Student SPHere 2008-09

Well school is done for the summer. I managed to finish my biostats final just in time to catch my preferred bus last weds. The semester finished up nicely for me and just in time too. The day before my last final a grant proposal, I had been waiting for was posted. So now I am pretty busy working on that proposal. I am also using the summer break to really focus on finishing up our paper on critical pharmaceutical products. Its coming along nicely. So basically the summer is time for me to focus more on work, as school is not a priority (I am not taking any summer classes). I am going to be enjoying the break from balancing the demands of academic life and work life.

It feels kinda weird being done with my third year of grad school. I feel like I am closer to the end goal, graduating in 2011 yet realizing that a lot still has to happen to make that a reality. One of my goals this summer is to finalize my committee, which should not be to difficult. Its one of many things I need to accomplish to graduate by 2011 (that sure seems like a long way off).

Megan and I were able to spend the weekend in Iowa at her youngest brothers graduation party. It was pretty fun and relaxing. A nice way to finish off the semester. He is going to be going to Luther (our alma matter). One of my younger brothers graduates tomorrow and will be heading off to Montana State. Since he is my brother, I thought I would do a little bragging. A few weeks ago his high school team (him and another guy) finished 37 out of 273 team at the Vex robotics world championships (there were colleges competing too). He taught himself most of what he needed to know for the competition, so its going to be cool to watch him continue to learn robotics stuff in college. Needless to say we are pretty proud of him.

Well I hope everyone has a great summer. Its been fun blogging and sharing this past year with you all. Stay safe and enjoy the beautiful weather we are having. I know I am planning on spending lots of it outside in our yard.

Posted at 11:32 PM
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This past week was full of plants and flowers. The trees everywhere are full of leaves, the crab apple trees are smelling heavenly and the dandelions have already sprouted.

We stopped by the Friends School Plant Sale on Saturday to pick up some herbs. For $27, we got two sets of basil plants (four sproutlings to a set), one lavender plant, one rosemary, one oregano, one thyme, one mint, two types of tomatoes, and two succulent plants. While it was too crowded for my liking, the plants were pretty cheap and it's for a good cause.

The student volunteers were charming. We got our plants totaled by a very serious-looking elementary student, who tapped away at his receipt calculator and then gravely handed us the bill.

Basil

Bloody butcher (tomato)

Mint

We also grabbed a few succulents. Haworthia attennuata.

Woolly rose. It's WOOLLY.

Yesterday we put them in containers. It looks really great and I'm excited for fresh herbs and tomatoes this summer.

I'm postponing my thesis work until after finals. I look forward to being able to focus on just that. It's been somewhat stressful trying to juggle school, work, and thesis. This summer I will also be working on a paper at the Humphrey examining urban health penalties. I'll get a chance to work with GIS data, which is exciting.

Posted at 11:26 AM
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Don’t get me wrong, I was just as pumped as anyone to attend any undergraduate event that advertised free pizza. But now I think the difference is that all the food is scrunched into the last three weeks of the semester.

Not that I’m complaining about that either. Stress and food are an excellent combination, and the more time I can spend on homework (as opposed to cooking) the better.

Last week, the School of Public Health bloggers got together for a fabulous Greek lunch.

Over the weekend, I went to the May Day festival in Powderhorn Park. Let’s just say I have a weakness for cotton candy.

Yesterday, we had a lunch potluck in our CHE class. Note to self for future potlucks: grad students + finals + homemade mac ‘n’ cheese = empty pan.

Then we had a (Cinco-de-Mayo-themed) dinner potluck in computer-assisted reporting. I broke out the chickpea tacos recipe I’ve been meaning to try, and we flew through a package of tortillas, so I’m assuming that means they turned out well.

Today, I’m going out to lunch with a friend at the Star Tribune. It’s my technical last day, though I’ll definitely still be here a month from now if I’m going to finish the stories I’m working on.

And for dinner? Potluck No. 3 in two days – this time, a barbeque with some CHE and MCH folks and friends. I’m heading right home from work to wash and slice and skewer some zucchini, mushrooms and peppers.

Who knows what the weekend will bring. But I would guess it’ll be edible.

And I'm hoping it will fuel me through the grant proposal and biostats final I have left to go!

Posted at 11:55 AM
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Well the past few weeks have certainly been interesting. Work has been far more demanding that is usually is, as everyone started dealing with the novel H1N1 (the virus formally known as swine flu) outbreak. School is finishing up; I am now done with all my assignments for this semester, just two finals to go now. That’s a huge relief, as my time has been very limited since the outbreak began. Thankfully things are starting to calm down a bit. It will be interesting to see how things play out with H1N1, as nobody really knows what will happen next. Will a second wave occur? Will it start causing severe disease or stay mild? (I don’t know about you but the last time I had seasonal influenza, a “mild” disease, I was out of commission for almost a week, so mild is somewhat relative.) Will business stop caring about pandemic planning?

On May 4th the FDA/CDC put out a joint press release about “spot shortages” of supplies for treating and preventing influenza. Evidently when a nation suddenly ramps up their purchasing habits for specific items, the supply chain is not elastic enough to meet all the surges in demands. Most folks dealing with supply chains could have told you that would happen. Needless to say this has really stimulated my academic pursuits around public health issues relating to supply chains.

I am quite anxious for weds to come, that’s the day of my last final, biostats. It will be nice to be done with classes for the summer. This has been a pretty challenging semester for me. My grandmother was diagnosed with cancer (she is doing ok and has had more tumors removed) and I have been involved in my first public health emergency (H1N1). Both of these events have consumed quite a bit of my time. Thankfully I have had some very caring and understanding professors this semester (I am sure other semesters would be no different) who worked with me to make sure my academics did not slip. Its always nice to know that when things get interesting in your personal or professional life, the support is there help you keep balance and keep you moving towards your main goal, education.

I don’t know about you, but I am loving the weather we have been having in the cities lately. Its so nice out now. This however makes it a challenge to study. Its going to be fun balancing studying with yard work, something I have been looking forward to for a long time. I now finally have the chance to work in our yard. I am hoping to get a lot of yard work and studying done this weekend.

Posted at 8:31 AM
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Now I wish i could say it was all over like many people are getting excited about, but the thing is, even though im done with all my classes and walk with my classmates on the 18th...im not actually done till the fall when i defend my thesis.
I got delayed because it took a while to get my survey in to the IRB(Institutional Review Board) and then it took forever to get approved. And im still working on finalizing the survey.
And for most of you who are wondering what im talking about. I am working on a process evaluation for my masters project. I wanted both qualitative and quantitative data so i designed a survey. Most people think that's the fun and easy part but dont be decieved. I think i will be glad when i finally start gettin my results.
In the meantime, I am finishing up my final projects and studying for the MCAT which is scheduled for July--yikes!
I finally got my new camera on friday and got to use it at the Phillips Neighborhood Parade on Sunday. Ofcourse, i forgot to switch out the custom memory card for mine which meant that I couldnt only take a max of 9 pictures.
Which was all i really needed to take i suppose.
Eitherway, if you are thinking of getting a point and shoot digital camera which is semi professional... I would recommend looking at Canon's variety of digital slip cameras.
Here are a few pics from Sunday...

getting ready

Eddie, Dave and I repping the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic

The most adorable kids ever!

Well I suppose she has a point!

Im pleased to say our efforts payed off and we have upped the number of patients at the clinic per night

Posted at 9:34 PM
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This weekend was finally rain-free. We took full advantage of it by doing a lot of outdoor activities and to avoid thinking about the end of the semester. I can't believe it's almost over. I'm really fine with having another week or two, so I can finish all my projects.

On Saturday we went to the Spring Raptor Release at Hyland Park Reserve in Bloomington. It's an annual event co-sponsored by the Three Rivers Park District and the University of Minnesota Raptor Center. They take injured birds of prey - UMN has one of the best in the nation. You can also tour the facility, which I highly recommend. Today they were releasing one Cooper's Hawk and two Red-tailed Hawks. We sat way back on the top of the hill, so we were able to enjoy a panoramic view of the event.

They also brought out their educational birds, which are birds that have been too injured to return to the wild. They are utilized for presentations at schools, churches, and the like to create awareness about the environment.

The educational birds included a wide range of raptors from bald eagles to peregrine falcons to weeny little hawks.

Some photos of the release. They had a raffle for a chance to release one bird, but we predictably did not win.

They had patrol horses to make sure that dogs were not brought into the park to stress the raptors. Despite the large turnout, it was a calm event, so the horses had nothing to do but get petted. They looked really sleepy, so we took a snapshot.

We also played our last Ultimate game of the season. It was a close game, but we lost. Still, we played well and I'm really happy that I was able to play with a great group of people. I also left my SD card in my laptop, so although I brought my camera, I couldn't take any photos.

I'm both dreading and anxiously awaiting the end of the semester. Last Friday I attended a job fair for the HPM division. It was much better than the job fair at the convention center last March. Hopefully, it gave me some leads for future employment!

Posted at 9:24 PM
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It feels like this semester has just flown by completely—I just cannot believe that tomorrow is the last day of April. I think I started saying this about three posts ago, but now is the point in the semester when things really seem to start picking up. In a way, I’m lucky because I have only one true final exam this semester in my Clinical Trials class. However, I personally prefer exams to projects because projects are so much more time consuming than studying for an exam. This is particularly true with group projects, especially when members of your group choose to complete their work at half the speed of dead grandma. I have one such scum-sucking imbecile in one of my groups this semester. These productivity remoras seem to develop early in life. In fact, as a kid, I was usually the one stuck with all the work while everyone else sat around and ate Cheerios, and it seems not a lot has changed, except now instead of Cheerios, Mr. Group Project Member sits around playing with his palm pilot kvetching about how “busy” he is. I would like to take this opportunity to inform Mr. Group Project Member that we are all busy. In fact, I don’t know a single person enrolled in the School of Public Health either full or part time who is not busy. Most of us have more to do than there is time to do it, and yet we manage to dredge up the energy to complete our portion of the group project. Therefore, Mr. Group Project Member, would you please a) put down the damn palm pilot, b) remove your head from the bodily orifice in which it currently seems to reside, and c) complete some actual work instead of awkwardly avoiding it, so that I don’t have to sit through another group meeting thinking of all the things I could be doing instead of listening to you whine from behind your palm pilot.
Luckily, I do have two projects to complete before the end of this semester that are not group ones. The first is a presentation I have to give on cost effectiveness studies. That will be over tomorrow. The second is my plan B project, which is nearing completion. I just have a few details to add to the discussion, and then it will hopefully be in decent enough shape to send off to my panel (finger crossed). I didn’t get as much finished this weekend as I would have liked due to the fact that I was in New York for a cousin’s wedding. I was really glad to get to go to the wedding even though it wasn’t the most convenient timing on the planet. The groom was my cousin Rob, who was marrying his long-time girlfriend Sandi. It was awesome to see how happy Rob and Sandi looked the whole day. I got to see my parents and siblings as well as my amazing niece Brooke and nephew Harry. I was really glad that Dan got to come with me, and he played for the cocktail hour at the reception. We stayed one extra day so I could meet up with some friends from NYU and just be in Manhattan again. I had dinner at my favorite Ukrainian restaurant, Veselka, where they have AMAZING cabbage soup, pierogi, and beet salad. We had a great time visiting some of the old favorite spots and just walking around the Village. It was very refreshing to be back in New York, but it was REALLY hard to come back to Minnesota.
I’ve also been lining up my work plans for this summer. It is quite the mish-mosh of work: I will stay at the Department of Psychiatry until the end of August, from May until June, I will stay with the College of Pharmacy, and then at the end of June, I will start working for the Department of Pediatric Cancer in Epi. Then, this fall I will start full time as a fellow in Pediatric Cancer while I start the program for a PhD in Epidemiology. I will also be working for a private consulting firm part time this summer doing super-exciting sample size calculations and random data analyses. Hopefully, I will find some time to relax as well. I know for certain that my mom and I will be going to the Joint Statistical Meeting (the annual meeting of the American Statistical Association) in D.C. this August, and Dan is taking me to Chicago for a week as a graduation present.
But first, I just have to get through a couple more group project meetings without smashing Mr. Group Project Member’s palm pilot against his fat head…

Posted at 8:22 PM
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I imagine many of you may be starting to hear things about swine influenza and the outbreaks that occurring Mexico, Texas and California. If not watch the news tonight. Here is the WHO update and the CDC page on the situation. Its been consuming my life for the past few days.

I just wanted to remind everyone about the amazing resources here at the U to assist in understanding what is going on. If your like me, you like more info that you get in most news stories. CIDRAP (the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) has been covering this story closely. For a good overview see the detailed story from last night. Just for reference in case you are wondering, the U has been a leader in pandemic preparedness planning at the university setting. We are also fortunate to have numerous experts on influenza, swine influenza and pandemics here at the U. I am sure we will be hearing from them in the coming days to weeks as the situation becomes more clear.

Posted at 4:02 PM
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In an attempt to wimp out of as much Minnesota winter as possible, I spent from about November (OK, maybe October) onward on a quest to discover the least painful way to get from my parking lot at the U to the Mayo building.

I experimented with zipping up the hood, pulling the hands into the sleeves and booking it as quickly and directly as possible. Too cold.

I tried tunneling through Moos. Too confusing. And depressing underground. And HOT with all my snow gear.

One day, realizing it was the absolute closest big building to the parking lot, I busted into the hospital and figured I’d find myself to class in Mayo somehow. And I did. And it wasn’t confusing. Or cold. Or hot. Or underground. So I adopted that as my route.

One day this week, as I went through the giant revolving door, waved at the valet parking guys, smiled at the front desk attendant and said hi to the gift shop clerk, I realized something: It’s not winter anymore. It was 82 degrees yesterday. The outdoor route from parking to Mayo is much shorter than trekking through the hospital. Why am I still doing it?

Habit, probably, to some degree. But when I really thought about it, I had a dorky revelation. I like the hospital! I like the people! I like the patients! And I haven’t had enough of that in my life lately.

I am absolutely a people person. I have been told more than once that there’s just something about me that makes all kinds of people want to tell me their life stories. Trust me, it’s not always a good thing. Sure, it’s great in the journalistic part of my life – but, um, think for a second about when I’m stuck in the window seat on a plane with a 60-something couple who just must tell me every detail of their son’s destination wedding, a person I don’t recognize from my hometown wanting to catch me up on small-town gossip or a sleep-meds-and-alcohol-mixing soldier returning from a deployment who probably violated many, many confidentiality rules.

But I won’t lie, I even enjoyed (a small part of) those conversations because I just love people. So I go through the hospital a few times a week with a big grin on my face, and people grin back. I see a lot of stuff that one might not grin at – especially because it’s also a children’s hospital – but really, if those kids and their families need anything, it’s a smile.

Yesterday during my little smile parade, I realized how much I miss working directly with people. I’m loving my public health program and the opportunity that gives me to affect change on a higher level, from that upstream perspective. I think ultimately that’s where I want to be.

But without knowing, I think I’ve been reflecting a lot this semester and realizing that I can’t let go of the direct contact with people this easily. It keeps me grounded, reminds me why I’m doing what I’m doing and makes me smile – all of which are absolutely critical, I think, to be successful.

When I meet with kids and their families through Make-A-Wish (where I volunteer), I have a very distinct sense of satisfaction of helping that child and that family in that moment, and I think that’s something I need more of in my life right now.

Funny how it took me a year of loving population-level studies and work to realize how much I love working with people one-on-one. But I’m glad I realized it! I’m going to spend the summer figuring out how to work more of it into my life – mentoring a child, tutoring an adult in English, distributing goods for the food shelf, anything.

And I’ll probably keep walking through the hospital.

Posted at 2:35 PM
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This semester, both of my finals come in the form of projects, and I couldn't be happier. For Sudipto's spatial class, I'm exploring a dataset he received from collaborators but hasn't yet had time to investigate. This part of research is one of my favorite-- it's like meeting a new person for the first time, getting to know her, learning what makes her tick. Thus far, I've been tabulating variables to get a sense of the design space and plotting the observations to get a sense of the spatial sampling scheme. Eventually, I'll get around to crafting a few models and fitting them, but right now, I'm enjoying uncovering new aspects of the data at every turn.

This is why I love working on research projects. It's a double-edged quality, the open-endedness and freedom of data analysis versus a theory problem. The latter offers a satisfying solution and finite end. But the former yields so much possibility, so much room for innovation and creativity.This semester has offered me more in the way of projects and analysis than proofs, but I know the pendulum will swing back again before too long.

For Cavan's class, the data scope is more limited, so I am focused on model fitting, selection, and validation. It's a small set of repeated measurements on a single variable with no covariates other than time. These sparse data compel me to focus on getting all the power out of each observation, not wasting any variance, and fitting lean models that are carefully tailored. It's another kind of challenge and I'm having fun with that project as well.

Finally, in my research life, I finished a big revision of the recruitment paper from Positive Connections, complete with lovely new figures and a re-vamped intro and discussion courtesy of my colleague Marg. They may come back with further revisions, but at least it's off my desk for the moment!

As an extra bonus, grading is almost finished for the semester. One more homework in the baby Bayes class and then Brad will take care of grading their final projects. Being TA for this class the second time around was seriously a joy. I have enough experience with the material to feel competent and helpful when students have questions. And having all the solutions written up in advance makes posting solutions keys a breeze. It's a shame most students lack the opportunity to serve multiple times as TA for a class, I really think everyone wins.

Posted at 10:14 AM
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Taste Diversity, sponsored by Student Senate and the Dean of Student's Office, was last week. I had a great time and the food was great. Good job to everyone who organized this!

Imee and Dean Finnegan.

Eunice looking smart in her dress!

The cotton candy machine was the coolest thing! Although Don and Anna ended up covered in little tufts of cotton candy.

Noel in charge of the sushi-making stall.

Niketa getting her hands done in henna. They also had henna last year, which I tried out and found very fun.

Sung rocking it out.

Enjoying some cotton candy with Amy!

Posted at 1:36 PM
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The semester is moving along quickly as it usually does this time of the year. Over the weekend I finished a my other big project for the molecular epi class. It consisted of two analysis of sorts based on what he have been learning this semester. The first was an analysis of three Hemagglutinin sequences from outbreaks on swine farms. The second part was analyzing PFGE and ERIC-PCR gels. It took a bit of time but was fun to try to do the analysis that I read about in papers. I have also been spending a bit of time preparing for my final test of the semester, aside from finals. Its in my biostats class

On Sunday Megan and I joined the division to help fight colon cancer. We did it last year but it was more personal this year. While my grandma does not have colon cancer, I am now much more in favor of doing things to kick cancers butt. Here are the photos of the division walking. My wife and I drinking coffee trying to stay warm and me looking perplexed doing what I do best, stand out in a crowd.

Since I started grad school in the fall of 2006, I have taken 22 different class. I gathered that useful piece of information by filling out my degree program form, one of the first things I must do on the road towards the PhD. Now I just need to get my committee in place, which I plan on doing this summer. I am going to be taking some interesting class next semester. As it stands now I will be taking: MBA 6220 Operations Management, PA 5011 Leadership and Management, PUBH 6348 Writing Research Grants. I wont know until August if I get into the MBA course. The grant writing course will be quite helpful, as I want to be an academic when I grow up, thus will be writing grants for a living. The MBA and PA course will be most useful helping me understand facets of the business world that I am so keen on working with to help become better prepared for public health threats. If all goes according to plans I should be able to take these classes the following spring ISE 5302 Critical Infrastructure Security and Protection OMS 6056 Managing Supply Chain Operations.

In other news, I am anxious to get some plants in the ground. We have prepared a space for a garden at our home and have veggies growing in the house. I cant wait to have fun doing some landscaping this summer. We moved in to late last year to do much of anything. There is practically no landscaping at our place, so its like a blank canvas, which makes us excited.

Posted at 9:39 AM
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So much has happened this past couple of weeks, and so much is going to happen in the next month or so, it can feel almost overwhelming at times. My biggest “accomplishment” was turning in a completed first draft of my Plan B to my advisor this week. I really have learned a lot from my project, and many of the lessons were hard ones to learn. I am not the most “syntax savy” individual, so using an “unpopular” software for my analyses was probably not the most prudent move on my part. However, the software—Mplus—is the “best” software available for doing analyses with latent variables methods, which was the topic I wanted to explore in my Plan B, so use it I did. Unlike more common packages like SAS and R, and even SPSS, there are only a scant number of recources one can utilize with Mplus questions and issues. The most painful part was having to scour the internet for HOURS at a time to glean little bits of syntax buried deep within someone’s rambling webpage that would enable my program to even run. Since my data set is rather sparse for use in a latent variables approach, and a lot of my models were rather complex, I ran into almost every issue possible when attempting to run my models. From failure to converge, to model nonidentification, to non positive-definitive matrices to unstable variance estimates and Lord only knows what else, Mplus fought me every step of the way. Of course, the difficulties I encountered have contributed to a pretty interesting discussion session where I address these issues in terms of the tradeoff between Mplus’ flexibility of estimation and the copious issues that can accompany its utilization for analysis.
I also did manage to finish my Bayes take home exam. Now, when I say “finish,” I simply mean that there was something written down for every question; however, I am more than convinced that I fell far short of the goal of actually correctly answering most of the problems. I am proud of the fact that I did finish more than I thought I would, and that my WinBugs and R code at least produced answers that seemed at least related on some level to the test questions. If this were not my fun class that I’m taking pass/fail, I would be much more stressed than I currently am, but with things the way they currently are, I am happy with how the test went. The Bayes class itself continues to rock my socks off. We are now studying spatial Bayes, in which correlations among observations based on spatial proximity (such as counties in a state that share a border) are taken into account. We learned how to import maps into R and Winbugs and then analyze data for those maps along with map-specific covariates (such as average sun exposure by county) and examine how the relative observed responses can change with the adjustment for these covariates. As a toy example from class, the raw average SAT scores tend to be higher in the Midwest; however, when the number of people taking the SAT is taken into account, the higher scoring areas appear on the coasts. This is probably due to the fact that almost everyone on the coasts take the SAT—not the ACT—and so you have students of all abilities reporting SAT scores, whereas in the Midwest, most students take the ACT, and only those students who are of a high enough academic caliber to be applying to the better schools on the coasts will bother to take the SAT, thus only “good” students who will tend to score high are taking the test in these areas.
In Clinical Trials, I am just trying to finish up the slides for our big group presentation at the beginning of May. Part of the requirements for the class is to complete a fake (and abbreviated) study protocol as a group and then present the protocol to the class. I am one of the presenters, and as such it is part of my job to make sure that our presentation is adequately cogent. Luckily, my group has been able to work well together, and I feel pretty good about the preparation levels for the end of this class. This is also the only class where I will actually have to take a final, so one my presentation is over, I will be able to devote some time to studying for that.
I have two other presentations for which to prepare—one for my Translational Research class on cost effectiveness studies, and one for my Bayes class. I have finished the former and will be (hopefully) completing the latter very soon (as long as Plan B revisions don’t take over my life). There is, of course, the Plan B presentation, which I will have to start preparing very soon as well.
This week I’ll also be preparing to go to New York for a cousin’s wedding this Friday. While it is not the most convenient time for me to be taking a trip, I will be really glad to see my extended family and unwind a little bit. It will also be really nice to get back to the City and meet up with some old friends from college. I don’t get to see them (or New York) as often as I would like now that I live in Minnesota, but every time I get to go back, I always have a great time.

Posted at 10:34 PM
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OK, I admit this may be about one part reflection to 10 parts projection...but I'm excited! I can't help it.

I want to go on and on about all the stuff that's falling into place for summer and next fall, but I'll hold myself back for a second because the past two semesters have been important in getting it all rolling.

At first I was a little nervous for that point in my programs where I would, for the most point, have my core courses and requirements wrapped up and be set free to sort of do my own thing with intervention and elective credits. Not that I was worried I wouldn't be able to find anything -- I was worried I wouldn't be able to cross anything off the list of possibilities!

But this first year has, I think, taught me how to expand and contract my focus at the same time in the way that's going to work out best for me in the end. I've figured out some stuff about the skills I have (communication), should probably get (evaluation) and will need in the future (all...); the topics that definitely interest me (refugees), might interest me (animals) and don't interest me at all (no comment); and, to some degree, the types of work I'd love to do (communications, program planning) vs. the types of work I'd hate (sitting in a cubicle with no human contact and SAS).

In that spirit, I signed up for some fabulous-sounding classes for May term, summer and fall:

May term
- CSPH 5321: Public Health Priorities in the Developing World
- CSPH 5000: Animals in Healthcare

Summer
- PUBH 6102: Issues in Environmental and Occupational Health (online)
- PUBH 6751: Principles of Management in Health Services Organizations (online)

Fall
- JOUR 8195 Online Media Creation & Design
- NURS 5221 Refugee Health: Trauma, Stress & Coping
- PUBH 6066: Community Building & Health
- PUBH 6078: Public Health Policy as a Prevention Strategy
- PUBH 6035: Applied Research Methods
- PUBH 6741: Ethics in Public Health: Professional Practice & Policy

I think it's a good mix of topics and skills classes, and I'm sure I'll be both busy and fascinated. As usual. Now if I can just plow through the next few weeks!

Posted at 2:43 PM
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Aside from buying discounted Easter candy on Monday - hurray Peeps - I don't celebrate Easter. Yet this weekend managed to be a pretty good Easter Weekend.

Friday
Held a Happy Hour for the Confounders and friends. It was a gorgeous day, so I was mildly surprised that only two people came. We threw the disc around for a while and then went to the Dinkytowner for drinks and free pool. With three people, we played cutthroat style, and I actually won one game! I usually lose to Severin at pool, and he loses to me at bowling. Which reminds me, we haven't bowled in a while....

Saturday
Worked on the data analysis portion for my thesis. It went all right, except that my laptop battery came loose. I didn't notice this until I unplugged my laptop from the power cord and the screen went black. Ugh. Note to Stata developers: How about incorporating auto-save when writing do files?

Later in the evening, we biked over to the 400 Bar in the Cedar-Riverside area. I found out in early February that one of my favorite bands, Dr. Dog, was coming to town. I'm glad that the $10 service charge for purchasing tickets online was worth it, because there was a big line when we got there. The 400 Bar is pretty small and could have benefited from being larger. Still, the sound was good and I had a great time. Dr Dog plays a mean live set. I can't wait to see them again.

photo courtesy of Laura Musselman

Sunday
No real plans but to study. Soccer and ultimate were on hiatus due to Easter, so I was thinking about bowling and dinner. Then Joe called to see what Severin and I were doing for dinner that night. We didn't have any plans so we went over to his friends' apartment to cook beer can chicken. I've heard of this method of cooking before, but never tried it myself. I'm always up for a new cooking experience!

The chicken turned out amazing. Very tender meat and crispy skin. There was also homemade bread, grilled asparagus, mashed potatoes, and ice cream for dessert.

It was surprisingly warm that evening, around fifty degrees F. Grilling out on the porch and having a beer while chatting, it was a nice evening to pass with friends.

Posted at 7:00 AM
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