There is a courtyard that sits in between my school and the county hospital. Its really gorgeous. There are cherry blossom trees and the benches are placed at weird geometric angles so that it looks a little like a labyrinth on either side of the path that connects the two buildings. Its truly my favorite place to sit on the whole huge campus of the Medical Center.
When you walk into the medical school building from the courtyard entrance you see the pearly tile floors and are surrounded by bright white walls. Almost blindingly white. You look into the faces of the people. They are mostly doctors and professors, students and researchers. All fresh and hopeful and glad to be a part of the world.
The vast majority fall into this weird idealic state of grace and intelligence. Most come early to that building and stay late. They have spent their lives between the enclosures of blindingly white walls like that building. They are desperate to be of valuable to this society.
Then you walk through the other entrance. The one to the county hospital. You see the dingy tile and the yellowed walls that support a building selected for its simplicity and efficacy (the cheapest that the tax payers are willing to pay for).
The look in the eyes of the average patron of the University Hospital is worn and wearied. Some have been there for a long time, and will have to stay to stay for alot more. They are desperate for care in a society that has turned a blind eye to them.
The people in the one building like to account themselves as in a different class as the people in the other.
They have more in common though, then each party realizes.
I spend my spare time in that courtyard between the two entrances. Sitting beneath the decidedly non-native trees (whose placement there is beyond my comprehension). I sit on a bench in the middle of the labyrinth that surrounds the sides of the path to the two different buildings.
I reflect on where I have come from. And where I am going.
When you walk into the medical school building from the courtyard entrance you see the pearly tile floors and are surrounded by bright white walls. Almost blindingly white. You look into the faces of the people. They are mostly doctors and professors, students and researchers. All fresh and hopeful and glad to be a part of the world.
The vast majority fall into this weird idealic state of grace and intelligence. Most come early to that building and stay late. They have spent their lives between the enclosures of blindingly white walls like that building. They are desperate to be of valuable to this society.
Then you walk through the other entrance. The one to the county hospital. You see the dingy tile and the yellowed walls that support a building selected for its simplicity and efficacy (the cheapest that the tax payers are willing to pay for).
The look in the eyes of the average patron of the University Hospital is worn and wearied. Some have been there for a long time, and will have to stay to stay for alot more. They are desperate for care in a society that has turned a blind eye to them.
The people in the one building like to account themselves as in a different class as the people in the other.
They have more in common though, then each party realizes.
I spend my spare time in that courtyard between the two entrances. Sitting beneath the decidedly non-native trees (whose placement there is beyond my comprehension). I sit on a bench in the middle of the labyrinth that surrounds the sides of the path to the two different buildings.
I reflect on where I have come from. And where I am going.
