fall 2009 pics

went to a park in bucharest where they featured model houses and churches from different parts of romania. have already forgotten the name, but here's one of the churches...
went to dinner one night and walked by the oldest church in romania...these are the workshop facilitators i worked with...
the people's palace (or palace of parliament)...built by a crazy communist leader. if you google it, it's got a pretty crazy story...
a few months ago, i went to charleston for a weekend trip with sarah...hit an actual plantation...
that's an alligator on the left, little duckies on the right...don't worry, they escaped into the reeds.
another gator...
charleston is a pretty city...family-friendly, but not so pet-friendly, which was an issue because we took along this little gal...so cute, no? just hard to get into restaurants and other sights in the city because of her. it's all good, though...we got to walk around and people loved her. it was a nice trip.

in my last post i forgot to mention that there have been a few visitors the past month. first, jane and earnie visited for a few days, so we had a proper southern dinner at mary mac's tea room...didn't have my camera, so no pics there. but i'm now working on getting jane to apply for the eis fellowship at the cdc...am plotting ways to improve the volleyball scene in atlanta...hehe.

the next week, hana was in town for a conference, so got to hang out with her a few times, plus flor, who was here for eis interviews. i haven't seen her since my last trip to el salvador, so it was awesome to have her over...i'm hoping she gets into eis so she can move to atlanta! that same week, our team's ex-eis officer, neha, was also in town, so we met up a few times...and then i left for suriname. it was a crazy week, but so nice to see everybody.

hmm, this post is eis-heavy, so i feel like i should explain. eis stands for epidemic intelligence service - a two-year fellowship for health professionals (mostly mds) at the cdc...you're either based in certain positions in atlanta or at a state health department doing applied public health work. it's a very prestigious and rigorous fellowship - much more than mine on both counts, and it's a good way to transition to or progress in a public health career.

okay...now that i've posted twice in one week, i'm done for a while...just kidding! ;P

mia...

so...it's been a looong time, i know. things since my last blog have been good. let's see...to catch up, in september my fellowship ended and i started working as a contractor for the same team, pretty much doing the same work. i had a week of being unemployed, so i headed to la and had a great, albeit too short, trip to hang out with friends and family. then i started my job as a contractor, with a one week trip in October to Bucharest, and another trip last week to Suriname...pretty random, i know. other than that, have been wrestling with all the new policies, trainings, and procedures of my new employer. and after 2 months of that as a contractor, i now have another month or two of policies, training, and procedures to look forward to...as an official cdc employee! while i was transitioning, a full-time position opened up with my team, so i applied, and...after a few nail-biting weeks, found out that i got it! so i officially start next week, after which i will be grounded for 30 days (through cdc, have to submit for international travel 30 days in advance), though there's be a trip to san fran mid-december...yaay! but learning the ropes for my second new employer in 2 months...bleh.

anyways, i'll have to post pics later, but romania was fun...my first time in eastern europe, so it was interesting. the city was a mix of a few beautiful old buildings that somehow survived the rise and fall of communism, plus some other less beautiful buildings that were built during the communist regime, plus some newer influences. had a good time with the people i worked with there.

suriname was also great...just really hard to get to...pretty much takes 17 hours to go about 4000 miles. had some interesting layovers, though. on the way there, i had to sprint across the miami airport (they actually called my name over the loudspeakers for a last boarding call) because i had a 50 minute layover. i sprinted most of the way and then flagged down a cart because i was dying. dy--ing. so out of shape am i. managed to make it to trinidad and tobago, where i had a 7 hour layover, but was cautioned not to try to head out of the airport alone. not so safe, apparently. was also propositioned by a security guard at the airport, but that's another story. anyways, i made it to suriname safe and sound...suriname itself was interesting as well. on the 45 km ride from the airport at 2 in the morning, i noticed all these chinese businesses (restaurants and little grocery stores mostly) along the road. i didn't do much homework on suriname, but once there, i found out that the country's very diverse. it was a dutch colony, so they speak dutch, and there's a history of slaves from india and china, among others, plus new waves of immigrants, so there's this mix of east, south-east, and south asians, dutch, and caribbeans...i was surprised that i saw so many asians, and many people thought that i was surinamese and spoke dutch to me. on my way back, i flew through aruba...from what i was able to see from the plane, it looked amazing and beautiful and full of tourists (saw 4 huuuge cruise ships docked). also, in line for my boarding pass, met a lot of elderly americans who had timeshares there...a bit of a culture shock after a week in suriname.

so...why the long time no blog...to be honest, there just hasn't been that much motivation lately - there haven't been many times when i've thought, i have to blog about this. until yesterday night, that is. i was at the airport back from suriname, waiting for my ride, when i saw steve harvey walk by, heading for security. he wasn't wearing his usual fedora, so i had to look twice, but it was him. and then i thought, i should blog about this. actually, my first thought was, should i put that on my facebook status. but the blog won out, since this is where i always post my celebrity sightings.

:)