Salutations from Southampton!

And what a week it has been. Starting from last Thursday: Maren and I met up with Barrett at the train station, said goodbye to Sheffield, went to London, had lunch outside Westminster Abbey, and gave a presentation on dissertation placement and findings. We stayed at a coursemate's that night, ventured halfway across the city the next day, stashed our luggage at a very overpriced bag storage centre, and met up with an old friend, Josh, to 'do' London. Considering we started at 11am and went nearly everywhere on foot, I'm pretty happy about our checklist of tourist hotspots for the day: Borough markets, London Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Covent Gardens, Apple markets, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, The George (oldest pub in London, frequented by Dickens back in the day), Monument, Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, the National Galleries, Leicester Square, and the Globe Theatre. For anyone else going to London soon, you can get £5 tickets to see a Shakespeare show from the standing section at the Globe. We discovered this in hour 10 of being on our feet so it was not terribly appealing, but looked like quite the experience. We somehow found our way to another old friend, Patrice's, that night. She was a 20-minute walk from the tube station, and lives in a third story apartment without a lift, which only increased my fast-growing affection for my ridiculously heavy bags. I cannot aptly describe how absolutely glorious it was to fall into bed that night.

Saturday we ventured back to the tube and made our way to the Victoria coach station, where we waited for our Greyhound bus to Southampton, which was an hour late due to traffic from a football match. (You know you're in England when...) We eventually made it to the lovely Stan and Bernadette's that evening and have been spoiled the past 4 days with lovely meals, clean laundry, and excellent day trips. These have included Portchester Castle, Jane Austen's house, Winchester Cathedral, and the building/room in which Eisenhower and his crew planned D-day. Pictures below. 

Minor side note: while leaving my little house in Sheffield for the final time last Thursday, I realized I didn't have my passport. After going through my bags at the train station, I realized I had accidentally shipped it home in a box of clothes and books. Awesome. The box arrived in Bellingham Friday, Dad mailed the passport Saturday, and it is currently somewhere between Cincinnati and the UK. If it arrives at the Southampton DHL tomorrow before 9am, Stan will race us to Newhaven (2 hours away) to catch our ferry to France. If it's after 9am, we'll have to go with plan B. Which we're still coming up with. 

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because this was exactly what I was doing last year at this time -- waiting for my passport to show up in the mail so I could get on a plane to the UK. Oh the irony. For you praying people, prayers for a swift reunion with the passport would be very, very much appreciated. 

Love to you all!

Maren and I with the only Ben I know
taller than my favourite Ben.

Maren at the Borough Market.

Maren with Tower Bridge. 

The Victoria Statue outside Buckingham Palace.

View from the top of Monument, which we climbed all 311 stairs of!

Josh and Maren outside St. Paul's Cathedral, where
the little old bird lady fed the birds, tuppence a bag.

Maren in what remains of Portchester Castle. 

View of  Portchester Castle and much of Southampton from hillside. 

Where D-Day was planned. 

Maren at Jane Austen's house!

We went crazy at the Jane Austen House and
almost bought embroidery kits of Pride & Prejudice
characters to work on in France..

We love sunny English countrysides!

Panoramic view of city + country. 

P.S. For alternative perspectives of this trip and more consistent, less wordy entries, please visit Maren's blog. 

Almost There.

I'm blogging at 7.17am. That is a first.
Monday: editing, editing, formatting, editing.
Tuesday: turned in a 60-page placement portfolio and spent 4 hours figuring out printing issues.
Yesterday: submitted the 72-page document that is my dissertation. Ran home and shipped a very large box back to the US.
Today: packing up a suitcase and heading to London to do a presentation for Restless Development on our placement and study findings.
Then: on to Southampton and France for 2 weeks, before HOME. Considering we just now got confirmation on where we're sleeping in London tonight, this should be an interesting trip.
Living in a haze of stress, elation, and disbelief that things are finally wrapping up. Maren has been to Edinburgh and back, taken lots of naps, and done a great job tolerating a generally manic sister.

Maren experiencing pub life. 

Maren falling asleep in the bushes when we went on a hike
to combat jet lag...

A Sunday picnic at Chatsworth House!

Sissies. 

All the train tickets I've used this year. 

Post-hand-in. 

Thanks for your prayers. Miss you all. 

The End is Near.

Back in Sheffield, again.
But it is with great joy and exhaustion that I say that for the very last time. The countdown has begun!

Dissertation is due next Thursday. 300 words to be cut, then the final stages of formatting, then printing and binding.This paper is like my firstborn child -- I love it more than anything else in the world, and simultaneously hate it for stealing my sleep, social life, sanity, and all other pre-existing forms of normalcy.

Maren arrives tomorrow! Not today, which is when I thought she was coming when I purchased train tickets a month ago and made plans for this weekend. Nice little fiasco trying to sort that out yesterday, in the midst of last-minute editing before an advisor meeting.

These days I'm living by the theory that eating well and exercising will make up for sub-par sleeping habits. There is just too much to do in the day. I am so excited to start cleaning, sorting, and packing that working on my dissertation at home is becoming nearly impossible. There is nothing quite as good as realizing you've reached the end of a  period of time that once seemed like it would never end. Having the finish line in sight is a beautiful thing.

Prayers for stamina to finish strong academically, get all (/the most important) trip details sorted, and mentally/emotionally survive the next week would be much appreciated.

Here are a few photos from the last days in beautiful Finlandia.
Missing you all more than ever. See you in just a few short weeks!

Turku Castle, one of the oldest buildings in Finland.

My favourite ceiling. 

By the Aura River in Turku, which is a town nicknamed
"the butt crack of Finland". I have NO idea why. 

We spent a night in the cabin of Kirsten and Leif on an island
off the coast of Helsinki. Kirsten was one of the spryest
women over 70 I've ever met. Right after I took this picture she climbed
onto the roof of the house. 

Moose poo!

At Ina's friend Maya's, in Espoo. 

Pre-flight coffee stop at Regatta Cafe in Helsinki. So much sunshine!

Slowly Turning into a Comatose, Dissertation-Crazed Zombie.

Hello! I'm still here.
What I've been up to the last 2 weeks does not exactly warrant blogging about. Suffice to say it involves a lot of typing, copying, pasting, colour coding, editing, e.mailing, reading, referencing, multiplying, justifying, formatting, etc. What it will produce is a massive piece of work that will determine my fate as a lowly diploma-holder or the proud owner of a legitimate Masters degree. Worryingly but probably predictably, it is becoming more and more like a hallowed firstborn child in terms of it's worth to me. HOWEVER, in 3 days I will get a lovely escape from academic reality by going to Finland!!!! This is my saving grace; even though I will still be editing a massive dissertation and working on an additional 3,000 word reflection piece, I'll be doing it in Nokia Land! Almost 2 weeks with dear old Ina, who I normally travel around Africa with, and Matilda, who I last saw on a dusty road in Goa, India. I have been told numerous times the last few years that I must come to Finland, but only in the summer. So I'm going, while it's summer, and while I am a mere 4 hours away vs. 14.

Things I have been doing lately when not writing my head off:

Visiting triangular-shaped pubs with my friends Megan and
Tricia. This one turned out to be a dump inside, but
afterwards we found a new one in the city called The Great
Gatsby. Needless to say it was cool. How could it not be?

Having one last departmental meeting for the year with  all
my coursemates and most of our professors..

Observing the installation of very oddly-placed exercise
equipment in the neighbourhood. To the right of these is
another set of apartments, so the presumably slightly self-conscious
overweight person using them has not one but TWO buildings full of
people watching them do their quad curls every morning.

Noting how much my feet GREATLY dislike shoes after a
summer in Birks.

Enjoying the wild variety of unique and colourful homes
Sheffield has on constant display..... 

Wondering what the logic behind the construction
of this was, in light of the above.

I miss you all. The countdown to coming home seems to be dragging at the moment, but I'm hopeful Finland and a particular sister coming in just a few weeks will speed things up. Lots of love to each of you. 

Represent..

Just FYI...Heptathalon gold medalist Jess Ennis -- Sheffield native and University of Sheffield graduate! 

"Home."

Back in Sheffield. Apologies for the delay in writing. It's been a strange week of feeling jet lagged (even though there's only an hour difference between here and SL) and culture shocked. It's always weird when nothing at all has changed in the place you left, and it makes the time spent in a crazy environment acclimating to all sorts of crazy things feel like it never happened. You all know how I feel about Sheffield too, so needless to say it's especially difficult leaving Africa for a place I've found it so difficult to love. But having said that, I've had a few thoughts about blessings this year.

1. In the flurry of trying to get tickets, a visa, and a a place to live last September, I decided to ignore location and take whatever I could get. This is funny because all the places I was looking at (with location in mind) would've actually been on the wrong end of town from where I've ended up spending most of my academic time, and the house I live in is a reasonable 13-minute walk from my department, part of it through a big, quiet park. 

2. My house may be in the ghetto, and people may get mugged routinely on my street, but I continue to love my big loft bedroom. I can leave the windows open day and night, do yoga in the mornings, study, dry clothes up here; it is a little oasis of calm from the chaos of outside/next door/downstairs.  

3. A few months ago, I vented frustrations about the ever-unreliable UK education system switching things up yet again and giving me an entirely new dissertation supervisor starting this month. This turned out to be one of the most positive negatives, since my new supervisor is a very relaxed, thoughtful woman, who asks wise questions, listens carefully, and has broken down the writing process really well. She also gave me the thumbs up on going to Finland the last week of August (since she'll be away in Greece anyway), which is so so so so so great.

4. My amazing little old laptop just keeps going, and going, and going. It is four years old, but with a bit of Ben's magic touch at Christmastime, it is running faster now than ever before. It got hauled to work and back everyday in SL, dealt with ants, dust, and humidity, and was the only computer we had to input data with. It has been getting sub-par 'adapter power' for a year now, but has been acutely aware of how completely lost I would be if it died. Thanks, little Toshi. 

5. The Grind Cafe. In a town full of pubs, bars, liquor stores, more pubs, and the occasional chain coffee shop, I discovered a completely unique, bright, artsy little cafe a 10-minute walk from my house. They play Bob Dylan, make healthy food, and give me half-price sandwiches at closing time. I foresee the majority of the next month of writing being spent in this place.

A few photos from the last hectic day in Freetown...

An interview with the lovely Memuna at the Marie Stopes clinic.
On the way there it was downpouring; I got so soaked I was literally wringing
water out of my pants during the interview. Professional as always. 

Can't get enough of this ad. 

Dreadlocks Saloon... out of business for quite a while now. 

The Restless Development team. 

Our favourite member of staff, the janitor, Sinay,
who brought us sweet tea every morning. 

Goodbye, Freetown. 

Dad, this is the ferry I almost took to get to the airport.
Tickets were only $1. Kind of glad we stuck with the $4 option..

Airport dinner. Cucumber and leftover peanut pasta from a bag. 

First meal back in Sheffield. 

Off.. Like a Herd of Turtles.

I'm really not sure I have ever been this ready to go somewhere. Since my last exam on Wednesday, I've felt completely useless, having nothing to frantically study or write or edit or hand in. And just 10 hours before departure, I am completely packed. Bizarre.

Today on my morning run, I headed up a hill towards a nearby primary school. There was a rather burly young man lying on the side of the road with blood all over his face. I thought he was unconscious, but then a guy living nearby came over to check him and he slowly stood up and teetered around, very, very drunk. He said something about his blankity blank sister and the blankity blank police, and I asked if maybe he wanted to sit down so his nose wouldn't be bleeding so much. He ignored me, stumbled across the road, and leaned up against a fence. I left him with the other man and finished my run.

Did I mention I am extremely ready to leave Sheffield? My frustration surrounding things here is giving way to sadness, that people think they deserve to live like this, and subject themselves to it so regularly. It's sad, that's all it is.

The forecast in Freetown, Sierra Leone is for 85 degrees, "feeling like 92 degrees", and the weather icon for every single day in June is this:



At least there is a sun somewhere in there..

Love to all of you.. see you in Africa!

Grammatical Additions.

4 New English terms I learned recently:
1. Vest - a sleeveless shirt or tank top. Still trying to figure out what they call what I call a vest.
2. Oh my days - people use this expression a lot. I love it. Especially when people write OMD.
3. Bap - a roll, like a hamburger bun.
4. Faf - to procrastinate or waste time. E.g. "Stop faffing about and get some work done."

Those last two are particularly fun to say over and over.

Jubilee.

1 exam down, 1 essay almost finished, 1 exam to go, tomorrow morning. In the midst of it all, this wonderful thing called The Queen's Jubilee Weekend is happening, where everyone feigns joy about the country being ruled by the same little old lady for 60 years. Really, any English person will freely admit they're just happy about having a 4-day weekend. Anyway, it happened to also be a friend, Rosie's, birthday, and living just up the street on a cul-de-sac, she had a jubilee birthday block party with a bake-off and voting for the most impressive cake. My amazingly talented flatmate Sarah created the masterpiece below. 

This cake, however, gave it a run for its money:

I literally laid in bed last night and instead of visions of vaccination programmes and outbreak controls dancing through my head, I tried to figure out how on EARTH they got the inside of the cake to look like that. I am still stumped.

Back to making flowcharts, disease categories, and transmission chains. 

5 days till departure!

The Beginning of the End.

Greetings from my current universe! Sorry for the lapse in writing, but hopefully one massive post will make up for it. Crunch time here.. classes are done, essays are in progress, exams start tomorrow. I feel like I have been sitting in this stupid chair for 2039490820935 hours. Probably not an unrealistic estimate. Life has been alright. Last week it got up to 80 degrees (f) every single day. Yes, in England. It was amazing. Because no one here has a backyard bigger than 9 square feet, every single person goes to the park when the weather's nice, so it feels like there's a big festival on whenever you walk through it.... on the way to the computer lab... to spend a sunny afternoon writing a paper.

The last 2 weeks have been class-free, but of course the amount of studying one hopes to achieve with said 'free' time is never actually what one accomplishes. Our research proposals for summer placements had to be submitted, and involved the extremely complex process of applying for 'ethical approval' from the university. This means ensuring that the data from your research is kept secure at all times, that you have a detailed research project information form for every participant, and collect a signed participant consent for every respondent in your study. So many times I wanted to call up the head of the department and say, "you DO realize we're doing this project AFRICA, right???" 

In the midst of this, I found out my dissertation supervisor is pregnant and will be on maternity leave in August -- the month I will be analyzing data and writing up my actual dissertation.Yet another unforeseen setback that really felt like the final straw in a year of setbacks. My main frustration with the UK system has been the inconsistency in professors: one will tutor you on a paper, another will mark it, and yet another will explain your mark to you. And each professor has extremely different criteria with which they mark/give feedback for an essay/exam. So I was relieved and excited to just have ONE supervisor to work with on ONE project for the rest of the year. Not so much. Having said that, I met my 'replacement' supervisor on Wednesday and she is really lovely. She is older and experienced and seems relaxed, and has done a lot of work on gender studies. (She actually teaches the module "Gender and Health" that I'd planned to take this year before it was withdrawn as an option.)

Mostly, I'm just so ready to go back to Africa. This happens in 10 days. The amount of work that needs to happen between now and then is mind boggling. Prayers for stamina and clarity would be very appreciated. 

Specifically tomorrow morning: I have one enormous exam in Epidemiology, worth 100% of my mark. Epidemiology is basically the mathematical study of how diseases spread, and involves memorizing numerous formulas for calculating odds, risk, incidence, and prevalence ratios, standardized mortality rates, screening sensitivity and positive predictive values, etc etc etc.Those of you who know me well understand that this is how I feel about anything math-related. So, this exam is petrifying and I would really love prayers for smooth going tomorrow. Back to studying. I leave you with photos. 

Love to you all!

Evening sky out my window to the left..

..and the right. 

Before all the tropical weather last week, it rained and rained and rained.
But if it must rain, this is what I most like to see out my window. 

Vancouver band Said the Whale came and played a free show in Sheffield!
It was great. I'm not sure Sheffield appreciated them as much as I did...
their 1st day in the UK, they apparently had $1500 stolen from their van. Welcome to England!
This is my favourite song of theirs. Good motivational studying music.

Last day volunteering at the Northern Refugee Centre's women's club,
working with some of the most amazing and resilient women I've ever met.
Represented: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Libya,
Somalia, Eritrea, Mexico, Bangladesh, Russia, England, U.S..

This is Rita, from Tanzania, who wanted an 'exclusive'  picture with me.
Each woman has such a crazy story of how she ended up in Sheffield. 

Last weekend, my friend Catherine and I took a morning study break and ventured out to the Peak District to find  Ladybower Reservoir. This is it!

This a drain for when the reservoir gets too full.
Certainly the biggest drain I'VE ever seen.
(And yes, someone tried to throw a car tire in the drain. Logical.)

So much GREEN.
I'd kind of forgotten what trees and grass looked like up until this point.

A darling little van-turned-coffee-stop with a very posh espresso-making
system inside. I think it is what my Dad should do when he 'retires'...