i can still remember that day, that one long day leaving me crippled for a good amount of time, not able to process the world as i used to do. They called it Katrina but we called it the hateful bitch. I can still remember trying to watch the news, trying to figure out what would happen to my life, trying not to think on the bad side but also trying to forget what was going on simultaneously - and believe me, turns out you can’t really forget things as they happen

it is one year after the big tragedy here in the big easy. One year after what has become one of the biggest challenges that Bush administration had to face and failed yet again. One year after the last time I got to ride on the St. Charles streetcar line. Lives have changed, big time during this time. I personally had to say goodbye to quite number of friends - no, thank god they are not dead, they moved away and it makes me sad not being able to see them whenever I wished to do so. I had to change my work which actually showed me change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I also met some new beautiful people I am proud to call my friend.

How about New Orleans itself though? Has it menaged to come back to its old self? I can’t say it has. There are parts of it that when you visit, you can’t tell apart from good ol’ New Orleans like the French Quarter (allright, I know we all want that La Peniche would be open 24/7 again). Then again there are parts where people are still trying to repair their homes, hoping their neighborhood would come back. And there are parts people can’t even go back simply because powers-that-be don’t want them to (a.k.a. the ninth ward).

Inspite of all of these, I want to believe that we all will wake up one day and all of these would be gone for good. It will all be like before, even better. I would be able to ride on my streetcar with people talking to each other, chatting, without even knowing each other. I wold be able to spend the summertime, melting down like a chunk of ice cream, evaporating like a cup of water and not have to think about what might another hurricane might do this beautiful city.

I know the things i’ve written are all messy because my thoughts are quite messy on thise subject. But i’d like to finish saying I love New Orleans and I’m proud to call it home even though I’m a Turkey (the other day a new chinese student in my department asked if I was a Turkey, so we decided to call all the turks turkey from now on:)