Professor Passes Away
Professor Robert MacDonald, who I wrote about early this week, who had been shot in Trinidad was taken off life support yesterday afternoon and passed away a couple minutes before 2 in the afternoon. The choice to take him off life support was made by his family and I think it was probably the best thing to do. Even if he made it out of this he would have had brain damage and his standard of life would be severely limited.
In situations like this I think of my uncle who was beaten by a group of men and left for dead. They kept him on life support and eventually he was able to start breathing on his own again, though he was a shell of the man he formerly was. Confined to a wheel chair, limited to grunts and groans, limited motor control, limited mental capacity. I felt bad for him and thought if I was in that position and my chances for recovery were slim I'd want them to pull the plug. My uncle passed away about 2 years after he was beaten due to health complications.
Last Day Before the First
Today is my last day of work for the University of Waterloo. It's kind of sad for me to be leaving this place. I've been here on and off since 1995 when I started my undergraduate degree. I really enjoyed my time here and the one thing I'm going to miss the most are the people that I've worked with over the years. I've always though that one of the major factors that makes a job amazing are the people you work with and how you relate to them. They are the reason why I enjoyed what I was doing. From my supervisor, who has always been on a first name basis with us, to graduate students who helped me out when I started my masters and especially the people that I took coffee breaks (aka hot chocolate breaks) and spent my lunch hour with. I thank you all. I'm off to new adventures elsewhere but I'll be back to visit :)
