Life is busy

Becky (and maybe Jody): beware scary picture below

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, POPS!!!!!

Just checked my time schedule: hot professor again on Friday! This one's a lab, though, so less of a risk of not being able to concentrate (also, more chance of actually interacting with him...)

So, turns out I'm a busy, busy girl. Will write more on the weekend? Lame, I know. Tomorrow night is a group trip to Ikea (yay for measuring cups!), and Friday is Halloween. I will be attending no less than three parties! Woohoo! My classmate, Carina, gave me a costume suggestion that I can totally do. I was thinking I would have to resort to being a witch, which I've never been before and I was sort of not thrilled about. I don't know, must be residual religious conservatism from our family's cult-church days, when we were discouraged from even celebrating Halloween. Yes, I was a deprived child. Anyway, what I'm gonna be instead will probably look an awful lot like what I would have looked like as a witch, but minus the pointy hat and plus a scythe. What am I gonna be? The grim reaper? No, silly! Black Death (aka the Bubonic Plague). Have to give it an infectious disease spin.

I was thinking about adding a Plague doctor mask to really round out the outfit, but a) that would be hard to make, and b) those things seriously creep me out, and will probably creep others out as well. But if I did do it, I would fill it with garlic just to be really authentic.

HOLY CRAP, IT'S SNOWING!!!!!

Llamas for Obama

No time to write much, as I'm actually attempting to study (i.e. read all required readings the night before class because I didn't study at all this past week).

Just wanted to mention that I went to a talk yesterday during lunch called "Shrinking the Malaria Map." At one point, while talking about the financial crisis and plans for a bailout, the speaker said, "that should be approved February or March of next year, under President Obama." Pause for cheers and applause.

Oh yeah, I also went to the Tower of London yesterday. I guess I'll talk about that tomorrow.

My crazy night

Last night was so odd. My classmate, C (names have been shortened to protect the not innocent), invited me out with a group of her friends. We went to a club that none of our group had ever been to before, but about which they'd heard great things.

List of oddities:
1. The club is directly opposite from London Bridge tube station. There is a completely innocuous-looking door somewhere between two vending machines that is opened somewhere around 8 or 9pm in the evening.
2. The club opens at 8 or 9pm. What kind of club opens that early?
3. The line for the club starts at about the same time and runs all the way along the wall back into the London Bridge train station area. In other words, lots of people want to get into this club. We arrive at about 9:30 and are quite a ways back, but things move along fairly quickly. This is because other groups in the line have decided it isn't worth the wait, and leave.
4. After they've let in an initial number of people (say, 50?) the bouncers only let in one person at a time as people leave. One in, one out. Standing in line for 1.5 hours, you get the impression that it's a very small club.
5. We wait 1 hour 30 minutes to get to the front of the line. While there, some people leave the club. One of the people is very obviously a child. What kind of club is this that people are willing to queue an hour for, yet they let in children?
6. Also while in line, my classmate, C, demonstrates on her friends her ability to find peoples nipples through their shirts on the first try. Apparently, it's her party trick (she has only ever missed once.) I make it clear that I am not amenable to having my nipples located.
7. While at the front of the line, we witness several different people harassing, flirting with, shouting at, and attempting to trick the bouncers. One girl offers to pay double in order to be allowed to queue-jump. The bouncers are having none of it.
8. Due to the one in, one out policy, our group of 10 is allowed into the club in groups of two. I go in with C. This is where things get really weird.
9. The club is called "Shunt," which means that the word, "shunt" is now stamped on my wrist. I feel even classier than when I was sporting a "barfly" stamp.
10. We are now in the bowels of a train station. Imagine walking through a sewer, minus the sewage. We walk down a poorly lit tunnel with arches leading off to the right and left. In some of the archways, there are modern art exhibitions taking place. In one archway, a boring video is being projected onto the wall. No one is watching. In another archway, two men shuffle their feet in scraps of paper. The piece of wood they're standing on is outfitted with microphones underneath, so every movement, every scratch of paper, is amplified for the viewers. Apparently, earlier in the evening, there are theater troupes doing bizarro performances.
11. The place is absolutely HUGE. The one in, one out policy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, as neither of the dance floors (yes, two) are anywhere near capacity. In addition to the two dance floors, there is a large room with a bar and tables, an even larger room with comfy chairs and fall leaves scattered all over the floor, a game room with pinball machines and video arcades from the 80s, and at least two pianos in random places. None of these are full of people.
12. The music is electro-trance, so is a bit hard to dance to and lends the place a rave vibe. I haven't taken any E, so it's a bit lost on me.
13. At one point, a few of us are standing in a corner, and water drips on me. We are basically in an underground cave, after all. The wall behind me is soaked, but the adjoining wall looks dry, so I touch it. I immediately pull my hand away, but it's too late. I have been slimed.
14. A guy named "Ferg" (Fergus, who is not Scottish), starts chatting with C and I. She does her party trick. They then turn to me to see if I can locate his nipples through his t-shirt. I learn that I am incapable of reaching out and touching a total stranger's nipples. Who knew?
15. The music gets a bit better, meaning that it acquires an actual beat, so we go to dance. I must have been a bit tipsy, because I hugged no less than three different previously-unknown men (though not at the same time).
16. As I'm dancing, minding my own business, a guy reaches out for my hand, spins me, and starts to dance ballroom-style with me. Not well, I mean, but just his left hand and my right hand clasped and pointing outwards, our other arms around each other's waists, our feet tripping over each other as we spin in circles. He continues to do this throughout the evening. At no point does he try to grind with me or sneak up and dance sexually behind me. I probably should have asked for his number, just because he was such a sweetie. And he wasn't ugly, either. Oh well!

After a while, I get tired and start worrying about when I'll be able to rest my head on a pillow. I think the club stays open all night and morning, so it could potentially be many more hours. As I'm worrying about this, C motions that she wants to leave. Yes!! Relief! I am still dancing with ballroom guy, so she says, "You can stay and come home with the others." Ha! You underestimate my love for my pillow.
17. To leave, we head back the way we came in, but the way is blocked with a gate. Through the gate, you can see the long, dark, now-empty hallway. It's like being in a medieval prison. The London Dungeons actually are just around the corner from the club. I think it's also where you get the Jack the Ripper tour.
18. As we leave the club, I check the time. It's just before 1am. Pathetic! Though you do have to consider that we got there at 9:30.

The weirdness pretty much ends once we leave the club, but while we're waiting for the bus, a couple guys start talking to us about it. They arrived at 11, when there was no line at all, then tried to leave at 11:30, but the bouncer wouldn't let them. As we're talking, I notice that one of them is wearing an Obama t-shirt. Awesome! They are both British, as is C (sort of), and they start talking about how funny it is that they know more about American politicians than they do about British ones. Everyone here wishes they could vote in this election. The other day in the mail I received my voter registration card for Renton, WA. Thanks, King County. That'll come in real handy over here in the UK. Glad you splurged on the 94 cent stamp! I was with Scottish Laura at the time, and she was saying how she wished she could vote in this election, so I offered her my registration card. All she would have to do is fly to Seattle and commit fraud by forging my signature on the ballot. Oh wait, I already voted. Right, guess it's a faulty plan after all.

It's now 1:22pm and I'm still in my pyjamas, so I'm starting to feel a bit funny. I've been up since 10am, so it's not an issue of sleeping too late. It's more an issue of having wasted the better part of the day. Whatever I do today, if indeed I do anything at all, the day will be over before I'm ready for it to be done. Hm, I bet people are ready for this blog post to be done, eh? Getting a bit long in the tooth. Does that expression apply here? Whatever. Have a good Sunday! Don't waste it like I've done.

Working hard at hardly working

An eventful couple of days. By my standards, at least.

First, Thursday morning, I was a teensy bit late for class (like, one minute), so I quickly walked in and found a seat. Almost immediately after settling in, I noticed the lecturer. Ohmygoshsogorgeous!!! The guy was seriously a dreamier version of Peter Petrelli from Heroes. I'm ashamed to admit that I actually had some trouble concentrating throughout the lecture. Normally, my eyes transfer between three different places: the slides onscreen, my notes, and the lecturer. In this lecture (on diarrheal diseases again), everytime my eyes focused on the lecturer, I lost all ability to concentrate. Wow, he is pretty, would course through my brain repeatedly. I wonder if he notices me over here. Maybe I should ask an insightful question. He's gorgeous, etc.

There are a little over 40 people in our class, and only 4 of them are men, so I knew someone would agree with me about his extreme hotness. When he was done, we took a break. A group of 6 of us made it all the way to the elevators before someone said, "Man, he was fit!" ("Fit" in England means "hot.") Before long, it was 20 of us gushing about him. But then someone had to ruin it. "Did you notice the wedding ring?" Sigh...all the gorgeous ones are taken, even when they study poop for a living.

Yesterday evening was the school's first pubquiz of the year. Four of us from my course formed a group, and we were pretty much awful, but we didn't get last place! Yay, us! It was jolly good fun! Afterwards, this guy from a different course was talking to us, and somehow we got on the subject of age. Scottish Laura is the same age as me, and she was saying how she felt kind of old. The guy we were talking to is studying to be a doctor (actually, he's the guy I was talking to a couple weeks ago about narcolepsy). At first, he said, "You're not old." But then he sort of changed his mind, and made some comment about how, unlike men, who have forever and ever to reproduce, women really need to stay on the ball and not let too much time pass, because they really shouldn't have kids past 40. Obviously, that did not sit well with us women, and we raised quite a stink. But he kept defending himself, saying it was his job as a doctor to warn us about significant health problems. Um, being 26 and not having children is now a significant health risk? He was such a moron. The debate went on for at least 45 minutes, I'm not even exaggerating. Laura and I would not let him get away with it. Finally, she told him he needed to apologize, which he did, then she told him he needed to buy us drinks. He wouldn't buy me a drink, though, because I wanted something other than beer, but whatever. The three of us stayed around for a while longer, but every topic of conversation devolved into an absurd debate. It was pretty funny.

Afterward, Laura and I went to a "chip shop" near our hall, but the fries were awful. I thought England was famous for their "chips," but I haven't had a good fry since I got here! What's up with that? Izzi, if you're reading, where can I get some decent chips?

Today being Friday, we all went to a bar after class. Well, when I say "all," I mean about 25% of us. I talked two classmates into going to the Tower of London with me tomorrow, but I feel a bit bad, because it's really freaking expensive! 14 pounds for students! What a ripoff. That's exactly why Jody and I didn't go in when we were here (though we did go into the gift shop). Ridiculous. Still, I have to go sometime, so even if no one will go with me, I'm going tomorrow. That's that.

At the second bar of the night, I was talking to some friends from another course, and they invited me to Ireland for a week during spring break and Amsterdam for four days during reading week. Sweet! I'm so there! Now I just have to figure out what to do during Christmas...

Still not sick!

I forgot to mention yesterday that I got a PRESENT from Becky (and John, but not really.) Yay! She made me a set of scarves! I tried to take a picture of myself wearing them, but it didn't work out, so here's a picture of them on a chair. I actually think I might use them as decoration for my room, cuz I have no personal touches in my room. No picture frames or anything.



Thanks, Becky!

Do you want to know why the British drink so much tea? It's because the water here is gross. Maybe not as bad as Southern California water, but nowhere near as tasty (or tasteless?) as Seattle water. That's my theory, anyway.

Well, after doing yoga, I'm am very sore and very tired. But I am not sick! Or I was sick, but with the mildest sickness ever. A bit of swollen glands, a touch of sore throat, nothing worse. It's all sort of fading now, and I hope that doesn't mean it'll suddenly hit me full force tomorrow or the day after.

Today was epidemiology and Health Policy: Process and Power. I'm annoyed with this class. It's the one I'm least interested in, but it requires the most work, particularly reading. We have an hour of lecture, then 1.5 hours of practical groups. Every week, we have required reading for the lecture, usually a chapter or two from the textbook. Then we also have required reading for the practical, and we also have to read and discuss some case studies. There are five case studies for the course, and we basically have to read all of them in the first few weeks. Today's lecture could have been skipped, as the slides are posted online, and the lecturer simply read off the slides. He didn't add any further information or examples. The practical could have been skipped as well, as all we did was discuss in groups how people or groups exert power. One question we discusses was what resources you can use to exert power. Off the top of my head, I'd say money, psychological manipulation, expert knowledge, etc. I could have that discussion with any of you, and you would be able to offer the same insight as people in the class! But I'd still rather take this class than Health Economics (it was a choice between those two).

Everyone is assigned a "tutor." I put that in quotes because they don't "tutor" you in the traditional American sense of the word. They're really advisers. Anyway, I met with my adviser today. He wants me to be deciding now, after three weeks, what classes I'll be taking next term (after Christmas). He also wants me to do an oral presentation, with Powerpoint slides, in two weeks. None of my classmates have had to do these things. I suppose I should consider myself lucky, though, that I have a tutor who's keeping me on track and making sure I have the skills necessary for the future (i.e. presenting information). But now I have to come up with a presentation! And on what? Why, whatever I want, of course! He said I could use a past presentation, but I don't remember enough about my cyanobacteria project to present that. Blech.

Anyway, that's school. Thursday and Friday are Control of Infectious Diseases all day, so are a bit thick, but are actually sort of easy because we don't have to memorize minutae (or mathematical formulas). We just need to absorb broader concepts, which is alright with me. It's just a slow glide into the weekend...

Yoga sucks!

Oh, Lord help me! None of my muscles are working properly now! On the way out of the yoga hall, I almost smacked Laura in the face with the door cuz I couldn't control my arms. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Laura and Holly want to know if I want to go out for a drink. Right. Lack of control over muscles + alcohol = FUN TIMEZ!

Poopy lectures

Still not sick, but feeling like I'm getting sick. I'm really hoping this is the worst of it, cuz I can totally handle this. I'm even going to try yoga for the first time tonight. My classmate, Laura, who lives in my building, wouldn't take my excuse of "Well, I sort of feel nauseous off and on."

We had two lectures this afternoon, both dealing with enteric pathogens. You know, the bugs that give you the squirts. There were lots of pictures of poop and damaged colons. One lecturer kindly shared this chart with us to illustrate that it's hard to define "diarrhea":


Lovely descriptions, non? He was a microbiologist, and he kept making jokes about virologists and cell biologists. His lecture totally reminded me of my medical micro professor back in college, who liked to say, "Poop is my bread and butter."

The great thing about this school is that we don't have the same lecturers every day, because they have experts in each topic come and share their knowledge. We hear from some of the world's leading experts on things like influenza, tuberculosis, and acute respiratory infections, to name a few. I guess that's why I'm paying so much money!

Oh man, almost time for yoga. I'm not sure this is such a good idea. Tomorrow, I may be sick and sore!

More dreams, and school

Last night, I dreamt I was headed down SE 148th, trying to decide between Target and Fred Meyer. In my dream, I thought to myself, "Why am I banging my head against a wall trying to find stores that sell measuring cups when I can have these two stores to choose from?" Life is convenient in the States. Boring maybe, but convenient.

Measuring cups. You wouldn't think they'd be that hard to find! Looks like I'll be making another trip to IKEA. I need a full-length mirror anyway. How hard would it be for the residence hall to put a really cheap full-length in every room? No one in their right mind is going to mind having a full-length mirror in their room. Is there a suggestion box here?

I still feel like I'm getting sick, but it hasn't hit yet. I went to statistics today. Luckily, Mondays are short days for me. I'm worried about tomorrow, though. I have a full day, and I don't want to miss anything, so I'm hoping my illness will just remain kind of low-level like it is now.

Reading Sarah's blog about baby names, I was reminded of something someone told me on Friday. Some hospitals here have a policy of not revealing the gender of your baby, because on the NHS, you only get two ultrasounds during the course of your pregnancy. (Sarah, how many will you have?) With only one ultrasound later in the pregnancy, it's possible to misinterpret the photo and get the gender wrong. If the family then goes out and buys a bunch of pink stuff and it turns out to be a boy, they could get pretty upset with the hospital.

I'm really enjoying my course so far, especially the lectures that are specific to my group. Last week, we did an activity where we were all split into different groups representing different policy-making groups during a smallpox outbreak. You may be aware, smallpox is one of the few infectious disease that humankind has managed to completely eradicate. There are small amounts of smallpox samples kept in refrigerators at the CDC, as well as some samples kept in Russia. During the Cold War, the USSR split their smallpox supplies among many of their satellite nations, and it is suspected that some vials are unaccounted for. Our class was divided into groups representing the UK government, the opposition government (the other party in their two-party system), the UK health administration, a UK pharmaceutical company, the media, the US government, and the Russian government. Guess which group I was in? US government! A representative from each group was selected to sit on a panel deciding how to handle the problem. As the US government, our policy was written for us based on the US government's actual policy in case of a smallpox outbreak.

See, the US government is paranoid about an outbreak, so we've bought up all the smallpox vaccine stocks, and we've generated several of our own. The World Health Organization's plan in case of an outbreak is to contain it using a ring-vaccination scheme, where you vaccinate only the people who have come into contact with the infected person/people. All nations are supposed to contribute vaccines to the nation dealing with the outbreak. But unofficial US policy, supposedly until 6 mos ago, was to vaccinate every single American, regardless of where the outbreak happened, and donate any remaining vaccine. But we don't have enough vaccine to vaccinate everyone, so the UK wouldn't get a thing from us. As the US representative, I got to sit on the panel and inform everyone that we would not be giving them any vaccine to control their epidemic. I was also sitting next to the Russian rep, and I got to accuse Russia of starting the outbreak. It was really fun, but my heart was racing and my hands were shaking. Everyone did a really good job of representing their contingencies. The opposition party kept accusing the government of doing a bad job, and saying things like, "If we'd been in power, we never would have let this happen."

So my courses are fun and interesting, but I am getting muddled up with formulas. There are the standard error, confidence interval, and statistical significance formulas in statistics class, then the rate ratios, rate differences, population attributable risk fraction, etc in epidemiology class. Guh. Can't keep it all straight. What measures what? It probably doesn't help that I haven't been studying much. Should work on that.