reading list

Since the winter holidays, I’ve been on a reading-for-fun kick. After I read Haruki Murakami’s latest short story collection and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novella mentioned in an earlier blog, I remembered how much I missed reading. Recently completed books include:

• Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
• Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
• Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

Next up, Kite Runner, which Liz just finished and is letting me read. :)

Attending the conference ‘Responding to Infectious Diseases on the Border Regions of South and Southeast Asia,’ where panels examined the different borders of Burma and also touched on important public health issues in the region. During the conference, I learned a lot about health, politics, and funding around Burma. I also took opportunity of the freely distributed literature there and consumed some papers and reports, including:

• Licence (sic) to Rape: The Burmese military regime’s use of sexual violence in the ongoing war in Shan State
• Chronic Emergency: Health and Human Rights in Eastern Burma, published by the BackPack Health Worker Team (a group of trained medics that was started by Dr. Cynthia Maung that goes into Burma to provide health care and collect public health indicators – fascinating stuff!)
• Responding to AIDS, TB, Malaria, and Emerging Infectious Diseases in Burma: Dilemmas of Policy and Practice, published by my mentors Chris Beyrer and Vit S. (et al of course!) in PLoS Medicine in October 2006.

I also must admit my poor knowledge of geography was enriched when I found out India extended to Burma (I thought it ended with Bangladesh, but didn’t realize that there was a skinny part, kinda like an appendage moving eastward, going East). Another happy moment: I really like nagas, and was happy to hear that a province in India was called Nagaland (ok, maybe I’m a little lame, but it was exciting).

My parents also brought some Step 2 stuff, so I started reading Crush Step 2 & USMLE Step 2 Secrets. I’m hoping that I can take Step 2 early when I get back and then just do some sub-I’s and get residency apps out of the way before the fall.

Have you read a good book lately? If yes, let me know by posting a comment to this blog. :)