I have measured out my life in tiny cups of coffee with a bit of sweetened condensed milk

"Now the trip is winding down, and I've foregone the 3 hours bus ride to another provincial hospital. That means I have the next 6 hours or so to gear down and force-feed myself the past 2 weeks of medical school. That isn't as bad as it may sound. After seeing patients and parents, and standing next to the surgeons and nurses that have helped them, I feel like pouncing on this thing with vigor again. Just 2 more months and I'm free of the formal classroom for what will hopefully be the rest of my life. Not that work is pure freedom to learn. But I think that I've come full circle enough that work can be a kind of kindergarden; you have to stay in the building, and you have to get your tasks done so you get a gold star, but in the in between everything is new and colorful and exciting and the in-between is where you really learn most.

below is the classic "all i ever needed to know..." which is called "trite ad saccharine" which I can agree with in a certain light but with the right kind of eyes, there is far more authenticity in this than any medical school Mission Statement.

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK"