a tale of two burnings

It was the best of foods, it was the worst of foods, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of pressing too many buttons, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of disbelief as I walked back into the kitchen, it was the season of Light (fire), it was the season of Darkness (rice+bowl), it was the spring of cluelessness, it was the winter of total fail, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us but smoke inhalation, we were all going direct to AMS tomorrow, we were all going direct to lung cancer - in short, the period was so far like when I was eight and mum said "10 minutes" in the microwave and not "10 seconds".

---

It was the year two thousand and nine. Culinary and academic revelations were conceded to me at that favoured period, as at this. I had recently attended my first blessed day at AMS, bestowed with a paltry three hours sleep. Even the prospect of a full day ahead did not remove the thought of the smoky microwave from my mind. At 12:30 am that morning, I had risen from bed and attempted to clean it. Even at 2:30 in the morning it stressed me. I believe I got up at 6 am.

The Royal Children's Hospital, less favoured on the whole as to matters holiday-related than her sister of the late bedtime and lazy breakfast, loomed with exceeding ugliness up the hill, making my day several hours too long. Under the guidance of Michael Marks, she gave us an insanely boring two-hour seminar on how to use Ovid to search for things, as well as a rambling talk on Clinical Research something-something (quality? This was at about the time when the lack of sleep kicked in). It is likely enough that, rooted in the yonks of experience of the RCH AMS unit, they have good reason for doing this. It is likely enough that my grudging acceptance of this may have been slightly (very) influenced by the excellent morning tea of berry friands, muffins and jam donuts. And tea. Lovely tea.

In the Fourth Floor of the RCH, there was scarcely an amount of order and excitement to justify much blogging. Daring powerpoints by men munching covertly on potato chips, and seminar-way robberies of my valuable brainspace and time, will take place every two weeks, compulsorily; victims... I mean, students, were publicly cautioned not to go out of town at these meeting times; the students will annoy the supervisors, and the supervisors will annoy the students, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman of boredom, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a lazy kid on Saturday who had been told off on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand with whatever came out of the microwave, and now burning rice at the door of an apartment on Lygon Street; today, taking the life of a rather stupid girl, and tomorrow of my dad who is gonna come over for a little while (he says that smoke smells take forever to come out).

All these things, and a thousand like them, will come to pass in and close upon the dear old year two thousand and nine. Environed by them, while I work unheeded, trod with total randomness, and carried their rights in a plastic bag that gets shoved under the seat when I need to be Asian. Thus did the year two thousand and nine conduct their Lessnesses, and myriads of small creatures - the creatures of this chronicle among the rest - along the roads that lay before them.