some pics from Philly...

Thanks for the fun trip guys!

Lake Powell

Thanks Pete for an awesome Labor Day weekend!!!

The closest thing to a cohort pic from the trip

Pete, love the face.

Camel, love the hair girl.

Brea, love the flag -thanks for taking your job so seriously

Quick Trip to MO

Hey! I don't know who all still reads this... I don't read it as often as I did out in the field, but I still enjoy it. I just wanted to share a bit of my crazy life. I thought I was done travelling for the summer, but that is not to be. I got a call yesterday from Pat, the wife of a man (Jerry) I taught on my mission (I am close to both of them) who told me that Jerry is getting baptized this Saturday in Independence... so I am off to Missouri for the weekend. I'm leaving Friday evening (after NSO of course) and I'll be back Sunday evening. Hooray for never unpacking my suitcases! And hooray for being in 4 states in less than 2 weeks!! (Eli and those of you who drove through many states don't get to one up me here...these are 4 separate occasions and distant states).

I'm excited to see you all soon!

Christus Consolator

Here are some photos from around campus. I will miss it here!

There is a Christus statue, a marble replica of the original by Thorvaldsen, in the main entrance to the Hopkins Hospital. While I was taking pictures, I noticed quite a few employees would touch the statue as they left. How fitting to have Christ as a symbol of healing!

Cohort Picture

Hey guys, so I just wanted to remind you that we need to take a new cohort picture in the fall. I know this is a random post, i just think of it every time i see the picture on this blog, and thought i better post before i forgot... again... 

Oh yeah the real reason I am posting, has anyone registered for APHA yet? 

Fall Book List

Does anyone have the book list for our fall semester classes? I want to get my books online, so if anyone has that information, pass it on. If I somehow find it, then I'll post it here. Enjoy your last two weeks of summer!

Guess what our ultrasound showed?

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Jenny and I had our ultrasound yesterday to see the gender and physical state of our baby. Jenny didn't really sleep Tuesday night and we were nervous going to the appointment. Fortunately, the ultrasound results were very clear...we're having a boy! I think we were both surprised. We had both reached the point of not caring what our baby's gender was, but I think we were both expecting a girl. We're extremely excited to have a boy and hope for a girl in the future. Starting with a boy is perfect for us and he looks totally healthy too. His measurements put him a day smaller than he should be, so he is pretty much as perfect as we could hope and pray for. We're so happy and excited!

So, I didn't come up with my gender test, but I did do something statistically interesting regarding the gender guesses of other people. The probability of x out of n people correctly guessing the gender of our baby follows a binomial distribution since each person's guess can be seen as an independent trial (assuming they didn't collaborate and decide what to guess beforehand) and the outcome has two possibilities: a boy or a girl. Before I told my family and friends the results of our ultrasound, I asked them to guess the gender of our baby. Eight out of eight people I asked (including Ashley's prediction on this blog) correctly guessed a boy. I'll let you each look up the binomial formula if you wish, but the probability of eight out of eight people guessing our baby's gender correctly is 0.0039! That's incredible! In all seriousness, though, having a healthy little boy growing inside of Jenny as part of our family is beyond incredible! We're just so excited!

APHA Conference

Anyone else out there going to the APHA conference?? I am trying to figure out sleeping accomodations and wondering what the rest of you are doing....

Lunch update... how is it only 12:17

So how is everyone doing? I hope that you are all doing FANTASTIC- it sounds like John is doing great, MaryAnne also sounds like she is doing great… the rest of you… well I have no comment on that (frown smile (if you read seriously so blessed this makes sense). so I thought it would give an update about what is happening here in NYC… pretty much nothing. I am having a really hard time focusing…which is why I am posting on this blog instead of… well anyway. So I have 5 days left of my internship (my little brother is coming tomorrow so I am taking a few days off).. and I am pretty excited to be done- not that CDF isn’t great, but 15 weeks is awhile and I am ready to go home. I haven’t ranted about NYC in awhile and I am sure that you are all feeling deprived . so here goes.
Well this is less of a rant and more of an update. Last week my little sister was in town (which was really fun), we went all over the city - we visted.. basically everything. One day we decided to walk from the staten island ferry (bottom of Manhattan)to central park- that is more than 60 blocks… let’s just say by the end we were pretty tired and grumpy. We also got confused for twins the whole week, which made Emily mad since there is a 7 year difference between us, she kept thinking everyone thought she was old… not sure what to think of that but not dwelling on it. We tried the best sandwich on the planet while she was here… it’s called the bomb, it looks like the deli exploded… it has basically every type of cold cut known to man, I thought I was going to hate it since sandwiches aren’t my thing, and I was a little concerned about the baloney looking meat on there, but it was amazing, and it had something nasty like liverwurst (which the deli does sell) there were too many other things to notice. Hm…. so we are learning to put up with New Yorkers (which means it is time to go) the other day we went to a diner in our neighborhood (one of the few things I will miss about NYC) and our waiter ate his dinner and left, before bringing us our food- 3 weeks ago I would have been outraged, this time I didn’t even notice… time to leave.
Oh yes and the biggest update of all… I think I am going to get malaria. I know I mentioned this before but seriously there are millions of bugs here. My arms and legs look I got some weird type of pox… they are purple and blotchy, someone really should have warned me about this.
I’m not sure how Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, and Joey lived in the city without dying of a tropical illness but I am grateful my days are numbered!.

*did anyone notice we reached 100 posts! YAY!

Slacker..

I have been a blogging slacker.... but I have loved reading all of you posts. There is nothing worse than a slow internet connection when it comes to blogging, but I did end up posting about the last month on my blog so if your are interested, check it out (laurenannfoulger.blogspot.com). I still have about 3 weeks left, but am finally starting to really love what I am doing and actually feel like I am actually accomplishing some stuff.

Any news on the Cohort trip? I am dreaming of Powell

Take care and see you soon in the Dungeon.

To answer your question...

Jenny is doing fine, but she is tired a lot (thanks for asking, MaryAnne). Tomorrow is a big day because we hit 21 weeks along and we have our ultrasound to find out the gender of our little tike (great timing, MaryAnne). Jenny is nervous because then we have to actually start doing all the things we have been putting off until we knew our baby's gender. We don't care if it is a boy or a girl--we'll be excied either way--but I just hope the doctor is able to determine the gender. I don't know if I can wait any longer. After the ultrasound, we are scheduled to head over to my parent's house to celebrate and make phone calls. I'll post something here by Thursday so that you're all in the know.

Speaking of determining our baby's gender, we've done some pretty funny "tests" to determine if our baby is a boy or a girl. Jenny filled out something online that was supposed to use Chinese Astrology. She had to put in her birthdate, how old she will be when the baby is born, and other information like that. That test said the little person growing inside Jenny is a girl. Another one we did involved a watermelon and the straw from a broom. A Forest Service employee we were helping to stabilize Theatre in the Pines (more on that in a minute) made us take this test. Jenny had to sit in front of the watermelon while it rested longways on a table in front of her. She then had to hold the broom straw in the middle and place it on the top of the watermelon. If the straw stayed sideways parallel to the watermelon, our baby is a boy, but if the straw turned perpendicular to the watermelon and pointed towards Jenny, our baby was a girl. Well, the straw stayed with the watermelon, so the watermelon-broom straw test says there is a boy growing inside of Jenny. We have also been able to hear our baby's heartbeat a couple of times and it has been above 140 beats per minute both times suggesting we are having a girl (I guess boys' heartbeats are usually below 140 while girls' are usually above 140). I am considering coming up with my own test (maybe using a coin flip) to determine the gender. Whichever gender I picked would have a probability of being correct of about 0.5. Then I could publish my test and become a housenold name in reproductive health (wouldn't that be ironic given my aversion). I'm just kidding, but I wonder if I could develp a test before tomorrow? Hmmm...

I got back from North Carolina a couple of weeks ago and Utah's never looked so good (even after the mission). North Carolina is a great place and I would highly recommend living there to anyone, but all those trees made me closterphobic after a while. I was so glad to see wide open spaces and tall, majestic mountains. I was so excited when I saw Lavell Edwards Stadium and the Marriot Center from the airplane. It was like having a part of me restored.

Before I left NIEHS I had to present what I had completed on my project to the rest of the branch and I got to visit the Epidemiology Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well. My presentation took 30-40 minutes when I practiced it, but it took an hour when I gave it because everybody kept asking me questions or giving suggestions. That was actually good because we are a little bit stumped. The results of our logistic regression analysis were not we had expected and we were unsure why. We have since repeated much of the analysis using Cox proportional hazards regression (thinking that logistic regression wasn't as appropriate for our data) and got essentially the same answer as before. I have a lot left to do to determine if our results are actually what they seem to be, or if we are just not looking at the problem correctly.

My visit with UNC was pretty interesting. I met with a former PhD student who is now a post-doc, three professors, and the student services lady. I came with a two-page list of questions and was a little surprised when they all just let me go down my list. It was very informative and they were pretty positive about my coming there for a PhD in the future. I am not sure yet if I will go on or not, but it was still neat to be there and daydream a bit about what might happen in the future.

The day after I arrived home Jenny took me on two weeks of camping and archaeology for her work. It was really cool. The two weeks were two different Passport In Time (PIT) projects. PIT is a volunteer program run by the Forest Service to get the public involved in preserving our nation's historic and prehistoric heritage. Volunteers come from all over the country to be involved, so it's a great way to meet new people, network, learn about our heritage, and do something worthwhile with our free time. The first project was stabilizing some of the stone walls that make up Theatre in the Pines amphitheatre next to Aspen Grove (above Sundance in Provo Canyon). Theatre in the Pines was built in the 1930's by the CCC and WPA to accomodate the thousands of people that made the annual hike up Mount Timpanogos (discontinued in the 1970's because of all of the damage 5,000 people can cause hiking up a mountain at the same time). Many of the stone walls have needed repair after the 82 years since its completion, so we spent the week adding new concrete and resetting stones.

The second project was recording archaeological sites via hiking and surveying at a place called Vernon (about 40 miles south of Tooele). We found about 40 "tools" used by ancient American Indians. The tools included various arrow heads, scrapers, bifaces, etc. dating from a few hundred to several thousands of years ago. Most tools are left at the sites because real archaeology is preserving what is there, not removing it for one's own profit or interest. I said "most tools", because some tools are removed for diagnostic purposes (i.e., How old is the site? Who made the tool? How did they make it?). These tools are then displayed in museums.

I apologize for such a long post, but it is the first time in a while that I have felt like I actually had time to post. I'll let you know our baby's gender soon.

Cinnabon

I thought that those of you who were anywhere near me in the airport in Minnesota might appreciate this little story. I just picked Brad up from the airport and he came off the plane with a Cinnabon for me. It was every bit as good as I'd remembered.

A brief update

I liked Mark's idea of referring you to my blog so I don't have to post everything again. Since my field experience is just about over (at least well over the hours), Brad and I have been having lots of summer fun. We went to Bear Lake and Glacier National Park. Annie is doing super well and is getting to be more and more fun every day. My blog is http://bradandmaryanne.blogspot.com.

Questions for John: How is Jenny? How is feeling? How far along is she exactly? (What I'm really getting at is how soon are you going to find out the gender?)

Question for Pete: Did you decide on a day? I'm so excited for that trip!

Hey guys
It's been a while since my last post. Life has been pretty relaxed over the past few weeks, perhaps a little too relaxed - I need to get my fieldwork report and some other things finished up and it's taking longer than it should. Anyway, for an update on my summer adventures check out my family blog at www.spiresfam.blogspot.com Looking forward to seeing you guys real soon!

Hi from Baltimore

Hi Cahooters!

Since we are saving the planet millions at a time, I realized that I could probably take a break and update you all! (We’ll get back to work and do our second million this afternoon.)

My favorite new ad is one that I see in the metro and lightrail in Baltimore. Camille may have seen this one: a picture of an African American man in a wifebeater looking down at a little baby girl resting on his chest. On the bottom it says, “You made life. Be a part of it.”

Although this was probably more DOJ or Council on Family values, I think strong families are a huge part of sustaining a healthy population.

As for the field experience – things are going well! I’ve still got 3 weeks left, but I can’t help but feel a little trunky with all the stories of wrapping up projects, going home and Pete’s talk of boating. This week I started feeling nostalgic for our little home on the Payson prairie. Sure, ivy-covered trees and Maryland blue crabs are great, but—and I never thought I’d say these words—I’m also pretty excited to move back to Utah!

Update on my field experience doings: I just participated in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Summer Internship Poster Session, where I presented my analysis of some preliminary data from Barbados. By the way, preliminary here means 150 subjects in the past 8 years. Apparently, and Brea can back me up here, they have all kinds of holidays, (Whit Monday, Hero’s day, Cricket day, Kadooment, etc.) which makes research go pretty slow there. I compared change in lung function over time in asthmatics vs. controls in Barbados and created a model of some of the predictors of lung function change. The research is unique in that the subjects are of exclusively African descent. Blood samples will be analyzed later for predictive SNPs. For the past couple of weeks I was in SAS heaven (!); I consulted John (propers to John) along with a few of the biostatisticians here, without whom I guarantee I would have chosen the wrong tests.

Sara’s mom is visiting, so we finally had an evening away from the baby and attended the DC temple, where you can hold hands during the session! Today I’m leaving work early so we can hit up Ocean City, MD, the closest beach (which is 3 hours away). That second million will have to wait.... =)

You have reached your message limit...

Sure, something you expect to see when your texting or something, right? No, this was what my Gmail account told me after a day of resending emails to EVERY single medical school student (13 universities) who I have an email address for. Apparently there is a limit to the number of wrong email addresses you can send messages to (to limit spammers i imagine), so the 1500 or so messages i sent (mostly one by one by hand to try to change all the wrong addresses i had just enough to maybe accidentaly stumble upon the right address) resulted in too many returned messages. Basically I was banned from contacting the Gmail server with new mail to be sent during the next 24 hours... So I had to switch over to my hotmail account.

The good news is that tomorrow i get to do the same thing with nursing students! Yay!

Oh...and tomorrow´s the last official day as a PAHO intern, and I head back home on Tuesday afternoon. The sad part is that I probably will be in the office Mon and Tues anyway, just to get as much of this done before I go as is humanly possible. Too bad Ecuadorians don´t believe in returning phone calls or emails...it would have just been too easy that way!

See you all soon!

Neglected

Although I read the blog pretty much daily I feel as though I have greatly neglected it once again. I'm down to just shy of 2 weeks left in Maryland and I can't believe how fast the summer has gone. Seriously, is it really almost Fall?
The last few weeks have been busy but fairly uneventful. We had the DCEG (Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics) summer poster & recognition day last week. All of the summer interns created a poster of the research they've been doing this summer and we all met together and then had a poster session where everyone from DCEG could come drill us. It was a lot of fun, but quite small. It's kind of a warm up for the gigantic NIH-wide poster day tomorrow. A lot of the other students have been doing research with a more genetic emphasis, so I was quite alone with my environmental correlates but I actually really liked that.
Aaron and I are trying to get done everything that we should probably do while in the same state...at this point mostly working on getting our engagement pictures taken. One of my friends out here is a photographer, so he's going to take them for us, but how do you decide what to wear? I am just so not good at all this... wish us luck!
I hope everyone travels or has travelled back to Provo safely! I fly back on the 19th, so I'll see you all after that!

Making Lemonade

Well, everything is coming together well! I have a job at the INOVA Fairfax Hospital in their incredible Heart and Vascular Institute. When I interviewed there I felt like I was at a 5 star hotel. So, that is pretty exciting. I also lined up housing last week. It's at a little house that the LDS singles in the area call the Lemon House. (I learned that it is not because it is a bright, ugly yellow or a horrible broken down place, but because it is on Lemon Rd.) I will be in Provo until the 21st and then in Salt Lake for a few days until my younger brother flies out to start at BYU. I'll spend a day with him and then start my cross country trek!

raspberry cream cheese brownies

hey guys, remember a few months ago how i had you try some raspberry cream cheese brownies- even if you dont remember you tried them, i submitted the comments to america's test kitchen (basically the cooking bible) and this month they printed the recipe in the magazine, and they took some of our suggestions and changed the recipe a bit! (yes i know other people suggested it to but let me pretend). YAY!

Pickpocketed...

I managed to make it 3 months here without having had anything stolen...until this Thursday. I was headed to the airport at 5:45 am to catch a flight to Guayaquil (i´ll explain why in a minute), caught a taxi, got to the airport and saw TONS of people there, so I put my phone and my cash, etc. in my front pants pocket just to be safe, and got in line. By the time I got to the security checkpoint and emptied my pockets the cellphone was gone. It made my trip MUCH more complicated since all I had were the addresses of the hospitals I had to visit, and taxi drivers around here don´t know their street addresses very well. Not any wonder, since there is no rhyme or reason to the way the cities are organized (especially Guayaquil), but it makes it hard if you don´t know where you´re going either.

So the trip was for my project- it´s been almost two months ago now that the universities all committed to pass around a sheet of paper to their med and nursing students who had just received pediatrics...but have they done it? Of course not. Phone calls, emails... all have only served to get about 3 of the schools moving, and the last resort for me has been to start traveling and do it myself. It´s ridiculous that I should have to ask PAHO to pay $128 to fly me to Guayaquil so that I can pass around 2 sheets of paper asking students to write their email addresses... and to Loja...and to Manta...and to Portoviejo...and to Riobamba...and to Ibarra...

The only up-side has been that I´ve been able to see more of the country than I would have otherwise. Still, though, it´s frustrating. Why do people have such a hard time following through on their commitments? or better yet, why do they commit to something that they know they are not going to do? I feel like i did on my mission! I´m sure we could get a good study out of this using the Theory of Planned Behavior or Behaviorism...

Football Tickets Anyone?

Hey, I know I post more than my fair share, but I'm wondering if anyone is interested in getting all sports passes. I am definitely interested, but need friends to go to the games with. I think the passes are $105 for students and a bit more for non-student family/friends/guests. I love BYU football and no fall semester is complete without marching to the stadium on Saturday afternoons. Let me know if you're interested.

Yes I know this is very overdue

Hello everyone! I know you all are thinking that I have been sucked into a black hole. However, I am alive and well and feeling rather burned out. I have been slowly plugging along in my fieldwork. I have been doing a lot of survey development and analysis for a project the State Health Department is working on. Specifically with FFA, yes the Future Farmers of America. I have to say surveying a bunch of teenagers does yield some rather comical results. When asking about their concern with agricultural respiratory health and if they wanted more education about how to protect themselves I got quite a few "don't worry about it" responses. Apparently teens could care less about prevention. I also got a few participants who reported that they were both male and female or 1000 years old. Yes these responses to add a little color to my day however they do not help in getting an accurate picture. Thankfully I think I'm nearing the end of fieldwork and have that lovely write up to look forward to. I am still in need of a project however so if anyone has heard of anything let me know. I am also still working full time at Primary Children's Hospital. I have had quite a few 15 hour days the last few weeks due to extremely busy patient loads. Either someone has it out for me or they are testing just how far they can push my limit. I am struggling with the idea of classes starting up again as I feel as though I need another summer break to recover. I am going to try my best however to get back into the swing of things and change my attitude. I am going on a family vacation next weekend so maybe that will help.

Bored

I don't really have much to say, but I'm bored and need a break from writing my PAHO report. I'm doing the write up for my fieldwork project and I'm starting to lose all focus and energy. I feel like I did finishing up the report for our survey and research methods class. Even though that project was a beast, I am grateful I completed it; it makes writing this report that much easier, although not any more interesting. This is my last task to accomplish before I finish my fieldwork experience. Woohoo! I'm going on visits to the different health clinics tomorrow, so I will be posting pictures and probably will have some interesting stories...so stay tuned!

Committee Communication

Ok, so I have had the hardest time communicating with my committee this summer. I had my fieldwork proposal meeting days before I left for Barbados, so I should have been fresh in my committee's mind. I had some correspondence at the beginning when I was trying to figure out if I could get a project out of my fieldwork. After receiving some preliminary comments, I wrote a full blown project proposal and emailed it off. Since then (almost a month ago) I have heard nothing. Nothing. Rosemary did catch up on a few emails and gave me feedback on a survey that I had already distributed, but no mention of the proposal. In short, I am frustrated. I'm down to my last week and doing interviews, transcribing them, analyzing survey data, and writing the final report...and still no word from my committee. I have sent numerous emails with no response. My question is, how has communication been for you? Is anyone else experiencing this? I am thinking of organizing my thoughts and compiling thoughts from others (if you guys have had any troubles or have input) and talking to Mike to about it. I have felt very alone in this fieldwork/project process and have received little support from faculty. I feel that if BYU wants us to have worthwhile experiences, they need to provide support and networking. Please send me your thoughts either through comments on the blog or email me. I want to know about your experiences and to know if my case was simply an anomoly before talking to Mike.

Good luck with everything!!!

Electives- yes another post

Hey guys, i realize that i have been going crazy with posts lately but i have just one more. What electives is everyone taking in the fall? i know some of us (maybe just me) are interested to see what everyone else is taking so we can make up our minds about fall schedules... before fall. Anyway... what are you taking in the fall (in addition to the core classes)

DC Trip

This is the EXACT spot Aaron proposed to Camille... awww arent they cute!

Our favorite little chinese place in chinatown, sadly they only have their "specials" monday- friday. Pete's favorite chinese lady was there, and the food was delicious (well I thought it was) 

Brian and I treked down to DC for this last weekend to see the sights. Camille and Aaron were kind enough to show us around for the day, and Eli was nice enough to come and join us for lunch. We walked around the national mall, saw some monuments, and saw a few things in the museums. We saw a protest and the presidential motorcade- the only thing better would have been seeing Hilary Clinton (I love that you think I am joking). For more pictures feel free to visit www.thesukers.blogspot.com 

by the way one of the best things about DC besides the people being normal humans instead of irritating pod people was the nice clean subway. It didnt smell strongly of alcohol and urine, it was well lit, clean, and no one asked me for money- i think my commute would be much better if i rode that every day instead of the rat infested NYC subway. By the way I took a picture of the DC tracks to compare to the NYC tracks and i will post the comparison as soon as i take a picture of the NYC tracks- notice the lack of stagnant water, rats, and general filth present in the DC subway- hm... I think this might be a public health concern- but seriously look forward to that. 

Life without Orcher, not as much fun as life with Orcher

hey does anyone have an orcher book that i can borrow for the next 4 weeks? i would be more than happy to pay for the shipping, I left mine in utah and i dont think my inlaws are going to be able to find it in all of our stuff in their basement, and i am thinking that life might be a bit easier with that lovely rainbow book. let me know (and seriously i am happy to pay shipping, and will return it when school starts).

Breastfeeding bill of rights

http://www.newschannel34.com/content/developingnews/story/Breastfeeding-mothers-bill-of-rights-passes-senate/_Tgy6fQDfUqILaiNeLM1eA.cspx

Thought this was interesting...though it´s probably old news to you guys. We got an email from washington talking about how there´s a lot of anti-breastfeeding articles going around in Australia and Britain right now, so they asked me to read up on it a bit (since it´s all in english).

No More Music

Sorry Pete, I had to delete the music, I was going to hurt Jack Johnson if I had to hear better together ever again. To everyone else enjoy the music free blog!

The Ring

As requested. This is the best shot we could get right now - it gives you a pretty good idea of what the ring looks like.

Barbados Anyone

So seriously guys, where have you all gone? I know I probably have the most time on my hands of everyone, but this is sad when the last three posts are mine. I no longer care about flooding the blog, so I will continue to post. I have plenty of random thoughts and time to share them.

My latest thought comes from a Professor Hassell here in Barbados. I went to the Ministry of Health for a presentation from this Professor on a proposal for salt reduction. He is the Chairman of the National Committee on Non Communicable Diseases in Barbados. Barbados leads the Caribbean in chronic diseases, specifically diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Anyway, I attended the meeting with my advisor and during the introductions, this professor asked if I would like to return to Barbados for a year to complete a post doctorate fellowship. I'm not sure what the qualifications for that would include, but he knew I would be finishing my MPH this next year. He said he would like to meet with me next week to discuss it. He is in the process of securing funding for one student to work for a year in the area of chronic disease. He asked if I would be interested or if anyone at my university would be interested. As you all know my feelings right now about being here, I would respectfully decline. I couldn't imagine living here for a year (not that it's not fabulous, beautiful, and the weather is incredible) I just get lonely. But if anyone has a desire to live in the Caribbean for a year or could bring their family/spouse with them, it's a great place to live. And I promise you, you will fall in love with the beaches and get a nice tan along the way!

Any takers?

Health Reform?

This is a picture of me and my advisor here at PAHO, Dr. Shirley Alleyne. Dr. Alleyne is a Barbadian, which is somewhat unusual for a PAHO technical officer. Most of the time PAHO brings outsiders into country/regional offices to bring new perspective to the region. Dr. Alleyne is an MD, specializing in psychiatry. She did med school at the University of West Indies but completed residency in Syracuse, NY and a fellowship at Yale so she has experience with America and American culture. We generally have weekly chats about NCDs (non communicable diseases), Caribbean culture, and other health issues. Yesterday's discussion started out with Dr. Alleyne asking me what I thought about Obama's health reform. She wanted to hear an American's perspective and as I'm the only American in the office, she asked me. I have been reading some, but I am by no means on expert on the topic. I don't really know what's best, but I don't think I agree with universal health care. As I started explaining my thoughts, she started going off on how the reform will never pass because Americans are capitalists and we don't really want to take care of everyone. Now, I agree that we should take care of the poor, we need to provide disadvantaged populations access to services, but I'm not sure throwing $1 trillion into government programs is the way to go. The more I talked and the more she did, the more flustered I got. I do believe in personal responsibility and I don't really want to pay for the drug addict in Philly or the smoker in Kansas who can't pay for cancer treatment. Now, I understand there are lots of hard working people who simply don't have insurance or who have health challenges that are no fault of their own. The American system is expensive and we still have low health outcomes in many areas. Where should we be putting our money? How do we help those who have no opportunity to help themselves? Will/Can the private sector step up? Do we need government to be in charge of health care? I think government should govern, not execute the daily decisions of our lives, but how do we do that? How do we find the tide that rises all the boats? Is there such a thing as a compassionate conservative?

I'm asking for your thoughts. I got quite frustrated yesterday because I wasn't able to articulate my position and I came off sounding like the bad guy, the mean, uncaring, rich, white girl who doesn't know what it's like to not have access to health and education. I'm really interested in hearing what you think. I'd love for this to become a forum for ideas to be tossed around. Next time someone asks me about health reform, I want to have a few more concrete answers.

p.s. countdown: 10 full days left in Barbados; 5 days of work

Hey, work isn't half bad!

7 days of fieldwork left and I'm just starting to enjoy myself. Today was a great day of work. I felt productive, interested, and didn't want to poke my eyes out. Success! I finished a survey weeks ago and found out that PAHO only distributed it a week ago. Well time is running out, so we decided to go ahead and do the follow up interviews regardless of survey completion. I spent a few hours this morning doing phone interviews with the focal points of Antigua & Barbuda and Grenada (island countries). I was super nervous at first because I didn't think I knew enough about the project or that my survey wouldn't be clear, but no worries, all went well. My advisor walked out and I was left to my own devices. We even successfully recorded the interviews (and I can understand everything clearly, accents and all). The only down side is that it's an old school recorder with a tape, so I can't use any transcription software. But I've never been so excited to transcribe, it will keep me busy! I'll keep you updated on any more fun days at work...they are numbered.

The down side of the day is that I keep finding more and more bug bites! I even have one on the bottom of my foot--how does that happen? The rainy season is in full swing, floods and bugs and all!

Official!

I think something is missing

So I think that we are missing an exciting post on the blog... not from me but from someone... I think that someone knows who they are (unless someone else has other exciting news they arent sharing, in which case... we are waiting).

College Disbanding

Hey. Ashley told me about this and I thought I'd pass it along. I felt a little scandalized and very out of the loop and didn't want everyone else to feel the same. See you all soon!

http://universe.byu.edu/node/844

Project worries...what if?

So...life and internships continue. I am now waiting for several things on my research: 1) universities to get on it and send me a simple list of emails of a specific group of medical students, 2) students to answer the online survey I've sent them. The problem seems to be that the universities are good about saying they're willing to help, but don't really prioritize it at all, thus, six weeks and MANY pleading emails and calls later, I'm still waiting for six universities. They also seem to have forgotten to tell the students to check their email...so it's taking awhile to get the responses. Longer than I expected.

Now that I only have three weeks left the worrier part of me is coming out at times...what if no one answers? What other project could I do? How can I salvage this if it really does go downhill? that kind of thing. I think it will really be fine, but it's concerning. I've been doing some personal visits at the universities to try to get things moving, so that's required some traveling lately- meaning that I have some new posts on my personal blog that you can look at so i don't have to copy it all here. alishamph.blogspot.com And that one has pictures...

Pictures

Here are some pics from some of my more recent adventures. Enjoy!

Me and my cousin Rachel down by the river by their house in PA.

The boat house in Central Park.

Yellowstone. I love all the colors and the steam. Pictures just can't capture it!

Mesa Falls (or something to that effect) not too far off the freeway somewhere in Idaho. It was really cool though because the walking trail went right up to the dropoff and then bends around...again you just can't capture it with a camera.

One more reason why I love the Caribbean

Rain Delay!

It's the rainy season here in the Caribbean. It officially started June 1, but I didn't see much rain until the last few weeks. Well, today it has been raining non stop and at 3:30, my advisor came up to me and said the office was closing early because of the rain and potential flooding in the streets. She also gave me a ride home because there was no way I'd be walking in a down pour. As she dropped me off, she told me I don't need to come in tomorrow if it's raining like it is today. Everyone, I'm asking for your prayers, keep the rain coming! (until the weekend of course, I want sunny skies for the beach).

Distractions

I have been a total slacker in updating the blog (obviously), so I am finally trying to repent. Part of the procrastination is the hope that I would take the time to blog at home where I could post pictures, but those will have to wait as my lunch break is short and the pics are inaccessible.

The last month and a half (yes, its almost been that long since my last post) has been quite the adventure. Of course Ashley posted about Aaron and I going up to New York. We had a blast eating, sight seeing, eating, playing with Ashley & Brian, eating, hanging out with our friend Gabe, did I mention eating?

The next week (June22-28) was pretty insane at work. I have been working on 2 projects and I had a big analysis to get done on my lung cancer project and I was asked to present what I've being doing this summer at the Infections & Immunoepidemiology Branch Meeting (which are about the most intense meetings I've ever been to) on July 14th. You may scoff and think that that's almost 3 full weeks away, but the stressful part was that I was going to Utah for almost 2 weeks and returning July 13th. So I had to finish the lung cancer analysis and put together my entire presentation for the meeting by that Thursday since my mentor was going out of town. Luckily, I got it all done and thus was able to leave for Utah stressed, but task free.

I celebrated my birthday, June 29th by working most of the day (it was the day before the trip), but that night Aaron made me dinner (from scratch) and took me to a chick flick (which is a pretty big deal for him to do:). He also had flowers waiting in my bedroom so when I walked in to set my stuff down from work they were waiting for me. It was a great birthday!

The next day we flew off to Utah for two whirlwind weeks of family and driving. Aaron has pretty much the whole month of July off (and my researcher was going out of town), so we decided to come back to Utah for the 4th and Aaron's family reunion. We went down to his family's cabin at Fish Lake for the 4th of July, tried to spend as much time with my family during the week as possible, drove up to Idaho with his family the next weekend for a big family reunion, came back to Sandy Sunday night and I flew back to Maryland Monday afternoon. It was crazy, but so much fun. We drove up to Idaho through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone which were absolutely gorgeous (I'll try to post pictures soon).

Well I got back to my house in Maryland just before midnight Monday, July 13th and was at work early Tuesday morning frantically trying to review and perfectionize my presentation of the meeting. Luckily I saved it onto a jump drive just as the entire server went down and messed everyone's computers up. But my presentation went well and I was grateful I had said my prayers that morning!!

Well this is getting way too long so I will finish up. I won't bore you with all my other distractions that perpetually keep me from the blog. Oh, but just in case you're curious. . . Aaron and I aren't officially engaged yet, but we are getting married December 30th!!!!!!! I'll add more updates and official stories as they unfold! I miss you all!

Quy

In fulfilling recent requests about more posts letting everyone know how our lives are going...

I felt kind of strange about it, but I tried a traditional Andean dish
today...quy. They raise them here as a food source, and though it used to be eaten by the poor, now it can be considered a delicacy. My half
qui cost as much as half a roasted chicken. The internal conflict
came, however, in that the translation for quy is "guinea
pig"...which, as you all know, are considered as pets not food in the
U.S. It actually wasn't bad when I didn't think about which type of
little animal I was eating. I drew the line at eating the slab of
cooked pig skin that my friends were eating instead of the quy,
though. I felt like I took the better of the two choices!

Oh, and we just found out that three of our office staff are confirmed cases of A(H1N1), which is still a pretty big deal around here...as far as we know we're not ALL under quarantine yet, but we may be within the next week. Ironic that just the other day I was telling my family not to worry, and that I would be more likely to get it in Utah than here...

Tired

I usually hate it when summer goes by fast. I love summer. I love everything about summer. Long summer days, hot sun, lakes, beaches, swimming, hiking, shorts, flip flops, popsicles, bbqs, fireworks, floating the river, less stress, vacations, bike rides, road trips, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the feeling that anything can happen, strawberries, watermelon, ice cold water, tourists, no homework, tans, running outside, picnics, reunions, carefree days.....to name a few.

But this summer, I wish would just hurry up. I still love all those things about summer, but I'm tired. I've spoken to a few of you and I think we're in agreement that fieldwork experiences are long and most of us who traveled away are ready to come home. Yes, even being in "paradise" I am ready to come home. I just finished week 7 here and have two more to go. I hate that I am checking my planner and counting days, it makes me feel like I'm cheating summer or that summer is cheating me. I've had a few of those favorite things about summer this year (beaches, swimming, hot weather), but I miss the care free days of summer when I get up whenever my eyes open and I play outside until 10 when it finally gets completely dark. I want to join in the summer bbqs and take some time to lounge at a pool (especially now since I have a nice tan--well as tan as a super fair and blonde girl can get), and to eat popsicles while chatting it up with friends. Yes, I am ready to leave paradise. Yes, I am ready to be done with fieldwork. Yes, I am ready to come home.

Anyone else feel this way?

Reason #1,000,000 why the NYC subway is not my friend.

So since I told everyone they had to post I guess I should post. I dont have anything exciting to say, except that I only have to stay here 6 more weeks! Oh yeah and we got a house (well a little more complicated than that, but pretend). So I am trying to think of a some good NYC stuff to tell you guys and nothing in particular is coming to mind, so I will just tell you about what happened this morning. I need to preface by saying I hate the subway, it is hot, there are rats, people are crammed together, and it is dirty, with all that being said this is what happened to me this morning. SO this morning I was running a little bit late... my boss doesn't work Thursdays so things are a little bit more "flexible" that day. Anyway I was running a little bit late, but I thought if I dont have to wait for the train I might not be too late (and really only interns are in the office thursdays so not a big deal) anyway so I am walking to the train and I can see that it just got there, which is good news since it looked like i wouldn't have to wait around, so i went to swipe my metro card and it said "insufficient funds", which is odd since I have an unlimited pass and they usually just say something like 'time expired" anyway, so I went to make sure it was really expired... and it was. I thought no big deal I will just buy a new one, so I went to buy a new one and the ridiculous machine would not take my debit or credit cards. So I keep trying, and it is getting later, the train leaves and I am still trying, another train comes and yes I am still trying, finally I realize I can use cash, which would be fine if I had cash- I consider going to the bank, but that would just slow me down more (I am not thinking clearly at this point I am so mad) and if there is something wrong with my account I cant even get money from the ATM, finally I found a magic $10 in my bag, I buy a metro card and get on the train. I ride all the way to work, and think "hm... maybe it was just the machine at my stop" so I try the machine at the stop near my work... and it worked... how annoying is that!!!! So let's just say Chase identity theft protection is getting a little bit annoying at this point in the summer.* 

On a totally unrelated note did you know that NYC has TONS of mosquitos, I think I am going to get malaria- Camille if I had known this I would have gotten the malaria pills. 

On another unrelated note does anyone have a graduate project I can do, please say yes. 

Finally, HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY TO CAMILLE! I cannot believe we did not post about that, and I think HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY TO ALINA (Alina, if your birthday isnt during summer happy really really really early birthday to you). 

*one good thing about the subway though- sometimes when the conductor is running late they will skip stops- this is great for me since i live on the last stop, but sad for all the other people since they dont tell you until they pass your stop- this makes for a very comical 15 minutes- I know I am a little bit mean. 

"This is my post"

I just watched Dances with Wolves and it says, "This is my post" about 7 times, so..."This is my post." I finally met with Carl this week and he was nice enough not to try to change my mind on all of this. I think I was pretty convincing that I was sure when I told him I was moving to D.C. So here is this latest: I have to write a statement to Mike Barnes about my experience with the MPH so that the next time they get accredited, they can show that it wasn't because there is something wrong with the program. I told the UCHD that I wasn't going to be continuing my work there and they asked if they could take me to lunch. I should quit things more often. Dr Merrill saw me as I was cleaning out my cubicle and encouraged me to get a Master's degree in Biostats. I said, thanks, but no thanks... I couldn't handle thinking that hard.

So, I've had some phone interviews and have another one this friday. Then I'm going out to D.C. monday for a couple of in-person interviews. Hopefully I will get hired to one of those positions, but I've decided to move even if I don't have a job yet. That should make me nervous, but it really doesn't. Hopefully that means I'm making a good decision. While I'm out there, I'm going to hit up a Nationals game and try to bike around the monuments. I wish I'd kept my metro card from our trip. I could have saved 38 cents on this trip!

Where is everyone?

So Brea and I were just chatting online, literally just chatting (like we still are) and we were discussing how the cohort blog has slowed down considerably in the last few weeks... which is not acceptable. Where is everyone? What are you doing, who are you with? what exciting things are happening in you life!? Okay enough of the stern reprimand, I hope you are all doing fantastically wherever you are!

PS eli and camille- i am going to be in dc next weekend, if you guys are around maybe we can meet up- for the rest of you we/I will miss you but you are more than welcome to fly out and see us

Barbados Highlights

Camille, this picture is for you. I am sitting next to George Washington in his house in Barbados. George came to Barbados when he was 17 with his brother Lawrence who had TB and thought the tropical climate could cure him...it did not. Anyway, George came out and lived here for a couple of years and Barbados is the only place outside the U.S. that our First President ever traveled to. When you sit down next to him, he starts to read to you from his journal. It was very startling at first, kinda freaky actually, but entertaining at the same time. From DC to Barbados, you have to love George!


HIV/AIDS campaigns are everywhere and Brady thought this picture was particularly amusing. Just in case you can't read the sign it says, "We protect, we serve, we defend, we use condoms" -Barbados Defense Force. I'm not totally sure the correlation, but I won't argue if it's effective. Again, public health at its finest.


This is Brady and me aboard "Cool Runnings" a catamaran sailing boat. This was probably the highlight of the week where we spent 5 hours sailing in the Caribbean, snorkeling with sea turtles and colorful fish, swimming in the sea, and enjoying a wonderful buffet lunch. A word of caution--no matter how tan you think you are, spf 8 is not enough! Even though I'm living in the Caribbean, I still need to remind myself that I am a white girl with very fair skin!

We also took a tour of the island, walked through a tropical gulley, saw huge milipedes and slugs, hung out at the beach, and ate tons of fish (and yes, I did think about mercury as I enjoyed king fish, swordfish, dolphin (not flipper), marlin, and flying fish, but I think I'll be ok with one week of a fish diet. I'd put more pictures up of the other parts of the island, but Brady has all those pics, so I will have to get them later. In one day I stood in 2 different seas: the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Barbados is definitely beautiful, but in all its glory, I'm actually anxious to come home--shocker.

The Great Influenza

So I have been reading this book titled, "The Great Influenza" every day on the train, and besides being a truly fascinating book (really you should all read it), it defines public health (which is obviously a plus)- when I read it I thought I should share the definition with all of you- I really wanted to slap a "This is Public Health" sticker on it, but I didnt have any, and then i realized that would be lame since I already know what public health is.  Anyway here is the quote, 

"Public heath  was and is where the largest number of lives are saved, usually by understanding the epidemiology  of a disease- its patterns, where and how it emerges and spreads- and attacking it at its weak points. This usually mean prevention. Science had first contained smallpox, then cholera, then typhoid, then plague, then yellow fever, all through large-scale pubic health measures, everything from filtering water to testing and killing rats to vaccination. Public health measures lack the drama of pulling someone back from the edge f death, but they save lives by the millions."

Anyway it is a really interesting book, scary and a little upsetting, but worth the time. And just an FYI for John- the author loves epidemiology, he mentions it at least once a page. 

Home again!

I'm so excited to be back in South Africa again. It's been 4 years since I last came home. I arrived on Tuesday night and have spent all my time thus far in the townships (formal and informal/tin shack settlements) around Cape Town. I put together an in-depth interview questionnaire and have been conducting interviews with families in their homes with the help of an interpreter. These families attended a year-long health and hygiene program teaching them about all aspects of personal, home, and environmental hygiene. The purpose of my visits is to see how effective the program was in helping these families sustain hygienic behaviors and knowledge - so far so good! Here are some pics from the areas I’ve visited so far:

Thanks!

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for the cute outfit you gave Annie. We've put her in it a lot and she's looked super cute. Sadly, our 4 month old (can you believe she's been here for 4 months?) is getting too big for it, so I put her in it for the last time today.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

So just in case you have not heard our exciting news I thought I would pass it on, it looks like we are going to go and possibly buy a house this weekend in Dallas. I never thought I would say this but I am “super excited” (as MaryAnne would say) to move to Texas. I am not sure if I am more excited to live somewhere with more than one room or to live somewhere where people are a at least a little bit nice- either way it is going to be exciting- and a big change from living here in NYC and at Wymount! So whenever you guys make it Dallas (which will be never) you are welcome to stop by and visit. 

So...

So, I guess I'll just say this abruptly because how do you dance around it:
I've decided not to finish the MPH. I just emailed Carl and Mike and Cougar so I'll let you know how it all goes down. And, I still am willing to be a cupcake tester, if needed :)

This is Public Health....continued

Just as a follow up to my last post, I thought I would add this picture. I saw this sign in the main town square of downtown Bridgetown, Barbados. Next to the sign was a large tent where people could come and get free HIV/AIDS testing and counseling. I would have taken a picture of the tent with all the people, but I didn't think people would like me taking pictures of them getting AIDS counseling, so I figured I would stick with the sign. I'm really glad that Barbados is making an effort to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. One thing I thought of was how this would never fly in the U.S. There's no way you could set up a free HIV/AIDS testing booth in any downtown; it would probably violate a dozen privacy and discrimination laws. Luckily, in the less developed part of the world, people don't seem to mind as much. But Barbados is doing its part in addressing the HIV/AIDS problem: condoms in the bathrooms and free HIV testing in city squares.

Me Voy

While most of you are finishing up your projects, mine are just getting started. I leave tonight on the red eye for Guatemala and have very mixed emotions. I am so excited to get out there are get started (and finished essentially), but I am really starting to freak out about leaving Mike for 2 months!!! Mark, Pete- I need some coaching because I don't know how you guys did it. Luckily he is coming to visit in 3 weeks, but still.

Of course it also doesn't help that I have heard about every horror story known to man about awful things that have happened to tourists, journalist, and volunteers in Guatemala (such as murders, abductions, kidnapping, rapings, etc, etc) People just need to keep their mouths shut- geez.

Well hope all of you are doing well. Like I said on my blog, I am not sure Ill have access to the internet while I'm there, but Ill post any chance I get.

Hasta Pronto!!!