Student SPHere 2008-09

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.