Kabul

Almost done with day three in Kabul. Overall, its pretty boring really, which I am not complaining about. So far, its just been a lot of work at the office and then coming home and doing more work. Since we arent really allowed out to walk around, I havent had a chance to see much other than our office which is down the block one way and the grocery store which is down the block the other way. The mornings here are gorgeous but by 9, its already ridiculously hot. I wear a headscarf on the street but once I am in the office, I take it off. Its just too hot with that much clothing on. Tomorrow we are going to a meeting with USAID so hopefully we will have a chance to drive through the city and I can sneak some pictures. In the meantime, I have two from the roof of our office and another of a very informative sign in our bathroom. The roof shots just sort of show thats its dusty here but the one from the bathroom, well... Its the little things that keep me entertained...

Dubai

Just a quick update since I know people are a little more worried about this global adventure than the past ones. I will try to check in more often over the next couple weeks. So far, I have just made it to Dubai and I will be going on to Kabul tomorrow. I am staying at the airport in the hotel here (what will they think of next) so I wont actually get to go out in Dubai but the airport/mall here is giving me a taste. Its crazy. It is quite literally a duty-free mall. There are cars, Gucci stores, a Cold Stone Creamery. And thats just directly across from me. I havent gone out to explore because i know I will spend a million dollars. The flight was ok but it was exceptionally long, 12.5 hours, and bumpy and there were screaming babies. And I hate to say it, but I think Delta is better. I hate to give Delta credit for anything, but at least they have a decent movie selection and the staff isnt so grouchy. Anyhoo, not much else to update on right now, but I will fill everyone in when I get to Kabul tomorrow.

Work

I realize that a lot of people dont really know what "public health" is. Sometimes even I don't. So I am going to try to summarize it and then I am going to say what I do so that maybe people have a better idea. Public health is more or less trying to protect entire populations of people from getting sick. Doctors treat diseases. Public health professionals try to stop people from getting sick in the first place. So we run family planning clinics, conduct education campaigns about smoking, develop vaccines, and study the effects of pollution on cancer. Those are examples of "public health". There are a bunch of different things you can focus on, for example I have a friend who is studying health policy, another one studying infectious disease epidemiology, and I am studying reproductive health. So for me, I try to learn about what affect participation in a microcredit organization has on contraceptive use among poor women in Bangladesh, what barriers women in Afghanistan face to accessing safe birth delivery services, or whether women who escape sex trafficking in Thailand are able to integrate into society or face deportation and retrafficking. So those are public healthy things that we do. My work on them mostly involves sitting at a computer, crunching numbers and looking for patterns, but it also involves developing surveys, conducting interviews, or traveling to sites and actually seeing what the organizations we work with do (although that doesnt get to happen all that often sadly). So for those of you who were never really sure what in the world I was doing, and to clarify for myself a little bit, those are three things that I am working on right now.

Apparently people read this

I dont know that people I know read this but apparently people I dont know read it when they google me. Thats creepy. I guess if thats the case maybe i should spend more time writing on it. But since I havent written anything in almost a year, that seems unlikely. Anyway, I figured that I would just update the picture and the title. Since I am not in Africa and sadly will likely not be going back for some time. But I do have some trips in the works (SPAIN in one month and a half!!!) and possibly some other locations this summer. Potential dissertation opportunities are popping up, but its best not to get too excited. But here are some words to throw around... Nigeria, Burma, Thailand. Just putting it out there...

Third Quarter Over

I am now a week into the fourth quarter. Its kind of incredible how fast time has flown by. Having midterms and finals every couple weeks just keeps everything moving along. This term I am taking one fewer classes than last term in order to give myself a break. But since, as my friend puts it, I am a "class whore" its difficult to be limiting myself to only 5. Im weird. I admit it. But, my class schedule kept me on track last year and I managed to swing all A's (I honestly don't know how thats possible. Im thinking theres an error somewhere in there. But if I've learned anything by now, its don't question good grades).

In between studying and blizzards last term, I also managed to apply for some jobs. Which turned out quite well, since I will now be the official Global Health Fellow for HIV/Family Planning Integration programs at USAID for the summer. Im not sure that the job itself will be all that useful in terms of skills building, but I am very excited to work at USAID and see how one of the biggest funding agencies in the world works. It will be a great opportunity to get an inside look at a behemoth in the public health world. But sadly what that means is that I will be neither returning to the NW or traveling somewhere requiring an overnight flight. Im beginning to panic at the thought of being in the US for over a year with no travel! How can this be?!! But I figure its got to happen sometime. And there could be worse places than DC for the summer.

I will be back in Seattle in the summer at least once, since Brother and Sarah are getting married. It will be a short stopover given that I actually have a full time job (Im still kind of bewildered at the idea) but still at least I will see Seattle in the summer once more.

In the meantime, spring has officially sprung in Baltimore. Its sunny and warm (even hot. It was almost 80 today) and the people are out celebrating. Im at the harbor right now, sitting at a Barnes and Noble, watching the people stroll around the harbor at the Chesapeake Bay. Earlier today I went running with a friend through a wilderness area and yesterday went to a farmers market. So all in all, not a bad weekend. Minus the homework... which speaking of, I must return to. But I hope everyone is doing well out there in Internet world. Once I start working at USAID, I will update you all farther on Public Health in Action!

Some things I learned today

1. Seeing the sun has an immediate improvement on mood. Baltimore is kind of pretty when its not covered in 12 foot mountains of dirty snow.

2. In particular, the identity matrix serves as the unit of the ring of all n-by-n matrices, and as the identity element of the general linear group GL(n) consisting of all invertible n-by-n matrices. (The identity matrix itself is invertible, being its own inverse.)

I have no idea what that means but apparently I should. Thats going to be one of those things that I cross my fingers and hope doesnt show up on the exam. In the meantime, I will amuse myself with Poisson regressions and Cox proportional hazards. I might not really know what those are either, but at least I understand the words.

3. Some people have not read Cappyboppy by Bill Peet. That is a travesty. But this lady obviously did...
http://www.peoplepets.com/photos/strange/life-with-the-world-s-largest-rodent/1

4. And finally, when all else fails, pour yourself some wine, eat a chocolate chip cookie, and count the days until Spring Break. I believe the number is 10.

Update

At popular request, I am going to update a little bit on the goings on in my life.

As many of you know, I am back in the United States for a somewhat indefinite period of time. At the moment, I am a PhD student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Since PhDs are a little more amorphous than MDs and JDs there isnt necessarily a certain timeline that Im working under at the moment. So at least for the next year and a half to three and a half years, I will be a resident of Baltimore. Thats not so bad I suppose. Its no Africa, especially given the past month of what seems like near constant blizzards, but I do live next to a grocery store that sells salsa, hummus, chips, and fake chicken nuggets. So could things be worse? Yeah, definitely.

Right now I am mostly taking required classes and a lot of math. No one told me that getting a PhD in Public Health was basically getting a PhD in complex math, but it sure seems like it now. Thats a little known secret folks, so I am entrusting it to you. I am also working with my advisor on a series of papers for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. We are examining the database they have compiled but never used to look at the reproductive health of refugees. So far its pretty slow going. It seems like with the blizzards, most of our motivation has gone out the window.

And so with that, I want to leave a link to some blizzard photos.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2032087&id=48101028&l=0d84dbf4a0

And I will try to update more often. I didnt realize that anyone really read this! So I will try to write a little bit about what its like being a graduate student and a resident of the other coast.