Lunch break

Lunchtime blogging. Have I mentioned that I get a 1.5 hour lunch break every day (as long as there's no lunchtime seminar)? Just one of the perks.

Yesterday was a full day of tuberculosis. I think I'm more interested in TB than in HIV these days. Though currently, the big problem with HIV is that (poor) people infected with it are more likely to contract TB as well. So TB/HIV coinfection is a huge problem in the poorer parts of the world. There were three lecturers yesterday, and two of them stated multiple times that the real, underlying problem of TB is poverty. We can't eradicate TB until we eradicate poverty. They said there is too much focus on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of TB, and not enough work being done on the poverty. They then went on to say that eradicating poverty isn't our (public health people) job, so we should focus on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Grrr...And what if I think it is my job to eradicate poverty? Clearly, they're not prepared to equip me with the tools to do so.

Anyhoo, after class, some of us CIDers went to a pub. I didn't want beer, but it was too early for harder liquor (it was only 4pm) so I had a glass of wine and a bag of chips, er crisps (though not quite the combination that Izzi suggested. Was it chardonnay and chili-flavored chips?) Tres chic. There was a guy there who's doing a course at my school part-time while also finishing up a medical degree at Northwestern (overachiever?) I ended up going on and on about narcolepsy to him and his conclusion, not knowing anything about narcolepsy was a) exercise and eat healthy, and b) perhaps I don't have narcolepsy. So it turns out, even if you haven't finished medical school and you have no experience with narcolepsy, your medical advice is exactly the same as someone with years of experience! Good to know! When I mentioned that I don't eat healthy because I hate cooking, my (slightly inebriated) classmate, Scottish Laura, exclaimed that she loved cooking and would cook for me/teach me to cook. Suh-weet! I'll definitely have to hold her to that.

Laura lives in the same hall as me, and she mentioned that there was a post-graduate social event in the evening. Our residence hall is made up of both undergrads and post-grads. There are even flats available so you can live here with your spouse and children. It's make for a weird mix of the mature and immature. At this event, they promised free drinks (wine and OJ) and free food (biggest bowl of peanuts you've ever seen in your life), so after the pub, we headed over. I mostly just talked to people I already knew from school, but towards the end of the evening, I met a girl from L.A. who lives almost directly across the hallway from me. She and my schoolmate, Patricia, and I went on a mini-tour of each other's rooms, just to compare. I'm a neat-freak, so my room is pretty spartan, and I noticed the difference that can make in the apparent size of the room. I feel like my room is very spacious, but when I walked into the exact same room across the hall, it felt much smaller because there was more stuff in the room. I guess it pays to be anal-retentive!

Today is a short day. We had a one-hour lecture at 11, then we'll have a 1.5 hour lecture at 2pm. Afterwards, of course, we're all going to the pub, supposedly as a group (there are about 42 of us). And I'm supposed to hang out with "the boy" tonight (my date from last week). I'll have to come up with a nick-name for him, if this is going to continue (and I'm not sure it will).