Summer School

The anthropology course I'll be taking has me doing backflips for summer quarter to hurry up and start: Foothiil's Anth 50:'Medical Anthropology', taught by the same stellar professor as I studied under for 'Peoples of Africa'. Here's the course description:

"This course is an introduction to medical anthropology, the study of health and disease within the context of culture. Students will learn about the various research interests of medical anthropologists through readings, lectures, discussions, assignments, and a term paper. Specific topics will include: medical systems found in different cultures; defining health and disease; defining "normal" and "abnormal;" cultural beliefs and practices regarding the life cycle; cultural beliefs and practices influencing nutrition; the health consequences of cultural contact, development, and particular political, economic, and social systems; Western biomedicine as an ethnomedicine; and finally the meaning and experience of illness including patient-healer interactions."

Superb. And utterly fascinating. Far more thought about medicine than goes into most science-based medical classes, and as an added bonus I knock off another GE credit towards my transfer to nursing school. Brilliant!

Here's the reading list for anyone interested in the subject:

Death Without Weeping by Scheper-Hughes, Nancy.
1992. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN: 9780520075374

Elusive Embryo.by Becker, Gay.
2000. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN: 9780520224310

Endangered Species by Harper, Janice
2002.Carolina Academic Press. ISBN: 0890892385

Medicine and Culture by Payer, Lynn
1996. Owl Books. ISBN: 9780805048030

Pathologies of Power by Farmer, Paul
2003 University of California Press. ISBN: 9780520243269

Culture of Our Discontent by Small, Meredith F.
2006 Joseph Henry Press. ISBN: 9780309100663

Good Illustration

back-blogging

... so after over a year of being relatively invisible, i will be starting to do a bit of posting again. things have changed and my path deviated in all sorts of unforseeable ways; my health is still up and down, and so, therefore, is the rest of life as i know it. in an amoungst having to take three steps back, i have been using the two-step-forward days to begin to piece together all the bits i've been missing or not keeping up with. like, say, communication. i've given up on getting email to everyone, especially in catching 200+ people up on the happenings of this last 18 months... so i will be back-blogging when i can, posting events in "hindsight" to appropriate dates... in answer to those who have been asking, a bit of (the lighter side of) what's been up with me lately. stay tuned.

Sites of the Week for May 21-27

Message Products
Support environmental, animal rights, social justice and other ethics-based organizations by ordering your checks, address labels, business cards, stamps, stationary and more through this site; a percentage of each sale goes directly to the organization whose items you choose, and their message is spread when you use the products.

'The Green', presented by Robert Redford
A site simply stuffed with information, ideas, news, interviews, resources, and support on and for greening your life and our world. "Big Ideas for a Small Planet" is an excellent weekly series that tracks down the latest concepts and developments in the environmental movement across all sectors, and the video clips on this site are worth catching (especially the episode on all the new and in-development green cars). Learn your local green resources and network with other green-minded folks through the eco-mmunity forum, follow the eco-blog, take the green quiz, and find out a million more things than you ever new before about all you can do to help save the planet.

The Inconvenient Truth for Al Gore
Even some hardcore right-wingers are switching out their incandecent lightbulbs for compact flourecents and even buying Priuses based on the science and research on global warming presented in "An Inconvenient Truth". But the simple truth is that the single industry most responsible for global warming is the animal agriculture industry -- in a study conducted at the University of Chicago and supported by UN and WorldWatch research, it has been determined that:

The standard American diet, about 28% of which comes from animal
sources, generates the equivalent of nearly 1.5 tons more carbon
dioxide per person per year than a vegan diet with the same number
of calories. By comparison, an average driver switching from a typical American car to one of the more fuel-efficient hybrids would save 1 ton of carbon dioxide per year -- making the switch to a vegan diet a more effective way of reducing one's contribution to climate change.

Curious, then, that there was no mention in "An Inconvenient Truth" of this connection between animal product consumption and environmental impact... or perhaps not so curious, given Al Gore's connection to the animal agriculture industry...? Let's hope that it was for the sake of accessibility (goodness knows that Americans would hardly have been as amenable to see a 'vegan' movie on global warming) and not self-preservation that inspired Mr. Gore to leave out this critical and planet-saving information.

Eating Outside the 'Self' Bubble
E Magazine's cover story from January/February 2002 was an excellent exploration of the ramifications of our food choices, pell personified by the subtitle:

Evidence Shows that Our Meat-Based Diet is Bad for the Environment, Aggravates Global Hunger, Brutalizes Animals and Compromizes Our Health

This article is an amazing and well-written example of what consequences our eating habits (and they are "habits", which means they are optional) have outside of our own preferences or desires, and the accompanying links provide great info on the evolutionary science behind vegetarianism as well as advice and support for those considering shifts in their dietary patterns.

Compassion Action of the Week: Hug to End Cancer
A group in Toronto that gathers downtown periodically to raise money for cancer research by "giving away" hugs for 25 cents apiece -- I just find this such a simple, beautiful idea that I had to post it. Check in with your arms and see how many hugs you've got to spare; if you've got a surplus, consider setting out a 25-cent Hugs for Cancer coffee can on your desk or counter or wherever it is you work and seeing how much you come up with. A few places to consider send your proceeds:

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital - Pediatric Research
The Cancer Project of the Physicians Committee for Responisble Medicine

and, finally, the best for last....

Recipe of the Week: Baked Seasoned Yam Fries from the Post Punk Kitchen
Get your Vitamin A fix and knock the fat out of any standard recipe... plus get a dose of Isa and Terry, which makes just about any recipe worth making.

Inspiration

The amazing Catra is beginning her latest adventure today: a fastpack for time of the 2,666-mile Pacific Crest Trail, out to beat the current record. The depth of her strength, determination and beauty of spirit are simply awesome. Follow her PCT journey, and let it expand your goals, inspire your dreams, and remind you as it does me that we are the only ones who can push our own limits.

What I Learned Today

http://www.pctrailruns.com/SF1Day_Webcast.htm

Time

I haven't delivered an update lately... to anyone, anywhere. More accurately, I haven't been able to. I have been seriously ill since my return to the States in March. Enough said on that point, it's not worth or ready for discussion. But even though I have been prevented from reaching out, and my life has looked pretty much like a sum total of the pictures on the left, I have been thinking of and missing every one of you... and have been wanting to tell you that. So I'm telling you now. I love you, and I'm working on it.
~GV

Anthropology Professor

I am just loving my Anthropology professor; her background is incredible, and her current work with the Austin/HIV Planning Council an especially interesting twist given what my goals are with future work. Here's her bio:

Dr. Jennifer Price holds a BA in Cultural Anthropolgy from Macalester College, an MA in Cultural and Biological Anthropology from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. from the U.C. Berkeley/U.C. San Francisco Joint Program in Medical Anthropology. She has conducted research among diverse groups including Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees, ethnically diverse institutionalized elderly, U.S. medical students, rural Malawians (sub-Saharan Africa) and rural Maasai families (in Kenya) focusing on a range of issues including reproductive health, dietary practices, blindness, HIV prevention, family planning, and emergency contraception awareness. Dr. Price currently teaches in the Anthropology Departments at Foothill College and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

The courses she teaches at Foothill -- Cultural Anthropology and Peoples of Africa in fall/winter/spring quarters and Medical Anthropology in summer -- are all online, so if you either need credits or are just interested in the subject(s) I am finding her to be an awesome wealth of knowledge and an excellent guide through the complex layers of African studies.

Hope

"With no pain, there is no struggle, no struggle, no rewards, and if no rewards, then why bother living at all?"

Peoples of Africa

The anthropology course I am taking this quarter focuses entirely on the continent of Africa, where my heart tells me my work is and whose culture, history and anthropological heartbeat I realize I (as I'd venture to say the majority of Americans) know less than I should. So I'm looking forward to the course. Here's the description:

This 4-unit course is a survey of Africa through the study of cultural anthropology. Issues addressed include: the historical development of Africa; popular American (mis)perceptions and portrayals of Africa and Africans; patterns of social organization, family, and kinship; political organization; traditional subsistence patterns; present economic conditions and ties to the global economy; conceptual systems; health and disease; popular culture; and social change. The course draws upon classic and contemporary anthropological research, research from other disciplines, ethnographies, and literature by African writers. A case study approach will be used for some topics allowing in-depth analysis of particular African societies.

Here's the reading list:

Understanding Contemporary Africa, 3rd edition by April and Donald Gordon.
2001. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
2002. Seattle: Seal Press.

The Dark Child: The Autobiography of an African Boy by Camara Laye
1954. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Singing Away the Hunger by Mpho Matsepo Nthunya
1996. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

...and DVD list:

Amandla!: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony. 2002. Director: Lee Hirsch.

Ghosts of Rwanda. 2004. Frontline.

Sometimes in April. 2005. Director: Raoul Peck.

Mind Your Pence and Quince

I'm taking a 5 minute tea break from moving insanity, and finalizing my "UK budget vs. nutritional needs" list. The challange: how to be a triathlete-in-training on about 1 pound (~$2) per day for six months, meeting all my requirements for a balanced athlete's diet, with the resources and accoutrements of a series of hostel kitchens. Quite a fun challange, actually. From here. No, in all seriousness I'm looking forward to simplification and streamlining of all sorts; food, posessions, goals, "needs", maybe even... thoughts? Streamlining of MY scattered thoughts? Possible? That's the fun part, I'm about to find out. Anyway, based on knowledge gained from my work with the incredible Clyde Wilson + food availability in England + costs + projected hostel storage/refrigeration space + the goal of a list of no more than 21 items (streamlining of thought-process, remember), this is what my culinary forcast looks like:

First Priority 10:

oats
oat flour
soymilk
tofu
spinach
beans
nut/seed butter
nuts or seeds
high protein cereal
fruit nectar

Second Priority 10 (ie, if 1sts are all in stock and there are pence left on the black side):

molasses
tea
wholegrain bread
broccoli
tomatoes
seitan
brown rice
hummus
dried fruit
apples

And once a month:

A small piece of dark chocolate

Add to that my travel spice kit (aren't film canisters wonderful?) of cinnamon, gharam masala, ginger, italian herbs, pumpkin pie spice, cayenne, pepper and salt -- what more could I want? Fortunately, I like porridge. And I'll be eating it. Probably 3 times a day. Maybe that should be my first book, "1001 Ways to Make Porridge in a Hostel Kitchen on 50 pence a Day"....
It truely makes me so happy to think how beautiful and precious an apple will taste, not to mention the things not on this list. I will miss the gastronomic adventurousness that is my cooking, which is a grounding force in my life, so there's a whole portion of my brain that will be going into hibernation; but when the hibernation is over, or gets to pop its head out into the sun from time to time, cooking will be a profound and sacred delight beyond what I can conceive of now. Practice in motion. I'm excited to be in this time of practical application of my beliefs and principles :)
Tea's done, back to work.

Unbelievable

When I got back from Portland on the morning of the 23rd, I'd had about 2 cumulative hours of sleep, an early flight, and a week of too much good food which made me more tired than I would have been already. The reason I'd had to come back that particular day at that particular time was to take the Emergency Medical Technician National Registry Exam; I'd chosen the earliest flight so that I'd have time for a short nap and a few hours of studying (meaning, the only studying I'd actually budgeted time for). Well, I was delerious with fatigue when I got home, and late getting down for the planned nap. And then the alarm didn't go off. And then I couldn't find my confirmation letter. And then I got lost getting there as I didn't bother to read the directions thoroughly, and went to wrong buildings three times before getting frustrated enough to look it up. Which left me, oh, about 30 minutes to cram. And I failed all the practice questions I attempted. Once the exam started I began hoping the adrenaline of the moment would wake me up, sharpen my focus, and somehow magically provide the missing information to my very much deprived brain. By mid test, I knew I was doomed; I needed a 75% to pass, and I had at least 35% of the questions as "uncertain" on my scratch sheet. I was falling alseep anytime I wasn't frantically writing trying to work out answers. The test itself is poorly written, with many questions containing multiple correct answers, some questions on topics above the EMT-Basic level, and several with no truely correct answer at all -- but that was no excuse for my ill-preparedness and lack of sleep. So I conceeded, and plodded through the rest of the exam, knowing full well that it was pointless but wanting to at least finish and get an idea of what I would need to review for the next time I took it, last chance being on October 21st as my England-bound flight was already scheduled for the 26th. I left the exam room knowing full well that I had failed, and was of course told by classmates and friends "Oh no you didn't, you always say that, you did just fine" which was nice but misguided as no one could possibly fathom how much I DIDN'T study. I recognized that I really hadn't applied myself to the task at hand, and that I needed to more serious in my approach to my second, and final, attempt, to that end making sure revision manuals didn't get packed for storage and blocking out hours this week around moving-business to properly study, to rightfully earn completion of the EMT 'circle' and add another tool to my off-to-England belt.

I just checked the National Registry Website.

I passed.

And One More Thing...

Because I don't have enough to do/think about/accomplish/obsess over, I have just done the deed and manifestly signed up for NaNoWriMo.

Justifications:
1. November is the last month of my off-season as training officially begins December 1st
2. Writing, assuming I can find someone foolish enough to publish me, is something I've put off doing for years and am about to try my hand at... and I need to get my head into manuscription mode
3. If this off-the-deep-end life-adventure I'm tackling is anything for certain, it's good material
4. "NaNoWriMo is all about the magical power of deadlines. Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen. Pies will be eaten at amazing rates. Alfalfa will be harvested like never before. And novels will be written in a month." I figure this is good karma for the months to come; hopefully the magical power of goals and miracles will extend beyond my novel to my nursing career
5. I'm nuts, but you knew that already.

I will NOT be blogging my progress, just my bellyachings and why-the-hell-am-I-doing-this-es. I expect to change my mind about plot and characters and place-names and astrological convergances and all many many many times over the month of November, so I'll just spare you till it's over and donewith. If anything, you'll have something to read while you're on the treadmill working off Thanksgiving...

Great Swim Set

This morning's set was awesome. I've still yet to put my finger on what makes a good set, or even, what makes a set good; how do you know it isn't just the weather, or the state of your muscles, or what side of the bed you got up on (at 4 in the bloody morning, especially)? But like an efficient stroke, you just feel it. And this one felt spectacular, despite my lack of improvement, so it must have been the set!

w/u:
3x { 200 pull, 100 fly/free by 25's

main:
400 free, 2x 50 fast
300 free, 2x 50 fast
200 free, 2x 50 fast
100 free, 2x 50 fast

interlude:
200 back

second:
3x 200 IM (build each 50, finishing each strong)

c/d:
100 ez

total:
3100

The Invitation

Dear Local Friends and Extended Family,

There is, finally, no defying it: it seems that for the forseeable future, I will be living on the spur of the moment. Including having a goodbye party being thrown for me at the last minute, and being the one asked to send out the invitations! My parents are hosting an open-house-type bon voyage, this Saturday afternoon/evening starting at 4 pm; this is my last weekend in the Bay Area, and the coming week will be filled with departure logistics, so this will be my final chance to see many of you and say goodbye. For those who are able, we'd love to see you here; just bring yourselves and your families, we'll have hors d'euvors, dinner and dessert -- this is also going to be my last chance to cook properly for a very very long time!
Here's the proper invitation:

Open House Bon Voyage for Antonia
Saturday October 15th - 4 pm till we drop!
Hosts: Ron and Sally Mancini
RSVP: rsmancini@kepnet.com or 650-326-9850
Address: 915 Theresa Court, Menlo Park, CA 94025


As a background for those who have no idea what I'm talking about:

After over two years of relative uncertainty, I am about to embark on a voyage into the complete unknown. I am, as many of you know, intent on getting into a nursing program abroad, which has proven next to impossible to do from here. I feel strongly that the training I would receive is the best possible to prepare me for the humanitarian work I want to do, and I am willing to put life on hold for a time and take this leap of faith to hopefully make it happen. It will be a stressful, unpredictable time; I will not have the ability to legally work, I cannot legally stay past 6 months, my "next moves" will be dependant on whatever strides I make (or don't) with each school I visit, and I will not always know where I'm going or what I'm doing until it happens. I also don't know how easy it will be to keep in contact, what kind of schedule I'll be able to keep and therefore what free time I'll have for communication or socialization, and most importantly: when, or if, I'm coming back. Uncertainties abound. The schedule I've kept the last year and a half has made me a difficult person to know -- that's about to get exponentially more severe. But despite all of the challanges that this direction presents, and as much as there are aspects of the journey I'm not felicitously anticipating, I know the path is the right one; now all I have to do is start walking.

I hope to see you Saturday, though I know that this impulsive gathering may be coming on top of already-laid weekend plans; to all of you who I will not get to visit before I leave, hugs and warm thoughts and until we meet again :)

All the best,
Antonia

Let the Show Begin

I am now, officially, no fooling, about to embark on this adventure. Not because I sold my car, or garage sale-ed or gave away 85% of my posessions, or bought my plane ticket, or lived out of Container Store bins all summer, or talked about it and told you all I was going to for over a year. Which is all true, of course. But because while I pack away the 14% that is to stay behind, I've got Shrek playing in the background. I occasionally had Shrek going when I used to clean Brockenborings, the Montana house. I had Shrek going when I stained those *^$)#(*$ bookshelves, and when I loaded the then-brand-new-to-me Sophie at 1 in the morning to drive to Oregon for Christmas 6 days after surgery, on crutches, with my leg in an aircast. I had it running several times as I unpacked and repacked the house before I moved to California, and it was on NBC both times I packed for my European trips (England/Ireland in April, and Spain in May). And again when I moved into the church apartment, and Jen and I had it going when we painted the living room, and again when we moved to Alma Street, and again when I moved out. And that doesn't count all the times any of the kids had it going for their own reasons. It is the official "moving, rearranging, or otherwise setting-life-to-rights" background music. Because for all that, I don't think I've actually SEEN Shrek for several years, maybe even since it came out; it just runs, and I listen in occasionally, and laugh at the funny bits I happen to be in the room for (or don't have the vacuum running over). It's more for... the fact that it is now, for better or worse, a traditional part of the moving process, a constant little port in a very changable storm. Come to think of it, Shrek is probably the one constant I've had over the past few years. Imagine that: a fun, funky little movie-as-life-anchor, and for someone who hates TV!

Rolling along towards the goal of being "ready to leave" by October 12, which, if accomplished, would not only be a significant breakthrough in my ability to stick to a deadline but will allow me 2 weeks of non-rushed, non-hastled time to see family, friends, enjoy the weather and available vegan food, spend some time alone (last time for QUITE awhile more than likely as hostels are not conducive to this!), and get in some quality training in this all-but-pefect venue. Tally ho, back to the boxes.... and em, Shrek, o' course. Here is a brief photo-journal of the garage sale chapter of the moving saga...

Oh, If Only...

This is a wonderfully written bit, complete with pictures, on the LiveStrong ride that took place in Oregon a week ago; when I was in Portland I saw the sign-up forms and cursed the fates I wasn't staying longer...!

Holy Spurs On My Moments

Hooray!! I am in Portland, on the first spur-of-the-moment vacation of my life, visiting my friend Lacey. Wonderful Quena arrives tomorrow night, too! A girls’ week, and a favorite-people week, and a travel for fun week. Being around incredible, loving and happy people is a very good thing, I think I might do well to get used to it and do it more often.
The morning started out as a reprisal of last weeks theme – oversleeping, this time both me AND my dad. I nearly missed my flight by being late and then getting thoroughly unpacked in a double-security screening, but made it onto the plan just as they were swinging the door shut – only to then sit in the runway and taxi back to have a malfunctioning radio system repaired (from the pilot: “No need to worry folks, it wasn’t like it was something that would have prevented us from landing safely or flying into another plane, nothing like that, just a routine problem”…!!). As soon as I called Lacey to tell her I’d be late, I fell promptly asleep (I’d stayed up till 3:30 unpacking from house-sitting and moving and repacking for the trip), and stayed that way till we landed. Yay for unexpected maintenance and impromptu nap opportunities!
I found Lacey at PDX after a bit of wandering around in the wrong directions, and we took the MAX into downtown and walked through lovely tree-lined Park Avenue which I remembered more vividly than expected from childhood visits up here. Lacey’s charming flat is in a student housing complex, and just the perfect size; I’m reminded again how much space I’d really need to feel at home, and how much I’m looking forward to student housing of my own in the hopefully not-too-distant future! I noticed by noonish that time had slowed waaaaay down, that I was more relaxed and happy than I’d been in a long time, and just basked in that – what an incredible thing!
It was Lacey’s friend Paul’s birthday, and we decided to make a Vegan Birthday Dinner-Feast (intentional caps), complete with spice cake from a recipe that I’ve had swimming around in my head but hadn’t fleshed out all the way. In other words, experimentation, my very favorite thing to do with a kitchen! So we headed out to shop, and I got a ground-level taste of how incredibly low-key and well-laid-out Portland is. We made a brief detour into Powells (DANGER WILL ROBINSON), a stocking-up at Whole Foods, and then back to drop off groceries and walk to Lacey’s community garden plot, which is flourishing beautifully.
The feast was prepared and savored and enjoyed, and at some point i'll have to post the menu... I am just so full, not of food but of peace, love, kinship, and feeling immersed in people and surroundings I both understand and am recognized as my true self by. A new, and curious, and blessed feeling. I am looking forward to all that this week holds for us.

Where You Are

I have more or less successfully kept to a "news fast" since the fourth week of Janurary 2003. No papers, no magazines, no NPR, no CNN, no networks, no Yahoo!Ticker, nada. Yes, I do see the occasional headline, and will occasionally seek out news from basic info-based sources like the BBC, AlterNet, or Working for Change -- but the chronic news, the endless stream of overproduced, dramatized, background-noise "information" was what I wanted to turn off and leave off. And despite all the things that have happened in the world since then, nothing has convinced me to retreat. Now, with the state of things in Louisiana, and several of my EMT classmates going to join the relief effort, the fact that I'm still not plugging into the media frenzy has been called into question by some. I have (mostly) learned to keep my mouth shut when this sort of thing happens (pior instances ranging from the London bombings to the Tsunami to the death of the Pope), because if I say what I really think about how the media takes advantage of world crises to soak up ratings and how for every person affected by tragedy in the developed world there are thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people starving to death or suffering from treatable diseases in the third world because they're not glamorous enough to be the popular "cause of the moment", I tend to piss people off and apparently paint myself as uncaring about current events.
I wonder what would happen if news were something we made, and not something done to us? If people felt generally compelled to do something more than write a check? Like, what would happen if instead of waiting for things to go wrong so we can have a bake sale, we chose to live in smaller houses, build sustainable infrastructures, do without the luxuries we take for granted like giant supermarkets and being able to drive everywhere, build communties based on interdependance so that when bad things happen there's no question of how everyone will be taken care of, take a humble slice of the world pie so that there's enough of everything for everybody? Or am I nuts?
I really like this, it showed up in my inbox back in September of '01 and then again last week; I plan on using it as a bookmark in my Paediatrics textbooks if I can ever figure out how to fight my way into school.
---

Where you are right now is a very good place to be. For you are alive, aware, and able to make a difference.
Certainly things are not perfect. You may face uncomfortable situations, painful choices and difficult challenges.
Even so, where you are right now is a good place to be. For you have the opportunity to take whatever you have and make it into a life of value, meaning and fulfillment.
You have the extreme good fortune to be right here, right now. The more you see your life as the immense opportunity that it is, the more true richness you will uncover.
There is a path that leads to the best in life that you can possibly imagine. And the starting point of that path is where you are right now.
Pause for a moment and consider your many blessings. Then move forward and fulfill all the rich promise of where you are right now.
-- Ralph Marston

Dear Sophie, Adieu

I am (sniff) selling my beloved Subaru Outback Sophie as I prepare to leave for my adventure, since I've so far been unable to find any way to shrink and bring her with me, or swim-tow her across the Atlantic (the swim is my worst tri leg, remember). She's been an awesome travel companion, and I'm a Subaru convert -- they drive like sports cars, take on any permutation of nasty weather with ease, hold up forever (my friend's is at 327,466 and still ticking!), are top rated in all 5 crash tests, and get great gas mileage -- what more could you ask for? So if you want to hop on the Subaru bandwagon or know someone who does, let me know.

Here's the craigslist posting:

http://www.craigslist.org/pen/car/95289349.html