Summer's End, Medicine's Beginnings, Voices from the Past

Ahhh . . . the end of summer approaches, my apple trees laden with the fruit of knowledge, the warmth of long summer days lingers in my bones. Most of this summer I was under the spell of chemistry at a local Junior College (sometimes referred to as a Community College in some environs of the United States). Here is a short limerick I composed under some duress as the instructor babbled away in an arcane chemistry incantation (the first line is his!) . . .

Meeses, Mices and Mooses,
I don’t know my ketoses from aldoses.
So please help me to understand,
why chemistry is like quicksand,
and I’m up to my neck in fructoses!


Singularly uninspiring for the average citizen of the State but to those poor souls who have been through the cauldron of Chemistry (especially in a Summer class!), they will appreciate it, perhaps a bit?

Don't get me started on the inefficacy of teaching chemistry in EIGHT weeks . . . the silliness, the inanity, the insanity, the idiocy, the vain assumption that some random, 'itsy', 'bitsy' piece of information will stick. Yes, some of it has, of course.

I begin Nursing school in two days. The culmination of two years of thought, hard work and anticipation. A few days off and a headlong plunge into that world. Wonderful people in the program.

So I have taken the time in the last few days to call friends not spoken to in too long a time. Called Paris, Honolulu, the Big Island and so forth. I still miss Fiji, Hawaii the people I have known. We have a December - January trip planned to the Big Island to see the flow of life from Kiluea to the sea, the City of Refuge. I will take the time to mend my heart and soul as only the land and people there can do to me and someday I hope to give that back. I will sit and have a welcoming kava ceremony and drink to the memory and future of my friends I will simply sit there and exist without thought, to be in the presence of all people whom have touched, affected, taught and existed in my short life.

I am so grateful for all of it.

Malama pono, moce mada,

David