Mrs. Lefferdink was my first grade teacher. Her teaching assistant, a portly woman with big hair whose name I cannot remember (all names pale in comparison to “Lefferdink”), had a small glass jar filled with jelly beans. Upon completion of our work, Big Hair would offer us two to four jelly beans as a reward. She discouraged us from taking the yellow jelly beans, as those were her favorite.

Mrs. Lefferdink gave me a B+ for one of my coloring assignments. Apparently, I didn’t color in the Care Bear quite right.

There were about thirty of us in that class.

The drum major’s uniform was white with predominantly blue trim. Brass-colored buttons marched down the front of the coat and the royal blue cummerbund supported a royal blue sash that rested over the left thigh.

The instructors at the drum major camp advised us to keep our fingers together when conducting the band from the top of the ladder. Closed fingers create a greater surface area upon which band members can fix their gazes. The human eye is drawn to the color white, which is why drum majors usually wear white gloves.

I waved my arms and hands, with fingers closed, at about thirty people on various football fields while standing atop an aluminum ladder.

Thirty people comprised one-third of my graduating medical school class.

The general medical ward is shaped like a rectangle. The nurses’ station, along with the chart racks, dumb waiter system, and charting rooms, are located in the center. The clean utility closet, containing sterile gloves, gauze pads, unused urinal containers, Foley kits, lumbar puncture kits, central line kits, band-aids, hair brushes, toothbrushes, socks, TED hose, petroleum jelly packets, and vacuum tubes, among other items, is also in the center. Next door is the soiled utility closet, which houses bright red biohazard bins, a large toilet without a lid that doubles as a sink, basins holding traces of vomit, an old microscope, non-latex gloves, and fecal occult blood test kits.

A bright red code cart silently sits in the hallway separating the clean and soiled utility closets. The lumbering EKG machine rests next to the cart.

The patient rooms line the periphery of the rectangle.

Most of the rooms hold two patients. There are at least two single rooms, usually reserved for people who (1) lack an effective immune system (due to HIV, leukemia, etc.) or (2) have an infectious disease (tuberculosis, C. difficile, etc.).

The board that lists the names of all the patients on the ward hangs above the charge nurse’s desk.

The ward can accommodate a little over thirty patients.

Sometimes, up to thirty American soldiers die in Iraq over the course of three days.

On my way to work this morning, NPR told me that one person was dead from a shooting at Virginia Tech. My eyebrows furrowed in displeased surprise. Didn’t something like this happen recently in Seattle?

While dashing to my supervisor’s office at lunch, NPR told me that thirty people were dead from a double shooting at Virginia Tech.

My mouth fell open in shock.

“What? Thirty people?” I exclaimed to myself. “Why, thirty people is equal to….”