School
(page 4)
I wasn't the brightest kid in school. I was a backbencher troubling the frontbencher, and eventually I failed in my 10th grade. But then in higher secondary, there were only three people who got first division in arts, and I was one of them. So this tells you, where you put your mind and heart into, that's where you go.
I did most of my volunteer work when I was in college because I knew of more ways to get involved. In high school, we'd do things like, there was a homeless shelter near our hometown and our church group decorated one of the rooms. In college, I was in a sorority, and we did a lot of things, like pick up trash on the highway.
Music was a way of rebelling against the whole rah-rah high school thing.
One afternoon when I was 9, my dad told me I'd be skipping school the next day. Then we drove 12 hours from Melbourne to Sydney for the Centenary Test, a once-in-a-lifetime commemorative cricket match. It was great fun — especially for a kid who was a massive sports fan.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
When everyone at school is speaking one language, and a lot of your classmates' parents also speak it, and you go home and see that your community is different -there is a sense of shame attached to that. It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different.
My marks were always bad, and I was a bad influence on other children, so they would explain to my mother that they could retain me only by being partial towards me, and so I should offer to leave the school myself. I would barely get 40-50% and was also extremely naughty.
You know what they call the fellow who finishes last in his medical school graduating class? They call him 'Doctor'.
One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.
We learned about gratitude and humility — that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean... and we were taught to value everyone's contribution and treat everyone with respect.
My family and high school friends were the only people who were with me every step of the way through my mothers' illness. They sat by my side year after year and consoled me. If they ever sent me a bill, I would be paying them off for the rest of my life.
I was a smart kid, but I hated school.
My mom dressed me in silk to go to elementary school. In kindergarten, they sent me home because I couldn't do finger painting in my dress.
Our teachers are responsible for our children's welfare for the six or eight hours they are at school and we need to know without question that their safety will be paramount on the minds of teachers, faculty and volunteers.
Voting is how we participate in a civic society — be it for president, be it for a municipal election. It's the way we teach our children — in school elections — how to be citizens, and the importance of their voice.
Qualities you need to get through medical school and residency: Discipline. Patience. Perseverance. A willingness to forgo sleep. A penchant for sadomasochism. Ability to weather crises of faith and self-confidence. Accept exhaustion as fact of life. Addiction to caffeine a definite plus. Unfailing optimism that the end is in sight.
Nobody just leaves medical school, especially given it's fiercely competitive to get in. But I had a sister who was a doctor, another who was a pharmacist, a brother who was an engineer. So my parents already had sensible children who would be able to make an actual living, and I think they felt comfortable sacrificing their one strange child.
Underwater, I experience space with my body. I'll see a school of fish gathering and moving together and I'll exclaim, 'This is architecture.'
Finish last in your league and they call you idiot. Finish last in medical school and they call you doctor.
We don't stop going to school when we graduate.
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