Just thought I'd share a bit of happiness with y'all. My days anymore are mostly straight forward and simple, but I am starting to find joy in my routines. There's a good chance that in a couple of years I'll be back to my old busy, busy life. For now, I'm taking time to take care of my body (first zumba class this morning...loved it!) and mind (school school school and Jane Eyre) and it feels really good.
Last night I was able to leave work early--no tables in two hours, yikes! Tonight's experiment: whether slight rain makes people want half price pizza more or less.
Tomorrow I'm meeting with a campus doctor about a potential thesis topic...fingers crossed for something good!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Life is Good
Hello, hello!
I am writing to you all in good spirits! The last week was certainly busy with lots of prepping and paper writing, but I handed in my first Biostats assignment and turned in a major paper for my Gender and Health course which was a gender analysis of rape in South Africa. I put a lot of reading, note taking, and thought into the paper and am pretty proud of the work I did. We'll see what the professor thinks though! Regardless of the mark, I certainly learned a lot from the research process.
Although I am giving myself a bit of a break, I don't want to lose momentum. I have two more big papers due at the end of May. One will be on homicide in South Africa and El Salvador and the other I still need to choose a final topic for, but will be an evaluation of how gender sensitive a program is. Although I won't be turning in my mini-dissertation until the end of next year, I decided to contact some people doing research at UCT to learn about what they are doing and see if it might be appropriate for my project. Hopefully at least one of them gets back to me with interest. Will let y'all know if something pans out!
As per usual I am changing my mind often about what I want to do with my degree when I graduate. Currently, I've been thinking a lot about ways to improve health services, both for staff and patients. A friend of mine used to be a nurse here and actually changed careers because she became so frustrated with the system and barriers to giving good care. We also did a class on childbirth in South Africa last week and talked a lot about patient abuse and neglect in that setting, something that also came up in the abortion lecture and likely exists in other health care settings as well. They are such large problems that it is hard to know where to begin to address them, but it would something I would certainly be interested in dedicating my career to. Of course science and medicine are incredibly important, but why deliver those services without treating patients with dignity and care? And isn't mistreatment detrimental to health outcomes (well actually, I don't know, will have to look into what research has been done)? These are things I would be interested in further examining not only in South Africa but in the U.S. as well.
As for my social life, it's doing well! Thursday night an MPHer from Italy, Annibale, had a group of us over for "International Dinner" night. We were all supposed to bring a dish from our culture. Well, I didn't have time to even attempt cooking something, so I bought an apple tart (closest thing I could find to apple pie, one of the few dishes I could associate with America!) and ice cream. I was glad it was the only dessert and folks seemed to enjoy it. We also had guacamole, curry, lentil rice, AWESOME pasta, and arepas (by Federico and Nany, los colombianos). And of course, lots of wine. :) It was really nice to spend more time with the MPHers outside of class to just talk and enjoy delicious food. We all agreed it should happen again soon.
Saturday was the night of the birthday party my customers invited me to. They are a really friendly group, so I figured why not, but didn't know what to expect. I had no reason to be nervous as everyone at the party were just as warm and welcoming as my regulars. It was quite the fun event that I could go on in detail about....summarized version: amazing spicy seafood curry, monk cleansing the house, one of my adorable regulars, Shane, regailing us with Whitney Houston songs (amazing coming out of a boy!), Dutch lesson from folks from the Netherlands and, once again, lots of good wine! I also met one of Shane's friends who works for Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation and has been working on the research that shows ARV treatment can prevent HIV infection in those uninfected--kinda like meeting a local rock star, imho!
I was torn about whether to leave such a fun gathering, but headed out a little after midnight to catch up with some MPHers out for a lady's night in town. From there, I decided to go dancing with Eliana at a place called DecoDance, which she always talks about. It's a more expensive cab ride for me, but it was a really fun time--they play a lot of hits from the '80s and '90s and we really enjoyed ourselves. It felt to get out and dance after all of that paper writing!
I guess the last update is that I LOVE my gym! I met with one of their staff on Friday and she helped me with an exercise plan. This is SO hopefully for me because I am a planner and really need structure for motivation. I'm planning on doing yoga once a week in addition to my regular workouts, and will probably be checking out a dance class on Saturday. There is also a yummy smoothie place in the gym, so I treated myself today. They have those frequent buyer cards and if you buy a smoothie on a Monday you get two stickers instead of one. So I've decided that for each week a stick to my workout plan, I will reward myself the following Monday with a smoothie!
Oh and Thomas is wonderful. :) He's away again for two weeks but I have a lot of good things going for me to keep me busy til he gets back. Our couch should be arriving in a little over week which, speaking for both of us, we are super excited about! He also got us a coffee table and microwave, so once the couch arrives we'll be pretty settled in.
I can't delude myself into believing I'm never going to feel homesick again, but my first wave has passed and I am soaking up the sun and loving life here. I think part of what was helpful was to begin planning my visit home in the winter--hopefully I'll be back in time for Thanksgiving!
That's all for now. Remember, I have skype at home now, so get in touch with me if you want to have a chat! Sundays are best for me, usually.
Love y'all,
Kristen
I am writing to you all in good spirits! The last week was certainly busy with lots of prepping and paper writing, but I handed in my first Biostats assignment and turned in a major paper for my Gender and Health course which was a gender analysis of rape in South Africa. I put a lot of reading, note taking, and thought into the paper and am pretty proud of the work I did. We'll see what the professor thinks though! Regardless of the mark, I certainly learned a lot from the research process.
Although I am giving myself a bit of a break, I don't want to lose momentum. I have two more big papers due at the end of May. One will be on homicide in South Africa and El Salvador and the other I still need to choose a final topic for, but will be an evaluation of how gender sensitive a program is. Although I won't be turning in my mini-dissertation until the end of next year, I decided to contact some people doing research at UCT to learn about what they are doing and see if it might be appropriate for my project. Hopefully at least one of them gets back to me with interest. Will let y'all know if something pans out!
As per usual I am changing my mind often about what I want to do with my degree when I graduate. Currently, I've been thinking a lot about ways to improve health services, both for staff and patients. A friend of mine used to be a nurse here and actually changed careers because she became so frustrated with the system and barriers to giving good care. We also did a class on childbirth in South Africa last week and talked a lot about patient abuse and neglect in that setting, something that also came up in the abortion lecture and likely exists in other health care settings as well. They are such large problems that it is hard to know where to begin to address them, but it would something I would certainly be interested in dedicating my career to. Of course science and medicine are incredibly important, but why deliver those services without treating patients with dignity and care? And isn't mistreatment detrimental to health outcomes (well actually, I don't know, will have to look into what research has been done)? These are things I would be interested in further examining not only in South Africa but in the U.S. as well.
As for my social life, it's doing well! Thursday night an MPHer from Italy, Annibale, had a group of us over for "International Dinner" night. We were all supposed to bring a dish from our culture. Well, I didn't have time to even attempt cooking something, so I bought an apple tart (closest thing I could find to apple pie, one of the few dishes I could associate with America!) and ice cream. I was glad it was the only dessert and folks seemed to enjoy it. We also had guacamole, curry, lentil rice, AWESOME pasta, and arepas (by Federico and Nany, los colombianos). And of course, lots of wine. :) It was really nice to spend more time with the MPHers outside of class to just talk and enjoy delicious food. We all agreed it should happen again soon.
Saturday was the night of the birthday party my customers invited me to. They are a really friendly group, so I figured why not, but didn't know what to expect. I had no reason to be nervous as everyone at the party were just as warm and welcoming as my regulars. It was quite the fun event that I could go on in detail about....summarized version: amazing spicy seafood curry, monk cleansing the house, one of my adorable regulars, Shane, regailing us with Whitney Houston songs (amazing coming out of a boy!), Dutch lesson from folks from the Netherlands and, once again, lots of good wine! I also met one of Shane's friends who works for Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation and has been working on the research that shows ARV treatment can prevent HIV infection in those uninfected--kinda like meeting a local rock star, imho!
I was torn about whether to leave such a fun gathering, but headed out a little after midnight to catch up with some MPHers out for a lady's night in town. From there, I decided to go dancing with Eliana at a place called DecoDance, which she always talks about. It's a more expensive cab ride for me, but it was a really fun time--they play a lot of hits from the '80s and '90s and we really enjoyed ourselves. It felt to get out and dance after all of that paper writing!
I guess the last update is that I LOVE my gym! I met with one of their staff on Friday and she helped me with an exercise plan. This is SO hopefully for me because I am a planner and really need structure for motivation. I'm planning on doing yoga once a week in addition to my regular workouts, and will probably be checking out a dance class on Saturday. There is also a yummy smoothie place in the gym, so I treated myself today. They have those frequent buyer cards and if you buy a smoothie on a Monday you get two stickers instead of one. So I've decided that for each week a stick to my workout plan, I will reward myself the following Monday with a smoothie!
Oh and Thomas is wonderful. :) He's away again for two weeks but I have a lot of good things going for me to keep me busy til he gets back. Our couch should be arriving in a little over week which, speaking for both of us, we are super excited about! He also got us a coffee table and microwave, so once the couch arrives we'll be pretty settled in.
I can't delude myself into believing I'm never going to feel homesick again, but my first wave has passed and I am soaking up the sun and loving life here. I think part of what was helpful was to begin planning my visit home in the winter--hopefully I'll be back in time for Thanksgiving!
That's all for now. Remember, I have skype at home now, so get in touch with me if you want to have a chat! Sundays are best for me, usually.
Love y'all,
Kristen
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Busy busy!
Hi folks!
It's a busy week, but as I've fallen behind once again, I figured I would give a quick update!
I'm very bogged down this week with school work: an assignment due tomorrow and paper due Monday, but it's going okay and I'm trying to stay positive! Thomas has been home the last few days and while I've mostly just been reading and writing, it's been great having him nearby.
My exciting news is that I finally joined a gym! It's a really beautiful facility and I'm looking forward to using it more. I took a yoga class on Sunday and will be exploring more of what it has to offer once I turn this paper in.
Waitressing is going alright. Sometimes it's a little stressful because of how the place is run, but I really enjoy the regulars who come in. Several of them have taken to calling me "Jersey Girl." :) A few of them actually invited me to a birthday party Saturday night, which was really sweet. I'm definitely still looking for other jobs pertaining more to public health, but I'm really glad to have the extra pocket money and different scenery throughout the week.
At this point, I'm pretty dedicated to just doing a general track MPH, but I will hopefully be meeting with the head of the health systems track soon to learn more about health systems and possibly incorporating more systems courses into my degree.
That's all for now! Sounds like the weather is improving for y'all back home. We had some KILLER hot days over the weekend, but it's cooled down considerably and been a bit overcast.
More from me soon!
Love,
Kristen
It's a busy week, but as I've fallen behind once again, I figured I would give a quick update!
I'm very bogged down this week with school work: an assignment due tomorrow and paper due Monday, but it's going okay and I'm trying to stay positive! Thomas has been home the last few days and while I've mostly just been reading and writing, it's been great having him nearby.
My exciting news is that I finally joined a gym! It's a really beautiful facility and I'm looking forward to using it more. I took a yoga class on Sunday and will be exploring more of what it has to offer once I turn this paper in.
Waitressing is going alright. Sometimes it's a little stressful because of how the place is run, but I really enjoy the regulars who come in. Several of them have taken to calling me "Jersey Girl." :) A few of them actually invited me to a birthday party Saturday night, which was really sweet. I'm definitely still looking for other jobs pertaining more to public health, but I'm really glad to have the extra pocket money and different scenery throughout the week.
At this point, I'm pretty dedicated to just doing a general track MPH, but I will hopefully be meeting with the head of the health systems track soon to learn more about health systems and possibly incorporating more systems courses into my degree.
That's all for now! Sounds like the weather is improving for y'all back home. We had some KILLER hot days over the weekend, but it's cooled down considerably and been a bit overcast.
More from me soon!
Love,
Kristen
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Hey everyone,
Sorry I'm so far behind on updating. For a little while I was waiting to have things to write about and then I got a bit busy and didn't get around to writing!
First of all, a little over a week ago I finally got that pang of homesickness I was expecting much earlier. I was feeling frustrated knowing that back home I have an amazing set of friends, my family, had a job I loved, community organizations I believed in...sometimes I can't help but wonder what exactly it is that I'm doing here. Those moments are rare, but they happen. I think that even when we are pursuing things that we love, we all have moments of questioning.
After a couple of days, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and figure out what to do with my life here. I chose to stop banking on finding a research job and starting looking into being a server again. The fact is, I just needed to get out of the apartment, interact with people, and have something else to think about besides school, my relationship, and what I should make for dinner. I dropped my CV off at a few places and was basically offered two jobs almost immediately, one of which is in Vredehoek. I decided to take that one since I could walk to work and because the manager I spoke with made it sound like a local place with a lot of regulars. I liked that vibe.
I started training last night and it was a pretty good time. Unfortunately, it was a slow night and somewhat boring--I like to keep busy. But the people I work with are cool and I was pretty amused that kitchen staff automatically took to me because I was American. There was also a hysterical moment when two of the regulars were discussing me. The one guy told the other that I was a "Jersey girl" and he took it to mean I was from Jersey...like Europe...yeah no. :) But we had a good laugh. The whole experience helped me realize just how much I've come to like working with people (even though I still think I'm an introvert!). I think it's going to be a good experience for me.
I also made some new friends which helped get me out of my slump, too. I had a met a woman, Catherine, who worked in a shop on Long Street a couple of weeks ago. We had chatted for a bit and when we realized we were both interested in women's health, decided to connect later on facebook. At first we didn't really talk, but my friend Federico's girlfriend, Nany, invited me to a SWEAT march for sex workers' rights. I passed the info on to Catherine and sure enough she came. The march was a really good experience and it felt awesome to be involved with activism again. As Federico pointed out to me, it was really amazing and brave that so many of the sex workers came to march--the purpose of the march was to call for decriminalization of sex work, but sex work is still illegal in South Africa (to learn more about decriminalization, check out SWEAT's website, linked above). Afterwards, Catherine, Federico, Nany, another SWEAT volunteer, Flor, and I went to the Eastern Food Bizarre, which is one of my fave places to eat in town. Cheap, delicious food of Asian influences? Yes, please! Everyone seemed to hit it off with each other and we had good conversation before heading off to class.
I mentioned to Catherine that I was going to watch the Pride parade on Saturday, and she told me not to be silly, that I should walk with her and the store in the parade! It was really cool with her to be so welcoming. I did walk with her and the store owner. I had an awesome time! It was very hot, but the walk was nice and some of the floats sprayed water to cool us off. After the parade you could pay R30 (less than 5 USD) to hang out outside the stadium to watch different performances. My initial thought after the parade was that I was tired and wanted to go home, but we ended up dancing for several hours! Federico and Nany also showed up. My new friend Natasha (who is friends with Catherine) then invited us all to go back to her place to eat dinner. We stopped to pick up food and then Catherine put together the meal for us! So there I was, randomly hanging out with a whole lot of people I'd just met (including more of Natasha's friends whom were at home) having a great time. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Leave it to Pride to bring people together!
So I would say that between the job and spending time with new friends has really helped me feel better. I don't think it's ever going to be easy being away from so many people I love, but I am starting to make more connections here, too.
Tomorrow night I am going to a documentary about women's sexual and reproductive rights. Thursday is a double class day and then I'll be finishing training at work on Friday and Saturday. Then I can start taking real shifts and actually make money!
Just writing this post was really helpful to remind me of all the good stuff I have going on, as I was starting to feel a bit down again today. I really miss you all!
Sorry I'm so far behind on updating. For a little while I was waiting to have things to write about and then I got a bit busy and didn't get around to writing!
First of all, a little over a week ago I finally got that pang of homesickness I was expecting much earlier. I was feeling frustrated knowing that back home I have an amazing set of friends, my family, had a job I loved, community organizations I believed in...sometimes I can't help but wonder what exactly it is that I'm doing here. Those moments are rare, but they happen. I think that even when we are pursuing things that we love, we all have moments of questioning.
After a couple of days, I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and figure out what to do with my life here. I chose to stop banking on finding a research job and starting looking into being a server again. The fact is, I just needed to get out of the apartment, interact with people, and have something else to think about besides school, my relationship, and what I should make for dinner. I dropped my CV off at a few places and was basically offered two jobs almost immediately, one of which is in Vredehoek. I decided to take that one since I could walk to work and because the manager I spoke with made it sound like a local place with a lot of regulars. I liked that vibe.
I started training last night and it was a pretty good time. Unfortunately, it was a slow night and somewhat boring--I like to keep busy. But the people I work with are cool and I was pretty amused that kitchen staff automatically took to me because I was American. There was also a hysterical moment when two of the regulars were discussing me. The one guy told the other that I was a "Jersey girl" and he took it to mean I was from Jersey...like Europe...yeah no. :) But we had a good laugh. The whole experience helped me realize just how much I've come to like working with people (even though I still think I'm an introvert!). I think it's going to be a good experience for me.
I also made some new friends which helped get me out of my slump, too. I had a met a woman, Catherine, who worked in a shop on Long Street a couple of weeks ago. We had chatted for a bit and when we realized we were both interested in women's health, decided to connect later on facebook. At first we didn't really talk, but my friend Federico's girlfriend, Nany, invited me to a SWEAT march for sex workers' rights. I passed the info on to Catherine and sure enough she came. The march was a really good experience and it felt awesome to be involved with activism again. As Federico pointed out to me, it was really amazing and brave that so many of the sex workers came to march--the purpose of the march was to call for decriminalization of sex work, but sex work is still illegal in South Africa (to learn more about decriminalization, check out SWEAT's website, linked above). Afterwards, Catherine, Federico, Nany, another SWEAT volunteer, Flor, and I went to the Eastern Food Bizarre, which is one of my fave places to eat in town. Cheap, delicious food of Asian influences? Yes, please! Everyone seemed to hit it off with each other and we had good conversation before heading off to class.
I mentioned to Catherine that I was going to watch the Pride parade on Saturday, and she told me not to be silly, that I should walk with her and the store in the parade! It was really cool with her to be so welcoming. I did walk with her and the store owner. I had an awesome time! It was very hot, but the walk was nice and some of the floats sprayed water to cool us off. After the parade you could pay R30 (less than 5 USD) to hang out outside the stadium to watch different performances. My initial thought after the parade was that I was tired and wanted to go home, but we ended up dancing for several hours! Federico and Nany also showed up. My new friend Natasha (who is friends with Catherine) then invited us all to go back to her place to eat dinner. We stopped to pick up food and then Catherine put together the meal for us! So there I was, randomly hanging out with a whole lot of people I'd just met (including more of Natasha's friends whom were at home) having a great time. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Leave it to Pride to bring people together!
So I would say that between the job and spending time with new friends has really helped me feel better. I don't think it's ever going to be easy being away from so many people I love, but I am starting to make more connections here, too.
Tomorrow night I am going to a documentary about women's sexual and reproductive rights. Thursday is a double class day and then I'll be finishing training at work on Friday and Saturday. Then I can start taking real shifts and actually make money!
Just writing this post was really helpful to remind me of all the good stuff I have going on, as I was starting to feel a bit down again today. I really miss you all!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
More Pictures!
Hi folks! I have a written post coming soon, but I've been receiving a lot of requests for pictures. Click here to see some from hiking, the beach, and more!
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