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!