7 Quick Takes

1.  My Christmas/winter break was pretty awesome.  I got to see a lot of people, play with a big goofy black lab, and help my mom start cleaning out our basement.  You might not think that last item is awesome, but trust me, it is.

2. I took a condensed class (read, 2 credits in 1 weeks, class 8:30am-5:30pm) last week and it was really interesting.  Also informtion overload, but still really cool- Environmental Microbiology: Control of Food and Waterborne Diseases.  Now I just need to finish the assignments for the class.

3. My mom is currently in Israel and my cousin is in Antarctica!  I am by far not the only globe trotter in my family.

4. I have this little thing called a thesis to write this semester.  It's more than a little intimidating.  I'm sure I'll blog about it more, because so far I have been very creative in finding ways to avoid working on it.

5.  I'm still applying for the Peace Corps.  I'm currently in the land of a thousand doctor's appointments, to be followed with probably more doctor's appointments, and then hopefully a placement.  So far I've been nominated for a health position- no shock there :)

6. I have recently read several books, and one of my goals is to blog about reading more.  But for now, titles will suffice:  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Ghost Map (for my class, but I already owned it), and 'We Swam the Grand Canyon: A cheap vacation that got a little out of hand'.
Currently reading: King Leopold's Ghost, The Last Taboo: Opening the Door on the Global Sanitation  Crisis, and Generations.  A lot of my Christmas loot was also books, so there's a lovely pile in the non-yet-started category too.

7. My new years resolution is 'To not let the perfect get in the way of the good'.  So, to not let my human imperfections stop me from trying things and doing them imperfectly.  This is for scheduling, dieting, writing, reading, and all other goals that I make and will probably screw up at some point.  Reading 300/365 days of the year is much better than 0/365 days, even though its not a perfect 365/365.  So we'll see how things go :)

7 Quick Takes

1.  It's been a really long time since I've blogged.  I keep thinking of all of these things to write about, but I never have time enough to write that 'perfect' entry I'm conceptualizing.  So one of my new goals is, in the words of The Frugal Girl, a blog I follow: "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good".  So here's to more imperfect blog entries.
2. Speaking of imperfect, I feel like something is wrong with the space key on my laptop.  So if there are two words run together give me some grace, I promise it's not that I failed 4th grade grammar.
3.  I'm just short of being halfway through this semester (yikes?), and it's awesome.  It's a lot of work, but I really like my classes.  Mental note to expand on those in another post. I'm not currently working, but debating a job or internship for next semester- we shall see.
4.  Um, I'm back from Ghana?  Maybe that should have been #1 on the list.  My summer in Ghana was awesome and although I only posted about half of what I wrote about the summer so far, another one of my goals is to rectify that in the future too.
5.  I forgot how much I like to write.  Somewhere an English class (or two or ten) scarred me from writing and it's taken me years to realize that I actually really enjoy writing.  It's another form of creativity for me.
6.  As I am writing this, I am swaying back and forth to the music stuck in my head, Michael Jackson's 'Beat It'.  I think listening to a big 80s weekend on the radio has lasting side effects.
7.  It's fall break!  Which means I didn't have class today, which is nice.  Fall break extends into tomorrow also, but since I don't have class on Tuesdays, today is the real break.  And since half of my classes are on Mondays, it's a real break indeed.  It's also following a rather insane 2 weeks, so it's much appreciated.  So far I've been to the zoo, the Stone Mountain laser show, church, and the grocery store.  And slept a lot.  I've also been cleaning, scrap booking, baking, and catching up on some neglected friendships.

7 Quick Takes

1. There will be an epic story of losing and finding my car tonight, but I'll save that for tomorrow.
2. My classes look interesting for the semester, but a LOT of work.
3. I have no idea what I'm doing this summer for my practicum and its beginning to freak me out.
4. My roommate is completely amazing.  Will expand tomorrow.
5. Trivia is my new favorite hobby- go team Tuskegee!
6. It's really fun to road trip somewhere on 24 hours notice.
7. I sent my Christmas cards out this week.  They were only what, 4 weeks late? :)

7 Quick Takes

1. I’ve found a church that’s pretty awesome, and one reason is because it has a lot of young adults.  Don’t get me wrong, I love all ages, but it’s important to have friends that are in my stage of life as well.  I’m in a small group that meets once a week, and we have really good discussions.  We also laugh hysterically about a LOT of things, biblical and non, as well as carve pumpkins, snack on chocolate, and pack Operation Christmas child shoeboxes.  This group is a huge blessing in my life J

2. My mom is currently on a mission trip with my home-church to Tennessee to help with the areas that flooded so badly in Nashville.  She’s been on about 10 of these trips to New Orleans.  My mother is awesome!

3. The weather here is really nice.  It’s mild during the day and cold at night, which means that aside from needing lots of covers on my bed, it’s wonderful.  I think I also don’t realize that Thanksgiving is in two weeks because I associate it with much colder weather.

4. I’m going home for Thanksgiving!  If you will be in Maryland the week of thanksgiving, facebook or call me, we should hang out!

5. I still like my classes, but they are coming to that end of the semester crunch time where they take over my life.  I’m really only worried about our project for my global health class, but theres lots of work in others as well.  Less than a month of class left :O

6. I went to trivia sponsored by a student group at Rollins, the Emory Global Health Organization (EGHO), and it was really fun.  One of the groups was named ‘we are not global health’ and another was ‘proc freq all night long’.  Did you know that cholera is in its seventh pandemic?

7. I’m volunteering with Refugee Family Services in their afterschool program, and the kids are a blast.  We tutur, assist the teachers, and play with the kids.  On Monday a group from Georgia Tech came and donated several new soccer balls and goals, which led to utter pandemonium as about 14 different games happened at once on the blacktop- multiple games of soccer, catch, basketball, tag, Frisbee.   It was awesome to watch, and I’m surprised no one got a ball in the face.  Helping kids be happy is the best feeling ever. 

7 Quick Takes

7 quick takes: 
1. I think I need a tape-recorder for my brain.  I think of all of these good ideas for posts, and then I forget to actually write them.  Could someone please invent that for me? Thanks :) 
2. I survived my first round of mid-terms in Grad school, huzzah.  Of three tests, I did great on one and so-so on another, with another not returned.   For my 4^th class, I actually have received no grades yet even though I’ve turned in two papers.  So really no idea how I’m doing in that class.  But I still really like my classes, so all is well. 
3. I need to get on the ball in finding a job.  I’ve sort of neglected that, but I really should try to obtain some income :P 
4.I have to pick classes for next semester soon, and so I’ve chosen a concentration (infectious diseases) and have an appointment with my recently assigned advisor.  Here’s hoping I can figure out what I’m doing soon.
5. Mom came and visited me two weeks ago and it was a lot of fun!  We talked and ate a lot, went to the Greek festival, and hung out a lot between me trying to study for midterms.  There will be some pictures of the Greek festival at some point. 
6.  Over fall break I went and visited my aunt and uncle and cousin and sweet dog in Columbia for a long weekend.  It was nice and relaxing and fun to welcome my cousin home after he just completed the entire pacific crest trail.  I’m sure impressed!
7. Last weekend I went to my friend Katherine’s house Friday night and Saturday we hiked for several hours in the North Georgia mountains, on the approach trail to Springer mountain and the Appalachian trail (which said cousin also hiked all the way through in 2001).  Pictures coming soon of this as well.

I'm not a fan of tests...

Okay, I'm pretty sure no one is a fan of tests.  Mostly because of the grade-obsession I think my generation has, at least that's my theory. 

But I also feel like they aren't really practical.  Most of the stuff you have to learn for a test, you promptly forget.  And most of it you can look up if you need to know it.  Unless you are going on a quiz show or want to rock trivial pursuit, you life will be okay without being able to diagram the Krebs cycle or list all of the major baroque composers.  No one has ever stopped me on the street and demanded dates of World War II battles or a plot summary of The Odyssey.

That being said, I'm a huge proponent of education.  I feel like it can be the great equalizer.  I happen to love school and learning. ( I'm a nerd, its okay- I came to terms with that a long time ago.)  I think that education can be the solution, or at least indroduce you to possible solutions, to so many problems in the world.  But that's another post for another day.

I do however, enjoy things that I feel are useful learning tools.  This includes writing, and projects, and some test-like things.  For one of my mid-terms next week we can use a page of notes.  I really like this idea for several reasons.  One, it takes the pressure off of studying, so I feel like I will actually study better.  Two, making that sheet of notes is actually a great way to study.  Three, I feel like its more like the real world.  When I said above that you can look up information that you need, the caveat is that it's impractical to look up EVERYTHING.  That just becomes obnoxious.  But to have a reference sheet that you can quickly use means that you are familiar with the subject enough to reference it if you need it, especially where there are formulas involved, yet it's okay that you don't have the field memorized.  And I feel like that's like the real world.  I used wikipedia to look up a lot of structures and molecular weights at my old jobs, because memorizing all of that information for every chemical I worked with would be... well, impossible without a photographic memory.  But I could calculate what I needed to pretty easily, and that's a combination of access to formulas and experience with the material.  I think a lot of people feel like if you can use some notes during a test, anyone can ace the test.  That's not true with a well-designed test, and its not true in life either.  Sure, you can probably figure some things out on the fly, but mostly, a notes sheets helps the prepared student.

I'll muse on papers and projects another time. Ta!

Seven Quick Takes

Someday, there will be an actual post that's not in bullets. Someday. but until then... bullets! :D

- The shuttle system here and I are sort of fighting. On Tuesday, it just didn't show up for almost a 1/2 hour. So I wound up driving to class, being slightly late, and very angry. I called them later in the day and they are supposed to get back to me about what the heck happened. Yesterday I decided to walk home from campus and it took about 45 minutes... in the Georgia heat so I almost died :P

- I'm still trying to wrap my brain around epidemiology, but I love it. I'm still learning my way around case design and interpreting data, but its SO cool. And even though my case study class can be hard, I really really like it.

- I learned how to bake fish! And it only caught fire once. What actually caught fire was the butter that melted off of the fish, and that's because I was trying to broil it and it was a little close to the broiler. All I had to do was take it out of the oven and blow it out, and the fish was fine, the aluminum foil was black. Smoke detector didn't go off though, which makes me wonder what it will take to make it go off :P Also made me think I should get a fire extinguisher if I continue to experiment while cooking.

- Georgia might actually have seasons... shocking I know!! But it's getting cool at night which makes walking to the bus stop nice, and then we can prop the door open at night for a breeze.

- It might be a good idea if I let the rest of the world know where I lived. I keep meaning to e-mail my friends and family with an address update, and I need to get my drivers license switched too. Oops.

- The hardest thing about my degree right now is choosing between all of the different cool things I could do. There are like 400 different things that interest me and I need to narrow down experiences I want to get and classes to take. But EVERYTHING here is so freaking cool and interesting... what a great problem to have :D

- I own a suit now. I don't know if this means I've arrived or sold out. But I needed it for a job fair last week, so I officially own a suit.

Seven Quick Takes

1. Classes have started and they are fun so far! I have awesome professors (more on that below) and they seem really interesting. Most excited about a case study class I'm taking in infectious diseases, we basically focus on a case a week and figure out how to work up out-breaks :D

2. My roommate is pretty awesome. She's invited me to things, helped me figure out where to park on campus, texted me today about a really bad traffic back-up near campus so I could avoid it, etc. We've had some fun conversations around the condo too. Good times.

3. Not only am I in a world of fellow students that went to top schools as undergrads, I'm in a world of professors that are experts in their field. As in, been working in AIDS since it was discovered, or worked on AIDS in Africa for 20 years, or worked in Asia eradicating smallpox for 15 years, or head of the Emory-wide center for global safe water, or former head of the entire country of Mexico's program on AIDS. It's awesome and intimidating at the same time. Makes it harder to work up the nerve to talk to them after class as I try to find a part-time job and/or research opportunities.

4. My Garmin has been doing great helping me get around Atlanta. Until tonight. When I asked it to find a Target, it dropped me in a residential neighborhood in the woods. Wtf Garmin?! It was so random. And it was like 8:30pm so it was dark. Luckily I found my way out and was mostly laughing to myself, but seriously? I think this is the 2nd time my Garmin has tried to kill me. Last fall on the way back from Amy's wedding it told me to turn left at a light... into oblivion. There was no road there! Dark and in the rain didn't help. So although I like my Garmin, I'm not sure the word describing our relationship is trust.

5. I've attended Clairemont Presbyterian Church twice and I think I might join a small group. The people there seem really nice and down to earth, and I like how the service is very scripturally based and worshipful. And when the pastor says in her sermon, "And at this point we are wondering what David was smoking..." its a good church =)

6. I'm trying to figure out what to do over the long weekend. I want to go to Six Flags but obviously not by myself. Other ideas include finding places to hike, exploring bike trails, and scrap-booking. Oh, and of course watching the Hokies play on Monday =)

7. I met some cool people, including a lot of returned peace corps volenteers (RPCV)s and other masters international (MI) students like me, on Friday night. I went to cocktails at the Fernbank, or whatever the event is called. Basically for about $7 you get into the museum from 5-? with a cash bar and you can buy IMAX tickets too. There's something cool about sipping a cosmo under a dinosaur skeleton. Afterwards we went to a Mexican restaurant because the food at the museum was very expensive. But it was an interesting experience =)