To the Stomach and not the Brain

"Okay kids, good job...well done...well done indeed" He tapped our back one by one pointed to the powerpoint presentation and started to discuss the theoretical aspects of our activities. He folded , his arm and asked us "Okay kids, what can you infer from your observation of the bar graph?" He points his finger to a gender vs. HIV prevalence per country bar graph....he walks to one of my classmates and said, remember this kids "Know your epidemic and know your response." the best way to plan against an infection is to work with the people who plays with the infection.

Sir Gerard is one of those people who rings a bell in this side of the town, he has met people from the UN, went to other countries to sit down with other big asses. He helps in planning strategies for global health in communicable diseases and although he is an engineer by profession, he loves his work in public health. But there is one particular lesson that I want to share. last night my TG friend got drunk and sober from the overflowing vodka after the training. "I hate myself" she cried and sobbed, "I don't know what to do." Sir Gerard rolled his eyes and took his notes, and the usual thing he does when he counsel young people, he chats down notes and then asked a series of questions that makes people realize something....

"I am broken, so broken..." She said

"If you are broken, how can you build yourself up?" Gerard replied

"I don't know Gerard, I don't know...I feel like I am wasting myself..."She replied

"How did you know that you waste yourself?" Gerard Asked again

"Damn you Gerard for your direct questions, damn you..." She said

"You see kid, people are like apples, those that are good are up the top portion of the tree, they are hard to harvest, but once the apple picker got them, he knows he can sell them at an expensive price, while there are apples that are not so good and you can find them below the tree and some of them fall to the ground, the apple picker ignores them because he knows that they can be sold at a cheaper value. So which kind of apple are you?" Gerard Asked her

She cried and sobbed and cried even more, "Okay kids" Gerard said to us "If you are in this situation, what is the best way to do to knock out a sober friend?". He took a bottle of vodka placed it in front of our sobbing friend and said "The best way to knock a drunk person is to let him drink more of the alcohol until he looses consciousness" He smiled..."Next time kids remember this....alcohols are made for the stomach and place them to the stomach and not your brain...Because you can never find self value and you can never solve problems just by drinking vodka alone!"