Student SPHere 2008-09

Don't get me wrong, I never, ever disliked weekends. They were the high point of my undergrad days and the light at the end of the tunnel that is the dragging 40-hour work week. But until this semester, I didn't really need them -- and I don't hesitate for a second to admit I do now.

I know I piled a pretty hefty load on myself this semester, but I'm discovering it's not just the amount of time I spend on school/work/internship stuff that makes me daydream about putting on my sweat pants on Friday at 6 p.m. It's the variety -- and while I love it, my brain constantly switching gears between statistical software and program evaluations and lining up photos for newspaper stories and writing program goals and objectives just makes me want to take a nap.

I definitely still spend much of my Sunday evenings whining about how the weekend went by too fast and I don't want it to be Monday yet, but I've been thinking more about the art of making weekends feel longer, more relaxing and as if they're better preparing me for the week to come. And while I've far from mastered it, it's getting better because of:

Yoga. Much to (I'm sure) The Boyfriend's delight, I try to make him do yoga with me on Saturday mornings in the living room. I admit my MTV Yoga DVD from college and move-the-coffee-table-out-of-the-way routine aren't quite a trendy little yoga studio, and I'm certainly not tying myself into a pretzel, but I enjoy it and find it's a good way to forget about the week, prepare myself for the weekend and get in some exercise.

Breakfast. I refuse to skip breakfast, even when I head to campus early to swim twice a week and will honestly load up my fancy cereal holder (with separate, cooled milk compartment and fold-up spoon) with yogurt, granola and berries and eat in class. Without some nutrients, I cannot function. But there's something about making a real breakfast -- pancakes, waffles, muffins, omelets -- that feels nice and relaxing and homey and weekend-y. (And I have to make up for forcing The Boyfriend into yoga somehow.)

Avoiding work. OK, I know this is not always possible. It's usually not, in fact. But I try to plan ahead and do as much work as possible during the week to free up as much weekend as possible, and, when I do have to work, to squeeze it all into a specific period, i.e., Sunday afternoon, so I don't have to spend the rest of the weekend thinking about it.

Prepping for Monday. My mom would be so proud: I do my best to get together everything I need for Monday the night before so I don't spend the morning spazzing. Yes, I've even been known to lay out my outfit. I also go through my planner and see what's coming up for the week and what I need to add right off the bat. If I start the week organized and not scrambling to get myself out the door, I definitely have more confidence in my ability to make it 'til Friday.

And when I'm not running around like a headless chicken, everyone's happier.

Posted at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well last week was pretty good. I did a presentation on Wednesday in my molecular epidemiology class on this paper: Optical mapping and 454 sequencing of Escherichia coli O157 : H7 isolates linked to the US 2006 spinach-associated outbreak. It’s a pretty interesting paper and a detailed forensic analysis of the strains that caused the 2006 spinach outbreak. I am looking forward to learning more about some of these techniques latter in class.

On Thursday I bussed over to the St. Paul Campus with about 9 other EnHS students for the MEHA winter conference. MEHA is the Minnesota Environmental Health Association. They have a student group, which a fair number of the EnHS students are in and they let some of us come to the conference. We got to set up a table and talk a bit about the school and our research.
(note our cool symmetry)
Mostly it was awesome to talk with other folks in the division. I met people that I had never met before and really enjoyed it. We hear some pretty cool presentation too on food borne disease, mass casualty planning and mold remediation.

I had a nice chat with my advisor recently; it was for my annual review. Things are on track, for me to graduate the winter of 2011. I have started to think more about my committee and what other classes I should be taking.

Posted at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Usually, I don't much care for holidays, particularly ones designed to enrich the cards/flowers/candy/schmaltzy junk industries. However, I very much enjoyed a surprise indoor picnic with my sweetie yesterday. A picnic in February in Minnesota-- who knew? He spread out on a quilt in the living room and assembled a delicious noshing assortment from the Wedge. Ahhh, delicious and relaxing.

Given the relatively easier schedule this semester, I've been able to have more fun than usual. On Tuesday, we gathered a team for Science Trivia at the Nomad. Unfortunately, the usual host, the inimitable Dessa of Doomtree, was ill and couldn't attend. I'm going to blame that fact for our lackluster performance-- come on, 5th place? Of course, no matter the score, science trivia is a great time. It's much more fun for nerds like us than usual pub trivia.

Friday night we hit another great venue, Jitters, for a fellow SPHer's birthday (shout out to Ania!). I was a little cranky from working all day, but man, my mood turned completely around when the fabulous Erin Schwab took the stage. She was belting out great sing-along music, telling stories, and generally putting the packed house into a rollicking mood.

Classes are moving at a great pace. Spatial is taking a little longer to get up to speed, since we have made some detours to explain basic hierarchical Bayesian modeling and learn some R. Bayes, in contrast, is cranking along. Though I've seen many of the problems before, Cavan is putting in plenty of additional exercises to keep me challenged. The weekly assignments require a lot of work, but I am grateful for the practice of doing prelim-level problems.

The work on skin cancer with Bruce is moving ever closer to a second manuscript. We've done some very basic modeling thus far, but I'm starting to see glimmers of much more interesting problems in these data. The ionizing radiation exposure profiles of the cohort members are very complex and interesting. So far, simple averaged or cumulative values sufficed, but I am intrigued at the possibilities for more nuanced descriptions of exposure history.

Brad just landed a new project as well that may form the basis of a PhD project in the future. The data come from a clinical trial, but this is secondary analysis. The investigators want to jointly model short-term patient-reported outcomes (quality of life) and longer-term clinically relevant survival outcomes. The literature has several examples of models that use latent variables to link two outcomes that are correlated and share predictors. The challenge is to do this using time-dependent variables and account for censoring and correlation. At this point, I'm getting acquainted with the existing literature, which is an exciting phase.

My final block of school time is devoted to office hours, which have been great. It's so gratifying to be able to help students. I get to feel smart, they feel relieved-- everyone wins.

Have a Happy President's Day!

Posted at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the first time in a couple of years, I was on the “other side� of human subjects research when I participated in a case-control study last week. The study is on hearing loss from childhood ear infections, and involved a hearing test and the collection of a blood sample. I have to say that the experience was less than enthralling. The visit began with the research assistant informing me that I could not hear out of my left ear, which believe it or not, I already knew. What I did not know, but soon found out was that my Eustachian tube had been warped as a result of childhood ear infections, and that the small bones in my hear had been broken, rendering my left ear about as useful as a cement lifejacket. Luckily this is a problem that can apparently be fixed, so come April, I will (hopefully) be able to finally hear out of my left ear. After that excitement was over, I had the even more thrilling experience of having my blood drawn by a phlebotomist who was apparently either a sadist or heavily inebriated because she missed my vein twice. The first, I’m sure was an honest mistake. I mean, could I really expect someone who spends their entire day gouging people with needles to be able to successfully locate my vein? But, I forgave the first mishap and gave the nurse the go-ahead for another attempt. The second stab wound was even more painful than the first, and equally unsuccessful even despite the fact that this time when she missed the vein, our needle-happy nurse decided all she had to do was wiggle the needle like a freaking knitting needle inside my arm because she apparently did not believe in the existence of pain receptors. I was feeling generous and decided to opt for a “three strikes� approach to this blood-draw extravaganza and awaited a third harpooning. As luck would have it, not only was this third try a “success�, but magically the holes from the other two failed attempts decided to start squirting blood like a Roman fountain. I have to say, although I’m glad to be able to help contribute to Otitis Media research, the overall experience was less than stellar.
Another less than stellar experience occurred on Friday when my husband and I decided on a whim to attend a high school basketball game. It had been so long since I had been at a high school sporting event that I had forgotten how pathetic and downright rotten so many of the spectators can be at these things. I don’t want to point any fingers, so for ambiguity’s sake, we’ll call the home team the “Maple Grove Crimson Tide,� and pretend that they were hosting “Elk River,� and in the stands was the ferocious fire-spewing creatures known as the “athletes’ parents� who were in full form that particular evening. The moms in particular were an atrocious sight, not just due to their tasteless “mom jeans� and worse—the “mom mullet,� (a hairstyle I had not witnessed until I moved to Minnesota but for some reason seems to be popular here), but also by their horrifically asinine banter and behavior. I’m not really sure why people think it is okay to act that freakishly insane over a bunch of 16-year-olds playing basketball, but there they were, all screeching like banshees at the players, the coaches, and each other. One woman in particular was very anxious to inform “Elk River� with pronounced certainty that they should play “defense.� I’m sure this was a helpful tip to the young men on the court, as I am almost certain that they had fully intended to sit on the court and crochet doilies until she told them to play “defense� instead. Thanks to “high school sports mom’s� vigilance, “Elk River� did in fact play defense, and even played offense without her needing to tell them to do so. I understand emotional investment in a team, of course—I am, after all, a Steelers fan (did you honestly think I could go a whole blog without bringing that up?), but when the emotion crosses the threshold into psychosis, I think it is time to re-evaluate, particularly when a bunch of pubescent boys in dorky gym shorts and black socks with white sneakers whips you up to that level of neuroticism.
Other than the aforementioned puncture-induced trauma from the phlebotomist from the Black Lagoon, I had a pretty good week at school. Data collection is in its final stages for the Insomnia pilot study, we are *almost* ready to submit our paper to JAMA, my poster got accepted for presentation at a conference in March, and my classes are still going well. I have also started the final stage of my plan B project, and have completed a veritable cornucopia of tables and figures for the accompanying paper. Hopefully everything will continue to run smoothly this semester, and I can avoid being skewered like a lamb kabob for the blood draw at my doctor’s visit in April.

Posted at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Photo by Pat Connolly

I survived another week! Last semester, that was a nice little thought that popped into my head on occasional Friday afternoons. This semester, it’s a miracle.

On Wednesday, I ran to a meeting of the Twin Cities World Refugee Day planning committee, something I joined last year through my job at a community health nonprofit. I was the chair of the marketing committee – and spent the probably two months leading up to the June 20 event running around like a headless chicken.

Because I didn’t know what I’d be doing with my life at planning time this year, I pulled all of my materials together in a super-organized, tabbed binder, wrote notes and instructions and contacts and tips for each section, and handed The Marketing Bible over to a colleague to pass it on to my successor when planning started up again this winter.

Little did I know that it would again be me.

Some other planning committee members signed up to tackle marketing, but unfortunately, none of them are able to chair the committee. And since I was the one left holding the big binder, I guess it’s back in my hands. Oh boy.

Planning last year’s event was a fantastic experience, and while I got sucked in (at least to this level of commitment) rather involuntarily this time around, I’m excited to get going. I can’t think of anything else I could do to add so many distinct skills to my toolbox – and, yes, my resume. I work with a large, intercultural, inter-generational committee made up of staff and volunteers from refugee- and immigrant-serving organizations all over the metro. I have no real boss, teacher or direction, so I have to teach myself how to pull off marketing for a big (1,500-2,000 people last year) event – and then do it. And in the process, I have to jump in and help with things totally not in my area, from ordering/assembling tents and tables and chairs to figuring out why, exactly, it matters what size generators you order. I worked with printers, reporters, t-shirt makers, educators. And, somehow, made it all happen.

Not surprisingly, I’m a little worried about the time commitment this year, but the rest of my committee is great and I think (hope!) I’ll be doing a lot less of the work myself and more just making sure it all comes together in the end.

Sure, I learn a lot in class, but sometimes there’s nothing like getting out there and getting thrown into the fire.

Posted at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am quite busy at the moment; my second graduate assistantship at the Humphrey Institute has made quite an impact on my schedule. Currently, both graduate assistantships require twenty-two hours of work a week. But both are interesting and utilize what I am learning. There's also a lot of information I am learning in turn. At the Humphrey, I will be working on developing a conceptual framework linking health outcomes and the built environment and social networks. So while my last semester is going to be hectic, it will also be quite enjoyable.

The first-year epi students have formed an intramural soccer team. They started playing last Sunday. I'm joining them for next Sunday's game. The last time I played soccer regularly was in middle school, so it'll be interesting to see what happens. Will I get kicked in the face? Will I get hit in the face with the ball? Who knows? Usually, running is not my poison of choice, but I make allowances for team sports. Suffering with others as out of shape as I am, somehow it's not so bad. It will also be good practice for ultimate, which will start in late March.

Although it is nearly over, I will share some photos from this year's Art Shanties. Artists get to create something out of an ice-fishing shanty. I wasn't able to go last year, when a friend's sister had her own shanty. Severin and I went when it was chilly and windy. My favorite was probably the Norae-bang shanty. We were in there for a long time singing karaoke with other people.

I hope everyone is doing well!

Posted at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well the fourth week of school is starting on Monday. Life has been pretty busy. Classes are going well and are keeping me busy. I am really enjoying my Molecular Epi class. Its awesome. We have spent the past three weeks going over the basics behind the molecular test we see in the literature. Its been neat learning more details about PFGE during the massive peanut butter recall that MN and Team D figured out. The class is starting presentation this coming week on 7 papers to explore the good and bad things behind the techniques they used to do their molecular epi.

Work has been going well. I am not juggles as many projects as I once was. I am now focused primarily on research similar to my masters work.

Well I should get back to the books, got some test coming up.

Posted at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can’t believe week three is just about done – or, more importantly, that the semester is already one-fifth over! Time is flying because I’m totally swamped, so I’m glad it’s flying.

My big Stressor of the Week was our first assignment for community health theory and practice. Last semester was focused on theory; this semester, it’s practice. We’re basically doing one long project – in a lot of smaller chunks -- from now until May: planning an intervention and writing an accompanying grant proposal.

Much of my professional and personal experience is in working with refugees and immigrants, in health- and non-health-related capacities. So the obvious choice of a health outcome or behavior to modify was something within those groups locally. But I decided to make my life a lot harder and go into uncharted territory, picking a topic I know very little about that requires interventions I have zero experience in – and so far, I’m glad I did.

Inspired by an amazing project two of my journalism classmates worked on last semester, I decided to target lowering the c-section rate within a specific hospital system in order to improve outcomes for mothers and infants during birth. Just in researching and writing the background section, I learned a ton and am becoming really interested in the topic. Of course I was pulling my hair out finishing the assignment the night before it was due (and I even started the week before!), but now that it’s done, I’m looking forward to the next steps of the program planning process. I’m especially excited about creating a policy-level intervention as part of my plan. Can’t say I know how to do that at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll learn soon.

This semester already feels very different from the first in terms of content. Fall was a nice intro into the theory and framework behind everything we as public health professionals-to-be do, and this semester, we’re really starting to do it. Very exciting. And also exciting that I actually very much appreciate what I learned last semester and love feeling as if I’m building off of it.

Fridays make me so happy this semester – I guess that’s what taking 16 credits does to a person! I’m glad I’m doing it – and that the extras I’m taking now will mean a lighter load in the future – but trust me, I will not be doing it again.

Happy weekend!

Posted at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow! In one day my life turned upside down!
My mom passed away on the 24th of January, two days shy of her 50th birthday. Having been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer less than a month before she passed away... there wasn't much anyone could do.

I have have a mix of emotions right now. Everyday is a conquered battle...
I am glad that I could pass/fail some of my classes because I am going to be gone for the funeral for 2 weeks and am missing alot of classes. My professors have been so supportive; offering extensions and giving me time to find my balance. The last few days have been a a whirlwind of planning: No sooner did I comprehend the news that my mom was gone, than I had to plan my trip back home to Ghana for her funeral.
I have had to plan the funeral, write a tribute, get anti malarial drugs, get homework done ahead of time, write thank you notes to all who have shown support, and plan for everything that goes into a trip abroad. Needless to say I am very stressed, I have lost 5 pounds in a week, have lost alot of sleep, am losing hair and fight with my self everyday to not cry. Everything that should have originally taken an hour or two now takes 3 days.

I did get my mom's tribute done and would like to share it with you. She was a kindergarten teacher with a masters degree in English... Needless to say, she loved kids...

There is one word to describe you mama—passionate. This is how you approached your life, your family and your work; with a determination and perseverance that can only be admired. And so in celebrating Valentine’s Day, I celebrate your love and your life.

They say a child is a reflection of their parents' care and devotion. You were spunky, dynamic, VERY organized, had a sweet spirit and were never afraid to call a spade a spade. Yours are some pretty big shoes to fill and in your absence, I hope that I can represent you well. I love you mama

Posted at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

As I’m sure most of you have guessed, my week started out fantastically, thanks to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ winning an unprecedented sixth Lombardi trophy. I am proud to say that I did some of my personal best terrible towel waving at the end of the fourth quarter, and I fully believe that it was the exuberant waving of the terrible towel by the countless members of Steeler Nation that ultimately propelled the football into Santonio Holmes’ hands to seal the six-pack for the Steelers. The aftermath of this landmark event will no doubt be felt for weeks to come. In fact Punxsutawney Phil (sporting a tiny groundhog-sized Polamalu jersey) was reported to state “Who cares about the weather, the Steelers won the Super Bowl!� and then declared six more weeks of winter only for Arizona fans. I’ll try not to babble anymore about the Steelers, but I make no promises.
Dan and I went to Bachmann’s on Lyndale on Monday. I guess Bachmann’s flowers are popular here or something. Someone had recommended that we go, and it was actually a very cute little place—obviously lots of flowers for sale. I think I might go back and purchase a “watch ‘em grow� pot. It is a large pot that contains bulbs like jonquils and crocus that you can keep in the house and watch grow and bloom throughout the spring. Since we live in an apartment, we don’t have a yard, so I thought it might be nice. Not nearly as nice, mind you, as the amazing Super Bowl victory I witnessed on Sunday. The other feature of Bachmann’s on Lyndale is the fact that a branch of Patrick’s Bakery is in the shop, so you can sit in a nice little garden area and have lunch. The owner is a Parisian trained patissier, and the shop has lovely individual quiches and pain au chocolat and whatnot. I was pleased to find that my favorite drink as a child—the diablo menthe—was also available, so I, of course had to get one, and it tasted just as good as I remembered. Of course, the taste of the diablo menthe did not hold a candle to the sweet taste of the unadulterated victory Steeler Nation experienced on Sunday in their historical SIXTH Super Bowl win.
I had all of my classes once again today. Dr. Neaton was out of town, so we had a guest lecturer for Clinical Trials. She discussed the factors that lead to the termination of a study before full data collection is concluded, and the whole process that is involved in ending a study early. It seems like a rather unpleasant process that is best avoided if at all possible—I cannot imagine how discouraging it would have to be to be the PI on a large-scale study that ends early like that. The disappointment probably feels something like the bitter sorrow of all of the fans of the pathetic teams that are not as wonderful as the Pittsburgh Steelers who have won SIX Super Bowls.
In translational research, we are learning about the ROC curve. ROC stands for receiver operating characteristic, and it is basically a plot of specificity by 1-sensitivity for a diagnostic test at various cutpoints for classifying a continuous test outcome as either “positive� or negative�. It is used to determine the quality of a particular diagnostic test, and also the optimal cutpoint for minimizing type I and type II error (i.e. false positive and false negatives). In order for a test to be maximally effective, it needs to be able to perform at as high a level as possible with as few mistakes as possible. In fact, we could model the ideal test after the Pittsburgh Steelers’ miniscule error rates and phenomenal success rate in their SIXTH Super Bowl win (diagnostic tests, however, will probably never be featured in a Mean Joe Green tribute commercial).
And last but not least, Dr. Carlin introduced us to the wonderful world of WINBugs in my Intro to Bayes class. We just did some very baby-like examples to begin, but I’m already impressed by the software’s obvious potential (although mind you, not as impressed as I am by the impeccable poetry in motion I witnessed on the football field this Sunday). One of the things I’ll definitely have to keep in mind with WINBugs, however, is that it does not use variance, but rather the inverse of variance, precision. Hey, maybe the Steelers are all Bayesians, ‘cause they sure exhibited precision last Sunday when they won their SIXTH Super Bowl.
I will not let that horribly corny joke be the last nugget of wisdom in my blog this week. Instead, I will leave you with the immortal words of Jack Lambert, Steelers’ linebacker and participant in four of Pittsburgh’s SIX Super Bowl victories: "If I could start my life all over again, I would be a professional football player, and you damn well better believe I would be a Pittsburgh Steeler.�

Posted at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)