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.