I discovered while walking a blood sample (biohazard!) down the street to the molecular oncology lab, an establishment on the second floor of an old tenement-style building in Chinatown, above an empty storefront, surrounded by migration-era apartments and stores whose windows boast "Toys," "Pajamas," and photos of sexy Asian ladies. No, the second floor was not made out of chicken wire, but I could only imagine what was on the other side of those opaque glass windows. As usual, the smell of steamed duck wafted through the streets.

In other news, for those of you who are shamefully ignorant, yesterday, January 17th of 2008, marked the ten year anniversary of the explosion of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. As I exhaustedly was beginning to slip out of consciousness in front of my television last night (post having been brutalized by my physics and chemistry exams), my ears perked as a local newscaster actually compared the situation that Bill Clinton found himself in, apologizing to the nation and being prosecuted by congress for actions conducted in his private life, to that of George W. Bush, who now faces immense scrutiny from the public sphere and attempts at prosecution by Congress (well, mostly likely not, but thanks anyhow, Kucinich!!!). That's right, according to the media, the Iraq war, 'misleadings' about WMD's, negligence after Hurricaine Katrina, and the invocation of fear and division in the American people IN THIS POST 9/11 WORLD in which there are only minutes left until we are all going to find ourselves shovelling snow and going to work beneath a mushroom cloud - in sum, are equal to - well, we remember well what happened (do we?). Thank goodness the local news was there to remind us of what a disappointment the Clinton Administration was, especially since most of our attention has been diverted to the current state of the nation, whatwithall the military surges and impending economic recessions. Never forget, America, the tragedy that struck the nation on January 17th, 1998. Never Forget.

The title of this post comes from the grocer in Chinatown where I bought grapes, "sweet tofu pudding," which is really like jello made out of soybeans, and a bag of "Lucky Oranges." They are tiny loose-skinned tangerines with the leaves still on them. Yes, they are very lucky - because they came home with me.