Gay or European?

Arg!

Malaria in Pregnancy

According to tonight's three sessions, is:

a)complicated and especially dangerous for your first pregnancy
b)not easily prevented with SP, at least in Manhica Mozambique
c)completely destroying all kinds of drug regimens on the Thai Burma border

Again, always go to the bar after the evening sessions, as magical free beer will appear and GlaxoSmithKline people will talk to you candidly about drugs and the ACT subsidy.

Makes me want to throw up

Oxford Bike Works guy with pedophilia moustache.

Old couples walking hand in hand on beautiful sunny day.

Trying to talk about malaria with clinical pharmacologists/molecular biologists.

M.D./Ph.Ds. who can do bio-economic modeling, policy analysis, and drug resistance research.

Sorry. Don't want to imply the meeting is not going well. It's going well. Just not when I'm inside on the computer. If you're ever in doubt about whether you should go to the bar after the sessions, always say yes. And you don't go to the poster sessions for the posters, you go for the other people looking at the posters. So off I go to stock up on cadbury's and biscuits (for Dave/Camilla's wedding) and then to ask nice questions about people's research.

I need a Ph.D.......

:(

IPTc PhD hey sure, why not

So I see Ogo, the director of the Malian Research Center on Malaria drinking coffee by himself and since he's one of my targets I go up and introduce myself. We get to talking about the severe malaria in E vs W Africa, because they're quite different - even within Mali you get different rates of cerebral vs severe anemia as signs of severe malaria. Next thing I know he's explaining school-based IPTc (preventive treatment in kids) and saying how it would be a great PhD thesis for me since I speak French and Bambara and know Mali, blah blah blah. He's half pulling my leg (he doesn't know my background) but it could probably happen if I wanted it to.

Next presentation we hear about IPTpd (post-discharge) where you give kids ACTs at 1, 2, 3 and 6 months after they're discharged to prevent severe anemia (the major problem in E Africa). Tomorrow we get all the updates on IPTi (infants). I just wonder when we're going to hear about IPTa (all adults). Just give drugs, all the time, and then you know, people won't get sick! Amazing.

It's sunny and breezy out today and I think I might go to the botanical garden.

Oxford

Being in Oxford is like the first day of school, except that all the other students are professors. Am feeling extremely undereducated, especially when talking to vaccine developers and pipeline guys, and clinical researchers. Fortunately at the end of the night I got a chance to bring it on back to advocacy and messaging, so not a total flop. Everyone's very nice, but hard to impress.

Also, the Deer Park is ridiculous. The deer act like dogs, wagging their tails and chasing each other around the trees.

Labor Day

Um, I loaded the photos of the bikes but am very very confused about where the heck my Mac is saving my photos....the whole Pictures folder is gone.

Oh For shame

Have not blogged in a while. May as well do it over lunch hour. I have these pics of the bikes we built over labor day but of course have not had TIME to even get them off the camera. Whatever! How do I not have time for that?

Oh yeah, I'm taking two classes (this week only- have dropped Australian guy's Health Econ in favor of World Bank guy's Health Econ). Nick and Johanna came over to help with the mess that is the house (last pesky details, like knife rack, bike stand, bathroom shelving unit, backyard mosquito eradication...still researching that one). I am driving around and sending kind friends with trucks to who-knows-where to pick up new dining room tables. I have skipped climbing twice though both days the gym was apparently closed. Yoga is kicking my butt because I come to work underslept and overcaffeinated and dehydrated, which makes for dizzyness and confusion. The new mattress seems good, if only I could spend enough hours in it.

Tuesday I had the Black Hole Stomach for about 5 hours, where it didn't matter what I put in, I just felt nauseatingly hungry. I'm wondering if I'm finally reaching the age limit where you can't get away with eating crap anymore. My metabolism seems to be on overdrive. I have 18 people coming for brunch tomorrow, then a haircut, and packing for Oxford, and then getting to the airport....once I'm on the plane I can finally relax, I think.

Frantic, I know, but indicative of what's going on this week.