Viruses at the School of Public Health

They made a fuss during the first week of school about computer viruses. The IT department came in and gave a wry lecture on "Viruses at the School of Public Health".

"We want healthy computers," an IT guy said. "To put this in your language, we want to avoid transmission, we want to preserve health, to promote safe surfing. We know you're all health conscious here at school, but when you go home, we want to make sure the computer condom stays on."

They required that we get their virus-protection program. I took my computer to the computer condom guys and let them remove my virus protection system and put theirs on.

And then I got a virus.

How did I get a virus?

Just before going into the IT lecture, an orientation coordinator gave each incoming student flash drives. Cheap flash drives. With tiny viruses on them. Tiny enough to burst through a copmuter condom and infect an entire class' computer system.

***********

How is Hopkins going this week?

It's a Friday night and I'm sitting at my computer. Writing about viruses. It's going that well.

Shannon

Salsa and peanut butter

It started at 7:15 am. Coffee was brewing and I was half asleep preparing sandwiches for lunch. The jelly wasn't spreading well, so I decided to spread harder and accidentally ripped the bread. As jelly started oozing onto the counter, I realized this jelly wasn't jelly. It was salsa. In a tired, stressed-out haze, I mistook Pace Picante for Smuckers Grape. Lacking other lunch options, I ate a salsa-infused PB and J.

But let's go back to the morning. Salsa and PB sandwich in hand, I left to a catch a bus, which, naturally, I missed. And then it was off to Biostatistics class, henceforth called "The unmentionable course that is ruining my life and remains a complete mystery on all levels" or, for short, "hell." As the professor talked in fast-forward and slides flew onto the projector and then, just as quickly, flew off, I started to wonder, "Is the goal here to teach us, or just to show how fast one can talk?"

After class, I went to work. There, I noticed a sign on my door, "Storage Room Changed Around Hall Down Corner." My office is full of boxes because a mover mistook my nook for a storage closet.

I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't just ditch professional life, hole up in some beachy, bumpkin town and become a tipsy, carefree bartender.

Shannon

Things You Don't Want to Learn

Maybe it's because I haven't had enough sleep. Because I'm too "impassioned". Because my sister's pregnant, my brain is on information-overload and the topic is too close to my heart.

For whatever reason, I burst into tears today during a lecture on Maternal and Neonatal Mortality, part of a series of lectures for a degree in International Health.

How many women die annually in childbirth? About 500,000
How many infants die annually? About 4 million
How do moms and babies die? In painful, preventable ways.
How much money does the US government spend on population control (ie, encouraging people to get on the pill or use condoms)? Close to none. (Funding cannot go toward population control because population control goes against the church.)

But the thing that tipped me over the edge - to the point of crying - wasn't the content of the lecture. It was the fact that as I looked around the room, I felt out of place. Many students didn't look bothered in the least. A short film entitled "Dead Moms Don't Cry" started, and a row of well-groomed, latte-sipping women started checking e-mail and surfing the web. I envied them. I wished could take a bureaucratic approach to things. But I couldn't. And I can't. Instead I get angry. And distraught. And I keep wondering, "Why was I born to a loving family in a wealthy country where I have access to everything I need- and a lot more?"

Knowing that the world is out of balance is one thing. Being reminded of it on a daily basis is another.

And now I'll step off my soapbox.

Shannon

Foot Rub

In a school of public health, you would expect all students to promote healthiness.

And you would be wrong.

I was sitting in a lecture hall last week with my friend Jackie when a smell- as aromatic as my brother's hockey bag - wafted into my nose. Before I could suppress the urge to gag, it intensified. I was coughing. Then kinda heaving. Then- as I realized how ridiculous I looked- I started gag-laughing.

The lecturer paused. Students looked up from their notebooks as if to say, What the hell is your problem? One girl offered her water bottle and said, Are you alright?

The problem was an obese, Asian male who was systematically rubbing his hands along his bare feet and then rubbing his feet on surrounding chairs and his hands against his face.

The foot odor- acrid and sweaty, worse than a Paris subway in August- was bad. When coupled with the sight of man boobs squished into an Armani tee-shirt, I was a goner.

My veins bulged. Tears sprang to the corners of my eyes. Jackie laughed. And I wondered how on earth will that guy become a health professional? Of course, if I can't even be around smelly stuff, how will I?

Shannon