I'm looking through you, where did you go?

Is that really my dad?
(Guitar, second from right.)



Mom, who are the rest of these guys?

All along the undertow is strengthening its hold / I never thought it'd come to this, now I can never go home

There are so many reasons for the smallest of smiles to come creeping across my face at the most random times of the day.

This week has been all too unproductive, and quite hyper for me. Though I've had a lot to do, my mind is already on spring break. Luckily, I'm filling my spring break up with school, so perhaps it balances out in the end. I took my cancer epid midterm today and it was fine, I guess. We'll see. I talked to a classmate about it afterward and I felt pretty okay with it.

Sachi and I are currently sitting at Amer's on State Street working on our papers for lab that are due tomorrow evening. Then I have to get my cat to his kitty hotel, get my plants to Steve's, pack, hang out with a bunch of people, then leave! Lots to do!

My roommate is leaving for China tomorrow. She'll also be doing an internship there this summer, which is pretty exciting. I'll miss her though. Luckily, Steve, Krishna, and Josh will be around to keep me company all summer.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed about my internship. We should find out soon!!!

My mathematical mind can see the breaks / so I'm gonna stop riding the brakes

I am such a dork.

In my genetics assignment, we are to find LOD scores, and maximum likelihood estimates in one of the problems. We are to estimate the MLE by plugging in 5 values (chosen by the professor) and saying which gives us the maximum value. Well, this isn't enough for me.

At one time or another, I was fluent in the language of calculus. As most languages go, once you stop using them, you begin to forget important communication tools. But, I was determined to find the REAL maximum value by taking the derivative of this absolutely horribly ugly function, then setting it equal to 0 to find the maximum value. This took about 10-15 minutes, which was a horrible waste of time, but, darnit, I proved to myself that I can still do some mean calculus!

High five.

Take that and rewind it back

I rocked it. Yup. The impossibly hard Epid 601 midterm -- I took my air guitar and rocked that thing. Big, fat A.

Class average was 55%, up from last year's 40%. As previously mentioned, who knew that an open note, multiple choice test could be so difficult?

So, now: one down, three to go, a few homework assignments, prep for a group paper/presentation, and then I'm coming home in a couple of weeks.

And, as your sweet departure gift, I post a picture of me "breakdancing" at Gotham:

Got my toast and my tea and I'm warm and...

It's currently 36 degrees and raining, on February 9, 2008. What a strange winter, with all this rain... and 60 degree days in January. But, I didn't begin writing this to talk to you about how the weather belongs in April, or how we might just have green grass and roses tomorrow. There might be more important things to discuss, but perhaps not.

So, I had my first midterm of Winter Semester last week. When our teacher said it was to be an 11 multiple choice, 1 problem-solving test with 90 minutes for completion and open notes, I have to admit, I scoffed a little. Seriously? Open notes and only 11 multiple choice? Ha!

I could have used at least 10 more minutes. I had no idea that anyone could make a multiple choice test that difficult. Oh, Epid 601, you make me yearn for the days of Epid 600...

This week, I have a biostats exam, as well as a genetics midterm due (it's take-home). Being in that genetics class is all sorts of inspirational for me. I've considered trying to get into a genetic counseling program after I'm done with my MPH so I can combine epidemiology and genetic counseling, but, on the other hand, I feel that if I were going to do a few more years of school, it'd be more worth my while to just get a PhD. Thus, I'll probably just graduate and get a job.

My genetics professor is awesome. She's literally the coolest woman on Earth (aside from my mom). I kind of want to follow her around all day and have her teach me everything she knows. I'd even be willing to be her errand girl, just for a taste of her humorous, yet insightful, stories and anecdotes. I'll even watch all 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica so I can relate to her a little better.

Speaking of genetics, I had an interview last Friday with a post-doc who is hoping to get some grants to go through and set up a lab to do epigenetics research this summer. Assuming he gets his money, I'm working with him this summer. He is also really awesome, and, assuming things work out, I'll actually have the chance to follow him around like a puppy and steal his knowledge. I can't wait. More on that in a few weeks when I know whether or not he's funded.

Completely unrelated to my education, my friends are pretty neat out here. Yesterday, Steve and I were looking for something to do, so we decided that we were going to make Indian food. Of course, I didn't get home from the hospital until 6:30, and he got home even later, so we didn't actually start cooking until around 8:30 or 9:00. By the way, if you're starving, don't make Indian food. Naan took us hours to make (yeast had to rise).

Marina and Andy came over to enjoy our company as we made daal and naan, and we watched The Simpsons Movie. Andy brought beer over, and Marina brought a bottle of wine. It's nice to have friends who can cook, because I am not very good at it.

Our daal resembled this. We put it over rice.

And our garlic naan looked like this:


Tonight, Sam's jazz musician friend is playing at the Firefly, so I think we're heading over there. We also may or may not go ice skating, though, with the heat wave, I bet the ice will be horrible!

We're gonna party like it's 19-99

Another day, another dollar. Or, I guess, another semester, another class... My first semester of graduate school is el fin and went quite well. Now, I'm onto semester numero dos, which is filled with the adventures of cancer epid, genetic epid, biostatistics, general epid (2nd semester), bacteriology/virology lab techniques, and capstone. I'm interviewing for summer lab work, and may have found a place in a laboratory working on mice being the model genetic organism. It sounds like great work. I'm also set to speak with a PhD student doing epigenetic research (assuming his grants go through) this week about a potential possibility.

Other than that, I'm still enjoying my time in school, as well as my weekends away from it. Last weekend, we had a "High School Party" at Kristin's parents' house, about 30 minutes north of Ann Arbor. It really was a lot of fun, and the party went all night, complete with preps, jocks, punks, and altie "kids" drinking cheap beer and cheesy '90s pop music. The following morning, Emily made French toast for all of us, and Kristin made this meal she learned when she was at school in Hawaii called "Loco Moco" -- rice with a ground beef patty on top, and an egg over easy atop that.

Here are some of Emily's pictures, since I have yet to upload mine to this internet-thing...

Andy, as Band Geek


Kristin, representing the River Rats


Me, with my hair in Mickey Mouse pig tails, wearing a character shirt


Look ma', no hands...
Andy and Steve, making me fly or something...


Samantha and Kellie dancing like madwomen

And we're only several miles from the sun

On January 8, 2008, it was 60+ degrees in Ann Arbor. The feet of snow were melted in most places, and we had our windows open and heat off. After school, I went on a walk through the ice and mud at Black Pond Woods Park, behind my apartment complex. Here are a few shots from my outing.


Standing under the arch


Atop a fallen tree


Wrapped around a tree


Snow melting to fog


Cecropia cocoons

Hey Joe, where ya' going with that gun in your hand?

Last weekend, Sam, Kellie, and I went to Trader Joe's to do some grocery shopping. While there, I couldn't help but notice the toddler sitting in his mom's cart who would scream loudly at random intervals throughout his mother's shopping trip. Toddlers are great in how they throw random temper tantrums. While down a certain aisle, the Death Cab song "When Soul Meets Body" came over the radio system. I was grooving a bit. The kid stopped his screaming and said, "Mommy... I like this song!"

It was pretty darn cute.

So this is the new year...

It came on my iPod while I was working in the crypts of the hospital today, and I find it appropriate since it is just post-New Year's beginning and all...

So this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different.
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance (in the distance).

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogs bleed into one

I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then I could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that could hold us back.

There'd be no distance that could hold us back [x2]

So this is the new year [x4]


Death Cab for Cutie
"The New Year"

here come the earth intruders / we are the paratroopers

First it was the polar bears...

Chagrin and Bear It
Melting sea ice makes polar bears starve, drown

Travel agents hawking trips to the Arctic have been boasting lately of an increased likelihood that tourists will see polar bears -- because starving bears are encroaching on human settlements to scavenge for food. Polar bears have traditionally used ice floes to hunt seals, their favored prey -- but Arctic ice, in case you hadn't heard, is melting. According to new research in the journal Arctic, the spring hunting season for polar bears has been reduced by nearly three weeks in some places, causing female bears to gain up to 175 pounds less than normal. Far from enjoying their slender physiques, the skinny bears are more susceptible to disease and have diminished reproductive capabilities, and their cubs are less likely to survive. In 1980, the average weight of an adult female polar bear in western Hudson Bay was 650 pounds; in 2004, it was 507 pounds. The Arctic study warns that the risk posed to polar bears by global warming is potentially irreversible. How's that for a Monday downer?

Now it is the walruses...

I Was the Walrus
Walruses trampled as a result of climate change -- no, seriously

Here's a climate-change impact you don't think about every day: trampled walruses. When walruses get tired of swimming, they clamber onto sea ice to rest. With ice in increasingly short supply above the Arctic Circle, walruses are huddling on shore in extremely high numbers. The tusky animals are prone to stampede at the appearance of a polar bear, hunter, or low-flying airplane, and those stampedes are proving increasingly deadly as the walruses cluster in denser groups. More than 3,000 are estimated to have been trampled to death by their panicky peers this past year. Boo boo g'joob.

source: Associated Press

And some people are too lazy to even recycle....

Sidenote: I used to live alone. I never got lonely. Now Kellie is out of town and the apartment is scary! Only children: bred to live in solitude until their imaginations drive them mad!

The leaders and the best

I'm taking a break from my intense studying to report on how incredible and noteworthy my University is. There are many famous people who hail from Michigan. Sure, the first folks to come to mind might be Gerald Ford, Michael Phelps, or the guy who did Darth Vader's voice... But, I'm here to mention two others who have graduated from this fine institution, the first whose birthday is the day following mine, and the second whose birthday precedes mine by a day.





Dr. Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski, M.S., Ph.D Mathematics
a.k.a. The Unabomber, Prisoner Number 04475-046.
He was the hobbit and mail bomber extraordinairre who was the victim of one of the FBI's most expensive goose chases ever. After killing 3 and wounding 23 victims while providing false clues for authorities, he was finally sentenced to life in prison when his own brother turned him in. Disagreeing with modern society, thus targeting predominantly scientists due to the progressive nature of research, he composed a manifesto entitled "The Industrial Society and Its Future" that challenged the notion of the construct of our society and predicted it would collapse on itself within time. He tried to hang himself after he was caught, but that didn't work out so instead he's locked in jail forever.



Dr. Kevorkian, M.D. Pathology
a.k.a. Dr. Death
Medical ethicist and doctor of assisted suicide in Michigan (which, I should point out, is legal in certain contexts in the State of Oregon, I believe). He was only charged on one count of second-degree murder because he had his patients carry out their own demise in order to avoid this. But, on video tape for the court, he challenged the notion of classroom medical ethics (citing archiac and unjust laws) by giving the lethal injection to just one patient, who was in his final stages of ALS.

Kevorkian was sentenced to lots of jail time, but was released due to his own failing health. Of course, his medical license was revoked. But, he's still alive and occasionally doing TV appearances.

i tell 'em all i want for chistmas is two gold front teeth and ten carat diamonds on a fat gold wreath

When I graduate and get another real job, I'm going to learn how to sew in my spare time. Then... then I will make myself a cape, and some dresses. I really want a kimono dress with a funky pattern.

Maybe someday I can be a normal person and not always have to wear a thousand layers, so I can wear more stylish clothing. I'm really rooting for this B12 and Iron regimen to take effect. I learned that a B12 deficiency creates problems with memory. Maybe that explains a few things about me...

Completely unrelated, I've been listening to a Detroit hip hop station (95.5) for far too long today. I am fairly certain that they are more repetitive than KDWB. Don't get me wrong, I love Alicia Keys, but I have heard this song ("No One") at least 6 times so far in the last few hours.

Another brief topic, I can't wait until Stardust comes out on DVD because a) I love, love, love Neil Gaiman, and b) I managed to miss seeing it in the theater.

Um, lastly... Why is Ludacris doing Christmas music? I do not approve.

Mamma, mamma I'm coming home....

One down, three to go...

I finished pathophys yesterday; now I'm devoting the rest of today to my HMP paper so that'll be finished. Epid final on Friday and biostat next Wed, then I will be homeward bound.

I love epidemiology. It's such a neat field, with numerous components. Yes, there's the usual infectious disease stuff, and cancer rates, and blah blah, but we had a lecture on the future of epidemiology and how it needs to become more socially-based. There's this balance that needs to be met concerning how people view themselves and reminding them that they are within a population. It made me thinking about universal health care and our legal system and what rights people do and do not have. For instance, in the United State, people are guaranteed the right to smoke a million cigarettes a day, but aren't guaranteed health care. Now, maybe this is a good thing -- people who make the effort to destroy their health maybe shouldn't be treated with the care and concern in a health setting that those people who eat well, exercise, and choose not to smoke and overly-consume alcohol. But, maybe this says something about the direction in which our country needs to find itself.

We don't have the rights to smoke pot or do crack (legally), yet it's okay to fill our body with the 40-some carcinogens in a single cigarette. Maybe that's something legislators need to consider while simultaneously considering human physiology and the effects on cigarettes in every single organ system within our bodies... From glaucoma to cardiovascular disease, these substances are not okay. Yet, our politicians consistently let those tobacco lobbiests pay them off to keep people smoking...

Yes, politics is complicated. It takes patience and baby-stepping to work toward any positive laws for society (yet, the second our president wants to take away our privacy rights because of a few terroristic threats, the Big Boys are all about it...).

Anyway, I guess my big thought it onto universal health care, which I think is a very important goal for our country. I think we all have the right to life (as was stated in our Declaration of Independence), and part of that is having the means to protect our lives. I would like to see laws passed that go on to protect our safety through health and environmental steps. This needs to happen QUICKLY, as there is more and more of a divide between rich and poor, the privileged and hose without. Perhaps the end goal is far from sight, but there are so many changes that could be made in the way our population lives.

My first proposal is adequate health education. The main target here would be school-children. I remember being in elementary school and learning to recycle and little health issues and thinking it was so neat. If kids can get interested early, it's possible that they can take these ideas home and engage their parents. They need to learn about living safely -- everything from practicing safe sex, washing their hands, and eating whole grains and vegetables, to recycling and not wasting energy. Health has so many factors -- personal, social, and environmental -- that it's necessary to educate children about these early so they can start making wise decisions for how they live their lives early.

Also, within education, parents need to be educated too. This can come from community-wide meetings and health fairs that are easily accessible to all, and especially those who would have access issues like the poor. Parents need to know exactly why certain things are bad for them and their children. I took pathophysiology and learned more than just "smoking is bad, mmmkay." I learned WHY it's bad and HOW it affects your body. Parents need to understand this about major risk factors -- diet, smoking, alcohol. It's really scary to think that even just one night of crazy drinking pays a huge toll on your liver. Some of these children are raised by alcoholic parents, or parents who smoke around the house. NOT OKAY. Even kids who don't like their parents much still take a lot of habits from the way they were raised and apply them to their own lifestyles.

Obviously, not just parents and children, but the general population needs to be educated. People need to step out of ignorance on health and health issues and learn what's going on with their bodies and what sort of diseases and illnesses they need to worry about. They also need to learn not to worry -- because I see that a lot of people run rampant with information if it's misunderstood and create a pandemonium of fear and outrage. Not okay. This is why health education needs to be integrated in a constructive way throughout communities, with educators coming in and really understanding a community's beliefs. People within that community need to be trained to be educators, too, so that they are accessible and approachable. There needs to be huge lines of communication.

I see that only when an extensive educational process throughout our entire country occurs can changes really begin to start to take place. Maybe around the this time is when a system for universal health care should be implemented... Because people will have more knowledge to treat themselves better.

Of course there are huge economic issues that will have to be taken care of, and it needs to be understood that the first generation or two using this health care system will be very expensive. But if the education keeps occurring and the health system really changes to benefit the total population (because, we're taught to concern only ourselves within the American society, so people need to understand that they are a part of a larger picture and need to take care of themselves and their brothers and sisters of the world), the health care system will become less expensive.

Along with this whole system, a series of progressive laws needs to be passed. i.e. The NYC ban of trans fats needs to become a country-wide ban; smoking in public establishments also needs to become this way... Laws that protect all citizens of this country need to be established.

I know, I'm not a policy person. People think that this is impossible to implement in a nation so big and backwards as ours. I agree that it will be hard, but why would we not even try? It will have its issues, but why not start with something do-able, like free health care access for all minors. Heck, those are the ones who are less likely to have started smoking and drinking anyway so their risk factors are primarily genetic and environmental, neither of which they can control!

There are more issues involved, and more disciplines to be involved. But, how neat to have a topic that seems so focused, yet is very broad. I hope that legislators get their heads out of their behinds and focus on more important issues for our entire society, instead of those that either only consider a few, or seem to consider only societies far away (not like I don't think aiding other countries important, but bombing them probably won't help so much...).

Anyway, tangent of the day. I better get to my paper.

I know what I know; I'll sing what I said. We come and we go; that's a thing that I keep in the back of my head

Knowing what I do now, I wish I could go back to my college years and do it all differently. But, hey, it is what it is...