July 2011
6 posts
During my two hour-long session with my thesis advisor:
Me: Will this be enough? but I feel like my thesis doesn’t really say anything! *panic*
Advisor: Dana, it’s just an M.Phil thesis. You are not trying to save the world with your thesis.
Desire to Inspire: Where has the time gone? →
A toast to my little sister’s self-discovery in El Triunfo, Guatemala. I can’t wait to be back in the village as well at the end of this month to reground myself in my passion before medical school—also for “my family, friends, and a simpler, much more fulfilling life.”
Next summer: we are going to be returning to our family, our friends, and our blessed lives in El...
I started listening to our song again. It no...
June 2011
19 posts
Globetrotting...
Flatmates are moving out… It’s finally hitting me that my postgrad life in Cambridge UK is coming to an end. Walking into Elsa’s and Shen-Han’s full boxes in the hallway made me want to start packing as well— actually, I’d do anything right now to avoid writing.
I am looking back… and gosh, I’ve traveled a bunch in the past twelve months.
June 2010...
So Long You Fool - Sophie Milman
Got back home at 2:30am from Trinity Hall June Event, found myself in bed at 4:00am, and woke up at 9am, barely an hour before my thesis presentation. Finished putting together my slides on the bus. I pulled it off somehow, and the best comment I received today was: “Dana, I really admire your huge ambition for this project, but…”
It was a stressful morning.
Now, I am having a...
May Ball 2011
Jesus College May Ball 2011 at the University of Cambridge. We made it to 5am! — Survivors’ Photo!
es verdad!
This transition period is long and painful. It’s killing me.
It’s like… I don’t want it to end, but I am also dying for it to end. I don’t want to say goodbye, but I also want to say hello. I am going to miss it, but I also miss where I am going to be in a month.
Call me crazy, I know.
Balanced Dana
Okay, I’ve decided. I need to find some balance in my life. I need to treat thesis-writing like a real job (9am to 5pm, more or less). I can’t let it consume my life. I am setting at least one fun thing to do each night after work. French dinner date with Jan it is for tomorrow.
Ugh, on that note, why did I choose such a difficult topic that requires too, too much creativity? I...
chasingmusic:
Lady Antebellum - Just a Kiss...
On a very random note, I reaaaaaally want to throw a macaron making party. Will do it sometime during May Week.
From Dana, 10/1/2005.
Had the best coffee date with a Cambridge PhD student today— which inevitably turned into an intense three-hour-long conversation on our work in Guate/Chile. We talked about working together on evaluating Proyecto Doctoritas, both quantitatively and qualitatively, with some validated surveys. This, excites, me, tremendously. It also saddens me a bit that I am only here for a little more than...
Aw, high school.
After celebrating the end of our public health/epi exams (which involved penny-ing each other’s wine glasses), I came home with a huge headache… which soon went away after having a hearty chat with Mr. Denman. He really finds the best qualities in his students and helps fostering them. I thank him for my formative years in high school, and I am happy that my sister also had a chance to...
10's challenge
fuckyeahtumblrchallenges:
Day 1: 10 things about you
Day 2: 10 things you love
Day 3: 10 things you hate
Day 4: 10 things you want to say to one person
Day 5: 10 wishes
Day 6: 10 items you can’t live without
Day 7: 10 important people
Day 8: 10 of your favorite songs
Day 9: 10 things you’re looking forward to
Day 10:
10 Small or large sectets
To be adored unconditionally:
The “Proyecto Doctoritas Wellesley Crew”— Emma, Patty, Ildy, and Katie— left the States today for their fun-filled summer in El Triunfo, Guatemala. This marks the beginning of my third year of commitment to the villagers, to whom I owe the majority of my compassion and my passion for public health-medicine.
I can’t believe that it’s been two years since I made...
Dear Little Dana,
Dear Little Dana of today, let’s not disappoint the Big Dana you will meet in a few years. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Send your daughters to Wellesley.
Only from Wellesley, you get a surprise call, exactly a year after graduation, to receive “something special” over the speakerphone while you are getting your master’s degree in England— not to mention, on a fellowship, fully supported by Wellesley. Yes, only from Wellesley. Then they take a picture of you (inside the speakerphone, as properly footnoted by your premed...
The best cure for everything:
May 2011
1 post
Social Medicine within Public Health
While reviewing the notes I took for the social science module, I encountered a quote that describes what social medicine means, nested in the field of public health:
“As all Azande, most anthropologists and some doctors are aware, causation of a disease is a complex question: whilst the presence of the tubercle bacilius is a necessary cause of clinical tuberculosis, it is not a sufficient...
March 2010
2 posts
Humility.
“Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.” - 2 Chronicles 20:15-17
These words felt so real almost four years ago, when I first entered Wellesley and had my first bible study group meeting. I remember tearing up… because I felt so blessed to be where I was four years ago despite all the struggles I had endured.
Since...
Thank you, Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for all the lovely birthday wishes. I was hoping (quite foolishly) to forget about my birthday— but everyone made it so irresistible to forget. Thank you for the surprise at the pub!
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I will stay strong. D-9.
Working hard.
The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work. - Harry Golden
“I tried my best. I did my best I could.”
“Dana, I hope you know that your best is really amazing. Believe me. It’s really great.” - C.G.
Those words meant so much to me. Thank you.
I am blessed, so blessed.
February 2010
2 posts
An experienced truth: so humbling, yet so...
Paul Farmer’s words are so beautifully adorned with an experienced truth (neither observed nor imposed).
I want to be an attorney for the poor. I want to dedicate my life to advocating for those occupying the bottom rung of the social ladder and those embodying the unjust social conditions that inevitably shape their poor health.
Hard work can overcome hard luck, but what if your hard work...
July 2009
3 posts
My Guatemalan nephews - Jacky and Geraldo.
Meet my stunningly beautiful Guatemalan nephews, Jacky and Geraldo. Their dirt-caked hands don’t bother me much. When they grin from ear to ear, their dimples deepen into their black bean-spotted soft cheeks. I adore them.
This November, their baby brother will be born and named Danny (we settled on Danny, instead of Dana).
Geraldo and Jacky. El Triunfo, Gualan, Zacapa, Guatemala....
First Half of Guatemala - Blissfully Painful,...
Jose Nathaniel. The boy with spina bifida. He made me cry, really hard. Butt-naked. Sitting and playing with the piglets. Where is justice? El Triunfo, Gualan, Zacapa, Guatemala. 3rd week of June, 2009.
Dona Vilma’s third child. El Triunfo, Gualan, Zacapa, Guatemala. 3rd week of June, 2009.
A boy from a farm family. His older brother walk in his tattered shoes for an hour to get to...
Snippets of Israel -- January 2009
Habon and his family from Iraq. Post-surgery. Wolfson Medical Center, Holon, Israel. January 2009.
Lukman from Tanzania— he had an acquired congenital heart defect. Post-surgery, at the Wolfson Medical Center, Holon, Israel for echocardiogram. January 2009.
The Sea of Galilee, Israel. 8-hour long bike around the Sea of Galilee… with my cheap bike rented from a local hostel....