Thinking forward, looking back

Sometimes I catch myself thinking about how I'll eventually look back on a particular experience in SA when I finally get back to the States. I know that it's not a particularly productive endeavor, but it often proves to be quite an interesting thought experiment.

Two unrelated examples:

Now: I assist a doctor with a lumbar picture, helping to hold an late-stage HIV patient in place and comfort him as the intern in his mid-20's withdraws 10 milliliters of cerebrospinal fluid to relieve intracranial pressure and test for cryptococcus (a nasty yeast pathogen) or significant protein concentration.

At the end of my first two years of medical school: That was first time I ever felt a patient flinch in my hands. He was obviously scared and was turned away from the from the doctor. He whimpered and jerked as the needle found the space between his vertebrae.

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Now: I cruise around town in a manual, right-hand drive car.

When I get picked up at the airport in New York: Hey, why doesn't anyone here drive stick? And why is the traffic on the wrong side of the road? And where the hell did the view of the Indian Ocean go?