Third times the charm!

Yesterday I was FINALLY able to meet one of my supervisors and discuss my project. It was a huge relief and very helpful, although a bit different then expected. I guess we have had a little bit of a miss-communication between my head supervisor lady and me. I had thought that I was joining on to a study that is already underway here at the Center. Already designed, maybe even in the process of analysis, I was actually very unsure.

However yesterday I sat down with this man, and the first thing he says to me is…”Ok, do you have your research questions decided yet?”

Ummm what! You have my research question! You have the study!

It’s not a big deal, I totally can handle making my own research question and analyzing that for myself, I just wish I had known a few weeks ago as I could have been working on this a little bit more over the previous weeks (I have some stuff I have already done earlier, but I kinda didn’t do it to the full of my abilities since I didn’t think I would be using it)! There are tons of data at my disposal however here, from several other studies, and I think I will use pretty much all my sanitation and hygiene data from these, making my life easier.

I do know what I want my research question to be…but now it’s a whole other battle trying to recall all my Epi and Biostats knowledge to write an appropriate and effective study! I wish I had brought my notes from school with me (I could use a serious brush-up on retrospective case-controls)! I was able to spend most of my day getting my whole plant set up and I'm feeling pretty on top of things now. 

Soon after I discovered my project misunderstanding I had to go to a different center for a scientific symposium thing, so it helped me not get too overwhelmed right at first. It was a nice talk about streptococcal pneumonia, which I thought was interesting as I have a cold (which I managed to find some medicine for eventually the other day and I'm beginning to feel much better). It was also a good chance to meet some other people around the center doing other projects. It was an incredibly hot day (97, felt like 112 outside according to Weather.com), so having 50-60 people crammed into a lecture hall was a little uncomfortable to say the least.

I usually shower every morning as I get ready for work, and then when I get home at the end of the day I’m so sticky and sweaty and gross I usually hop in the shower again for just a moment to rinse the day off. I don’t know if I’m really just this dirty, or if its all from my feet, or if the sweat makes dirt just coagulate onto you, but every evening in that rinse off time, the water pooling at my feet is brown! Always. I just don’t get how I can get that dirty each day walking to and from work.

Recently I have also been subsiding off of fruit juice. I have been buying some cartons of different types of juice as they are SO cheep here and so refreshing after the hot day. I usually try mixing them and im coming up with some delicious drinks. Yesterday was mango, guava and milk. Most drinks consist of a mango base and a splash of milk just to make it kind of smoothy-ish. Best thing after a hot day!

Today at work I was able to really start to dive into my project. It was a lot of me probably not looking like I was doing much as I just spent most of the time reading stuff and scribbling stuff on a piece of paper trying to get my thoughts organized, but it was productive for me, and I’m staring to feel good about everything, and also like this summer is going to be a very VERY busy time. Busy with fun stuff though so that will be great.

Below are some pictures I snapped real quickly on my way to work using my iPhone. I want to go out with my real camera, but Its so conspicuous and I just don’t know how best to do that yet without just drawing a ridiculous crowd. I might just have to go out at 6am some day and get it in at sunrise before people are out. Hope it helps give a small picture of what its like!