Student SPHere 2008-09

If my weeks are going to be so jam-packed and stressful this semester, they might as well go fast! And they certainly have so far.

I’m getting a little better feel for my classes at this point, and I think my initial assessment will probably prove to be true: They’re going to be hard, stressful, practical and awesome. I admit I’m not looking forward to SAS. I’m scared of program evaluation. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how and why to make a logic model. And the mere idea of creating Access databases to use for reporting stories makes my brain shut down.

But I am 100 percent sure that I will learn a heck of a lot by May.

My internship at the Star Tribune is going well, and I’m getting a little more into the groove every time I work in the newsroom. (Example: At first I was terrified to talk on the phone in a huge, silent room, surrounded by veteran business reporters; now I’m on the phone most of the day.) The first assignment I got turned out to be a non-story, so we’ve changed the topic slightly and I got back on the horse. I’m not expecting my first real story to be groundbreaking or anything, but it’ll be nice to get one under my belt.

And my exciting news for the week is that I was offered and accepted a position in the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ Executive Pathways Internship Program for the summer! I’ll be working full time in the DHS communications office, which handles media relations, internal communication, much of the external communication, some budget and legislative issues and more for the whole agency. Yikes. I’m going to use it as my public health field experience and, as it’s 400 hours, I might even do it for more than the required two credits. I’m excited – too bad it’s four months away!

Needless to say, I’m very much looking forward to the weekend. I definitely need to do some work and clean my disaster of an apartment (first thing to go when things get stressful…oops), but I definitely want to check out some ice and/or snow sculptures if there’s anything left of the Winter Carnival.

Happy Friday!

Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes, the vaunted system of peer-review can put a real damper on one's enthusiasm for a research project. Right now, I am struggling with motivation to work on papers from my last RA, in Epidemiology. I submitted this paper back in October (this was its fourth submission, so I've been shopping it around for much longer) and just heard back at the beginning of this month from the reviewers. Some of the revisions were easy re-writes, but for others, I had to write to my old team, ask for data sets and code files to do additional analysis. Which means dragging my brain back into SAS mode. Not an appealing process, as I have been working exclusively in R and WinBUGS for a year or more.

We also heard back on the main paper on that study; the ensuing process will require all kinds of conference calls and a million emails to coordinate amongst the four+ departments from which the authors hail. In the end, it's worth it to notch another one on the old CV, but by the time things actually get out into the world, they often seem like old news.

Physicists don't do it this way, as I've learned from observing Tom and his colleagues. They have an online site called arXiv where papers are "pre-published" before they go into a peer-reviewed journal. It's a way to get thing out there quickly, hear back from people in the comments, and possibly post revisions, all without entirely sacrificing the standard publishing paradigm. I know some journals are trying to shorten the time line, especially the new crop of online journals. There's definitely something to be said for re-examining the way we disseminate findings.

Posted at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last week I finalized my schedule, lifting a great burden on my shoulders. It's difficult for me to choose a course, but getting more comfortable with "shopping" around for courses has helped greatly. I am taking Researching Health Care Outcomes, Medical Sociology, and Continuous Quality Improvement. They are all somewhat daunting, for the course material itself and in the context of trying to finish my thesis and work two graduate assistantships, but I look forward to an intellectually exciting last semester.

One accomplishment I am pleased about is the SPHere computer lab. As an active member of the SPH Student Senate, I worked with Student Services to improve the quality of the computer lab. Now we have two printers, with one heavy duty printer, a card reader system for the printers, three graduate students to assist with lab-related issues, and reformatted computers with more useful software like Stata. Student Services did a lot of work over break so student were able to enjoy the refurbished lab immediately. As an undergraduate, I worked for a computer lab that served the Sociology, Economics, Political Science, and Anthropology graduate students. It was so well organized that students never had to deal with technological issues, which is what I wanted for SPH students too. I hunkered down to read for Health Outcomes in the lab the other day and it was gratifying to see the printers not jam up or people getting frustrated.

Lately, I've been making more of an effort to read for leisure. As a child I loved to read, but as I've gotten older I read less and less books each year. A lot of it has been supplanted by reading on the internet, but I miss the tactile pleasure of books. Currently my pleasure books are written by Norman Maclean: A River Runs Through It, Young Men and Fire, and the Norman Maclean Reader. A River Runs Through It is the most famous - a movie was based on it, which I aim to see sometime soon - but Young Men and Fire is my favorite so far. Maclean explores the tragic Mann Gulch fire of 1949, where thirteen young men died trying to fight the fire. They were all relatively young - the youngest was seventeen - and Maclean explores the factors that contributed to their death without being exploitative. Maclean is a fantastic writer, with sparse yet poetic prose. Young Men and Fire is a gratifying read and honorable tribute, despite the fact Maclean died before editing it completely.

Severin and I have been making a concerted effort to enjoy the Minnesota winter. Last winter I stayed in mostly, huddled underneath multiple comforters, eating candy, and feeling sorry for myself, so doing anything outside is a vast improvement. We have been taking advantage of the great equipment rental service offered by the university's Center for Outdoor Adventure. Whether you want to go camping, canoeing, or backpacking, you can rent almost everything you need from them for a reasonable price. They also offer a lot of winter sport equipment like cross country ski packages and snow shoes. Through COA, I was able to snow shoe for the first time and it was great fun to stomp through thick snow without the usual difficulty.

Posted at 7:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I managed to be fairly productive over winter break. I worked on perfecting the second draft of my Plan B project, and I am now ready for the final portion of my analysis. I’m really grateful to my advisor because she decided to have me perform my project in several distinct steps of analyses with a writing session after each step so that the process could be fresh in my mind. I think this approach is far superior to waiting until the end and having to conjure up memories of things I did months ago. I’m hopeful that the remainder of the project will go smoothly and I can have a really nice final product. I also continued to work in both of my RA positions in the Department of Psychiatry and the College of Pharmacy. The transplant study for Pharmacy has its first paper in press, and we finished up a second paper that is being submitted to JAMA. I also managed to finalize my own paper on using cumulative logistics models to predict physical activity as a function of drinking behaviors in college students.
My first week of classes went really well. The only frustrating thing really is that my clinical trials lecture is being transmitted to the U of M campuses in Rochester and Duluth, which means that we are going to be cheated out of about 15 minutes of lecture time every class period while the Rhodes scholars who operate the broadcasting system fuddle around. The actual content of the course seems like it will be interesting and Dr. Neaton, the professor, does a nice job presenting the material. I am also taking two Biostats electives. The first one is a seminar style class on phase I and II trials and is taught by Dr. Chap Le. I think this will be a nice compliment to clinical trials which focuses primarily on phase III trials. My last class is Intro to Bayes, which so far has been amazing. The professor is doing a fabulous job so far, and I am really fascinated by the course content. I’m really excited to be learning WinBugs in the Bayes class as well, and the textbook is fantastic. I didn’t need to take this class to get my degree, but I’m really glad that I decided to go ahead and enroll. I think this semester will prove to be extremely informative and enjoyable.
Of course, no blog of mine would be complete without some mention of that most glorious of football teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers. I am hopeful that my Steelers can outperform the Cardinals, although I am sure that Kurt Warner will be quite the contender. I will probably be spending a good portion of the Super Bowl screaming at the television because everyone knows that this is the most effective way to control any outcome being broadcast. In fact, it has been proven that the 1995 OJ Simpson acquittal was single-handedly achieved by a devout sect of Bills fanatics all hurling synchronized insults and stale cheetos at their television sets. So on the most important Sunday of the year (sorry Easter), I will be proudly twirling my Terrible Towel.

Posted at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well school started, you can tell by the crowds on campus. Its pretty crazy to see the change in traffic from Friday to Tuesday (Monday we were off). It is nice though that the busses run more frequently now that school is in session. I am taking a few less credits, 10 so that will life a bit easier. I am taking Epi methods 2, Biostats 2 and molecular epi of infectious disease. I took epi and biostats my first semester, about 3 years ago. The cobwebs surrounding the specifics of those course are starting to disappear. I sure hope I remember how to us SAS, as all the hw for biostats require SAS. The molecular epi class, I think will be incredibly fascinating yet difficult. We will be coving a broad spectrum of molecular tools and discussing their implications for infectious disease epi.

I dont know about you, but I loved watching President Obama’s inaugural speech. It was the first one I believe I have every watched. I am optimistic about the next four years. I am very excited to see what Secretary of Health and Human Service Dashel (once he is confirmed) does and who is picked to head the FDA, CDC, etc. I will be graduating with a PhD (hopefully) during their terms and my job (after school) will likely be impacted by the decision they are making now and in the near future, so I am enjoying watching things unfold.

I hope everyone is staying warm. I am just glad its not going to get as cold as it did last week. My bus was late last thursday when the wind chill was about -45. I ended up being outside for more than 20 minutes waiting on the bus, normally is about 8 minutes. I try to plan for problems like that but still got pretty cold. My sorels, insulated ski pants, multiple layers + a gore-tex jacket, face mask and two pairs of gloves were not enough. I guess that means I get to play around with my clothing combinations or get some new cool high tech clothing.

I am pretty excited for the super bowl this year. My dad is from Pittsburgh, so we grew up liking the steelers. I have a feeling the commercials are not going to be as cool this year, so having a team I like be in the game makes its all the more enjoyable. The steelers always make football enjoyable to watch.

Posted at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I cant say that my break was too interesting but I did survive two accidents, a bitter winter, studying and having to work through the break. Now school has started and Im back on my grind.
I have 5 months to defend my thesis, finish my coursework, find a job and apply for medical school. If you think that sounds overwhelming, it is probably because it is!
My social life has pretty much gone down the drain and I am clocking in alot of hours doing job app, work and studying stuff. But looking on the bright side... it will all be over soon. The question I keep asking myself is "then what?"

Now since I dont have any special premonition powers, I suppose we will just have to stick to what I do know.
I am planning a discussion about diversity for next Wednesday, the 28th.
I will be screening the 2004 Oscar-award winning film, Crash and the discussion will follow soon after. This is my way of introducing students to the new technological and aesthetic updates in the student SPHere lounge(of which I have been actively involved for a year now and am ABSOLUTELY proud of) and to encourage community among the SPH faculty, staff and students. The event begins at 4:30 p.m. in the student SPHere and I will be providing snacks... I wont get too fancy, but lets just say, you SHOULD come if not for the food, for the community!
I will post pictures soon after, but I am really looking forward to seeing everyone there!

Here's to a great semester for everyone! And if you are planning on applying to the School of Public health or have already applied, great CHOICE and good luck!

Posted at 9:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I spent the first three weeks of winter break battling boredom, antsiness and major cabin fever (but yes -- I admit -- I did have some moments of pure joy lounged out on the couch watching totally pointless TV).

I passed the time hanging out with family

running with friends

exploring the city

granting Make-A-Wish wishes

and, of course, torturing my dog.

I also worked on the Minnesota Department of Health project I mentioned at the end of last semester -- and realized reeeeally early on that almost all of the health education videos were in a language other than English. No subtitles. No translation. So that made my job simple...or nonexistent. The few videos that are in English, primarily about refugee mental health, were super interesting, and I'm still working through a few huge boxes of documents (that smell like the 80s) to see whether there are any treasures. I have a feeling there might be.

I spent a week up north with my family.

I tried to do all kinds of little domestic things I never seem to want to do when I'm busy.

I rang in 2009 at a Wii party with SPH friends (who had to run a 10K the next morning).

I did the Polar Dash with a capital "P" on New Year's Day. (Cold. Ice. Hills. No further description necessary.)

But I was bored...until I hit the wall. About a week before spring semester started, I suddenly decided I like doing nothing, reading for pleasure, baking cookies, sleeping in! And then I didn't want to go back to school. Ever.

Obviously I dragged myself to class yesterday, and yes, again today, but I'm definitely not back in school mode yet. Give me another week. It's going to be a busy semester, though, so I don't have much time to get back into the swing of things!

I had my community health theory and practice class yesterday, which I think is going to be awesome -- the entire course revolves around writing a real-world grant proposal which will be great experience -- and biostatistical methods 2, which terrifies me because we're doing statistical analysis in SAS instead of Excel, which we used last semester. Programming. Eek. I'm also taking program evaluation for my MPH and computer-assisted reporting for my journalism program, but I haven't had them yet.

I also officially started the Star Tribune practicum today! Though the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, I'm taking a class that placed me with the newspaper's health team for about 14 hours a week all semester. I'll be assisting reporters and writing my own stories -- I'm technically a contract health reporter, not an intern. And I even have my own desk in the newsroom (which was prepared for me with an "Elvis Presley Blvd" street sign). Should be an amazing experience...even though I'm sure it'll stress me out.

So, yes. That's 15 credits. Plus my research assistantship. Plus working with Make-A-Wish. Maybe running at least a half marathon. And doing a triathlon. I hope getting out of Minnesota for spring break. Blogging here. Blogging there.

I'm taking bets on how long it'll take me to crash. (But it's fun for now!)

Posted at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The first day back is usually a good one. It's great to see people again and hear about all the travel over break. Many of my classmates went someplace warm over the holidays-- smart cookies! I'm scheming for a warm Spring Break, but we'll see if it actually plays out. Tom and I have some workaholic tendencies that usually prevent any travel during that time.

I had both of my classes on Tuesday. First up: Spatial with Sudipto Banerjee. I'm really looking forward to this class because I plan to expand and continue doing research in spatial statistics. We're using Sudipto's text (with Carlin and Gelfand), so I have at least skimmed the material before. It's a small class: seven registered, with only five attending yesterday.

We headed out a bit early to catch Obama's inauguration. It was pretty incredible seeing the university community gathering around televisions set up all over campus to watch the ceremonies. I was packed into a conference room in the dean's office with a few dozen other students, faculty, and staff, watching on a big screen. Every time they cut to a long shot of the millions of people on the mall, I couldn't help shaking my head in amazement. What a scene! I was impressed and heartened by Obama's speech-- it really does feel like a hopeful new beginning, despite the dire economic circumstances.

Then in the afternoon, I headed downstairs for Cavan Reilly's Bayes class. More familiar faces there, and a very familiar book-- Carlin and Louis! I know Cavan will be teaching at a higher level than the Bayes course for which I TA, but it certainly is a confidence boost to be using a text that I know so well. He started off with his version of the "Why do Bayes?" talk that every Bayesian eventually learns how to give. I think that I will face far less skepticism in my career than earlier generations of Bayesians, but there is still plenty of educating that can be done of frequentists and those who are outside the debate entirely. One great point he made was that in the sorting of statisticians into a 2x2 table with Bayesian/Frequentist on one axis and Parametric/Non-parametric on the other, it's the latter division that has a much greater impact on actual practice.

Posted at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I enjoyed my winter break. After a hectic finals week, it was nice to drive home. Even if it was in the middle of a huge snowstorm. There were at least thirteen cars stranded in ditches, having spun out on the slippery roads. There was even a huge two-cargo Fedex truck that was also stranded. I hope those people received their packages on time. Despite the snowy conditions, it cleared out halfway through Wisconsin so I was home in a reasonable amount of time.

The day after I returned, we had family friends over for hot pot. My parents met these friends in their college years and have remained close ever since. My siblings and I grew up with their children and have seen each other go through many stages of life.

I stayed at home in Illinois for two weeks. It was overall relaxing, although I ended up relaxing too much. I could have stood to do a little more socializing. It was great to see the friends that I did go to see though; some I have not seen in quite a few years. My old high school pal Shannon was also in town, but we were unable to meet up.

For Christmas, my family - minus my brother, who spent his winter holidays in Seoul, South Korea - went to Chicago's Chinatown to have a meal with my maternal grandmother, my uncle, and his family. My cousins are really cute. Even at their young age they have vastly different personalities; the eldest, Audrey is very bright and headstrong while the youngest Jaslynn tends to be more reserved.

Audrey and my sister Brenda jumping on the bed

Family portrait

For New Year's Eve, I met up with my good friend Diana. We did very Chicago-tourist things like go ice skating in Millenium Park and take photos of our reflections against the Bean. We also watched The Reader (it was ok) and eat dinner at Crust, the only certified organic restaurant in the Midwest. It's mainly pizza and sandwiches, but the beer selection is good and the prices are really reasonable. I had a veggie calzone. There was also organic vodka and related beverages, but I didn't try those. We later met up with other people to bring in the new year and celebrated in the traditional kind of way.

I left on a Sunday for Minneapolis. Halfway through, I realized that I left my apartment keys in Illinois. Fortunately, my roommate Sarah was able to hang out in the apartment to let me in. Thanks Sarah!

I spent my third week of vacation hanging out. Severin and I went to Minnehaha Falls again. It was completely frozen over and looked like some type of organic ice castle.

We also went sledding with some friends. I haven't been sledding in a long time, but escaped with only a small bruise. However, I do need to get some rain pants to wear over my jeans. My jeans got damp very quickly, but they were a small price to pay for a fun afternoon outside.

This week is about buckling down and getting ready for my last semester. In the meantime, I will leave you with this awesome animated gif I made.

Posted at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So time away from school (academic life) has been almost as busy as during school. Megan and I flew out to Colorado to visit my family on the 23rd of December. It was one of the more nerve-racking flights I have had in a long time...just two days prior to our departure a plane crashed at Denver International Airport (where we were flying to). Thankfully, we did not have any problems, aside from airlines being stupid. We spent the next 5 days at my place in the Denver metro area. It was an interesting time...I am the oldest of 4 boys. Our usual roughhousing is not usual anymore...my brothers are really growing up. The youngest is now a junior in high school. Its a far cry from when I left home for my undergrad in Iowa, almost seven years ago. We have fun playing games and catching up with family.

The last time I was home for Christmas we had blizzard after blizzard...I have never shoveled so much snow in my life. This time, it did not even snow. It was nice to go to a warmer climate too...most days were about 40. It was about 11 below when we left the cities. We came back to a surprise at the house. Evidently it got warm in the last few days we were in Colorado and our driveway was a sheet of ice. Silly me forgot to give the kid doing our driveway, access to our salt.

We both worked for a few days, before heading down to Iowa for New Years/Christmas with Megan’s family. It was a nice trip. Got to watch some football, played board games/cards and relaxed a bit. Our drive back was crazy. We knew we were going to deal with some weather, it was supposed to snow/sleet on Saturday (3rd) and be blowing (possible white out) on Sunday (4th), so we got out of town a little early on Saturday hoping to get a leg on the storm. Well we managed to get about an hour into the drive (3.5 hr trip) before the storm hit. It was nasty...ended up driving the rest of the way at around 40 mph on I-35. We counted 27 cars in the ditch. It always amazes me how people drive. I noted to Megan when one guy passed us, that we would see him in a ditch. Sure enough he was in the ditch about a mile or two down the road.

Work has been keeping me busy. We are in the midst of lots of projects. Its exciting as these project will eventually serve as the foundations for the PhD. I am kinda anxious for classes to start. I have Epi 2, Biostats 2 and Molecular Epi. It should be a good semester.

Posted at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I used to like snow. In fact, I used to love snow. As a child, I remember the thrill of waking up to the glistening white glory of a night’s snowfall. On particularly lucky days, school would be cancelled, and I could spend the day making snow forts with my friends. We would then barrage each others’ brains out with a deluge of snowballs and spend the afternoon recovering with a well-earned snack of homemade hot cocoa (with peppermint, of course) and cinnamon bread. However, on the 21st of December, as my husband and I inched our way out of the Minnesotan abyss amidst the billowing swirls of a foggy mass of snow, I decided that perhaps snow is not that great. It was not at that point even snowing anymore, but our precarious predicament was created by the unfortunate combination of powdery snow, high winds, and the fact that southern Minnesota is as flat as month-old soda. We luckily successfully escaped Minnesota, and eleven hours later, found ourselves safely at my dad’s house where we were to spend the holiday.
We spent most of the week in a flurry of friend and family. One of the biggest highlights for my husband was the charity concert he put on for Heifer International. It was the first benefit concert that he had ever organized, but despite a few kinks, it went splendidly. We also were able to attend the wedding of a friend of mine from high school. We had been really close in high school, and she ended up attending West Point, where she met her husband. We stayed close in college since I was able to visit her quite a bit when I was at NYU, and after her plebe year, she was able to come to the City to see me. Her wedding was beautiful, of course, and I couldn’t be happier for her. The only low point was when my husband decided that we needed to dance at the reception. Now, my husband is a musician. He has this thing called “rhythm.� He also has “coordination.� I, however, was not blessed with either of these gifts. Instead, when I dance, I look like a wounded ostrich flailing helplessly in painful spasms. Needless to say, the videographer was more than happy to capture my pathetic arrhythmic stylings on camera because apparently that level of jackassery needs to be preserved forever.
On returning to the land of 10,000 lakes (and 10,000,000,000 mosquitoes), we had the pleasure of having my mom visit for a few days. I utilized the fact that her trip coincided with the post-holiday sale at J. Crew to procure several sweaters that I had been coveting. We also have successfully finished the research papers (on college athletes and their drinking habits) we had been working on together, and will be submitting them to journals for publication shortly!! On a sadder note, we also attended the Vikings/Eagles game at the Metrodome, where my husband’s dreams were dashed to pieces at the hands of Donovan McNabb. I guess there’s always next season. All in all, I had a great time with my mom, and I’m really glad I got to see both of my parents during the break.
Now, I am preparing for next semester. I’ll be taking the second part of the stat theory class (8102) and clinical trials, which is a required course for biostats. I’m also going to be taking an intro to Bayes class, and I’m really excited about getting to take it. I’m a little apprehensive, just because I will have to learn WinBugs and be much better at R than I am currently, but I’m confident that as long as I can swallow my pride and ask for help when I need it (which in my case is easier said than done), I will have a successful semester.

Posted at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)