Nine More Weeks of Winter

In nine weeks I will graduate and I will NEVER HAVE TO DO THIS SHIT EVER AGAIN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE* and I cannot even tell you how excited I am. I was really excited about working full time because I've always preferred working all day to being in school all day but now I really don't want to do anything. I want to have some time off to do NOTHING for a while because I am burned the hell out. But I don't get to do that at all, actually, and odds are I'll end up with a job that doesn't have vacation time. So there's that.

Also, I think you can very easily absorb my feelings about everything by reading Pictures for Sad Children from the beginning. You don't have to read all of it to understand, but the first 100 or so comics pretty much sum me up right now. I used to think A Softer World was the saddest thing I'd ever read but Pictures for Sad Children definitely takes that cake. Stay in school, children, what else are you going to do?

In other news, I am seriously beginning to think Hawaiian tsunamis are fake bullshit things made up by Menehune Water Co to make people buy their entire stock all at once. How else could a wave slap the shit out of every island between Malaysia and California and nothing happens here? Fucking magic, that's how. That or this whole state is its own goddam Truman Show and they use tsunamis and weird racism to keep us from enjoying the island too much.


*Unless I go to grad school, and if I ever need to go to grad school I might as well just go up on a mountain and die because I can't imagine wasting any more of my precious finite life on this crap.

I Want This Day To Last Forever

Over the last four days I have:

-Applied for graduation
-Been approved for graduation in absentia
-Bought my cap & gown
-Registered for commencement
-Applied for a field school in Costa Rica
-Given a presentation on the early 90's cholera epidemic in Venezuela
-Written a paper
-Aced a Japanese test

Today I got accepted to the field school. Then I got a call from HR at a company I had applied to a month ago. They'd filled the position already but said they would keep my resume on file, which I normally assume is bull but here they were calling me said they needed someone and I seemed right. Unfortunately they needed someone full time NOW and I can't do that plus be in school and working at my internship, so I had to decline. But they did say they would keep my stuff on file for another six months. Uh, wow?

The icing on this day is that when I got home I got a call from work telling me not to come in because my boss was out sick.



God I love everything about this week so far. Let's see how long it can keep up this way, shall we? I have a paper due tonight, then midterms tomorrow and on Friday. I am optimistic.

How Dying My Hair Brown Made Me Fear The Future, Part II

My god. What if the tattoo ends up like the hair? Good looking to everyone but me? Just far enough from what I wanted that every time someone points it out, I get even more disappointed? If I can't even pick who to color my hair and cope with five days of off color, how could I possibly pick a tattoo artist? What would I do if THAT didn't come out right? If the wrong hair color makes me feel like I'm looking at a different person in the mirror, A) how much of a sissy am I and B) what the hell kind of reaction would I have to the wrong tattoo?

Suddenly the insecurities came back. Maybe these are superficial changes and aren't really enough to make them go away. Even if I get the right red, even if I get the right tattoo, even if I didn't need grad school-- am I really going to feel different? I had imagined embodying the kind of person I wanted to be would make me that person. In all likelihood, I will not change. And when I imagine me in that body, it suddenly doesn't seem to appealing. Maybe I won't be vibrant and self-assured. Maybe I will still be worried and difficult, just with red hair and a tattoo and a lower education level.

While on the one hand I feel like I should know that getting body mods and new hair styles doesn't make a person change. But in my work to change thoughts and behavior, I felt like I needed to look different to really be regarded as different-- even just to myself. I remembered back when I wore whatever I wanted and had ridiculous hair, when I had friends and people thought I was tough. I was more obviously an individual, and because of that I feel now that the expectations of me were very different.

If I obviously looked how I wanted without much regard for how stupid that was, it sent three messages: 1) That I was stupid, 2) that I wasn't about to change anything I did for you, and 3) that I was stupid and wasn't about to change anything I did for you. Somehow, those three not entirely desirable judgments made me a more likable person. Back then no one ever told me "You know what your problem is?" or "You ALWAYS do this!" Back then anything I did to rub my friends the wrong way was met with a shrug and a write off-- well, that's Blossom. That's why we like her, she's kind of a jerk. It's funny.

Maybe I thought that if I started looking how I imagined would be awesome without concern for how weird it was, I could get that pass again. The imperfections would turn back into quirks. The quirks would build character, not a character flaw. In some ways, I would rather be the ranga with freckles and temper than anyone else.

So I'm going tomorrow to get the red, and ten days after that I'm getting that tattoo. I'm still not going to grad school and I don't plan on taking the GRE "just in case." I'll keep going to my unpaid internship, crossing my fingers that something I learn or someone I meet will prevent me from having to move back in with my parents next year. I will make that Rocky Horror joke in my medical anthropology lecture when we discuss the formation of the transsexual identity through surgical practice. I guess because hope springs eternal and even though the future is just as scary as ever, I'm not going to let that stop me from going there anymore.

How Dying My Hair Brown Made Me Fear The Future, Part I

Apparently some people were actually reading this and were disappointed when I stopped updating. Traveling this summer and moving back into the dorms, coupled with an internship and a full 18 credit semester, has left me with little time to bitch and pontificate. Time passed and shit happened. More on this later. For now, I would like to explain how dying my hair brown last Saturday made me extremely fearful of the future.

I've wanted to be a redhead since I was a kid. I always talked about coloring my hair but never did it because I used to grow out & donate my hair to nonprofits that make wigs out of them. Don't judge my hobbies-- it beats model trains and fantasy football. Some sick kids out there now have 12-17 inches of my flexible head growths. Anyway, I finally decided to just cave and color my hair. Originally I was gonna do it in a salon, then I got talked into doing it at home, then I got talked into doing it in a salon again. Last Saturday I came with the photos I've been pining over for the last few years (my tastes in shades of red have changed since the teenygoth days of yesteryear) and went to the lady who usually makes my hair look so damn good.

I left with brown hair.

Not intentionally-- and, mind, it was a different shade of brown. Somewhere a wire had been crossed that turned copper red to a not at all red kind of brown. The roots were reddish and, only seeing that, I left without realizing that all the hair behind my head was only about one shade off. It wasn't until I got home and inspected it in the mirror and normal, non-trendy salon lighting that I realized it was not at all red on 90% of my head.

People complimented it every day since, since it's still a nice shade of brown, but it's not red. It's not RED so it's not what I wanted, and no amount of being a nice shade of brown has yet been able to quell my disappointment. It's like finally getting the courage to jump out of the plane with your parachute to find you're only ten feet off the ground. You land on your feet and everyone claps a little, but it is just not the same damn thing as terminal velocity.

I rescheduled for tomorrow to have it re-done, but now I'm plagued by insecurities. This red was one of the first steps in my transition from a stressed student to someone who I was determined would be more relaxed, more accepting of her situation. I was going to stop fearing the what-ifs, stop sweating the extra efforts, and start doing the things that made me feel good. I started eating better, packing lunches and snacks so I didn't go hungry all day during class (a bad habit I've had since middle school). I stopped impulse shopping. I threw out much of my lazy clothes. I decided not to go to grad school right now, not to take the GREs. I convinced myself not to panic when I ran out of time and couldn't complete an assignment. I made the appointments to dye my hair red and get that tattoo.

The most immediate of these things has gone wrong. And not horribly wrong, because it's fixable, but many of these others are not. If dying my hair was a mistake, what else was a mistake? What about all the things I threw away? What about grad school? What about a freaking tattoo?

Universities: Not giving a shit about your flash cards since 1636

So. I saw a pre-health advisor and said "What do I need to do to get into an epidemiology program?" and she was like "Uh go back in time and do a pre-med track?" so I guess that's out.

I've spent the last week gradually coming to terms with the idea that, no, I am not going to be a scientist. I will probably never be a scientist. And while that SUCKS, I guess it makes sense. My advisor pointed out that when I talk about public health I talk about it like a social science, not a lab. Despite my interest in the biological sciences, my performance in the social sciences has always been substantially better. She thinks I might find it difficult to deal with public health in terms of empricism rather than personal interaction, which is partly true. So she showed me what I would have to do to get into a program for global epidemiology and a program for global health and said I should do whichever I felt was better suited, but an epi program means 1) another year of school and 2) that much more loans, which may max me out before I've finished grad school.

She also made it clear that it's very common for people to do a non-science MPH track and then later on their careers get additional education in the sciences. So basically, I can also go back and do it, but I can't undo the time/money spent on doing it now. So I went from global health to global epi and back to global health again, which I guess is okay.

The problem I'm really having is that I had been thinking my whole life that I wanted to be a SCIENTIST. I want to do science! When I was little I was always saying I wanted to do genetic research, or be a doctor, or a biologist, etc. So I am a little disappointed that I finally have to admit that I suck at it.

Fashion victim

Reason #3 why I would love to get to intern with the Comprehensive Rural Health Project in Jamkhed, India, is that they recommend women to have local garments made for them in town. That means I will actually be encouraged to wear salwar kameez which is something I have always wanted to do. When I was little I remember often seeing women at the grocery store wearing them in rich colors with embroidery and I always thought they looked so cool! I can't really get away with wearing that anywhere else, though, because 1) I will stand out like a sore thumb and 2) other white people will tell me I'm racist because I am appropriating a culture that is not mine for its aesthetic value. So yeah. But see, if I actually go to India, it would be totally fine! Sweeet.

So, reasons why I want to intern with CHRP:
1) Do hands-on work making a very real, tangible difference on the population I would be working in.
2) Learn about public health from creators of a program that have effectively eliminated malnutrition and other common but preventable causes of death and illness from its area.
3) Get to wear awesome clothes that were actually tailored for me.

Okay now to be fair, I didn't know about the clothing thing until well after I'd decided I wanted to try to work with CHRP. But imagine the pleasant surprise! I'm just looking at their site, doo dee hoo, let's see what kinds of things they advise about this sweet internship. What's that? We can/should have awesome clothes made for us? Oh hells yes. I don't even care that it's in the interest of modesty, that's how much I like this idea. So not only could I potentially get to work with and learn from an immensely successful public health program in rural India, I could wear sweet digs while I do it. What a score.

Spring back

Unfortunately today was the first day back from spring break, to which I say LAAAME. My wonderful, thoughtful, totally not vindictive phys anth prof decided to make our second midterm today at 9am, plus an extra credit paper was due. Before the break he cheerfully told us that we shouldn't worry about the test because the class average on the last one was 77%, and that's great because usually his class averages are more like 67%, so we're doing great! Smile! Yay! There was a big heavy silence before I piped up with "That's a terrible grade, no one wants those kinds of grades!" and everyone else chimed in with "Yeah dude wtf, wtf dude." He seemed confused and repeated that he's not going to grade us on a curve anyway, so whatever. Also, three exams like this one make our entire semester grade. Silly physical anthropologists, you're all so odd.

YES MILANA, I'M TALKING ABOUT YOU AND YOUR APES.

I had library books due yesterday but the library was closed for the break so I had to wait until today to recheck them. They're still charging me a late fee for all of them. It's only 75 cents total so I won't complain, but sheeeesh. Way to be a pain in the ass, library ladies. This is even more annoying than the time I returned books on time but they didn't get around to checking them back in for a few days so they tried to charge me late fees for that time.

Good news, though. I was talking to a girl in my Biomedicine and Culture class (one of the two other pre-med profession people in the class) about how difficult it's going to be for me to get the kind of experience necessary to apply to public health school. Turns out she manages the pre-health profession advising office on campus, and she got me an appointment with the director and gave me a lot of good advice on where to go to get the experience I need. I had tried several times to get that info from the pre-health office before and they'd told me to just go to the public health school's admissions and ask them, which is a horrible idea. I'd also asked the community service office and the career development office, both of which had told me to leave, go home, get on my computer, and search their database for openings.

So this is mixed good news. On one hand, I'm finally getting the information I should have gotten (and tried to get) seven months ago when I started at UH. That's good news. On the other hand, it turns out that I REALLY need to have been working to get the requisite experience for an MPH program starting... Oh, SEVEN MONTHS AGO. Turns out they want you to get work experience while you're an undergrad, not after you graduate. That's the bad news-- whatever lazy chicks had been brushing me off at the pre-health office before quite literally screwed me out of getting to apply to an MPH program on time because they didn't give me the opportunity to get that veeery valuable little tidbit of information. Meh.

That means I'll be trying to get taken on as a full time volunteer with at least one medical center and/or clinic nearby here. After I get back from Guam I'll use the advice I got today to try and get a paid or intern position at a private practice. Apparently the trick is to just keep asking until someone agrees to take you on, which I'm going to hate doing but whatever. I'll have to jump through some stupid hoops if I want to SAVE THE WORLD and whatnots.

I mostly post at night. Mostly.

I'm baaaaaack holy crap this semester has sucked some eggs. My goodness. I just withdrew from THE JAPANESE CLASS FROM HELL in light of the fact that it was going to cause me to fail all my other classes by being a goddam time vampire the likes of which I have never seen before. That means I can no longer receive back credits which means I just got boned out of 8 credits I deserve for being placed in an upper-level language course. That means I'm not going to be able to graduate on time if I don't load on summer classes. If I had only had a different professor, this would not have happened. I am BEYOND angry about this, so much so that I don't even want to talk about it.

Anyway, I got a new haircut. That's about the only good thing that's happened so far.

My dad is coming in a week, yaaay. Unfortunately his plane gets here right when I have a super important class thing so I can't actually pick him up from the airport, which blows. I wanted to have all my local friends ride along and talk pidgin for only the first ten minutes and then, by our synchronized watches, they would suddenly stop and start talking like normal. I was curious to see if my dad would say anything. Now I don't get to find out, boo.

I was less than happy to find that the medical assistant position that I didn't get last semester is STILL being advertised and it still says they need someone ASAP. It had just been posted when I applied... I almost want to call them and be like BET YOU WISH YOU HAD ME ON STAFF NOW BITCHES AHAHAHAHAHA-- then hang up, but that's not really constructive.

Guamarama

Original post about the field school in Guam I'm applying to removed since it has been discussed and we decided that if I get accepted we'll figure out a way to pay for it. I am super freaking excited about this :D

My edjumacashin

Long post is long.

The yoo-hoos in the College of Arts and Sciences advising office better thank their lucky stars that I got all the classes I wanted today, because there would have been many flaming bags of dog doo on their metaphorical front steps tonight if I hadn't. They thought it would be a totally rad idea to spread registration out over a full week with one group's registration period opening every half hour from 9am-4pm. The groups are divided by just a couple of credits each, meaning that they spread everyone out so completely that, for example, L and his roommate Don started here the same semester but their registration times were three days apart. FAIL.

Oh and for extra fun they leave a whole weekend in the middle in which no registration periods start but people whose times began the week before can still add classes, so anyone stuck registering in the two days after that weekend are BONED with a capitol F-U-C-K-E-D. Guess where I was? Yeah. I had to redo my schedule four times in the last two days.

Here's how my schedule worked out:
-Physical Anthropology + Lab (MWF)
-Anthropology of Consumer Cultures (TR)
-Intermediate Japanese (MTWF)
-Women and Madness (R)
-Biomedicine and Culture (MW)

So now I'm at 17 credits with a dilemma. I had originally planned out a 19 credit semester with a two credit public health class instead of Anth of Consumer Cultures-- I had wanted to take it but it filled. Miraculously, someone dropped it right before my registration time, so I jumped on it.

An aside: The Arts & Sciences advisors will insist to you that even if a section fills up you can still e-mail the prof and get in 100% of the time. Those e-mails, much like the goggles, do nothing. Most of the time you don't even get a reply. Usually you get rejected. This prof had rejected me for this class already (as an extra student, that is) so I was psyched.

Unfortunately it conflicts with the two credit course that was going to bump me to 19 credits, which is the limit. You have to get special permission to go above that and can't do that until the start of the next semester. Then you have to prove to them that you can take a heavy semester like that, which I'm not sure they'll buy coming from me. So my dilemma is this: Do I wait for next semester to start and try to petition to take another three-credit course, or do I drop my Consumer Cultures course for the two credit class? Two credits are hard to come by or I would just find another one to pop into this schedule.

It's important to note that, even with 19 credits in the spring, I will have 41 credits left before I can graduate and only two semesters left in my four years. Because I transferred I essentially lost a whole semester of credits that didn't transfer over. This means I will have to go to at least one summer session, probably to take something like two or three classes, and then I'll still need to take 17 credits per semester my senior year. I only have a couple of classes I need to take the graduate, it's mostly getting the total necessary 124 credits. I need a minimum of 19 credits in the spring-- I can't just sit on 17.

And no, I don't want to just take another semester. I don't wanna and you can't make me, neener neener neener.

Public health: Keeping you alive since forever

I am very gradually making peace with the knowledge that, even when presented with every fact about a situation, the majority of people still will not give a rat's ass about what is happening to other people and will actually go to every extreme to prove why it is a non-issue and how I shouldn't care either. This attitude it starting to be okay with me-- that should not be okay. That kind of BS should be met with public ridicule, not acceptance. What the hell, people? I'm increasingly beginning to worry that my career is largely going to be a long, uphill battle with the apathy of the average person.

Oh sorry. Today, I guess I am Dromiceiomimus. I'm still mad about thatjob I missed out on, too. I lost out on the position at the doctor's office I'm sure because I want to work for a nonprofit doing global epidemiology. I sent my resume/cover letter and got an enthusiastic response asking about my career goals and when I sent that back suddenly they stopped contacting me. I don't know why wanting to prevent people from dying of cholera offends people so much. Shit.

In less crappy news I found out the public health school has one class offered to undergraduates that's like a survey of public health issues for people interested in going on to get an MPH. Since the two anthropology electives I wanted filled up (because the d-bag registrar put me in the VERY LAST registration period for Sophomores instead of the first one for Juniors like they should have, then refused to change it because they were just SURE that any profs would add me to a class I wanted even if the class filled, and then the class filled and the two profs refused to add me as an extra student. For the record someone with my class standing should have registered on Thursday, they put me on Monday afternoon, meaning all the classes I wanted filled up four days before I could even try to get in) I replaced them with that class and Japanese. Weee. Hopefully when I apply to MPH programs they'll notice that and it will add points in my favor.

You know what cheers me up, though? This T-Rex Squishable that they just started making. If no one gets it for me for Christmas I WILL BUY MYSELF TEN and pretend that everyone got me one. Then I will pile them all on my bed and they will be my new friends.

More srs bsns

Okay on a more serious life update (which I guess is what I'm supposed to be doing here, not ranting about zombies or WoW but OH MAN YOU GUYS SHOULD PLAY ZOMBIE PANIC--) I have a new beef.* And you might be wondering if he suggest shopping and offers to hold my purse. Well, my friends, he does both of those things. He's local so he's chill and awesome and he plays WoW with me and today he helped me find resource materials for a research project. Happy Blossom :D He's great, you guys would like him a lot.

I'm also settling on medical anthropology after taking just one course on it this semester. I had solid anthropology courses, actually, and that's the one that really got me. The same prof only teaches one or two medical anth courses a semester so hopefully I can get in for at least one each time. He's really nerdy and cool and he's done field work everywhere which is great for a subject like this. Mostly he talks about when he was in South Africa or Australia but it's also come up that he's done work in various parts of the Pacific as well as Canada, China, and some other places that I can't remember off the top of my head

Goal at the moment is to get a job after graduation with the CDC in Atlanta as a public health analyst and then after a few years apply for the MPH program at Emory for Global Epidemiology. That means more biochem and microbio coursework now, eeeek! And it means I should probably be taking a language like Hindi since I want to intern at CHRP in India but I can barely fit the classes I need into my schedule with how booked up the classes are now.

Which reminds me, there is the potential for a strike at the university this academic year. I hope they do and I hope it forces the disgusting admins to do their damn job and stop trying to ream the uni for their personal benefit. I also hope it works quickly because seriously I NEED to get all my credits for every semester. N-E-E-D. If they strike and bone us out of credits it would be almost exactly the same as if they didn't strike and let the admins bone us out of credits... I hope they remember that.

*If you are still unsure what I mean, this is a nice internet thing in which we take words and make them abbreviations like "bf" and then we start writing that instead of the word. Then one day we get bored of that and we start writing words out of the abbreviations as if pronouncing the aforementioned acronym, and then it's "beef." I am going to say "beef" instead of "boyfriend" forever, by the way, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Women hold up half the sky

I've been reading Half the Sky for a couple of days now and it's hard to put down. I'm actually going to be pretty mad when I finish it.

The piece I like to use to summarize the subject of the book is this: 107 million females are missing.

"[In] normal circumstances women live longer than men, and so there are more females than males in much of the world. Even poor regions like most of Latin America and much of Africa have more females than males. Yet in places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they vanish. ... This has nothing to do with biology ... Every year, at least another 2 million girls worldwide disappear because of gender discrimination. In the wealthy countries of the West, discrimination is usually a matter of unequal pay or underfunded sports teams or unwanted touching from a boss. In contrast, in much of the world discrimination is lethal."

What I love about this book is that it's not preachy. It's not a sermon, it's not trying to tell you what you should do or tell you what the solutions are. It acknowledges that this is a multifaceted issue and that there is no obvious fix. Kristof and WuDunn (New York Times reporters who famously witnessed and reported on the Tienanmen Square massacre) are not interested in making us feel guilt or sympathy, nor do they attempt to fabricate some kind of idyllic future that's only a bit of volunteer work or a small donation away. They give you the stories objectively, explaining proposed courses of action and weighing the pros and cons of each. Ultimately the fact that weighs on you is not the atrocities suffered by the women they interview but the knowledge that, even with everything done right, this will continue for a long while before it can even possibly be resolved.

The stories are not usually tragedies. Despite the kinds of horrors some of these women have been through, they are not ruined. For the most part they do not break and they are not afraid. They are constantly fighting back and, sometimes, they triumph against those who would force them to suffer in silence. I don't finish a chapter feeling upset or angry but rather hopeful and inspired. If Mukhtar Mai can outlast the government that tried to lock her away, if Usha Narayane and the women in her town can take down a brutal gangster when their government would not, if Meena Hasina can lead a raid on a gangster's home to get her children back, these are not tragedies. They are a window of the kind of justice that will continue to develop if we support it.

The key is not just humanitarian aid; It is also political pressure. No society will change of its own volition without pressure, both internal and external. With increasing internal support for women from aid organizations the remaining piece is for us in the West to demand certain changes. Action will only be taken if we insist on results, not just legislation. Policy change is largely irrelevant because there is little influence of the law in the rural areas in which most of the brutality takes place. No government wants to be shamed on a global scale.

I guess the important thing is that change is already happening, and hopefully with the support of people like you and I it can continue to happen. There are girls out there right now that are fierce and resilient but they can't do it alone. Not all issues will be resolved, of course, but for every small step there is at least one more woman who will be safe. And if that seems insignificant, remember-- you are just one person, too.

Sleepy sleepy sleepy

The flu has been going around here and, while I don't feel like I have the flu, I am tired all the time. I have been for a week running now and it's getting old FAST. Time for 500% RDA doses of vitamin C.

I bought an epilator. In other news, MY LEGS ARE ON FIRE.

I also applied for a job as a medical office assistant at a pediatrician's office. Sent in the resume tonight-- I plan on calling tomorrow to see if they got it / see if they want me to come in for an interview. I am scared like WOAH. I really want this job and I think I'd be good at it so I'm going to be really upset if I don't get it. There aren't any other similar jobs around at the moment, either.

I haven't been taking pictures because I've mostly been in my dorm reading. The readings for my Pacific Island Cultures class are getting old FAST. The one that finally tipped me over to the "to hell with you and your damn islands" was the chapter mocking microloans and the efforts by nonprofits from Australia, America, and Japan to create jobs and industry by helping people start businesses. I don't just mean in Melanesia (where honestly it's not needed a lot of the time) but everywhere. Alright you ethnocentric rubes. Go throw your satire at Myanmar and see if they laugh.

Anyway, in place of photos here's a doll:



Yep.

Yeah right.

So I started doing these broad searches for schools with MPH programs, then narrowed that down by the type of program, academic standards etc. and narrowed my options down to just one. Are you ready for this? Because you might hurt yourself laughing.

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

For the first time ever I am suddenly intensely remorseful for how much I have not given a crap about academics. I can't find any statistics as to what percentages of people are admitted to the program but I'm relatively sure it's somewhere between fat chance and no way.

Unfortunately now that I've looked at the Health in Crisis & Humanitarian Assistance concentration I can't settle for anything less in depth. Look at how specialized the course work is. Water and Sanitation Needs in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies, Assessing Epidemiologic Impact of Human Rights Violations, Ethics of Public Health Practice in Developing Countries, and my personal favorite, Issues in Maternal Mortality Reduction in Developing Countries. Compare that to U Penn's Global Health track and maybe you will understand why I've got my heart set on this now. Critical Appraisal of Occupational and Environmental Health Literature-- REALLY, GUYS? You're gonna make me live in West Philly and then make me read occupational and environmental health literature? Why don't you strap me to a damn rack while you're at it?

I'm going to go ahead and apply to see if I can't get in-- they require work experience so I couldn't apply for at least two years after graduation anyway, so I have a long time to think about this. Unfortunately that also puts me up against medical doctors and established health care workers, which is... Bad for me, to say the least. Wish me luck?

Where's my freaking medal

I want to get a BA in anthropology, an MPH with a focus on preventative medicine, and then I want to get hired by a nonprofit. I want them to ship me out to the Middle Of Freaking Nowhere, Asia-Pacific, where I want to work on sanitation and public health programs that will help prevent people from contracting diseases like hepatitis A and keep children from dying of preventable conditions like diarrhea. I want to make infant mortality and malnutrition drop off, and I want to be rid of illnesses like tuberculosis. I want to help make childbirth safe and sanitary so that no babies or mothers have to die because they didn't have access to clean facilities. I want to do this in areas that are hours away from hospitals, where political instability can prevent people from traveling for help. I don't care if the nonprofit I work for to have a freaking sign that says "NO VIOLENT INCIDENTS IN _________ WEEKS."

What I also want is to know why everyone seems to think this is a stupid idea. Everyone that's heard about this so far has tried to talk me out of it, not just because of the danger I may be in personally but because many of them seem to think that this is somehow unimportant. At least they've convinced me of one thing-- I can't do anything that could kill me because no one would take my place doing that kind of work if I died.

I want my pat on the back damn it :| Are there really so few people who think health is important? I can get botulism injected into my face to prevent wrinkles any day I feel like it but there are still places in the world where leprosy is a common problem-- Am I really the only one who finds that to be more than a little messed up?

In summary: Wah wah no one will tell me how awesome I am, I want a hamburger and french fries and a milkshake.

(If this was snarked on sf_drama the title of the post would be "Would someone give Blossom her freaking pony already?")

But then some days I'm stamping my nails and I suddenly realize, holy crap, I could go to beauty school and do nails for a living. Every day I could be going to work and painting nails and drilling acrylics and gluing on rhinestones. And it would be awesome. No really, how sweet would that be? Herp derp I'm going to work, gotta go paint some nails with pretty designs for six hours. You're essentially getting paid to doodle on people, and you get to sit the whole time. Sure you gotta touch some gnarly feet every once and a while, but that's not bad at all.

I guess there's no demand for professional nail technicians in impoverished rural areas, but maybe I could start my own nonprofit using my Konad kit. Save the Nails? Stamps for Subalterns? Poverty Pedicures? Hey leprosy survivors! You've only got seven fingers left, you better make the best of it! Your family's not going to take you back with dry cuticles!

Wait. That's not funny.

In case of emergency...

... You better hope I like you! :D

Because I am, as they so delightfully phrased it in The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, a disasterist. I am determined to learn things that will allow me to function in case of a city/state/country-wide disaster and potentially be self-sufficient thereafter. I can build fires, build shelters, forage for food, and help treat injuries, and so on. I intend to be able to field dress game, drive 18-wheeler trucks and boats, repair necessary electronics, etc.

Why?

Because if anything crazy happens you're really going to wish you knew how to do a lot of things you don't know now. I'm not gonna say that I'm planning on a zombie apocalypse or anything, but I am gonna say that if that ever happens I am going to rock because I am scrappy lady. I will ninja in your damn window armed with a fire poker and a really heavy lamp base and be like COME ON THE BUS IS WAITING and then you will pile in with the other survivors and then I will drive you all to a heavily fortified hiding place up in the mountains. THIS IS THE APOCALYPSE OF MY DREAMS, GUYS. I'm not gonna say I want a zombie apocalypse, I'm just saying that if there was a zombie apocalypse I wouldn't be all that upset.

Of course it might not turn out that way, but this is my fantasy world and I choose to believe that I will be a badass. So there.

Fun fact: While looking for that comic in the archive, I ctrl+f-ed for "side" and when I found "The Tasty Side" as the name of a comic I knew that must be it. looool forever.

Since there will never be a zombie apocalypse (QUESTION MARK) I guess I will just learn that stuff to be a bigger badass in the real (read: boring) world. Although actually that may all come in handy if I really do decide to go to some insane place to do public health (I'm looking at yoooou Myanmar) or in the entirely likely event of World War III. And it would definitely be handy in case of a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake.

Now you all think I'm insane, I'm sure, but I'm really just an ESFJ. Or, more appropriately for this scenario, an ENTJ. I tend to get one or the other when tested depending on how excited I am about a zombie apocalypse. I guess I'm walking the line somewhere between "Do you folks want some homemade cookies?" and "TUCK IN THAT SHIRT, SOLDIER."


P.S.
There's still hope!
A small warning about A Softer World: Most of the comics are either funny or just plainly poignant, but some of them can be downright upsetting. Each one tells a whole story and sometimes those stories are very dark. It may not always be for the faint of heart. Just a note.