1. subtle good morning message 2. blue sky on my early morning run 3. my most prized (or at least, most-used) possessions-- i feel like i look really different from this photo, even though it was taken less than 2 months ago!

yesterday was my long day at school, and after classes, i went to an event at Tulane's uptown campus to see a documentary called "Triumph at Carville." Carville was the national leprosarium and was fully operational for over a century, and it's located here in Louisiana. it officially closed in 1999 but there are still a few patients living there even today. The last director of Carville was on hand to answer questions and talk about his experience there. he talked about the special challenges of leprosy-- it's slow to grow in a lab, and cannot be cultured. no one really understands its spread, or why some people are more prone. it takes five years to grow within the body & show symptoms, so there's a long lag time between exposure & the signs of the disease. most of all, most people think that leprosy is an ancient disease & no longer a problem.

he also talked a lot about their experiments and research at the leprosy lab in Baton Rouge. one reason why leprosy is especially prevalent in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas is that it is carried by armadillos (and they most likely both carry and transmit the disease to humans, although no one really understands how). he talked a lot about "armadillo culture" and the many ways that humans & armadillos interact (!). in order to study armadillos in the lab, they used to hire high-schoolers to catch armadillos and pay them with 6-packs of beer. at some point, they decided that that practice might introduce some potential liabilities, and now they pay good old boys in the Texas panhandle $75 per armadillo. that's public health in the south y'all. 

and as if all that wasn't enough, after that, i had my first meeting as a member of the NAAF NOLA communications committee. which was great-- lots of friendly faces & interesting women. good, long day!

monday monday

1. another rainy & gray day, ran by the cemetery today & i had to stop to snap a photo
2. flashcards rule everything around me
3. waiting out a downpour in my car-- i've become a blonde again (not sure how!)

had a quiet & productive weekend-- lots of schoolwork & running. i've got lots of work to do this week & next (it's about midterms time). i spent Saturday at the Law Students for Reproductive Justice Southern Regional Conference-- a great day of speakers & meeting interesting law students. i just can't say enough about how interesting it is to study this stuff here in Louisiana. maybe it's different (frustrating/challenging/depressing, etc.) to actually work in the field here, but purely from a student perspective, it's hard to beat.

we had our first soccer game yesterday! we won, 4-2. i've got the running part down pat but that's about it. trying to learn how to run toward the ball & keep my eyes open, too. some things never change! it was fun, though. and funny to put on shinguards again.

southern thunderstorms

it's been crazy weather here the last few days-- super humid mornings followed by afternoons / nights with sheets of rain, violent hail, and lots and lots of thunder and lightening. these southern storms are so dramatic, and like nothing i've ever seen before. they wake me up in the middle of the night, and make the pets cower under tables & chairs.

 even though you guys (obviously) know what rain looks like, i thought i'd post a couple videos. it's also an excuse to show you my street. the first video is from my balcony (out my window). the second is from my front door. check out that gas lamp! and yes, that's a cobblestoned street.

friday reflections

1. this is how i spend 80% of my time these days
2. i started GOTR this week!

my site is at the International School of Louisiana, which is less than a 5-minute walk from my house. i'm extra excited to be doing this because it's in the community where i live. i'm assistant coaching this year, and the two main coaches are both teachers at the school (one teaches fifth grade, and the other is a gym teacher). we had a great practice on thursday. they've kept this team to just 3rd & 4th graders, so they're young enough to understand the program and still be interested and excited about it (sometimes the 5th graders have one eye on the door).

the kids are profoundly different from the girls i coached last year, and it's immediately clear that they have had very different experiences than the girls i coached that went to Alameda, Beverly Cleary & Irvington. i've talked a lot in grad school about what New Orleans school kids go through, but it's so different to be there, and actually talk to the kids about their hopes, concerns, worries, goals, etc. we talked about what makes us happy, and about half of the group said "feeling safe," which is something i don't think any girl on my team last year brought up even once during the season.

i always forget how much i enjoy being around kids, and it felt great to be in the school, hanging out and chatting with the girls. they took to me right away (and one of them thought i was an eighth-grader at the school, but that's another story). both of the coaches complimented me on how good i am with kids, and that felt really great. it's going to be a good season.

on a much different note, i went to a lecture today by a professor who wrote a book called "Gendered Politics in the Modern South: The Rise of a New Sexism." She focussed her work around the Susan Smith case of the early 1990s, and used the political/media framing of that case to examine sexism and ideas of motherhood in the 1980s and 1990s, specifically focusing on the vilification of single mothers. it was a very interesting lecture-- i need to start keeping a list of all of the speakers i'm seeing. i'm quickly becoming a women's health lecture groupie.

then i had my first interview with Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, where i'm hoping to volunteer. i guess i shouldn't be surprised that the process of volunteering for PP in the South is a bit arduous & involved-- background checks, reference checks, interviews & the like. but i'm excited to get more involved with there work here, and hopefully meet more like-minded people as well. all in all, it was a good & busy week. i'm starting to get really good at this unemployed thing!

public health interlude

happy tuesday! a handful of letters to send out into the world this week: such a great feeling.

i'm taking a class called "Violence as a Public Health Problem," which is fascinating for 100000 reasons. mostly i find this topic because it's such a unique and gigantic public health problem here in New Orleans. the murder rate in New Orleans is 10 times the national average. gang violence is virtually nonexistent here, and neither the bloods nor the crips have ever had a presence in this city. this makes NO unique among U.S. cities with high rates of violence. almost everyone who dies by violence in NO dies by "assassination" (that is, they are specifically targeted). this means that drive-by / random victims are quite rare. these patterns make NO unique, and it also means that NO needs different solutions that other places.

keep in mind that Louisiana's incarceration rate is twice the national average. it also has a for-profit prison system, so there are real economic benefits to keeping the incarceration rate as high as possible (if that's interesting to you at all, the Times-Pickayune series on that topic is a must-read. here's a teaser on the series from the NY Times).

we had a speaker in class today from Ceasefire New Orleans, which is an organization that was started in Chicago (although their mission & methods are quite different here than in the Chicago chapter, as the violence/level of gang activity are different). they do incredible work, building community capacity and working with high-risk youth that society has basically given up on. it's speakers like that that remind me of what attracted me to this city, and what excites me about public health. it also reignites my belief that we have a strong collective responsibility to those most vulnerable in our society. to read more about Ceasefire's work, click here.

after a long day at school, i went to a great event tonight sponsored by ACLU Louisiana, NOW, and Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast called "What Matters to Women, Matters to America." the event was a roundtable conversation about national & Louisiana policies which affect women. the speakers were incredible. it's so fascinating to study & discuss these topics in Louisiana, where the poverty rate is so high, and the conservative/evangelical mindset to so pervasive.

Louisiana ranks 50th or 51st (when we're counting D.C.) out of the U.S. states on so many measures of health and economics. it's usually tied with or vying for 51st alongside Mississippi, which, let's remember, just ratified the 13 amendment, thereby abolishing slavery, this week. it's such a fascinating place to talk about these problems, and to grapple with how we can talk about these issues outside of rooms of like-minded others.

French Quarter mornings

i took these pictures yesterday morning-- after early-morning yoga at Lululemon in the French Quarter (they have a free class Saturday mornings, which is awesome), i ran home along the Mississippi River. 

Dad, i got your postcard! it really brightened my day. i'm really, really looking forward to you guys getting here in a couple weeks!

lots of studying & sunshine for the past few days. i went & played soccer (!) with Josh on Friday, and it actually felt pretty great. it was fun kicking around a soccer ball, but we'll see how it goes when i actually have to run for more than a few minutes / have other people around trying to get the ball. it was fun though, and it made me laugh to think about Eduardo yelling "Marilyn!" from the sidelines.

it's cold here (that is, it's in the mid 50s - 60s). i've been studying a lot outside this weekend, wearing a light sweatshirt, while watching people walk by in down jackets, mittens & scarves (...). i've got a big epidemiology exam this week so i've got to get back to it! love you guys & thinking of you!

valentine's day

sweet surprise from my sweetie * ash wednesday * roommate date at sucre (i got the red velvet cake, because obviously) * quiet night at home.

great, sunny day today. spent an hour at sucre with the roommates at sucre, which is a dessert / chocolate shop that reminded me a lot of pix. felt great to get a sweet treat & some sun right in the middle of the day. if you ever start to lose faith in humanity, just spend an hour outside of a sweet shop on valentine's day. the sheer number of men in wrinkled business suits buying chocolates will restore it.

in other news, i officially got my girls on the run site! i'll be at the international school of louisiana, which is just a few blocks away from my house. season starts next week! also i joined a soccer team (...). tomorrow i'll be hunting for cleats & shinguards. flashback!

also: i forgot to mention that one of the highlights of mardi gras was seeing my landlord dance down st. charles in shorty shorts with his all-male dance crew, the 610 stompers ("ordinary men, extraordinary moves"). read all about them here and/or watch a video of them dancing here. go dave!

it's valentine's day so i'm spending it watching the new gloria steinem documentary in my bed. and also eating the chocolates that Mike sent. good night!

mardi gras 2013

^ costumes everywhere!

 

^ i promise i didn't do anything embarrassing to get these beads. turns out it doesn't work that way, and so my (purely hypothetical) future senate campaign will be free of incriminating photos.

 ^remember how i said "potentially racist undertones"? that was before i went to an entire parade of hundreds of people in blackface.

 ^ decorated coconuts are the prized throw from the Zulu parade, which rolls early Mardi Gras morning

^hooded horsemen ride along St. Charles (!!!!!!!)

 ^ more friendly looking men in white hoods. These floats are on the small side, and pulled by tractors.

^ people. everywhere. also lots of garbage (which has already been cleaned up & cleared away).

^ celebrating Mardi Gras with two of my roommates & a friend

well, it's finally through. and i made it in one piece! Sarah & i woke up early yesterday to catch Zulu, one of the last parades of the season. as you can see from the pictures, it was a gray day, but it was warm and very, very humid. we saw lots of families and bbqs along the parade route, and there was lots and lots of dancing in the street. i had a bloody mary to commemorate the last day of craziness and caught some great beads. not sure if my favorite moment of yesterday was watching 100 people do the wobble or participating in the cupid shuffle in the middle of St Charles Avenue. either way, we were pooped by noon. it was a quiet mardi gras afternoon, and we spent to last of it watching les mis. 3 hours of people singing about the French Revolution and consumption seemed like the appropriate way to end a crazy week.

i woke up this morning to icy cold temperatures (55 degrees! brrr!) & pouring rain. the sirens are quiet, people are back at work, and i was finally able to move my car. spent the morning grocery shopping and doing laundry. i'm halfway through my epidemiology homework & 64 ounces of lukewarm green tea. happy ash wednesday! 

lundi gras

happy lundi gras!

your first thought when looking at these pictures is probably, hey, mardi gras! that looks fun.

but if you're like me, your second thought is hey, there are some weird KKK undertones to all of this.
well, yes. there totally are. included in these parades are lots of masked men, often on horseback, and actual burning crosses. they're actually called flambeaux, and these torchbearers are guys with open flames and propane tanks strapped to their backs, who light the way for the night parades and/or make everyone watching them feel uncomfortably sweaty. they look like this and are present in every parade (serious danger with a side of racist undertones!). and don't even get me started on the parade i went to last night, where the theme was "sailing the seven seas," which was basically an excuse to perpetuate racist stereotypes / practice cultural appropriation on every corner of the globe. i'm not even insulted by this stuff at this point-- i'm just gathering it for future (hypothetical) sociological studies. it's just the south, y'all.

ok, so anyway. what else. today i woke up to pouring, tourrential rain and thunder, and some of the early parades were cancelled. i went on a run because i just couldn't take it one more day without putting on my running shoes. everyone at my house told me i was crazy-- not because of the rain, but because no one works out, eats a vegetable, recycles (etc) during mardi gras. it's heresy. while i was out running, an old man sitting along the parade route yelled, "you're doing mardi gras wrong!" so that pretty much sums that up.

then we went to an oyster bbq (evidence above), which was delicious, and went to some more parades. i got clocked pretty hard by some beads (yes, that's really a thing, i've seen people chip teeth & get black eyes!) and we headed home early.

tomorrow, of course, is actual mardi gras. tonight's the night that a lot of people go to see music & go to house parties & stay up all night. clearly, that's not really my speed... as i'm in bed drinking decaf green tea. just too tired for the mardi. tomorrow is full of parades so we're getting up early to catch a few, eat beignets, go see les mis, and then make our resolutions for the next forty days.

halfway through mardi gras!

1. my mardi gras uniform (as you can see, the humidity is doing crazy things to my hair)

2. just a taste of my mardi gras loot from one of the parades

3. i'm finally editing pictures from our road trip!  this one was taken in Las Cruces, New Mexico, after driving for almost 30 hours (which should really just be captioned: hey! we still love each other!).

well, it's official. i love mardi gras. it's a week of nothing but relaxing, watching parades, and eating junk food on the street. bars seem to be open all night and everyone you meet is friendly, excited, and wants to chat (even more than usual). basically, it's just everyone you've ever met & tons of strangers, all hanging out, for 72 hours straight. there are a lot of people staying at my house, which is actually kinda great. my house is located just off the parade route, so even right now (it's just before 1 PM) i'm hearing sirens, marching bands, and cheering, and i can smell some mean bbq that someone's cooking up. my car's been parked in the same spot for almost five days now, and it's not moving any time soon.

of course, mardi gras is also a lot of sloppy drunk people, parade food, kids underfoot and lit cigarettes being wildly swong around. but the people watching really can't be beat. the floats are huge-- double-decker, pulled by tractors-- and each parade has a different theme. one of my favorites was Muses, an all-woman's parade which rolled on Thursday night. in addition to beads & various other plastic prizes, they throw out shoes covered in glitter, which are some of the most coveted "throws" of Mardi Gras. tonight is Baccus, which rolls at 4 PM, rain or shine. 

reflecting, with king cake coursing through my veins.

1. cold-brewed coffee in the grocery store
2. breakfast this morning: chicory coffee, king cake & biology flash cards in bed
3. this picture is from the Times-Pickayune, and it gives you a visual on those white cowboy boots with tassels that are so hard to describe & so ubiquitous in parades.

i had a great night last night meeting the awesome team at the New Orleans Abortion Fund. great to connect with compassionate, liberal, and just generally kick-ass ladies interested in reproductive justice.

not-so-fun facts: Louisiana has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, and NOAF is the only NNAF chapter in LA, AR, MS, or GA. i'm really excited to be a part of this grassroots effort of women helping women-- reminds me a lot of Backline-- and i've joined their communications committee. i'm really excited to get to know the group better & to get more involved with supporting women's health here in LA.

something really interesting about being here is that suddenly, my interests (mostly i'm talking about running, yoga & women's health) really have set me in small circles & small communities. in some ways, it's easier to find like-minded people in a place like this. in Portland, everyone does yoga, and so it's not very interesting to meet other people who enjoy it. in this meeting last night, there were eight of us, while a similar group in Portland would have dozens of people. it can be so much harder to connect with a bigger group, and to carve out a niche for yourself. maybe my feelings will change, but i like being one of eight, at least for now. it feels like i can do more, and like my skills are more valuable, and it also makes other people really, really excited to meet you. which is really cool.

tuesday before mardi gras

1. you can't shake a stick these days without hitting a parade. these are high schoolers.
2. king cake flavored vodka for sale at the grocery store...
3. i know you guys see this face plenty, but i can't get enough of it.

i woke up this morning to what i thought was thunder.

but then i heard symbols. 
and then i heard a trumpet.

and then i realized that (several) high school marching bands were practicing their routines, marching right down felicity street at 9 AM. that wasn't thunder. that was a drumline! 

here are some other observations of this week, as Mardi Gras quickly approaches:
1. if you ask people if their office is open on friday (or even thursday) of this week, they will laugh at you.
2. this week, guest lecturers (yes, multiple!) are drinking their water out of the plastic cups you get thrown at parades.
3. professors who are holding class thursday or friday of next week will also apologize profusely.
4. new orleanians treat ash wednesday like the rest of the country treats january 1st. that's the day that you begin healthy habits. till then, the streets are empty of runners & yoga is literally cancelled. like, there isn't one yoga class in the entire city for the next week.
5. on a related note, king cake is now an acceptable meal.
6. if you answer a question correctly in class, you just might get beads thrown at you.
7. "sorry i'm late, there was a parade in front of my house" is a 100% legitimate excuse, and no one will even bat an eye at you when you say it.

Superbowl Weekend

The Superbowl is finally upon us!  It's been crazy to be here this week. So much energy and excitement and of course, so many PEOPLE everywhere I go. It's been really fun, even though I don't think I could possibly care less about the football part of it! Lots of music, people in great moods, and food for sale on the street. Almost every night here already feels like a summer night, but this week, it's been even better. I am SO excited about upcoming Mardi Gras week.

Yesterday my roommate Sarah & I got up early to go check out the Celebrity Beach Bowl, which took place in a ginormous tent next to the Convention Center and Mardi Gras World (less than a ten-minute walk from our house). We made mimosas and (legally! how crazy is that) drank them in line, because, I mean, how often is the Superbowl in your town? Almost never. We only had to wait a few minutes to get in, and while we waited we were regaled by high school marching bands. They really are serious about the marching bands here.

Mardi Gras World is basically a gigantic warehouse where Mardi Gras floats are assembled and built. It's full of half-finished floats and souvenirs from years past-- giant Charlie Chaplin heads, twice-lifesize Reggie Bush statues, and a manta ray the size of a small car. Just to name a few. Also the world's largest mural made of beads. I can't speak for the size of any other murals made of beads, but this one was pretty impressive. All of this made for a carnival-funhouse atmosphere, and we amused ourselves by taking photo booth pictures, playing weather people in front of a green screen (I have the video) and playing unreleased video games (the appeal of which was completely lost on me). The boardwalk between Mardi Gras World and the tent for the Beach Bowl was full of food & outdoor games and a ton of Ravens & 49ers fans. The Beach Bowl itself was fun, it was cool to see Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, Lolo Jones, Deion Sanders, Shawn Johnson, the Mannings, etc. etc. etc. up close. To answer your questions: yes they are all extremely short, and most of them are actually pretty awkward interacting with each other and also kind of weird looking. It's strange to see humans wearing so much makeup in real life.

The Superbowl is actually happening right this moment, and Sarah & I are studying with it on in the background. Hope y'all are having a lovely Sunday night!

good news!

big news! guess who's coaching Girls on the Run this spring? this girl! i'm going to be an assistant coach this year, so i'll be coaching just once a week (instead of twice, like i did last year). coaching starts in mid-feburary and going through early may. it's gonna be so gooooood. i don't have my site yet, but i am already pretty psyched.

today was a great day: started with coffee with my roommates, then went and met josh in audubon park. we went on a run (i kicked his ass) and then he brought out his trx bands-- did i mention that he's a personal trainer?-- and he kicked mine. pretty great all around, we're going to make it a regular friday thing. we went to lunch afterward at the st. james cheese company, which was wonderful (you can drool over it here: http://www.stjamescheese.com/) and we were waited on by none other than caroline, because this city is the size of a pin. 

now i'm sitting at a cafe & studying in the sun (well, i'm writing this, and then back to studying). heading to a event tonight put on by NOLAW that is a benefit for the crescent city childcare collective. oh, and i should probably mention that NOLAW stands for New Orleans Ladies Arm Wrestling (http://nolaw.org/). sooooooooo yes.