I'm not much for parting words

I’m not much for parting words. I never have been.

In two days time I’ll be leaving the greatest country in the world to “read” for my master’s degree at Cambridge. Folks like to ask me if I’m excited and tell me how great it’s going to be… to which I generally reply that “Yes, I am in fact excited and indeed plan on having a good time” somewhat hoping they’ll get my tone and interpret it as a dull answer to an already tiresome topic.

In fact, while I am a huge proponent of nostalgic remembrance and an occasional tall-tale (I’m quite well known for picking the dregs from between my teeth far after tea time), I have a great deal of trouble relishing something that has yet come to pass. It’s for the same reason that I really couldn’t take much joy out of all the publicity surrounding my selection by Gates (and in fact it was quite stressful). How can one be congratulated for being given the chance to do something? The late Dr. Randy Pausch said it best when he replied to his applauding crowd “Make me earn it”.

It must go hand in hand, my disapproval of goodbyes and excitation at future potential. Both suppose some happening (or lack thereof) and offer empty gestures as preemptive bookends. I’m not sure anymore if disapproving of goodbyes is any more a defense mechanism than pretending their inevitability.

Farewells are not my strong suit, nor do they suit me.

In other news, I have spent the last 4 days on house-arrest thanks to my dear old friend Streptococcal pharyngitis. I’ve nearly rested on having my tonsils removed, either by way of medical procedure or beheading. Furthermore, I have lost all grasp of irony after hearing, for the fourth time (and third doctor), that my tonsils, although technically part of the immune system, seem to be my primary host of bacterial company. How lucky for you, doctor, that you’re ability to attract the opposite sex was as equally negatively offset by your atrophied humor (assumedly from medical school) as it was positively by your enflamed, swollen, throbbing paycheck.

And finally, to establish a reoccurring theme, I am simultaneously jealous of doctors for getting paid what their knowledge is worth while being appalled by the profession and the indefatigable hubris many must have to be able to dress greed up in the church-clothes of compassion for the human condition (beyond their own).

More tomorrow, and hopefully over the next week Javier and I will have upgraded the aesthetics of the site slightly.