A Few of my Favorite (Christmas) Things.

In the spirit of the season, here are a few of my favorite things:

1. Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas

I have been trying to spread the gospel of Emmet Otter at the holidays. Some years are more successful (or appreciated) than others. This year I was thwarted by a lack of VCR. I may just have to get this gem on DVD.  It's a genuinely sweet (albeit quirky) holiday family movie.  Plus, I think Jim Henson is a genius.  Among other things, what Christmas movie do you know of that opens with a song about one's fat grandmother's bathing suit?

2. Christmas Music

We've had the ipod on perpetual Christmas playlist shuffle at my parent's house since I got here (and I'm pretty sure that has been the norm for the season... at least since the day AFTER Thanksgiving, that is.  Please.  That does not make me a Scrooge).  While there are many Christmas songs that I love, this is at the top, for purely sentimental/childhood/family reasons:


3. Christmas Trees

The tree is probably one of my favorite holiday traditions.  In our family, we cut our own.  Every year, the family drives a few hours north and spends the day tramping through the national forest to find our own "perfect" Christmas tree (I use the term loosely, trees in the wild are not nearly so).  More often than not, we end up with a self-proclaimed Charlie Brown tree, but it is loved.  

In addition, the bulk of the ornaments on our tree have some memory attached -- made in school, acquired on vacations, gifts from friends or family, etc.  As a result, decorating and looking at the tree is always story time.   Again, our tree would never be mistaken for Martha Stewart's, but it's real Christmas.

4. Christmas Cards

I mean the real ones, brag letter and all.  I love reading the letters I get, and even the ones my parents get from people I don't know.  I'm not to this point (yet), but my mom even saves brag letters for a year, until the next round goes out.  I guess it helps her keep track of what people have been up to.  This habit came in handy the summer I moved cross-country to Boston for grad school.  I didn't know anyone there, but oddly enough through the church's housing coordinator, I ended up rooming with the daughter of family Christmas-card-friends. We did actually pull out the previous year's letter in August just before I moved to get up-to-speed.  (Thankfully, Diana, I think you guys passed. )

As you may have noticed, I have not been good at this one lately, but I hope to reform.

5. The point.

I'm going to let Linus sum it up for me. (Another Christmas favorite... there's something about this whole film that represents the Christmas of my world better than anything else.)

INFJ.

We were discussing Myers-Briggs tonight, so I figured I'd share.  I couldn't remember for sure at the time, so I went and looked up an old email, and I am an INFJ.  (Or at least I have been in the past, do these things change?)

So, why are these tests so popular?  This was also posed tonight.   I figure we just like labels.  Maybe it diverts the responsibility from some of our choices.  I'm white and blue, man.  It's just who I am  (to cite the results of another well-worn personality test).  Or maybe it's easier to explain something when you can sum it up in a tidy package.  I mean, you think you know me a little better right now, don't you?  Don't tell me you've never had a conversation somewhat like this:

"So-and-so is red, maybe some yellow."

"Oh, mm-hmm."

(In fact, I just did tonight.)   I like to think that's efficiency.  It's probably laziness.

So... what are you?  (I'm lazy, okay? I think it's in my MBTI somewhere...)

Another Goal.

Earlier I mentioned that I have a goal of visiting all 7 continents. I also have a similar goal of visiting all 50 states.  This week, I was in New Orleans for a scientific conference, and in checking off Louisiana, I now have 10 states to go: Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota (if you don't count flight layovers), Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii.

Some may be harder than others. Who goes to Delaware just to go to Delaware? I very well may, at some point.


(P.S. - On Tuesday in New Orleans, it was 76 degrees. On Wednesday I got drenched wandering through the French Quarter in some kind of winter tropical storm. On Thursday it snowed. Hard. Weird. I still walked to get beignets and hot chocolate. It was worth the wet hair and the frozen pants.)

Bangladesh, Part II.

"Prominent among the curses of civilization is the map that folds up 'convenient for the pocket'. There are men who can do almost everything except shut a map." - James M. Barrie

In my family, we divide humanity into two categories: Map people and everyone else. We are map people.

Family vacations generally involved poring over the Rand McNally (before, during, and after). One year, my mom's prized Christmas gift was an atlas. We also had a big world map on our wall for a while, and would often just sit and look at it. At places we'd been, at places in the news, at places we wanted to visit.

In that spirit, for those of you unfamiliar with south Asia, this is where I currently am:

Image from: worldatlas.com

For all of my love of maps, though, I have a pretty lousy innate sense of direction. When home, I always keep a map in my car for the times I invariably get lost. I so far refuse to make the switch to GPS (which I think is mostly pride, and I'm not sure my passengers always appreciate that: "What do you mean you can't find out where we are? You just look at the map...")

Thus, I have struggled to orient myself here in Dhaka. I don't have to drive myself anywhere, so I don't really have to know where I am. And, really who can focus on navigating when traffic looks like this (which is actually not bad):

Or this:

I can now navigate within a certain distance of my hotel, though, and am starting to recognize landmarks on the way to and from work, but I have pulled up a city map online several times to figure out where I am and where I go, because it makes me feel less unsettled when I can put it all in context.

Navigating by landmarks alone can be dangerous, of course. In Atlanta, for example, you should know never to give directions by telling someone to turn after the Waffle House, as they are likely pass at least five on the way. In Boston, that would be Dunkin Donuts. In Dhaka it is the Bata brand shoe store (we did go to one the other day... how's that for local sightseeing?)


(For you fellow map people, a favorite blog: Strange Maps)

Bangladesh, Part I.

“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.”

- Rudyard Kipling

As soon as we stepped outside of the airport in Dhaka, my coworker Saumil, who lived in India as a child and has been back several times visiting family, stopped and then said to me, "Do you smell that? Now I know I'm in south Asia."

There are many smells here. Some good, like the smell of curry and other spices. Some not so good, like the smell of burning garbage or traffic fumes (so much traffic! at all hours!).

There are days I have curry for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so if I come back smelling a little differently, you'll know why. Either that or smelling like my hotel room does after the nightly mosquito spraying (which I guess is better than getting dengue, although on the days I'm actually in the room during the spraying I'm not so sure).

Perspective.

I work in public health, not medicine. I've had people ask me why I didn't just go to medical school. Because they're different things, I usually respond. I didn't want to study medicine, I wanted to study public health.

We focus on health at the population level, not on treating individuals. By learning which factors affect different diseases in populations and then how we might be able to modify them, the goal of public health is to prevent those diseases (or complications) from occurring. In many ways the goal of both medicine and public health is the same -- reducing illness and suffering -- but the approach is different.

This can be frustrating at times. On the one hand, it can be hard to see the impact of public health. When a doctor treats a sick patient and they get better, that may be obvious. But it's not always so easy to show that someone didn't get sick in the first place because of what you do. On the other hand, because I'm not a physician dealing directly with patients, I don't always have the opportunity to personalize it.

Today was one of those opportunities. We went to the clinic at the field site here (a very poor urban area on the outskirts of a poor urban Dhaka), and did rounds first with the doctor, before meetings. We stopped for a bit at one patient... a 13-year-old boy with a recurrent case of active TB, and now likely with a secondary case of pneumonia. By all rights, he should be hospitalized, but was refusing. Thus, they were making due at the clinic, with a daily injection of IV antibiotics. The clinic is not designed to be the area TB testing or treatment center, but the alternative was he would stay home and die.

Injecting antibiotics can be painful, though he was sitting there patiently. He has come back for six days now, but was very, very thin, and clearly still struggling to breathe. I am not sure how many times he will be back.

I'm not usually one to get outwardly emotional, but watching this was sobering. Childhood pneumonia is what I have been spending a large part of my work on lately, and what I am researching more here. Pneumonia is the leading cause of death worldwide in children under 5, and although I know the statistics, a small boy today helped give me some extra perspective.

The fifth continent.

I have a goal of visiting all seven continents. Arriving in Bangladesh this week, I have now marked off Asia as my fifth. Two more to go: Australia and Antarctica. Not bad, considering I didn't even get a passport until I was 22!

On the road again...

Said effort (see below) will have to wait. Over the last two months of 2008, I will be in the ATL for a total sum of about 2.5 weeks. I enjoy traveling, though this may be a little much all at once. The homebody in me likes a little downtime between adventures.

On the other hand, you may actually see some regular blog updates, now that I will have things to show for my time. Destinations should include: Washington DC, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, New Orleans, and... Mesa, AZ. Updates to follow.

Edited to add:
I believe this is the most well-medicated international trip I've ever been on (and this is just the pills... not the ointments, creams, bandages, and rehydration salts). CDC is nothing if not thorough.

Which is fairer, flower or leaf?

(A little Robert Frost aside there, this time of year makes me nostalgic for New England).

While living in Boston, apple picking became an annual fall tradition. I missed last year, but got back on track the other weekend during the annual apple festival in Ellijay, in north Georgia (though Southern apple picking is far too hot!). So far, products from the weekend spoils have included: apple pie, apple butter, apple dumplings, apple crisp, apple sauce, apple bread... (And I still have some apples to use up!).


Some observations:

1. I love autumn. It is by far my favorite season. Leaf over flower, for sure.

2. I need to explore my current home more. During the years in Boston, I was all over New England. Cities, small towns, cemeteries, parks, forests, neighborhoods. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York... I'm starting to realize how little I have explored since I moved to Georgia.

I've been thinking a lot about this lack lately. I may be here in Atlanta for 8 more months, or I may be here for years. Neither is a very good excuse for it. To quote another favorite author:


"At least in geographical terms, the frontiers have been explored and crossed. It is probably time we settled down. It is probably time we looked around us instead of looking ahead."

And later,


"Neither the country nor the society we built out of it can be healthy until we stop raiding and running, and learn to be quiet part of the time, and acquire the sense not of ownership but of belonging."

I definitely don't belong to Georgia yet. But, I should make more of an effort.

Thinkin' Incan

I went with my friend Andrea to help her look for Asian markets in the ethnic area of Atlanta last weekend, and we found a great international market that carries both Asian and Hispanic foods. This was a great find, because the (fabulous!) international market near my house has very a limited Hispanic food selection. While there, among other fun finds, was a shelf of Inca Kola (La bebida del Perú!) that was calling to me. Having just finished a bottle, I've been reminiscing about my summer spent working in Peru a few years ago.

I'm behind on the blog, and I've not got much time now, but I thought I'd share a memory. Actually, now I can't find the pictures I wanted, but here are a few random ones:

This is Las Pampas, the shantytown outside Lima where I worked half the time (collecting poop in a cup, but that's another story).
That is actually the well-developed part of town... there at the base of the hill are power lines and a few brick buildings. The farther you climb up the hill, the worse it gets.

I lived in a neighborhood in Lima near the NGO office. "La casa de gringos" housed anywhere from 8-17 people at a given time, all working on various projects with this NGO. This was the extra room built on the roof of our house (affectionately deemed "Little Pampas", see the resemblance?), where I bunked for a few weeks before a bed opened up in the main part of the house.

As you don't see from these, Peru is a beautiful country, and I have actual pictures of more fun and scenic things somewhere, but I can't find them right now... Anyway, point is I'm ready for another good travel adventure. I think one may be on the horizon this Fall. Stay tuned.

Charleston.

Since the 4th of July fell on a Friday this year, I had a nice long weekend off of work, and it seemed like a great chance to get out of town and explore this Southern world that I live in now. I'd heard great things about Charleston, so some friends and I decided we would make the trek to coastal South Carolina.

This was also my first beach trip in two years. I didn't get to the beach last year before moving from Boston, and then I was too busy settling into Atlanta to get out. I don't have pictures of the beach, but I do have a very sunburned left foot to show for it. I clearly managed to put sunblock everywhere except one foot, walking sunblock advertisement that I am.

After some sun and relaxation (and crabcakes and hush puppies), we went into town to look around. Settled in its current location in 1680, Charleston has quite a history, as it was a player in both the American Revolution and later the Civil War. Charleston was also a major hub in the slave trade, as it was one of only two ports in North America where slaves could be unloaded for quarantine before being sold.

I have a fondness for all things Colonial since living in Boston for six years, and Charleston was no disappointment, with its historic buildings and cobblestone streets. Downtown Charleston has some absolutely beautiful historic neighborhoods. Originally built in the mid-1700s, Rainbow Row marks one section of row houses near the waterfront.

Quoth Wikipedia: "After the Civil War, this area of Charleston devolved into near slum conditions. In the early 1900's, Dorothy Pocher Legge purchased a section of these houses numbering 99 through 101 East Bay and began to renovate them. She chose to paint these houses pink based on a colonial Caribbean color scheme. Other owners and future owners followed suit, creating the "rainbow" of pastel colors present today. The coloring of the houses helped give the area its name."

You can tell the really old buildings by how much the foundation has settled over time. This one was particularly noticeable, as the door has obviously been cut down a few times to fit the adjusted door frame.

The mansions at the tip of Charleston in the Battery Street area are a little younger (1800s), and much more extravagant. I am in love with the porches on all the houses:


Charleston is also where the first shots of the Civil War were fired, though we did not have time to get out to Fort Sumter. We did, however, get to the USS Yorktown, a retired WWII aircraft carrier that is anchored across the river from downtown Charleston.
On board is a museum of naval and maritime history, and you can also climb through all of the sections of the ship, through the 'guts' of the engine room and the brig and the living quarters, up to the mission room, the navigation rooms, and the flight deck. In the hangar bay and on the flight deck are dozens of retired fighter planes from WWI to near present-day, and one you can get inside.

Finally, we went to Magnolia Plantation which has some beautiful gardens, but unfortunately we were not there long before we got chased by a major thunderstorm.
There was plenty more to see and learn about Charleston, and since it's only five hours away, I may need to trek back. Though, I will think seriously about doing it again in spring or fall when it's not quite so hot and steamy!

An Ode to Public Transportation

I was riding MARTA (the Atlanta subway system) the other night from downtown and had to chuckle at the lack of train-riding efficiency around me. It was crowded after the movie, and some people chose to wait on the platform, while in my opinion, there was plenty of room left in the cars. (Plenty of room I suppose, though, if you have ever been on the Green Line of the T in Boston during rush hour on a Red Sox game day. If so, you know a well-packed train.)

On the ride home, I found myself thinking about many years spent riding public transportation... something I've been prone to think about lately given the time I spend in my car and the rising price of gas.

(The following meditation on mass transit brought to you by our friends at Sesame Street. Buy a token now for a ride that's super-wow!)


This year in Atlanta has been the first of my adult life commuting to work or school without public transit. Recall also that I spent 4 of those years in Tucson, AZ, a town not known for stellar public transit. I have now used public buses and subways in at least 5 countries and 9 states (that I can think of at this moment).

Yes, public transportation can be a headache in many ways. There were times I have been near tears -- packed in awkwardly with heavy groceries or waiting for a very overdue bus at night in sub-zero wind chill. It also did once take me almost 3 hours to get the 5.5 miles to work after the blizzard of '03 (yes, I could have walked it faster... it's a long story).

After one year of car-dependence, though, I conclude that I would take the headache back. Traffic is horrid in Atlanta, but even if it weren't, I would much rather ride the daily commute than drive it.

It is true that because I drive everywhere, I can navigate around Atlanta better than I could in other places I have lived. For example, I remember the first time someone offered to drive me home from a church activity after moving to Boston. Gratitude quickly turned to embarrassment when I realized I didn't actually know how to get home... unless she could get to my bus route. After listing a few landmarks, she was able to get close enough that I could navigate the rest of the way.

However, I feel less connected to my city now than I have in other places I've lived. While some of that is likely for other reasons, I do think much is because I live my life in bubbles -- I have a house bubble and a work bubble and a church bubble and a friend bubble, and then I now even travel between all of those separated from the rest of the world in a car bubble. Tucson, for example, may not have a great public transportation network (thus the majority of people who used it were either poor/elderly/handicapped and didn't have cars, or they'd had their licenses suspended), but I got to know and love the city in a way I wouldn't have otherwise.

Transit is also fodder for the best stories. But, this is already long. How about you? What are your favorite bus or subway tales?

Yes, I live in the South.

That was made abundantly clear last weekend. I spent Saturday with friends out at Stone Mountain, east of Atlanta (NB: a very large granite boulder, really, for those living in the West with real mountains). It is also the self-proclaimed Mt. Rushmore of the South, with three "Confederate heroes" carved into one side (NB#2: that would be Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis for you yanks).

We spent the afternoon melting in 97 degree temperatures (plus humidity! HOTlanta!) having fun at their little theme park and also took the tram up to the top of the mountain. Here's an example of the view of surrounding (very flat) Georgia.


Then at night, we had a picnic and watched the laser light show they put on during the summer on the side of the mountain. Although the laser show looked very much like we had wandered into someone's late 70s acid trip, it was ultimately a celebration of all things Southern. The show was set to such songs as "Georgia on My Mind", "Sweet Home Alabama", "We love country and we like it loud", etc.

And, lest you were still unclear that you lived south of the Mason-Dixon line, it was capped off with a moving rendition of Dixie and the Battle Hymn of the Republic (Elvis, of course), during which laser outlines of our three confederate heroes charged again on their horses.

Yes, I live in the South. Ya'll are welcome to visit anytime!

Another gem.

This one is much tastier: Cupcake Hero.


I think I am behind the curve on the cupcake gig, but I really didn't get it until recently. A friend introduced me to the joys of Cupcake Hero and now I am smitten with cupcakes (or buns, if you're Irish... or at an Irish/British/German/New Zealand/American Lost-watching fête).

Thursday was Key Lime Pie cupcakes. Now to decide what to try next. I think I'm curious about the Root Beer Clove variety, but there are oh so many choices...

Simple pleasures.

This made me laugh: Utah's latest public health ad campaign.


(If you didn't already know, I'm a total disease nerd... you should see my bookshelves.)

If you could have a superpower, would you rather be invisible or be able to fly?

This was posed during some very deep (clearly) dinner conversation the other day. I picked flying, as did most, but there was one tempting vote for invisible. After all, you could watch people all you want without the awkwardness that might come with bald-faced staring. That's not too far off from the blog world, though, right? I see you, but you don't see me? Plenty of uninhibited people-watching. I have many friends on blogs these days, but as the number grows I only feel an increasing sense that I would be somehow cheating by keeping up on your lives in near anonymity without anything to reciprocate.

So, here I am. As you can see below, I had good intentions once upon a time. I've decided to try again. I make no guarantees as to longevity (or content). Maybe one day I'll fully embrace all this new media stuff.

Oh, and I guess I still pick flying. I can find other ways to be invisible.