pics...finally!

pics...some old and some new...enjoy!

one of my last small group dinners, c and h prepared a real southern meal, complete with fried chicken, cornbread, sweet tea, and okra...i miss you guys!

a final westwood house dinner...i miss you guys...and the food!
this past weekend, one of my co-workers organized a field trip to a corn maze...we formed teams and raced each other through the maze. our team won, not that i helped at all...just followed my team members.
from the maze, we were making our way to helen, georgia and we passed this....i couldn't resist taking a pic.then we headed to helen, georgia for oktoberfest...it's this little german town about an hour and a half from atlanta...
now some random pics...this is my roommate's cat, chloe. very pretty, but also very, very shy. this is the best shot i could get of her...
one of the things i really like about atlanta is that it's very green. in the mornings, i take the freeway to work, but on the way home, i take a more scenic route...i love driving down this street.
...and this is the street leading up to my apartment complex. pretty nice, eh?

what am i doing in the south?

someone, who last updated her own blog october 15th (only two days later than i did), was complaining that i haven't updated in a while, so...i know i haven't been updating very frequently...and what with my recent move and all, you'd think there'd be a lot to blog about. there actually is...but i'm still processing, so i think that's why i've been holding off. and the reason i'm still processing is because things have been pretty busy...haven't had a chance to just sit and be quiet with my thoughts...

but i can still write about a few things....one or two other people have expressed a leetle interest in what i'm actually doing at the cdc, so i'll take that little bit of encouragement and run with it. i'm on the surveillance team in the global aids program...there's a lot that we do, but basically, we help other countries conduct surveillance on their hiv/aids epidemics. there's a wide range of things that entails...for instance, our team will conduct training workshops for in-country staff on different surveillance methods, ranging from how to sample from high-risk populations to how to utilize new hiv tests. those activities are more about capacity-building, but in some countries, they have very little resources, so our team will go in and do most of the work for them, from writing up surveillance protocols, training staff to implement the protocol, conducting data analysis and writing up the findings. so right now, i'm working on a few training modules and helping to organize an ethics consultation on surveillance methods in international settings. in a few weeks, i'm going to, get this...zanzibar (!!) for 3 weeks to help conduct a training workshop and then do some data analysis and writing. i'm actually as excited about being there as i am about actually getting to do some of the work.

so zanzibar is an island off the coast of tanzania, which is in east africa. based on what i found online, it looks amazing...beautiful beaches, lots of history. i also found out that one of the things to see there is livingstone's house (yes, dr. david livingstone), and a lot of missionaries and explorers stayed there as a starting point before entering africa. i thought that was interesting given that this will be my first time in africa...

other things i wanted to post about...since the cdc does a lot of international work, there are some pretty cool things that they make available for their employees:

- weekly spanish and french lessons on-site...so i'm brushing up on my spanish, but it's been a looong time.
- visa service...i give them my passport and the visa application, and they get me a visa for whatever country i'm going to within about a week. don't have to pay for it or haggle with any embassies...
- travel clinic...i make an appointment and tell them where i'm going, they give me the necessary vaccines, plus a kit with cipro, gi meds, mosquito repellent, malarial meds...the works. like a little gift bag, but one that could potentially save your life, or at least save you a world of pain and suffering.
- kinda nerdy, but they have lectures and seminars on-site all the time. and they offer short workshops and courses on everything from developing leadership skills to using software programs...kinda cool for the learner in me.

so overall, i'm finding the cdc to be a cool place to work. the work's interesting, my co-workers are really cool, and it's international...i feel very lucky to be here.

southern girl?

so...i don't think anyone reads this anymore, but that's ok...i guess this will be more for me, to record and process things that have been going on...

so basically, the week before i left for bali, i found out that i had gotten into a fellowship program i had applied to back in april, a position where i'd be working at the cdc in international hiv/aids. i had been praying for this for a while, so i accepted almost right away, then took off for indonesia. i had basically about a month before i had to move out to atlanta, but i made a commitment to focus on bali and not to think about the details of the move until i got back...that left me a little over 2 weeks to figure everything out and get myself moved somehow. so in those 2 weeks, even as i dealt with the sad reality of leaving la, God provided:
- a roommate and an apartment
- a way to get my car and other stuff shipped out to atlanta
- a lead on a church (there's more to it, but i'll save that for another day)
- numerous reassurances, including the fact that my new apartment is within 2 miles of a costco and finding an online list of open gyms throughout atlanta for volleyball.

when i got to atlanta, the first week was spent in orientation, the highlight of which was a working-for-the-us-government-overseas orientation, where we were taught how to watch out for terrorists, to avoid espionage, and what to do if we're ever kidnapped and held hostage. good stuffs...

but seriously, once i got to atlanta, God continued to affirm that this was the right place for me...
- i wasn't able to move into my apartment until the end of september, leaving me homeless for about 10 days...my first day at orientation, one of my fellow fellows offered to let me (dude, we had just met...she's just that cool) crash at her place until i was able to move in.
- i ended up with a really good team. i'm working in the surveillance team, with a really nice boss and great co-workers...
- so there's this girl who i'd been hearing about since my summer in cambodia...she was there right before i got there, she went to berkeley for her degree, and she knew my ucla professor, so i kept on hearing about her...turns out that she's on the surveillance team! she's super nice, so she took me out to lunch one day...i'm looking forward to getting to know her better.
- my roommate is super, super sweet, and our apartment is lovely...and rent is so cheap!

there are tons of other ways that God has been so gracious and generous to me...i am amazed and so thankful for His provision, the ways that He truly has gone before me and blessed me in ways that i don't deserve. the past month since i've moved has been a whirlwind...it's finally starting to slow down, but there's so much i feel like i need to process through, and i'm not sure if the reality of all this has really sunk in. but through it all, i am so thankful and humbled...i truly hope that i accomplish what God has brought me here for...