Sometimes there is nothing like being so helpless as you can feel being in the health field.

... seeing the photos of the young babies with eczema on their face, or the horrible rashes that some people have. I have skin problems, but nothing compared to that.

... hearing about the adolescent boy who was so depressed he took drastic steps of self-harm, wrapping his car around a pole, but he survived. I have been miserable before, and thought thoughts that scared me, but never yet have I harmed myself in that proportion.

... remembering my friend who committed suicide. The same age as me, sharing childhood memories and activities. When did we become so different? There, but for the grace of God, go I.

For all that I complain and wish to rise above, I remember that I am already immensely lucky, and well off considering other matters.

Why do I?

And still, that small voice at the back of my mind, whenever I see these things, or think of these things, that says "There, but for the Grace of God, go I"

Once again, I post about a life once known, and now gone.  It was a shock to learn about it on Facebook, and then to read the news in the papers online, about a freak accident claiming the life of an elderly man. He was my teacher. Perhaps lecturer would be the better word. He taught me physics, and I was not the most promising of students. He was kind and attentive during tutorials, always ready to explain a concept or correct a problem. Granted, he wasn't the most inspiring of lecturers, but he always gave his lectures with the authority of someone who knew that this was a dry subject that he would do his best to invigorate. 

He was always there when I would return at the end of the year. Always there to say "hi" to, and have a wee chat with. Always with a quick smile and a kind word. He's not going to be there anymore when I go home at the end of the year. I remember introducing my brother to him, telling him that my brother had gotten the physics brains in the family, seeing as he was going into engineering. Needless to say, he at once began to ask my brother about his aspirations and his studies, saying "It's it fascinating?" so many times. 

How do you thank a teacher who helped to bring you to your dreams? What do you say to someone who taught you a subject you were mostly disinterested in, and yet never said anything about that, just taught to the best of his ability and made sure you knew what you needed to to reach the heights you aimed for? How can you show appreciation for all that? In what way can you thank someone who has remained a friend, even after being a teacher to a less-than-enthusiastic student? 

And above that, how do you mourn him? How do you mourn someone who has given so much, asked for so little, and who you've never really known as a whole, just as your teacher?

... another birthday. Not that it really matters, for all that it's just another day.

Somehow, this year is more.. solemn. It's not hard to think why. Last year, the day before my birthday, my mother called to tell me that one of my childhood friends had committed suicide.

It strikes closer to home, maybe, because it was the day before my birthday that I found out. It feels almost bad that I'm having a birthday and she isn't. She will be forever 21, but to me, she will always be the girl I knew in primary school. Impetuous, laughing, headstrong, just full of life. She loved music, and started highland dancing, when I knew her. She was proud of her Scots ancestry. I wonder what she would make of me now, in a pipe band, and me with no Scots blood at all.

We were never close as we grew up, she and I. We had very different aspirations and approaches to life. We used to write each other, and then when the internet came into vogue it grew to emails, first from our parents' email addresses, and then our own. I remember waiting for the clunky dial-up modem to do its magic, so I could read an email from her and then compose a reply. Then sometimes talking on msn messenger when that became popular. It was never intimate, our talking, but we knew by and large what was going on with us.

I hadn't seen her for a while on msn when I got the news. I had wondered why, but thought she must just be busy. Her mother had passed on the year before, it must have affected her greatly. I can't say that I should have been less effected by her passing than I am. After all, we were only friends in primary school, and not best friends forever at that. It's strange, maybe, that I mourn her more a year on compared to when I first heard the news. But there it is.

My sorrow is that I knew her, and now she is gone. We were of an age. We should have been able to compare life stories long after this.

This is for a friend, known too little and gone too soon.

The humerus is not humorous.

That is all.

One of my classmates died today. In a wee class of 60, it does hit you. I knew her for 2 years. She'd had health problems, and more than usual of late. Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing her for our final exams this year.

She was what we'd call a mature aged student. She used to work at the sleep clinic in the private hospital in town. She'd done research before deciding she'd like to go to med school, and she did.I don't know if it bothered her much that she was older than the average student. I recall she did quite well.

I remember she had a cat, that she adored. I hope someone's looking after the cat.

Rest in Peace, Natalie. G-d be with you.

There are many things on my wall. An Optus calendar, at the month of August, with a mother polar bear and her cub as the picture of the month, with birthdays written down (and there are many this month). The number for an international calling card. Postcards of scenery from home (A glorious day over Taiaroa Head, a sunrise or sunset at Key Summit, a bright winter's day at Lake Pukaki, with Mt Cook overlooking it). A card from a friend. Notes. A newspaper cutting (I'm in one of the photos, just peripherally, but vanity dictates that it should be up on my wall, because I am there). One of those Chinese texts you get over Chinese New Year, saying "Improvement in Studies". A bus timetable. Some Chinese poems to look at. A tag from a chocolate with a lovely blue ribbon. 

However, of all that, there's only 2 photos.

There are 6 people in the photo on the right. It was taken around the end of 2006, maybe? It was a Christmas greeting of sorts, because there's "Season's Greetings" on it. It's a photoshop-ed photo, as the people are in neat little boxes of their own. They're all friends from high school. We've all come so far since then. 2 are doing medicine, 1 is doing graphics. 2 are doing engineering, and the last is doing economics. 1 is in the UK, 4 of them have remained in the land of their birth. One will join me in the land down under in about a week. I remember them well, but as they were. Who are they now? For the most part, we have kept in touch over the internet: emails, msn, LJ, Facebook. And yet, over the years, I seem to have drifted from some of them. These are people who I used to hang out with at break time in high school. We'd sit together in class, some of us attended the same extra-curricular activities, we might get to sit together during assembly on Monday mornings. We wore uniforms, we'd sat in rows, we'd lined up outside our classrooms before and after class, we'd lived a life strictly regulated by rules together. We were all in the same school, and at some stages we'd shared classes. In that, we had a lot in common. We'd only been really good friends towards the last 2 years of high school but these are the friends I was closest to in high school. 7 of us, including me, but I am not in the photo. I wasn't there when the photo was taken; I got it in the post, a highly anticipated parcel. It is the one thing on my wall that is a memento of high school. I miss them, and sometimes I wonder if we will meet again.

There are 6 people in the photo on the left. It is a small photo, in a little Christmas themed frame of cardboard. It was taken at the end of 2007, after all of us had finished our Health Science First Year (HSFY) Exams. We are standing in front of St. Davids, where the monument is. It is a sunny day, and we are all smiles. I'd met a friend walking past, and he had happily obliged us by taking a group photo of us, using most of our cameras. That day was the last day all 6 of us would meet in person as a group. It's a mixed group, but all of us are in the health sciences. 4 boys, 2 girls. 2 of us left the university, to study in other places and follow our dreams. 2 of the groups are doing medicine, 2 are doing physiotherapy, 1 is doing pharmacy, and 1 is doing dentistry. 2 of us are in Australia, the rest are in New Zealand. Not all of us will graduate at the same time. The Pharmacist and the Physiotherapists will, with the usual amount of luck, graduate next year. The Dentist will graduate the year after that, and the Doctors, in 3 years. Not all of us were accepted into the courses we'd wanted, and not all of us are studying at our first choice university. Yet, I like to think we're happy with the way things have turned out. Although we've gone our separate ways, it hasn't meant the end of our friendships (and yet, there has been an end to other things). We didn't meet until the second semester of HSFY, and even then, it was a slow accumulation of friends. A chance meeting in front of the Science Library. An overheard comment, and a reaction. Being in the same Lab. Sitting in the same place for lunch. Finding out we had things in common (badminton, music, books, the course). We've kept in touch too, text messages when we're in the same country, msn, email, gtalk, skype.  This photo I received in the mail, just a little while after I arrived, as a memento of days past, and friends not forgotten. I miss them, and hope that we will meet again.

12 people, 2 photographs, 2 separate times. Photos that mean a lot to me. Things that have been, things that may be and things that may never be. These are the photos that make me smile, when all seems dark and gloomy in my small little rural town, where sometimes the world seems too small.

Love knows no limits, and true friendship lasts a lifetime.

Happy ANZAC Day people! ANZAC = Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, for those who aren't familiar with the term. Anzac day it a day of commemoration of the sacrifices of the Australian and New Zealand armed forces in all the wars. I call today Christmas Tree Day because of the uniform I have to wear: Red Jacket, Green Plaid, Green kilt. I also have shiny silver buttons. All I need to actually look like a Christmas Tree are fairy lights. I'm sure there's photos somewhere... I'll track them down someday.

You can't really have a moment of silence on the internet, so here's the Recessional for ANZAC Day. Lest we forget.

The Recessional
Rudyard Kipling

God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line--
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies--
The Captains and the Kings depart--
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away--
On dune and headland sinks the fire--
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Amen.

I didn't work out that "periferi" meant "peripheral" until I was 2 years out of high school. After that? I understood a whole lot more about the nervous system.