trying to catch up on blogspot

After postponing our trip to Lugano for a weekend, Kim decided to kickstart us into high gear and sorted out her ticket situation, reserved us some seats on a rather uninspiring leg of the Glacier Express (Italy was much cooler, according to Kim, but we'll get to that later), and committed us to a hostel near the train station in Lugano. Lugano is technically part of Switzerland, but geographically it's essentially in Italy (much like Geneva is essentially in France - check out a map), so it has its own character and is known for being a beautiful lakeside vacation town.

The train ride to Lugano was fine, but a little hellish because we had to transfer four different times or something ridiculous. Kim was well prepared, however, and brought lots of yummy snacks for us to munch on (I was very impressed). As an omen of what was to come, Kim and I accidentally did not get off at Lugano because we didn't see a sign (and misread one that said orarios, which is actually 'timetable' in Italian) and had to find our way back from the next town over, Paradiso. In any case, we eventually ended up at the hostel after getting directions on how to board a bus by a guy in a lakeside stall ('go stand near the choo-choo'…we figured out what he meant when we DID see a choo-choo, or small tourist train that runs through the town on the normal streets). After checking in, we threw down our stuff on some bunks, and went off to explore Lugano. We could not find this funicular that Kim's guidebook was talking about (yes, we later discovered it the day we were leaving - it's in the middle of the train station) and so took the bus into town, walked along the waterfront, and devoured some spaghetti. Later on, we walked through a park, window shopped, and noted that besides really expensive brands, Lugano was also really into selling lingerie/swimwear (sometimes hard to discern which was which), with many sets starting around 200 USD. Following some aimless wandering, we ended up at a café/bar where people were really excited about the Italy vs USA game. We each ordered what turned out to be really strong drinks, people watched (I was impressed that a single American dude was able to integrate himself in with a European couple and other single girl), and wondered why our waitress was dressed like a porn star (dyed red hair, pigtails, italy cropped t-shirt, skirt). Although we tried to crash early, we both didn't sleep very well because of annoying ass people coming into the hostel loud, late, and drunk. I was annoyed with two German girls in the bunks above us because they kept whispering and giggling until 4 am. Some dudes also came in and slept with their girlfriends and were smelly.


town square in lugano

Day 2:
We ended up booking it in the morning to escape such smelly peoples and caught a ferry to a neighboring seaside village, Gandria.


kim noticed this pic on our ferry, informing you that if you brought your dog on the ferry and it was little, it was free. however, if you had a big dog, you had to pay 50% of a normal fare. quote from kim: "i think all dogs aspire to be gratis dogs."

Gandria was totally cute and built into the mountain, so all the streets were narrow, made of cobblestone, and kept winding upwards. There were also a lot of cute restaurants where you could sit on a terrace overlooking the water (we ended up eating lunch at one of these), some small local galleries (kim bought a painted platter for her mom here), and a paved trail along the mountain detailing the path of how olive oil was made. Although Kim and I originally had grand plans of checking out a cathedral and a park, we ended up running into a place kinda similar to Bains des Paquis in Geneva, but smaller. Essentially, it's a deck where you pay an entrance fee and can rent beach chairs or beds with a roped off swimming area in the lake, a café, etc. Because it was really hot, we decided to spend the remainder of our time laying out, swimming, and talking. Kim reminded me to mention that we were joined by two elderly ladies, one of whom had a tremendous amount of plastic surgery done on her face and was really very unattractive, and another, who was some kind of vip since her chair was 'reserved' and she acted like the lifeguard was her slave by having her move around her umbrella. This aforementioned lady was also unattractive but was even moreso because she insisted on sunbathing topless and in a bottom that was uncannily close to a G-string. Most unfortunately, she was lying directly behind us with her legs facing towards us, giving us a most unwanted view of her crotch area. Needless to say, we tried to turn around as little as possible throughout.

The afternoon overall was super relaxing, but we had to rush back to get to our train. We had stored our stuff in the hostel and Kim got super pissed off when these little girls (maybe high school age?) tried to block us from coming in to get our stuff and did not help us get out (they had locked this door that was supposed to always remain open). We made our train, but ended up missing a connection later on as we didn't realize that the next train we were supposed to get on was in a different station. I was stressed since I had to get back to Geneva for the beginning of my weeklong seminar (Health Policy in a Globalizing World), so rushed back to Lugano on the train to see if I could catch the last train to Zurich. I ended up missing it by 5 minutes, so crashed at the same hostel near the train station (but in a private room). I ended up leaving around 6 am the next morning, arrived in Geneva at 12:30, and rushed home to change quickly before meeting up with my fellow fellows at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. The site visit was okay, but it was cool to meet the new arrivals in our group. At night, a few of us girls ended up going to Café Arts, where I got a yummilicous salad, but was annoyed about being attacked by one girl who said, "Why do I get the feeling that you don't want to hang out with me?about acting like I didn't want to hang out with her because I wasn't all gungho about waiting around for everyone and just suggested meeting up later after I got dinner. Actually, I was trying to be considerate because I knew I was going to a pricier place and she always talks about saving money, so I threw it back in her face by saying that I didn't want to impose an expensive place on people who might not want to pay that much for a meal. Anyway, it ended up working out, and dinner was followed by some informal chattiness with invited guest Thiru at Bains des Paquis. I bounced early because I was exhausted from travelling, but it was good start to the week.

The past week was a little crazy. We had site visits almost everyday and visited WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization), the US mission to the UN, the World Trade Organization, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, UNAIDS, and others, while also being in class from around 8:30ish to 6ish everyday. Following class, we often had optional dinners, where invited speakers would informally talk to us about their careers, but this made for a very long day (we'd often get done around 9 or 10 pm). One session was held at the WHO, but most of our lectures were held at HEI, a local Geneva University that specializes in international affairs. In addition to the fellows, some WHO staff also joined us and I met a cool Swiss physician who worked in Cambodia for a number of years doing training and health systems work. It was interesting to be in class with older staff, but one woman ended up dominating a lot of the discussion and being very antagonistic to some of the presenters, which ate up a lot of time and wasn't that productive. Later on in the week, one of my classmates took me aside and said, "Tanya, I need to ask you a question." I was a little concerned that I might have done something, but she said, "Am I one of those people that asks too many questions? I'd trust you to give me an honest answer." I laughed and said she totally wasn’t, and she was relieved. It felt kinda good to know that people respect my opinion though, even on trivial matters.

My favorite parts of the course were the modules on trade and health. I realized that my knowledge on IP has increased markedly by just being here, reading stuff, and that I've had some good experiences (seeing the R&D treaty process at the World Health Assembly, for example) and met some fun, interesting, smart people. Even though I got off to a slow start, it's been nice to use other parts of my brain, share stories (mostly with Thiru and Kim), think about how different roles (scientists, policymakers, health care workers, public health practitioners) interact and work (for or against) each other, think about where I can fit in and contribute, and engage in discussion about issues that rarely, if ever, come up in medical school. More updates (on a weekend trip to Cinque Terre, with the director of the Fellows Program and two other fellows) to come.


me and kim (in geneva's old town)




Random postscript (added to interesting things about Geneva): The rage here is white pants…for both men and women. I see at least twenty people a day wearing all forms of white pants, some with their underwear showing. Also, nobody wraps their hoodies or sweaters around their waist here (everything is tied around the neck)…very preppy. I always feel like people are going to play tennis.

overdue entry on london

After being somewhat isolated in Geneva for a few weeks, Chris and I took a weekend jaunt to London. I never normally use the word jaunt, but it just popped into my head (and how often do you get a chance to use that word, anyway?) so somebody inform me if I’m using it incorrectly. I think it describes the whole experience though.

So, as my previous entry stated, we stayed with Chris’s high school friend and his girlfriend in the Earl’s Court area. Following a delayed flight, a train ride on London Gatwick’s express, and a go on the Tube (London’s Underground), we got in really late on Thurs night and grabbed dinner at a local restaurant in the area, Balard’s. I think the bill came out to over a hundred dollars for three people and we just had one entrée each and a beer. Intro to the pound, where the exchange rate was 1.8 USD to 1 British Pound. I tried to think of things in dollars so it wouldn’t seem so bad, but it was super expensive! Go with the flow, though.

On Friday, I made Chris attempt to show me around, so he took me to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. He didn’t really know the significance of either, so I read about them in one of many tourist guides we had along. We also attempted to go shopping in SoHo and ate fish and chips at a local pub. Other highlights of the day included getting passport pages added to my passport at the local US embassy (there is no embassy in Geneva, just a consulate) – they just tape pages labeled A-Z in), dragging Chris into a Dali/Picasso exhibit and being a little freaked out, but enjoying the sculptures with soft clocks and drawers coming out of people, meeting up with a college friend who’s studying at the London School of Economics for cheap Korean food (yum!), where our waiter refused to acknowledge our order unless we spoke to him in numbers (example conversation with Chris follows), seeing the streets overflow with people at local pubs (everyone just stands outside with their beer on the pavement), and riding in a British taxi. Also, missing our reservations at Kensington Roof Gardens with our hosts and standing in a ridiculous line to get in with no other people of color. I guess reservations and guest lists are rampant in London, but this is probably skewed since this hs friend was all into going to exclusive places. Back to the Korean waiter though:

Tanya: Let’s order another plate of bu gol gi (marinated Korean beef) and share it.
Chris: OK (calls waiter over). Hey, can we have another plate of bul gol gi? (points to plate that we already have on the table, which is shaped like a cow, in case you didn’t know what you were eating)
Waiter: Number 44?
Chris: Um yeah, bul gol gi. (We have no menu at the table)
Waiter: Bul go gi? Number 44? This? (points to plate of bul go gi on the table)
Chris: Yes, we’d like another order.
Waiter: Number 44?!

This goes on for a few minutes. My college friend Anna and I are like, what’s going on? It was hilarious, but we did end up getting another plate. Yummy. This was our cheapest meal in London, and I think plates went for between ten and twelve dollars. At dinner, we caught up, talked about her degree program and compared her educational experience to the US, shared some Swat gossip, and talked about social justice. Following that, we walked around and got dessert and coffee at a café. Good times, fun stuff.

On Saturday, we hung out with high school friend the whole day. His gf, who is German, stayed home because she had a toothache. We went to a food market reminiscent of Reading Terminal Market (but much bigger!) where Chris ate a turkey sandwich with cranberries and applesauce (year round Thanksgiving at this food stand), consumed many food samples, and walked along the River Thames. We visited the Tate Museum of Modern Art, which is housed in an old converted power plant, and high school friend made fun of most of the pieces, but I thought it was on the whole interesting and kinda wandered by myself. I also browsed an outdoor used book sale and Chris bought me a cute necklace at a little boutique while hs friend was getting a 15 minute Swedish chair massage. Later, we stumbled onto an outdoor fair that was talking about sustainable development and healthy eating choices (mostly for kids, but it was a family affair), enjoyed a view of the city from a balcony bar, ate some pasties at a pub where we noted three groups of annoying girls having hen parties (British bachelorette parties), and caught the night’s showing of STOMP (some really creative noisemaking and rhythm here). This was a busy day, and we ended it with some Belgian food (mussels, sausage, mashed potatoes, cheese, beer) at this industrial looking restaurant where you sit on benches (like in a ski lodge) in the basement. Chris had to leave to go back to the US early the next morning due to news of his grandfather’s passing, but I had a little time before my flight back to Geneva, so I explored Camden Market (a British Chatuchak, or a series of huge outdoor markets!) and ended up picking up a Punkyfish hoodie and grabbing some quick Thai food. All in all, it was a good time, and I think it would be fun to go to school in London…if Chris made money ;). Seriously though, salaries are generally commensurate with the cost of living (this is also true in Geneva, where UN employees get crazy benefits and make tons of cash)...unfortunately, there is still a huge poverty problem in London, many kids live below the poverty line, and homelessness/poor housing conditions are rampant (we met many street campaigners on these issues and saw billboards in the Tube trying to raise awareness :) ...see, it worked, since i still remember it a few weeks later! too bad med school didn't work like that for me ;) ).

shout out to everyone who is studying for Step 2!!

plainpalais, a cement park

In the big cement park known as Plainpalais near my house, they've set up a big screen TV, speakers, and a bunch of food stands for the month of the World Cup. I think most every game is played on it and Geneva peeps come to hang out, hook up, and watch football. Since there's a lack of food stands in general throughout the city (no cheesesteaks or breakfast sandwiches here), it's a pretty good (if expensive) place to pick up some limited menu items from a variety of vendors. Interestingly, there is no Swiss food stand, but there are Brazilian, Afghani, Turkish, and Thai people representing.

Since Plainpalais is so big, the World Cup setup only takes up part of the cement/rock area. Over the weekend, for example, there were two other events going on in Plainpalais, including a Sustainable Development Fair (a couple of tents with different NGO's and other orgs, and a playground for kids built out of cardboard boxes) and a Dog Obedience Fair. I happened on the Dog Obedience Fair when I was walking to meet my friend Kim at Café Remour. It was semi hilarious because the announcer was speaking in French and it didn't seem like the dogs were really obedient as their owners tried to run them around this makeshift ring. Also, a poster advertising the event showed a dog leading a human on a leash. I feel that more often than not that's what's true, especially in Geneva.

Other highlights of the end of last week/ this past weekend included:

Accidentally ordering this yummy drink at Café Remour with Kim, which consists of iced coffee, tea, and ginger. We think there's more tea than anything in it though because it looks just like iced tea, but it's pretty yummy.

Meeting my roommate's boyfriend whose philosophy on life can be boiled down to two words, which he says often, and states that it is an 'expression of energy'. These two words are fuck yeah! Also, hearing his views on how most criticism at a job is bs, and that most jobs are bs. Agreeing with him but not as energetically.

Late night conversation and dessert at this coffeehouse on Plainpalais, 'Central Perk' (straight out of the TV show Friends), with Kim. They have the font for Friends and everything on their sign..i wonder if this is a copyright or trademark infringement ;)

Going out for coffee with my roommate, her bf, and this other couple who are also b-school grads from this famous school in France. Quietly eating ice cream while listening to this one girl complain about how she works like 12 hr days as a consultant for McKinsey and has to travel all the time and doesn't get paid enough salary. Thinking in my head (but not saying out loud), residents work hella harder than you (30 hr shifts, hello) and probably get LESS THAN HALF your salary. Also thinking, when she stated that she LOVED selling stuff, and wished her whole career was in sales, that I wanted to barf. Later on, thinking that if she liked sales so much, maybe she should go into selling something that was useful, like condoms. A comment from one of Kim's acquintances comes to mind...this is a law student who told Kim (who is obviously going into public interest law) that people's worth to society is commensurate with their salary. Um, WHAT?! That means the whole Global South could just disappear because their earning power sucks compared to other people in the Global North, even if they work hella crazy hours. This is frustrating to me (obviously) just in terms of the lack of political will to address HIV/AIDS and saying we don't have enough money to support treatment even though first line ARV's can now cost as little as 135 USD a YEAR. Not treating people to me is like saying, your life is not worth even fifty cents a day, sorry.

Dancing and enjoying a free concert (this is Thurs night) by Olodum, a Brazilian drumming group with singers and some other instruments (like saxophone), also in Plainpalais. Meeting some new interns who attend pharmacy school. One girl from Canada was a little spaz and was like (this is a serious quote), "Wow, this is sooooooo fun and exciting!" "I didn't have friends before, but now I do (referring to us)." I was like…do I know you?. Another intern from Univ of Illinois Chicago who expressed frustration that everyone spat out their resume when they met her and admitted she felt intimidated because she didn't go to some East Coast Ivy League School. I was like, screw them, and be confident in yourself. At this same event, being disgusted when ppl greeted other ppl with saying such as, "Hel-looo Princeton!"

Eating mango jasmine sorbet from the bakery/sweet shop downstairs that my roomie bought for dinner over the weekend.

Having a long lunch with 'droptop' (this is his alias) at a yummy cafeteria near the WHO whose salad bar kicks WHO salad bar's ass. I had WHO salad bar today for lunch and was severely disappointed and upset. I think it set the tone for the rest of my day, where I spent like six or seven hours printing out patent documents and doing database work. Droptop is fun to talk to and text msg; he also offers interesting insights and knows many things.

Discussing mental health issues with a couple people this weekend. My friend Kim told me that George Washington Univ expelled a student after he went to the psych ER seeking help for depression (he was depressed after his close friend committed suicide while he was outside his dorm room trying to break in). They said he broke the code of student conduct by participating in self-injurious behaviour, or thinking about it, or something totally on crack. I'll put the link to the case (he's suing them now) up here later if I can find it again (actually, Liz put it in the comments, so go there if you want to read about it). This is TOTALLY frustrating to me since people are punished for seeking help. What the hell kind of supportive learning environment is it when colleges and universities expel students for seeking help for mental illness??

things that piss me off

Lunch yesterday

I had lunch with a few other interns yesterday. Two of the interns went to Princeton for undergrad, one went to Dartmouth, and I'm sure anyone who's reading this knows I'm a Swattie. Part of the conversation centered around the eating clubs at Princeton, which I didn't really know about before, but now, thanks to this conversation and an informative IM session with Bryan (where he read the wikipedia entry on it), I do.

From my understanding, you apply or join an eating club and that's where you eat. I asked about eating at other clubs, but you can apparently only do that if you switch with someone in that eating club. Sounds like a fraternity or some weird exclusive thing to me. The two Princeton people at my table tried to guess which eating club the other one was in (turns out they were in the same one, but they're different ages so didn't know each other before), talked about other people in their eating clubs, and explained to me that it's super difficult to have a social life without being in an eating club. Also, people who aren't in eating clubs are 'independent'. I noted that Swarthmore had one cafeteria to promote equality and socializing. There was an awkward silence and then they ignored me after that. The conversation continued with the 'name the famous people in your class' game. For some reason, I was totally unimpressed.

After lunch, one of the Princeton people talked about how her little brother went to Duke and was a frat boy and how she was totally not like that. Um, exclusive eating club?

I love Swarthmore and rave about it often but I don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone. At that table, all of us went to elite colleges, and we all knew it, and I had no understanding of why we needed to rehash about how hard school was or how elite we were or whatever. This experience made me not want to eat lunch with other people anymore.

After dinner drinks

The program I'm on organized another happy hour at Les 5 Portes for people to meet up. There were a lot of Global Health Fellows there this time and I met some new people, including some new med students, which was nice. While I was there, I saw a cute Asian dude with good style outside on the terrace and thought, he must be American. Later, I noticed my friend T. join him and waved at him through the window. Because of the glare, T. gave me a half wave and then looked away. I was slightly embarassed because I thought he might not remember me or not want to say hi, but remedied the situation when I walked outside and said hi to him and he invited me to sit down. His friend was American (and a Midwesterner to boot!) . We had an interesting conversation about intellectual property related things, Thailand, intense college tours in the states, high school students paying to go on crazy volunteerism tours, being an expat, my brother's crazy Watson fellowship, and more.

Later, I walked home with T. He relayed to me a conversation he had with another intern on my program, as a bunch of us were freezing our butts off at the lake after happy hour.

T (sarcastically): "So, (intern name here), have you eradicated polio since we last talked a few weeks ago?"

Intern: (in all seriousness) "Actually, yes, four or five countries have fallen off the map (meaning polio was eradicated there). We're going to eradicate polio in the next two or three years, and I would like to stay in Geneva to see it…."

T (tries very hard not to laugh).

Intern continues to tell T about the WHO and his or her (why doesn't English have a neutral gender term for people?) life plan. T has worked at the WHO before and feels sorry that this person is smart but has these grand feelings and believes that s/he is personally responsible for anything that is going on.

I feel old and jaded a little but am 25 and haven't really done so much but at least have somewhat of a clue of what it's like on the ground. I think people respect that a lot actually. T and I talked about how it's important to take some time off, get some perspective, do your own thing. I'm incredibly grateful to the opportunities I had on my Fulbright and felt like I really made the most of it…I miss my mentors but also those - many of the sex workers and IVDU's (IV drug users) who opened up their lives, and hearts to me, random Thai American med student.

Lunch today

I went to lunch a little late because I wanted to check in with Chris (he just got back from DC, where he attended his grandfather's funeral). Apparently I missed lunch with one of the 'big bosses' at WHO (again, trying to conceal identities here). I actually was supposed to meet him this morning since I'm working in his division but missed the meeting due to a prior commitment. Actually, it wasn't really a prior commitment, but it was the most exciting part of my day, where I had a long conversation with a Brazilian physician who is on the team that's writing the new WHO guidelines on ARV treatment. He basically gave me a personal lecture on the background of access, the new treatment guidelines, and other cool things that I'll talk about later. He also introduced me to this cool Brazilian pharmacist. Anyway, to get back to the theme of things that piss me off, I cut and pasted this googlechat I had with my friend Kim:

Me: I almost got in a fight with another intern (he's Indian) at lunch because he was saying how desi kids who dress in hip hop gear bother him
Kim: why, not everyone has to be a preppy med student type
me: and this other nepali girl, was like, "yeah, my cousins do that, and some of them even get their hair braided, and im like, i dont know you"
and then he was like, "two guys in my bhangra group at yale are like that, they freestyle and breakdance and then dress like all thuggish"
i was like, "What's wrong with that? I used to dress like a punk all the time in high school, not everyone has to be the same. You shouldn’t judge people by the way they dress."
Kim: plus that's kinda racist-y, is he suggesting that hip hop is only for black people?
me: and he was like, well, it's natural to
Kim: and bhangra i suppose is only for indians?
me: judge people if they're not conforming to the norm
and you know, we were raised a certain way
blah blah
Kim: ooh i don't like that at all
me: i was like, yeah, but just because you were raised a certain way doesnt mean it's right
and i waslike my brother dresses in a hip hop style i guess and
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Kim: yeah really, get over yourself, the world would be really boring if everyone who happened to be the same color aspired to dress and dance and talk and eat exactly the same
1:25 PM me: anyway
then they stopped talking to me
Kim: i suppose i'm only supposed to be into country music or something?
that's icky
me: i dont get how ppl are like that and then have grand goals of saving the world. im like, you judge other yale students for dressing in baggy clothing
what the hell
what if your pt comes in with clothes you dont approve of
Kim: well it's like we were talking about how a lot of that 'saving the world' stuff is actually condescending, like people think they have SO much to offer, they're SO much smarter and more together than everyone else
me: sigh
i kinda wanna save some ppl
anyway, i dont know if im being a huge bitch
Kim: no, you're not, he's being immature and self-involved and probably insecure
me: i feel like i get pissed off talking to everyone except you

ok, enough pissiness. im not including an im conversation i had with sural here about a contentious post on the AMSA global health listserv re: calling your house reps to oppose continued funding of abstinence only education, but may touch on that later. However, one funny thing is that there is now drama between the interns and another intern is pissed off at LW (those of you reading this who know her can chuckle to themselves). Apparently, when LW and another intern went down to lunch today, they were approached by our 'big boss' while getting water, who asked if they wanted to have lunch with him. They agreed but then other intern who wasn't included approached LW and was like, "So, when are you going to invite other interns to your special lunch meetings?" and "When are you going to stop putting yourselves in these special situations?" Kinda hilarious in a way. I'm staying out of it though.

Next post, funny moments. Maybe some London related things as well.

patience is a virtue

Although I should be working, I just finished an outline of my proposed policy paper and started working on the next phase of this database project so I'm 'rewarding' myself by writing in my blog for about twenty minutes. There's a lot to update on as Chris and I took a four day weekend trip to London, so I'll just bring out some memorable moments below:

• Chris's horrible luck while travelling. As I said before, my good luck cannot cancel out Chris's bad bad luck. We were supposed to leave Geneva around 6 pm for London and get there around 7 or 8ish (there's a one hour time difference, with London being one hour behind). Notice the supposed to part. Turns out we didn't leave Geneva until almost 9 pm due to a bomb threat in London on the plane that was coming in. This necessitated them unloading both all passengers and all luggage in the plane, rescreening everything, searching the plane, and then flying to Geneva. Right. I was grumpy about this since we left downtown Geneva at around 4:30 pm and didn't get to where we were staying in London until past 11 pm.
  
  2. Housing in London. We ended up staying with Chris's high school friend. He will remain nameless but he is an investment banker who went to college in the South. His flat was very nice and I appreciate the time he took to show us around London, but due to my political views I thought he was a little intolerable after awhile. This dude is well intentioned but a little ignorant and sadly conservative. Choice remarks that I tried my best not to react to included:
  
• Regarding our high school experiences, where I talked about attending the All-American Midwestern high school that was ultra-conservative (I used the word 'not very open-minded' about different people) and Chris and him talked about attending a diverse high school close to LA.
• ''We didn't really go to basketball games and football games on Friday nights, but I would've loved to go to a high school like that. I don't mean to sound racist, and don't take this the wrong way, but Hispanics and other minorities don't really have the background in American sports to be successful at them. Like Hispanics and Koreans and stuff, they don't play football, and our football team just sucked.''

• I have no problem admitting that I grew up in a very privileged family but I think this was uncomfortable at first (I definitely figured this part out at Swarthmore) and I've also been confronted with really stark poverty both in the US and abroad. Chris and I used to fight a lot about how he didn't consider himself 'rich' even though he grew up in a 5 bedroom house or something while I pointed out that almost 3 billion people live on less than 2 USD a day. Anyway, Chris is better now and I've had discussions with him and lots of others people on how individuals gain perspective on wealth and status. Understandably, if you've never been exposed (or just deny that you've been exposed to) poverty or people who grew up with less than you (and called out on it) you probably just have the perspective that you're really poor because you don't drive a BMW or whatever. Unfortunately, Chris's friend probably has never thought about these things, and stated,
  
• ''My gf hates London. Part of what she hates about it is it's so expensive and she wants to move somewhere else in Europe. As an American, it would be hard for me to work somewhere else, and you know, in my industry, the financial center is London (everything is fine up to this point). You know, Chris, my family grew up with not a lot of money and we didn't go on all these trips and always had to watch what we spent (Chris informs me he grew up in a regular middle class 3 br house with both of his parents working). If we move and I take another job, we would have to downgrade our lifestyle and I don't think (my gf) has thought about that since she grew up in a kinda well-off family. You know, no more buying belts and purses (Prada was the bag she carried to brunch) whenever you want. Also, I can't imagine going back to a life where I have to balance my checkbook weekly and budget my money and stuff. I'm balling now.''

• When discussing a possible trip to Asia, where he has never travelled:
  "What is poverty like there? Is it all in your face all the time?"
  

While drunk, he also made fun of homeless people as we were walking past them on the way home. I was disgusted.

There were others as well but my twenty minutes just ran out. I will have to update on things we actually did in London later.

day trips with christopher

Chris and I in the ice palace

Bryan has bothered me to update my blog so I am. Actually, the only good thing about going into the office everyday was that I would generally start the workday by writing in my blog. Since I've been skipping out on work a lot, that hasn't been happening. However, I'm here now, so some updating on what's been up since Chris got here.

Chris arrived on Saturday sans luggage (as usual)…I was waiting for him to come out of the terminal, waited and waited, lots of people came out and I had a fleeting thought that he might have lost his luggage or not made his flight (this was unlikely, as I had checked his connection online). Lo and behold, his luggage was lost, which was somewhat hilarious considering he walked out with a backpack full of nothing. This happened in summer 2004 as well when he came to visit me in Bangkok and Korea Air lost his luggage in Seoul. For those of you who don't know, Chris generally has incredibly bad luck travelling. Luggage is lost, flights are delayed, unforeseen bad circumstances and stars align to make sure that he cannot get to his destination on time. In fact, last time he came to Bangkok he was rerouted on like three flights or something AND his luggage was lost. Similar events have happened when we have travelled together (unfortunately, my good luck does not cancel out his bad luck), including when we got stuck in Philadelphia on the way to Paris during Spring Break 2004.

In any case, we scrapped our plans to travel since we had to wait for his suitcase to be delivered and hung out in Geneva for the day. Over the next few days, we went on day trips with our Eurail passes. Highlights follow:


me on a glacier

1) Interlaken and Jungfrajoch , Switzerland (train rides through little mountain towns including Wengen, Lauterbrunnen, Grindenwald, etc)…and the 'Top of Europe', Jungfraujoch. This whole day was essentially spent riding a series of trains to the top of this mountain with hella lots of tourists. I got a little altitude sickness when I first got up to Jungfraujoch (11,333 feet) but sat down and felt better. While we were at Jungfraujoch, we walked on a glacier, slid in the ice palace (basically a series of underground tunnels carved into the glacier), and thought about getting on a dogsled but decided we weren't appropriately dressed. On our way down the mountain, we stopped for dinner at this swiss chalet and ate rösti, which is basically hash browns fried with bacon, onions, and other yummy things. Chris got the mountain style rösti with eggs, bacon, and cheese, and I got one with polish sausage and cabbage. Yummy. We also walked through Interlaken, where chris was fascinated by the Hooters he found there, and then caught the train back home to Geneva.


mmm ... hashed brown potatoes, bacon and eggs


Chris needed to take a picture of this

2) Avignon, France - we had originally planned to go to Marseilles but I was sick of being on the train so we just got off at Avignon. This is a super cute town with the largest Gothic castle in Europe that was built by two popes when the papacy had to flee Rome for awhile. There's also a famous bridge, Pont d'Avignon, that only goes like halfway across the river since it was bombed or damaged during different wars. In Avignon we wandered around the cobblestone streets for awhile and ate a decent set meal at this tourist place in the center square (everything else was closed by the time we got there…most European restauraunts are open a certain time for lunch and then close until dinnertime). After eating, we walked around the castle with our individual phoneguides (basically, you get this phone when you go in and punch in numbers in different rooms if you want to listen to the background of it), checked out the bridge, and then came home. Chris was grumpy because he was hot near the end of our journey but he denied it. By the time we got back to the train station, the ticket counter lady informed me that second class was sold out and I couldn't use my Eurail pass, so we had to buy a regular priced ticket. Grrr. Chris also had to sit in first class, which was sad. I sat by myself and listened to all of Chris's mp3's on the way home. Chris said he slept all the way home in first class.

3) Annecy, France - this is another cute little town that's only an hr away (about 35 km) from Geneva. We went there on the bus. Known as the Venice of France, there are a lot of little canals and gardens running throughout the vielle vieux (who knows if im spelling this right), which is like their 'old town'. Tons of cafés line these cobblestone streets with overflowing flower boxes, balconies, and bridges. Chris and I enjoyed local specialties of tartiflette and patiflette (potatoes and pasta, respectively) baked with cheese and onions and ham, but were disappointed to find out that all the local attractions were closed for some reason (two castles, one that served as a prison in WWII). We settled for admiring the outsides of them and took a long walk through the park on the cleanest lake in France (more see through water here) and then returned home for me to do some 'work' in preparation for a meeting with my supervisor. This 'work' never happened but we did hang out with Pan for awhile and had a talk about future, the soulless nature of business, and other fun things.


Annecy

Yesterday I was generally productive all day in preparation for my meeting with my supervisor, which was actually really good and is helping me think about how I want to spend the rest of my time here (too bad I didn't really do anything for the first few weeks, but this is inevitable whenever you're abroad I think). I'll write a little more on that when I figure out exactly what I'm doing, but right now I'm mainly figuring out how to get more extra pages in my passport so I can get visas to Thailand and also to wherever Chris and I decide to go on our honeymoon (Brazil is out now after the recent gang violence there). Any suggestions would be welcome. Chris's criteria is that it has to be outside of the US and warm.

Finally, Kim and I have been hanging out and trying to find cool cafés and not so expensive places to eat. We had more pasta at Manor yesterday and were totally unable to find intern happy hour and another café kim had read about in a nytimes article so ended up café willi's, which was filled with guys smoking a lot of cigarettes on WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY. What is up with all these people smoking in Europe? Seriously.


Kim and I

Chris and I are off to London for the weekend, and then he is going back to Michigan while I return to work at the WHO. More details on travels to come. Monday is some random holiday, which I didn't realize until after Chris had bought my ticket back to Geneva on Sunday. Oh well. I'm not sure if it's worth it to go anywhere since I assume all of Europe will be shut down for these very frequent 'holidays' that they have here.

world health assembly

So I haven't updated in awhile but I have become (marginally) more productive in the past week. This has entailed not actually showing up to the WHO, where I have a ridiculously slow, old computer without a USB drive and little to no monitoring.

Instead of going to the WHO, I have been attending some parts of the World Health Assembly, which is usually less interesting than one might assume (or at least less interesting than I assumed it might be…it seems that there has to be a better, more efficient way to run things rather than having everyone who wants to speak/offer commentary/read a report) do so before voting or discussing resolutions. To give you all a little background on the WHA, it's basically an annual weeklong meeting held every year at the UN (the WHO is too small to hold all the delegates) where countries send delegates (generally ministers of public health; the US delegation head is the director of health and human services, Leavitt) to review current programming and discuss policy and priorities for the WHO. I think countries sit in alphabetical order according to their names in French, but haven't totally figured it out. The public is allowed in this seating gallery/balcony, which has two rows of maybe 20 seats or so. At each seat, there is an earpiece that covers your ear, and controls for volume and language. There is simultaneous translation available in Chinese, Spanish, French, English, Arabic, and Russian, and you just turn the dial to what language you want to listen to. This is also available at all the plenary sessions, so it's kinda interesting.

The most interesting and educational part of the WHA for me so far has been the technical briefings. These are generally 90 minute meetings with a panel of speakers organized by either a department at WHO or an NGO like Consumer Project on Technology (aka CP-Tech) or Medicins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders, or MSF). A big topic being debated right now is a resolution proposed by Kenya and Brazil to establish a global framework for essential health research and development (aka R&D), which would basically create an intergovernmental working group to address issues of how to fund and devote resources to diagnostics, treatment, and monitoring for 'neglected diseases' (TB, sleeping sickness, onchocerciasis, other infectious diseases). It would also make neglected diseases a priority. Interestingly, it has been shown that less than 1% of the pharmaceutical industry/new innovations registered in the US for the past 10-plus years have been related to neglected diseases, which make up 12% of the world's disease burden.

Some of the topics people have discussed during briefings I've attended include alternative R&D schemes that don't necessarily involve the current system of patents and intellectual property rights (example: the Medical Innovation Prize Fund, currently the subject of a House Resolution in the US), access to second-line antiretrovirals for HIV/AIDS, the breakdown of pricing on medicines in developing countries (from manufacture to retail to end patient price), open access/ data sharing mechanisms used during the Human Genome Project and how that can relate to the advancement of scientific knowledge in general, counterfeit drugs, and more. I've also met some people, but generally feel 'out of the loop' or unwelcome regarding the NGO crowd, even though I really respect and am interested in what they do. Some of the NGO's working on the R&D resolution include MSF, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DnDi - I got a cool offer to work with them this summer but decided I wanted the experience of working in a huge multinational organization instead…I sometimes wonder what my experience would be like there), Third World Network, CP-Tech, and others. Today I had a really awkward moment where I went to say hi to this woman who is an advocate and activist that my really good friend in Thailand had introduced me to over email. She was (unsurprisingly) standing in the area where the NGO community had set up camp in the coffee bar area of the WHA (basically a big area with tables, chairs, a coffee bar in the corner…mostly for people to meet). I said hi to her, thought she probably didn’t remember me, and she went to get coffee. I remained standing and the head of MSF came and started talking about the resolution that was still being worked on in the drafting group (originally there were two resolutions and I think they're merging them into one; there were also questions about all the 'brackets' or debatable language in the resolution). I hung out because I was kinda interested and she has insider info, but then felt awkward as I was standing outside this circle and they were huddling closer. I moved to the side and started looking at a document discussing the new language of the resolution and then looked up to see the head of the MSF Campaign for Access to Medicines giving me a semi-dirty look. I was really embarrassed and wanted to introduce myself but then thought, what if they didn't want anyone from the WHO here, or what if they think I'm some kind of weird spy, or whatever. I ended up leaving and feeling really crappy about the whole NGO scene. It's not like these people haven't seen me at every single briefing they hold or sat next to me in some meeting.

There is one NGO guy that has been very welcoming and nice though, and I really appreciate it. He says hi to me when he runs into me at the WHA and tries to keep me up-to-date re: what's going on or what I might be interested in. I am really grateful for anyone who opens up at all to give me direction as I don't feel like most people care about some random Asian American med student, including the person my friend introduced me to over email. This is disappointing to me because I'm one of the younger people around, and it seems like you would want to spark interest in the following generation.

In any case, I've also been enjoying my time in Geneva and been spending time with Kim, Columbia law and public policy student. We went to the medicine pricing briefing together Wed. night and then stopped by the Geneva Intern Network Pub Night at Mr. Pickwick's but didn't really meet a ton of other interns, but we did hang out with Govind, Iris, two roommates (Alpena and this white girl whose name we can't remember), and Laura, a new addition to the Global Health Fellow crew. During dinner, which we grabbed at Ali's, this döner kebab place, the white girl told hilarious stories about how she only ate organic food but used to drink like six espressos a day. Last night we also met up for dinner and drinks at Café Artes and had good times talking about random people we knew, how people made the decision to be super into materialistic goods as a definition of success, college, living abroad, and other fun topics. Our waitress, who was Chinese, later asked me if I spoke Chinese when I went inside to pay the bill and was impressed that I could speak (really horribly) considering that I learned it in college. I was kinda embarrassed since I felt that my Chinese TOTALLY sucked (esp compared to what it used to be) but she was really nice and said we would practice if I saw her again. That was fun (and random, like when the guy I bought my cell phone from spoke Thai to me) and makes me miss speaking other languages.

Last thought. I do miss college, but when I meet people here in college, I think, thank god I'm not premed anymore. Those people are crazy and I don't think most of them understand what going to med school is all about. Not that I know all the answers, but I'm happy that I took some time to see what it was I was trying to accomplish by going. OK, that's it for now. Chris is coming tomorrow!!! :)

more interesting things, continued

milk and eggs do not have to be refrigerated here...i think because of some kind of radiation they do on it (this holds true for some milk products in thailand and other parts of asia).

milk (and juice) comes in boxes rather than bottles. the boxes are not plastic..they're like made out of paper. you cut a hole into them for the milk to come out.

throughout the city, rather than drinking fountains, there are these things that come out of the ground that resemble faucets (they're often animal heads wrought out of metal, i think, though). like fountains with the spout being a lion, or tiger, or whatever. these are constantly running, like a faucet and provide walkers and dogs with drinking water (they are labeled as 'eaux potables').

in geneva, all restaurants are required to have a plat du jour, like a blue plate special. these are supposed to be yummy and more affordable entrees. i think it's funny that it's required.

people don't use traditional crutches here, which go into your armpits. they use these other devices that you would see people with polio used to use, like poles with braces that go around your arms and handles that you hold (picture a long stick with a handle in the middle). these are better than crutches and probably easier to get around with.

not only is there a floor zero, but at the UN, there are negative floors (instead of basements). Wouldnt it be weird if you had to tell someone your office was on floor negative 2? i wonder if that affects your self esteem

more to come...

Interesting things about Geneva (from an American perspective):

Old school elevators. For example, the elevator in the building I’m living in now consists of a small elevator with automatic doors; however, when the elevator gets to your floor and the automatic door opens, you have to push another black industrial like door open to get out. This door also doesn’t open if the elevator is not at your floor.

Instead of ground (or G) floor, the first floor when you enter a building is designated Floor Zero. I think this is a European phenomena.

The public transportation system is run on an honor system. There are people who go around and check your ticket randomly (green people taking trains by storm) but I have yet to be on a bus or tram that has had people check my ticket, and I ride the bus or tram at least three times a day, but usually more. Almost everyone buys tickets anyway and I heard it’s pretty embarrassing to be caught without a ticket. The fine is 80 swiss francs on the spot; if you don’t have that, you have to pay 100 sfr within two weeks or something.

Tax and tip are generally factored into the listed prices of things, like food or drinks at a restaurant or bar..when that’s taken into account, the prices aren’t sooo bad.

Everything is closed on Sunday. EVERYTHING. some restaurants and cafes are open though.

Grocery stores only stay open until approximately 6 or 7 pm. Thursday is ‘late’ shopping day, when selected places stay open until 9 pm.

I think I have seen one homeless person. Actually, I saw one person I thought was homeless and a gypsy mother and son begging for money. I wonder where the homeless people are…maybe I’m in the wrong part of town.

Most apts have balconies in the city. I like such little balconies.

Will add to the list as I think of more.

good eats

Last night, unplanned, i had three dinners, with three different groups of people. It was good to be thrust into a social atmosphere again after spending lots of time alone, and I found myself easily adjusting to the different expectations according to the context of what we were doing at the time. It’s good to know that a little solitude doesn’t take away social knowledge. :)

My first dinner date was on account of Payal, a friend from college who just recently graduated from Columbia Law (congrats!). She had encouraged her friend Kim, who is also interning here for the summer, to email me and meet up. We decided on a dinner date at Manora restaurant, which is actually an affordable buffet on the top floor of this department store (advertised as the largest in Geneva, but really super small compared to American standards…it’s likely smaller than the first floor of any major department store in the US). When I first encountered it, I thought of Central Department stores in Bangkok (these are seriously the hugest dept stores I’ve ever seen, besides the really super mega block stores in NYC like Macy’s) and knew that Thai people would be disappointed with the selection. In any case, we both had pasta since most of the booths were closed (I still have no understanding of the rhyme or reason on when certain things are open or not open…like why is half the place closed at dinnertime?) and chatted about our frustrations with professional school, our previous experiences working in developing countries, our ideas of ‘vacations’, and why we had reservations about coming to Geneva for the summer. It was really awesome to be able to connect with someone and have a good conversation without feeling like we were going through all the motions of small talk and bs that I feel like I have to do when I go to ‘new intern lunches’ at the WHO. We’re going to have lunch tomorrow and I’m happy about having a new friend (and grateful to Payal for introducing us!)

Second dinner – I kept being concerned that Mel, Pan’s friend who had graciously offered to come pick me (and my huge suitcase) up from France, would get there before I got home, so I kinda ended dinner date number one a little early to catch the bus back to FV, where I was living for the past week. When I got home, Mike had a BBQ started and offered me a beer and some sausages, the latter of which I accepted with Mike’s own ‘special sauce’, consisting of European hamburger sauce (which is a mixture of mayo and ketchup, I think, but it looks like Thousand Island dressing), chopped onions, gherkins, hot sauce, and some other things. Two of my housemates’ friends, a couple from their master’s program, dropped by for the BBQ and left after consuming the rest of the meat the guys grilled. Mel came a little later, while Mike and I were watching another episode of the Colbert Report. I’ll definitely miss watching the Colbert Report and having tea and conversation with Mike, but I’m pretty sure we’ll keep in touch – we have the same birthday, in any case.

Third dinner – Mel was super nice and when she rang the doorbell, I opened it and was immediately shocked to see that my luggage had disappeared (I had left it outside as a signal to Mel in case she forgot the address). Luckily, Mel had been super nice and loaded her car up already, so I just had to grab a bag and get in. On the way to Pan’s place, we chatted and I rightly guessed that she was Canadian (after my first guess, American, failed). She informed me that the dinner at a friend’s place that Pan had previously invited me to had been pushed back, so I was welcome to come. I accepted the invitation (of course) and walked with Pan a few blocks to her friend’s Paola’s place. (Pan, Paola, and Mel are all fellows for the World Economic Forum). Paola’s place was really nice, candles were lit, and I felt like I was a special guest at a formal dinner. Paola had prepared a super delicious dinner (salmon tartar on bread as an appetizer, followed by salad and sea bass and rice, followed by cheese and crackers, and figs cooked in spiced wine). Throughout the evening, the three women made fun of each other, gossiped about work, people they knew, talked about the future (and the past), and kinda fell exhausted on the couch and floor when it was over (at 1 am). it was good to see that they were so close…in a way, I think it’s nice to see where people are and how people live that are five or ten years older than me.

This morning, Pan frantically packed to get ready for her holiday and I lounged around apathetically for most of the afternoon. I ran out to get a doner kebab for lunch after eating this ridiculously good chocolate tart for breakfast (Pan had forgot to take them to dinner the night before and left them for my consumption) but was lazy and didn’t go grocery shopping like I had originally planned. Instead, I returned to the apartment, lamented the fact that it was raining (again) for the whole day, read some of Snow, took a nap, awoke to a telephone call that I didn’t end up being awake enough to answer, and weh’d for awhile to chris. I finally got my act together and decided to go eat dinner at a café I had found when I was looking for les 5 portes, café des artes. I had some yummy veggie tortellini and café renverse, which is coffee but with a disproportionate amount of milk, I think. I also was somewhat productive and read the access newsletter msf had put out for the world health assembly coming up next week and part of the CIPIH (Committee on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, and Public Health) Report. I’m trying to think of where physicians (or myself) fits in the debate around research and development, IPR, etc., and will dedicate myself more to studying and research tomorrow.

Thank god I have reliable internet access now. Such things make me happy.

after raining nonstop for at least six hours yesterday, i ran to the bus outside and went to meet up with some people from the Humanitarian and Trade Fellows Program which I think is loosely associated with the program I'm in this summer, the Global Health Fellows Program. we're run by the same administrator, anyway, who organized this happy hour/meet up of sorts.

as i've been increasingly not-with-it the longer i sit at this desk in this really drab office, i forgot the folder i had with the documents i wanted to review. unfortunately, the directions to the bar that i had hastily scribbled before running out the door were also in them. since i hadn't programmed anyone's cell phone number into my phone from the program (smart, i know), i had to use my powers of memory to try to reconstruct an address and a means to arrive at the address. all i really remembered were the two closest tram/bus stops (möle and navigation), so i got off at möle after going in the wrong direction one stop, walked around a bit, thankfully ran into rue de navigation, and then walked down it until i found the bus stop, which was at the end of it. i then wandered around because i thought i remembered a number 5 somewhere in the address, but 5 ended up not being a bar or restaurant. the area was really cool though and i had fun seeing all the cafés and restaurants around. i poked my head in a few of them to see if i could identify a group of people at happy hour, but was unsuccessful. after awhile, i seemed to remember rue de zurich as a possibility, and walked up it to find les 5 portes, which was the bar/restaurant where we were meeting up at. good work. good adventure.

the other people i met were nice but almost all of them were in the same master's program at Duke and were all living in the same dorm. i kinda felt like i was crashing a party and didn't know any of the people they were talking about or who was friends with whom. i made small talk with some people, had a glass of sangria, and decided to order dinner because i was hungry. i ended up liking this girl named maria cristina from venezuela and talked to the program administrators silja (who seems around our age) and matthew (from australia). i also got to hang out with two other duke students, beth (originally from kalamazoo...she could talk all the med school lingo as everyone in her fam is a doc) and eric. around 8ish i headed back to gare cornavin, the main bus station, but had missed the bus (only one runs to ferney, where im living now, per hour after 8 pm). although i really like public transportation, i hate being bound to it and having to organize my life around it. lesson: always carry stuff you actually want to read with you. it should be better after i move to the city tonight though because the trams run all the time, and i can actually walk home from a lot of places if it's not terrible weather outside.

im reading snow, by a turkish author whose name starts with an O. has anyone read it? it's supposed to be a great book but i can't really seem to get in to the writing style. when i was staying at evil girl's house (who hasn't emailed me back yet), i read the dogs of babel, which was interesting and fast. suicide seems to be a common theme these days though in the books i'm reading.

okay, should get back to work. please post comments on the previous post!!

readers, please comment - conversation with conservative reporter

so, i've been corresponding with this reporter from my local island newspaper (conservative haven for mostly rich, white people) and he asked me to send him some pics from my time in Thailand to print with a story he's writing about me regarding the fellowship I won to return to Thailand later this year. All good and fine, until I mentioned I had some pictures of me at protests against US policy/big pharma but didn't send them to him because I didn't think the people reading the Ile Camera would appreciate them. He responds with: (note the red-blue color scheme here)

I can't stand when people protest the U.S. when there are Americans like yourself giving up so much to help others. We are not a perfect nation, but we do care....you are a fine example of everything that is good about our country.

Fine, but I felt like I had to respond, so I did, with this long email:

Well, actually they are mostly pictures of me with (many) others protesting the US government and/or pharma...and im very happy that ppl are protesting since i disagree with a vast majority of what our administration is doing both at home as well as abroad. As the president's polls continue to fall, I think it becomes clear that he's not acting in the interest of people. Although I am very proud to be American and love my country, I feel that what I love most about it is that I am able to express my opinion and dissent against US domestic and foreign policy. I think most great change is about people speaking up and speaking out against what is happening ( e.g. civil rights, AIDS activism, environmental activism, etc.) and it's a shame that this administration tries to portray those who are protesting (including myself) about any issue - including immigration, now - as 'unpatriotic' and not caring about the country.

Although i don't really want to get started in a discussion about politics, i can say from a scientific and public health perspective that this administration has been terribly backwards (for example, the Global Gag Rule, prohibiting funding from going to organizations who even talk about family planning in the developing world, discounting the importance of condoms in controlling the AIDS epidemic, trying to shut down trials with gay, HIV-positive patients, abstinence-only education, bilateral free trade agreements that extend US patents to make essential medicines even less available for dying people in the developing world, etc.), and many great people have resigned from the FDA, CDC, and other organizations to protest US policy.

Why I do this...I can try to locate an essay I wrote about some stories and people/experiences I've had...why I do this is an interesting question and one I recently discussed with a fellow activist who was in Geneva lobbying at the WHO. For many of us, the answer is there isn't much of a choice - once you know the facts, including the fact that antiretroviral therapy for HIV is now available for less than one US dollar a day, and yet people don't have access to this and are dying, by the millions, because they can't afford it, I feel that you must be moved to do something. I mean, you can ignore it, and that's what many people do, but I feel that some people just see that (like Time's 2006 People of the Year, Bono, and Bill and Melinda Gates) and are moved to take action. Furthermore, I feel like, we as the US (and other developed countries) are essentially telling people in Africa and Asia and wherever that their lives are not worth one dollar a day to us, and frankly, according to us, they're not. That makes me terribly angry.

Another reason I do this is because, while I was a HIV testing counselor at Chulalongkorn Hospital, I gave positive results to many women my age who maybe had slept with one boyfriend or a few men, and because the prevalence for HIV is higher in Thailand, they were finding out that they were HIV positive. My age. Going to college in the US, many of my friends (and we're some of the most highly educated people here) had slept with many more people, done many more 'stupid' things in the moment, and I'm pretty sure none of them have been infected with HIV. Chlamydia and gonorrhea are increasing among college campuses today, but HIV is still not a big scare for young people in the US.

Furthermore, lots of people I knew in Thailand were infected by their husbands. This comes down to just being unlucky, or born into a country where there are many people infected with HIV, or just circumstance. If, for example, a few select people at University of Michigan undergrad were infected with HIV, there could be a raging epidemic there within months. Because the prevalence is so low, this is unlikely to happen, but I feel that it's just unfair that the highest risk factor for a woman getting HIV in Africa now is getting MARRIED. It's not as if 'those' people in Asia and Africa are much more promiscuous - indeed, I feel like they aren't. It's just that a certain number of people have HIV, and it's the luck of the draw who you end up sleeping with.

Re: grief, pain, and suffering. Humans are incredibly resilient people. I think I try to look at the positive side of things and just try to act in solidarity with the people I work for and with...it means an amazing amount to people to show that you simply care about them and their well-being, and they're not expecting you to change their lives, they just appreciate that you're there. i was originally concerned about people not taking me seriously (or just being unwelcoming) as i come from an extremely privileged background and dont know what it's like to be poor, or hungry, or addicted to drugs, or HIV positive. But everyone has generally been great, and excited that a young person is interested in helping them and their cause.

I think another factor in things is that my parents both grew up very poor in villages in Thailand. My father went to a village school but was able to come to the US and open a successful practice in Monroe. My mother was orphaned at age eight and has been through a tremendous amount and now lives on Grosse Ile, works as a nurse and office administrator with my dad. Their story is really amazing. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of racism in the Downriver area and I think that made me angry growing up, so I just worked really hard to leave and prove something to others. That's not a driving force in my life right now, but I think being second generation Asian American is and trying to help people that are less fortunate definitely comes from my parents, in many ways.

So I get up this morning and here is his response:

OK,
First things first. We better not get into a political conversation. I am a very conservative thinking person that expects people to take responsibility for their own lives. I don't believe in big govt. I believe in the govt. protecting us. And you can complain all day long about Bush and Iraq but the world changed on Sept. 9. We have to go on the offense and start killing these lunatics or it will happen again.

As far as our involvement in the fight against aids and poverty, well, where would the world be without the U.S. Please don't send me any pictures of people protesting the U.S. because me and many americans over the age of 25 are sick of it. Maybe we should take back all our money and our aid and all our efforts and tell the world to go to hell. Is that what people want. We remove a brutal dictator who murders thousands of his own people and we are protested. Sadam can kill thousands and torture millions and it's OK. But if we don't sign some BS global warming treaty, we are evil.

The U.S. bashing has become an insult. I am sick of it. I can see you over there helping people and ripping on your country at the same time. I hope they say thank you to you because they spit on me...and the money I give each year in taxes.

I respect your opinions and understand you have a different perspective. You see a young boy dieing of AIDS and you blame the U.S. You think it's our duty to cure the world and solve the world's problems. I'm telling you it's not. God forbid you blame the curropt governments that steal most of the money we donate in the first place.


OK, I am done. I just wanted to get my two cents in. I do not want this to be a political story in any way. I want this to be on a very special young lady who has done more in this world already than most do in a lifetime.

ps - I am a diehard Springsteen fan. I have seen in 42 times in concert and have over 500 bootlegs. But why people listen to his political views are beyond me. He is a junior college dropout, a billionare 10 times over and basically believes in socialism except when it comes to his money. And he blames Republicans for everything. Katrina was all Bush's fault. The incompetence of the mayor and governor (both democrats) never questioned. OK, now I am done.

pss- Now don't you respond to any of my comments. Because I don't want to get into a pissing match how much the U.S. sucks and everything is our fault. Just call me ignorant and move on. Trust me, I have been called worse.

psss - Now send me that essay. I can't wait to read it.

I respect (but obviously don't agree with) his opinions, but what I'm really offended over is what he says in his postscripts, especially the second one. The Springsteen thing refers to a link I sent him on an article in The Nation regarding protest music. The second thing that pisses me off is that he's a reporter and he misspells a ton of things in his email that are clearly not typos (for people who know me well, I am obsessed with spelling and was a former spelling bee champ :) )

I feel like it's totally unprofessional (we talk about professionalism all the time in a somewhat superficial way during medical school, but seriously) and I don't necessarily want to engage him in a political conversation but I do want to be like, you just don't talk to people like that, especially in a professional capacity. Like can you imagine if I, as a physician, told my patient to NOT RESPOND to any of my comments?

Also, I never said that everything was the US's fault, but we do a lot of things to make medicines more difficult to access in the developing world and by dying people even in our own country. Who doesn't agree that the health care system in the US is totally messed up?

So, what I'm asking you all who read my blog to do is to put in your two cents about how I should respond to this guy. I don't want to talk politics with him, but I do want to say something and I don't feel like he would be addressing me in this way if I wasn't 25 years old, which is ageist, but true. Also, keep in mind that he's writing an article about me in the Ile Camera, which my parents will buy and like 5 people they know on the island may read, so it's not like it matters.

Let the posting begin. If you actually read this, please post even if you only have two seconds - I have no idea who actually reads my blog and would love to get some feedback before I write my response.

getting around

So after meeting some people through GOL (or genevaonline), I was able to find some leads on housing. After braving a torrential rain storm (which thankfully stopped), I stopped by Z-Cube on the river for a drink and some dinner with some ppl from GOL, met Lucy from the UK and some others (including a woman from Miami who was super nice, Romy), but spent most of the time by myself. I think one guy felt a little sorry for me and came to talk to me (super nice), but I really did feel a little stupid at going out by myself. Although I'm generally a sociable person, I find that I feel a little awkward at just putting myself out there because these people already have friends and I'm here for such a short time… I don't like being a burden on people and also, it's like many other cities where I'm generally one of the younger people out, and also I'm an anomaly in the fact that I'm engaged (and almost married). I feel like people don't know how to place me exactly, or perhaps I don't know exactly how to place myself.

In any case, I left Z cube 38 sfr poorer (hello, a mojito costs 28 fr - I had no idea and wouldn’t have ordered it if I had) and found a tram to meet Pan, a Chinese-American woman who also found me on GOL and offered a place for me to stay. We ended up having a friend in common (another Thai American from Northwestern, Pam…my parents just attended her wedding a few months ago!) and I stayed for tea and a long conversation about medicine, business, living in Europe, long distance relationships, and the like. Her flat was also very nice and accessible, so I've decided to move in on Friday. I'm excited to be in the city and also to have a friend with similar interests. Unfortunately, Pan is leaving the country for a week or so and I'll just be in the place by myself, but it will be good for me to explore a little on my own. The two guys I'm staying with, Mike and Ivor, are also super great, and I might join them for drinks at the lake and some football watching after work.

Europe is growing on me. I manage to always barely miss the bus to work (they actually follow timetables and will leave exactly on time) from where I'm living now, but when I do, I just walk around the city (er, more like a village) where there are cobblestone streets, cafes, banks, travel agencies, and renting agencies. I guess if you want to find a flat here you must go through an agency, but I'm happy I'm not in that position. This morning there was a little market with a fruit stand, fish stand, and butcher stand (like out of a large truck/trailer). I bought some fruit and stopped by the local bakery for a yummy chocolate croissant and then headed off to 'work', where I am now. I actually accomplished stuff yesterday where I read a few documents and worked on the patent project, but am still awaiting inspiration today. I kinda like staying at the office late and then going out for happy hour, but need to get a move on since we're supposed to have outlines of our papers/projects for our supervisor by next week. Right now I just want to write something that's meaningful and useful to people on the ground in-country and not just some document that's going to be put on the shelf somewhere. I'm trying to figure out what the best approach is (especially from a medicine perspective, as we're primarily working with the law and some pharma stuff) and hopefully will come up with something soon. Any suggestions welcome, for sure. :)

Reflections on my first weekend in Geneva

Being too lazy to plan any travel, I hung out in Geneva for the weekend but had a good time. On Saturday morning, I left my digs early to meet up with a fellow intern, and we took the bus to France and found that they really do have way cheaper groceries…the store was pretty small but it was jam packed with people from Switzerland driving over. I didn't buy anything because I'm supposedly moving today (if I can sort out this girl's meubles business - I accidentally left the curtain out of the bathtub last week and got her bathroom cabinets wet and she wants me to replace them although I don't feel that they're totally ruined..we're supposed to have a chat today as I'm about to move out and she needs to tell me where I'm moving to). After the grocery store where the other intern bought an inordinate amount of groceries, we found that there was a large Saturday market going on and browsed around. The market was kinda like an Asian market with random stalls of clothing, shoes, food, etc, but nothing too crazy. After the market, we went by Caroline's dorm to drop off her food and then took the bus to Carouge where there was yet another outdoor market. Carouge was really cute and is a neighboring suburb that is modelled after Nice, France. Being marketed out, I met up with Paul and Maggie (a PHR'er) for dinner at a somewhat crappy overpriced Chinese restaurant and then Paul, Caroline, and I attended a 'hip hop show' at the Alhambra Theater.

The show ended up being mostly a dance recital for kids between thirteen and twenty with two or three groups headlining. One group made up of two guys was amazing and blended hip-hop, modern, and breakdancing (im sure there were more styles as well) to tunes like the background music for the March of the Penguins. There was also a group called Showtime, which did some show tuney stuff, and some original lockers. The experience overall was very cool and somewhat surreal, as many in the audience were parents and older peeps…plus the younger people didn’t cheer as much and it was pretty quiet. After the show, Paul and I went upstairs to the bar to have some drinks, people watch, and talk. I'm really happy I stayed out (and crashed in his hotel room at the John Knox center, where he had an extra bed) because we ended up having a great conversation about life in a monogamous relationship, the future, sticking it to the man, medicine, politics, and what I was doing (or wanted to do) in Geneva (and me trying to figure out why I really am here…I'm still working on it, even though I know I should have a gut feeling. My gut feeling didn't bring me to Geneva, although I felt that it was a place I should go to at the time I applied). Anyway, talking with Paul helped me think about direction and focus, and I'm hoping to have a more clearly defined vision after this week. He also gave me some good warm fuzzies and I'm happy to be friends (and on the same team as him advocacy/rabblerousing-wise) :)

We also ended up walking along the lake to the dam and staying out until 3 am attempting to find an ATM. Paul had to wake up early to catch a flight back to the US, and he pointed me in the direction of the Pregny Village bus stop. Unfortunately, the bus didn't stop for me and I refused to wait another hour for it, so I just got on a bus to Gare Cornavin (one of the central bus stations here) and decided to go to Mt Saleve, one of the highest points where you can see all of Geneva (and I guess it's in neighboring France, although I didn't realize that until I attempted to buy postcards and the price was in euros). On the way there, I met some English-speaking guys at Gare (Fernando and Nicolas) and chatted with them up to the mountain, they told me about genevaonline.ch (an English speaking online community in Geneva) that organizes trips and allows people to meet - awesome! I wasn't dressed at all for hiking so didn't climb the mountain but took the tram up, wandered around a bit, and then came back down. Paul had suggested taking a boat ride down the Rhone River, which I did and enjoyed the view. I did nap off a few times though because I hadn't gotten too much sleep the night before with Paul and because I felt a little sad that I was by myself and the cruise was filled with couples and families. After the 2.5 hr cruise, I walked down to the Paquis and had dinner at the Bains de Paquis, enjoyed the sun a bit, and then returned home after talking with Chris online. All in all, it was a good weekend and I had a lot of time by myself to think about things. I miss Chris and my friends and family at home a lot but also think it's good for me to get some time away to think about things and also a fresh perspective.

So, that's it for now. My supervisor is away this week at a meeting so I'll have a lot of time to figure out next steps and how I should make the most of my time here. Even though I am a bit lonely at times here, I know that taking a year off of med school was really necessary for me and I'm happy that I'm not subi'g my May away, although I really was jealous of my friends who are earlier this week.

I'll figure out how to post pics later and maybe will even open a flickr acct since I'm sure I'll be taking lots of pics through my travels. Hopefully my parents and Chris will decide to come as well and I'll be able to see more of Europe.

Transitioning to blogspot

Since im abroad again, im starting this new blog. my old blog is at livejournal, but i think this might be easier to use (and allow me to post pictures). Hopefully people back home can read and post comments as well :)