Student SPHere 2008-09

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 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 | Permalink | Comments (1)

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 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 | Permalink | Comments (1)

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 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spring is finally sprung here, which is buoying my mood for the end of the semester. One great advantage to the warmer temps is that I am back on my bike, after a very wet and cold winter. Last weekend, I biked to the U Rec Center to try out a Zumba class with my friend Julia. What an energizing, fun workout! Although the U's rec center is a fantastic resource, I don't actually use it (this was my second visit in my 4 years here!), preferring to do my sweating in the privacy of my living room. However, this class was a great chance to "try before you buy," as they say. I'm definitely getting the DVDs now.

It's hard to believe that just a week and a half ago, I was trudging through a snow storm in Sioux Falls, SD! We were visiting to celebrate Tom's mom's birthday. All three of our nephews were there, which made for ready entertainment. The twins are so fun and we had a great time with the whole family. We even took in some theater, watching his cousin play Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof at the local high school.

The big news around Biostats lately has been the public phase of our search for a division head. Three candidates have been invited, each giving a public lecture and having tons of meetings with faculty, students, staff, and administrators. My own adviser, Brad Carlin, is one candidate, so I am obviously a little biased. It has been so interesting to see the different approaches that each brings. I attended all of their public talks and was fortunate enough to have lunch with Dr. Dalene Stangl from Duke, as well. Though the decision is ultimately made by Dean Finnegan, the whole process is remarkably inclusive. The faculty have their say at a big meeting with the Dean, and even students are encouraged to submit feedback on the candidates to the search committee.

On the research front, I am looking forward to the re-submission of yet another paper from the work I did with Simon Rosser's group in Epi. We wrote up a little paper on the recruitment strategies used to obtain a sample of folks who are typically underrepresented in epidemiological studies. Our target population was primarily HIV-positive men of color who have sex with men-- not exactly an easy group to enroll. The paper describes the differences in recruitment effectiveness in terms of HIV status and race/ethnicity, as well as figures on retention and the costs of various recruitment methods. My favorite part of the revision was making new figures. We weren't doing any modeling in this paper, instead presenting descriptive statistics and a few Chi-square tests. Thus, my major contribution as an analyst was deciding how to convey the data clearly. I tried about a dozen ways of displaying the data, finally finding inspiration on one of my favorite blogs, Junk Charts. The authors find many examples of truly awful charts in the mainstream media. This post, in contrast, gave kudos for a set of great plots from the New York Times, which I emulated.

I'm trying not to think too much about how little time is left in the semester. I am thankful not to have final exams, and have been able to get a bit of a start on one of my final projects. If I can keep my research going at the same time, the next few weeks will be really productive!

Posted at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well as I mentioned last week, I was going to be heading up to Grand Casino Mille Lacs for a community engagement meeting. Well that happened as planned and was awesome, Murphy just happened to delay my trip up. I rarely drive to campus because parking is hard to find. I have been taking the bus to campus now for a few years. Well the bus does not drive up to Grand Casino Mille Lacs, so I had to drive. I have one class on Friday, Molecular Epi which is in St. Paul. I drove to campus (the East Bank) and quickly determined I had two options, a meter or the parking ramp, as there were no free street parking spaces. I thought I would save a few bucks by parking at the meter on Washington Ave. Everything went well, until I got back from class, there was no car. I turns out that Washington Ave becomes a no parking zone between 3-6pm.

I immediately started having clips of Parking Wars, a show about the Philadelphia’s Parking Authority. I have seen enough of this show to see people standing in the impound lot for hours to get their cars back. This did not seem like a viable option for me, as I was bringing another EnHS student up to the meeting. Then it donned on me that I would need to figure out how to get to the impound lot and figure out where it is. Fortunately for me there was a guy and two girls standing on Washington who got their car towed too. They offered to give me and my passenger a ride up to the impound lot. So we embarked on the bigger adventure of the day, getting to the impound lot. We took a bus to the Como area and got the guy’s car to drive to the impound lot. During this time I called a colleague to find out the number/address for the impound lot. The drive there was pretty interesting, our driver was a high school student, who obviously did not have much experience driving in rush hour on 94. I though for sure we were going to be rear ended, ever time he tried to merge by stopping hoping someone would let us over. We eventually made it their safely and I was able to get the car back pretty quickly. Thankfully my wife called on the trip over with the car’s vin number, as neither of us knew the license plate number. I was impressed, it only took about 15 minutes to get my car back after we got to the impound lot.

Needless to say with Murphy’s interruption I did not have the time I was planning on for getting hw done up at Grand Casino Mille Lacs. The community engagement meeting was really neat. It was very informative and interesting to be an observer at the meeting. It opened my eyes to some of the issues tribal communities may face during a pandemic or other disasters.

School returned with a vengeance, not getting my hw done like I wanted to meant I had a few late nights. I managed to get everything done. Now its just a steady progression of work until the semester ends, in a few weeks. There are a few more projects that have to be tackled before the semester ends. I hope everyone enjoys their Easter weekend.

Posted at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’ve always envied people who, on New Year’s Eve, can go through the year and really think about where they were, where they are now and how far they’ve come. What they’ve failed and succeeded in. How they’re going to take on the next year differently, better.

I am not that person. It’s too mushy, too difficult and takes too darn much of my increasingly precious time. (I tried to make resolutions on Jan. 1. And again sometime in February. Maybe even in March. No luck.) So even though I probably could have learned a lot from a formal reflection on 2008, I’ll probably flop through 2009 in much the same fashion.

Yes, this is something I should probably work on. And what better time to do it than when I’m approaching The End of my first year of grad school? So, for my remaining posts this semester, I don’t promise I will do it well – but I’ll give it a shot.

In my first year of grad school, I learned...

...you have to choose your battles. You can’t knock every assignment out of the park or prepare for a month for every exam (OK, so maybe that one’s never happened). You have to skim some readings and do others, nonchalantly, in the back row of another class. And you can’t beat yourself up about it, as long as you’ve got at least a couple priorities and you know what they are.

…it’s easier to stay on a roll than get on a roll. If the physics behind inertia didn’t make sense to me in high school, I can proudly say that now I’ve got it covered. I’m an all-or-nothing person, so I have to just get busy and stay busy, filling every spare second with something – because when I stop, I don’t want to start again. I know this is the fast-track to burnout, but I’m working on finding a happy little hill that lets me roll down at a relatively leisurely pace.

…it’s not easy to walk the talk. It’s amazing how public health school can be so NOT conducive to being healthy. I have about an 80-pound bag full of crap that I carry around every day, so my lunches, for example, have to small, portable, non-perishable and high-calorie enough to keep me awake and moving. You know what kind of stuff generally fits into that category. Other grad school conveniences? Caffeine! Avoiding exercise! Not getting enough sleep! Luckily I caught this one early and justified to myself that my health needs to be a priority – how am I going to help other people be healthy while I’m to my elbow in a bag of Cheetos? I try to pack a real lunch in a real lunch box with a little ice pack. Avoid soda/coffee. Run, swim, 30-Day Shred in my living room. Sleep seven hours a night. All with varying degrees of success.

…people are more important than books. Or tests. Or pretty much anything. I could write a novel about this. Probably a series. From studying to running to swimming to wearing 80s garb to a piano bar together, the people I’ve met this year are fabulous. Hands down. And I know they’re going to be there in the future, whether they’re hooking me up with a sweet job when I finally graduate, months after they do (I’m counting on you!), or listening to me whine about how I gained 10 pounds, got two flat tires and think I should just sell all my worldly possessions and travel the world by donkey.

…not knowing what I’m going to do with my life is OK – and actually kind of fun. My adviser gave me a great piece of advice (which may have just been to make me feel better, but I’m going with it): to take advantage of all kinds of opportunities that seem to have nothing to do with one another and not be embarrassed to have a resume that screams, “I GET DISTRACTED BY SHINY OBJECTS.” If I have run-of-the-mill experiences all in a neat little line, I’m going to get a run-of-the-mill, straight-line job when I finish school, and vice versa. I’m definitely more of a fan of the vice versa, and I’m learning to embrace that (even if it means selling my stuff and hunting down a donkey).

All in all, I'd call it a success.

Posted at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't been taking any photos lately, but if I had, they'd have one of the following themes:

1. Hunched over the kitchen table in my apartment, frantically finishing a draft for my thesis advisors/my boss at the Humphrey.
2. Hunched over the coffee table at Urban Bean - it's a great cafe for studying in Uptown - finishing a draft for my thesis advisors/my boss at the Humphrey.
3. Watching re-runs of ER with Severin. My dad Santa, gifted me with Seasons 1 and 2 a few years back. They're really good! I also watched the finale last week, which was all right. I didn't recognize anyone and the reunion of returning cast members felt forced. Also, where was Clooney?
4. Passed out in my bed, snoring.
5. Writing reviews for Yelp or checking Facebook instead of writing.
6. Adding more movies to my Netflix queue despite the fact that I still have DVDs from three weeks ago that remain unwatched.
7. Sitting on the couch thinking about how busy I am.
8. Making olive hummus - it's oddly soothing.

Olive Hummus

Ingredients:
Juice of two lemons
2 cans chickpeas, drained
1 can black olives, drained
3 tablespoons tahini (2 TB peanut butter will work in a pinch)
1/2 cup olive oil
Water
Salt

Utensils:
Hand blender and bowl or food processor
Containers to store hummus

1. Add olive oil, tahini, and lemon juice together in a big bowl or the food processor.
2. Add the chickpeas and olives to the bowl, blending a cup at a time. This will be easier than trying to blend the whole thing at once, especially if you have a hand blender.
3. Blend until smooth. Add water to thin it out to a desired consistency.
4. Store in containers. You can freeze some up to one month.

My supervisor at the city said it was all right to make up time after I'm done with my thesis, which makes my life feel much less stressful. Still, sometimes I wish there were several of me to get everything done.

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

I realized earlier this week that I actually only have about a month of school left. I have mixed feelings about the end of this semester since it will mark the end of my studenthood in the Biostatistics program. I have learned so much in the past two years and have had so many wonderful professors, and it seems strange to be ending this chapter in my academic career. I’m really proud of the work that I’ve produced for my Plan B, and I think that I will have a really nice final product. I have really enjoyed working with my advisor throughout this whole process—I would say that getting to interact with such a brilliant and experienced individual has been the biggest benefit I have gained from the Plan B project.
My classes have really picked up in terms of work after spring break. I just finished an assignment for Clinical Trials that is due this Thursday. It was quite a bit more involved and computational than I had anticipated, so I am really glad that I decided to tackle it this weekend instead of waiting. I also spent a good portion of this weekend wrapped up in the final write-up of my plan B. I still have a few more models that I need to look at, but I have about 20 pages written and edited, so I’m feeling very good about where I am with that. I have also been working on a take home exam for my Intro to Bayes course. I’m not very confident about this take-home—it is going to require a good deal of WinBugs and R programming, and while I am certainly a huge fan of this software, I am still a novice when it comes to actual syntax. I’ve had success getting help for the homeworks from other people in the class who were more experienced programmers. I have actually been surprised by how willing people in the class have been to get together and work through problems together. It seems like a lot of the time in Biostats, people are more reluctant to work together (maybe that is just my experience). While this has been a nice unexpected feature of the class, it does me no good for the take home exam since we obviously cannot work together on the exam. I feel that as long as I take the “slow and steady” approach and don’t go ripping into the program expecting to get the entire program written bug-free in the first try I will be more than capable of doing a decent job on the exam. The professor has made the theory behind the code very clear, so conceptually I feel comfortable with the material. We’ll find out!
I am also going to be taking notes for a focus group for the Insomnia study this week. I’m not really familiar with the “qualitative data” that will apparently be collected during this focus group, but it should be interesting to find out what people found to be beneficial and detrimental to the effectiveness of the experimental intervention. Again, this study was supposed to examine the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based stress reduction course on improved sleep in insomniacs compared to using Lunesta—a standard sleep medication.
I have to say that I find it seriously disturbing that it was snowing the day of the season opener for baseball. I find it even more disturbing that people still insist that the Twins should have an outdoor stadium. Usually they justify their insane viewpoint by saying something like “baseball was meant to be played outside.” Yes, but baseball was also “meant” to be played during the day so that the players could see the ball, but we decided to alter baseball’s “natural” state by adding stadium lights, and now baseball can be played at night. This means more people can attend the game since they no longer have to occur during working hours. And yet, no one seems too concerned about this deviation from how things were “meant” to be. This is because we have things called “invention” and “progress” that alters nature for the benefit of humans. These same concepts have brought us many other unnatural yet convenient innovations such as indoor plumbing and automobiles. So now, even though people were “meant” to pee outside and walk wherever they needed to go, we realized that things don’t have to be the way they were “meant” to be. People with allergies were “meant” to suffer from sinus pressure and annoy everyone around them with their constant sniffling, but once again silly old “invention” gets in the way of how things were “meant” to be and brought us Claratin. And people were “meant” to run around naked, but (thankfully) “innovation” once again intervened with something called “J. Crew.” But God forbid we try to stay warm while watching baseball inside. Apparently that is altering the way things were “meant” to be too much.

Posted at 9:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I can’t believe it’s that totally chaotic time of the semester again! It seems like it was just October. And unfortunately this semester I don’t think the workload is going to shrink anytime soon – as in, not until May 16 when finals are over and I’m in absolute heaven on the couch in a pair of sweatpants…where I will probably remain for a good week.

There are a couple of good things about the craziness: No matter what, everything always seems to get done, and the more stuff going on each week, the faster it’s Friday. This week was an absolute blur, with a my process evaluation plan due in my program evaluation class on Monday, a World Refugee Day meeting and site visit on Tuesday, a trip to the dentist (wisdom teeth have to come out! boo) and lots of biostats work on Wednesday, a grant proposal review due in CHE on Thursday and, today, working at the Star Tribune – and attempting to get everything done that just didn’t happen this week.

The Malpractice Ball at Blaisdell Manor last weekend was a nice break from everything – absolutely like a semi-adult prom. Aside from the fact that someone STOLE my digital camera (!!!), it was a fun night of friends and wine and digging dresses out of the back of the closet.

CHE ladies at the ball

The other super-fun part of my week was finally meeting my public health advisor, Cheryl Robertson! Yes, I know it’s April and I’ve been in school for almost three-quarters of a year. But she is in the School of Nursing and had never advised a public health student before, so everything took a little longer to get going. And I am very happy to report that it was 100 percent worth the wait.

Cheryl’s had some amazing experiences as a nurse and public health worker all over the world, and the refugee and immigrant issues I’m so interested in are near and dear to her. Before coming to the U, she worked at the Center for Victims of Torture -- what I think has got to be one of the coolest local nonprofits. I think she’s going to be a fantastic resource for making connections, developing a master’s project and encouraging me to really take advantage of the opportunities that come my way (and the ones I have to chase down).

It’s amazing how excited and reenergized I feel after having that one conversation. Five more weeks of school, bring it on.

Posted at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)