A day both interesting and humbling...
Today was a good day, for a variety of reasons.
Our Medsci lecturer sang us a song about stress and how to cope with it.
I got to be part of the demonstration in Physics on how electricity affects muscles. That was good fun.
History was fascinating. I now understand the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment much better.
Had a chai latte with a girl from my History tutorial, which was nice. We've both been to Argentina on exchange, so we talked about all sorts of Argentinian exchange experiences.
Went to my shift volunteering in the Emergency Department at the hospital. That was a little humbling, but in a good way, for three reasons.
Talked to a really interesting Scotsman who, aged 13 in 1937, ran away to sea, lied about his age, and became a cabin boy. From there he worked his way up to Second Mate. He was on a trading ship which was on the River Plate during the Battle of the River Plate, and they survived that only to be torpedoed by a German submarine a couple of years later, two days out from New York. He managed to get some of his men onto a lifeboat and picked up some more and they managed to avoid notice while the sub's turret was raking the bridge with machine gun fire. He was the only surviving officer and after 19 days at sea in the North Atlantic in November 1942 (which I imagine would be very, very cold), they were picked up by a Canadian ship. I think about 22 of his men survived the sinking and the exposure.
After that, the company he worked for asked him to get his Master's ticket, kept working up and the last ship he captained before he retired was a large vessel with four hundred crew and a thousand passengers, insured for some vast amount of money.
So that was humbling to meet him. In a good way, though. I have a much better understanding of the term "Self-made man" now.
The second humbling experience was that I somehow let slip to a lovely lady patient that I had always been brought up to dislike Auckland, living in Wellington and all, and so she made me promise to tell my Wellington friends that "Us Jafas love Wellingtonians!"
The last one was the most humbling of all.
There was a guy, in his 20s, with a disability of some kind, and he was in the cool-off room, the room which has very little apart from a bed, and is lockable. The door was open, and he seemed friendly enough. Later though, there had been some commotion next door with a guy with a head injury who was really combative, and I think that had subconsciously put me on edge.
So I wandered past the disabled guy's room, and the door is closed, and he's at the little glass window yelling. "Open the door! Let me out!"
I assumed that if it was locked, there must be a good reason. However, I didn't ignore him, and so tried to get him to calm down and go sit on his bed, thinking that they must have locked the door because he'd become hysterical or something. While I was telling him this, and I'll admit, not listening to him as closely as I should have been, one of the nurses told me that the door could be opened, that he must have locked himself in unintentionally. So the nurse opened the door.
I felt really bad at this point, but I didn't know that you couldn't normally open the door from the inside. Once the door was open I went in and apologised, telling him I was really sorry. He was a little frantic and said "It's like a cell!"
There was little I could really do so I offered to get him a glass of water or a juice, thinking that's what I'd like after that, which he accepted. When I brought back the water, he told me it was OK and offered his fist up for a fist jab or whatever they're called.
I went away and started making a coffee for someone else and he came by to the kitchenette asking if there was any milk, so I poured him a bit of milk and apologised again for misunderstanding the situation.
He said: "It's ok, I'm used to it. With most people, you assume what you see is what you get, but it's a little different with me." Then, as he was walking away, "Thanks, you're a good guy."
I almost felt like crying, so floored was I with that.
In summary, I feel so very lucky today. I don't have to deal with a disability and others' perceptions of me based on that, I don't live in an era where there is the risk of submarines blowing me out of the water while I go about my job, and I can go to University and learn fascinating things about how the Universe works.
Stuff like that puts things in perspective.
Our Medsci lecturer sang us a song about stress and how to cope with it.
I got to be part of the demonstration in Physics on how electricity affects muscles. That was good fun.
History was fascinating. I now understand the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment much better.
Had a chai latte with a girl from my History tutorial, which was nice. We've both been to Argentina on exchange, so we talked about all sorts of Argentinian exchange experiences.
Went to my shift volunteering in the Emergency Department at the hospital. That was a little humbling, but in a good way, for three reasons.
Talked to a really interesting Scotsman who, aged 13 in 1937, ran away to sea, lied about his age, and became a cabin boy. From there he worked his way up to Second Mate. He was on a trading ship which was on the River Plate during the Battle of the River Plate, and they survived that only to be torpedoed by a German submarine a couple of years later, two days out from New York. He managed to get some of his men onto a lifeboat and picked up some more and they managed to avoid notice while the sub's turret was raking the bridge with machine gun fire. He was the only surviving officer and after 19 days at sea in the North Atlantic in November 1942 (which I imagine would be very, very cold), they were picked up by a Canadian ship. I think about 22 of his men survived the sinking and the exposure.
After that, the company he worked for asked him to get his Master's ticket, kept working up and the last ship he captained before he retired was a large vessel with four hundred crew and a thousand passengers, insured for some vast amount of money.
So that was humbling to meet him. In a good way, though. I have a much better understanding of the term "Self-made man" now.
The second humbling experience was that I somehow let slip to a lovely lady patient that I had always been brought up to dislike Auckland, living in Wellington and all, and so she made me promise to tell my Wellington friends that "Us Jafas love Wellingtonians!"
The last one was the most humbling of all.
There was a guy, in his 20s, with a disability of some kind, and he was in the cool-off room, the room which has very little apart from a bed, and is lockable. The door was open, and he seemed friendly enough. Later though, there had been some commotion next door with a guy with a head injury who was really combative, and I think that had subconsciously put me on edge.
So I wandered past the disabled guy's room, and the door is closed, and he's at the little glass window yelling. "Open the door! Let me out!"
I assumed that if it was locked, there must be a good reason. However, I didn't ignore him, and so tried to get him to calm down and go sit on his bed, thinking that they must have locked the door because he'd become hysterical or something. While I was telling him this, and I'll admit, not listening to him as closely as I should have been, one of the nurses told me that the door could be opened, that he must have locked himself in unintentionally. So the nurse opened the door.
I felt really bad at this point, but I didn't know that you couldn't normally open the door from the inside. Once the door was open I went in and apologised, telling him I was really sorry. He was a little frantic and said "It's like a cell!"
There was little I could really do so I offered to get him a glass of water or a juice, thinking that's what I'd like after that, which he accepted. When I brought back the water, he told me it was OK and offered his fist up for a fist jab or whatever they're called.
I went away and started making a coffee for someone else and he came by to the kitchenette asking if there was any milk, so I poured him a bit of milk and apologised again for misunderstanding the situation.
He said: "It's ok, I'm used to it. With most people, you assume what you see is what you get, but it's a little different with me." Then, as he was walking away, "Thanks, you're a good guy."
I almost felt like crying, so floored was I with that.
In summary, I feel so very lucky today. I don't have to deal with a disability and others' perceptions of me based on that, I don't live in an era where there is the risk of submarines blowing me out of the water while I go about my job, and I can go to University and learn fascinating things about how the Universe works.
Stuff like that puts things in perspective.