Goodbye to Sikandar

I feel a little sad today because I have to say goodbye to my good friend Sikandar who is moving to Woburn, Massachusetts. Sikandar was a second year fellow in the Department of Renal Medicine of The University of Massachusetts. Sikandar is a nephrologist (kidney doctor). His hometown is Lahore, Pakistan and during the time that I have known him he returned there twice to visit his parents. Sikandar's first language is "Irdu" which my wife calls a "crossword puzzle language" because the word appears so often in various crossword puzzles. Sikandar and I would meet to work on English and he always carried this Blackberry communication device with him that does just about everything including sending and receiving e-mails, telephone calls, etc. Many times I listened to him use this "blackberry" in his native language and at times switch from one version of Irdu to another version of the same language! Try that sometime. Sikandar gave me a blue satchel with the name NEPHROLOGY printed on the side of it. I carry a bunch of myy ESL materials in this with me wherever I go and it will be a reminder of one of the busiest and hard-working people I have ever met. Good luck, Sikandar and I hope our paths will cross again. You were great to work with.