Pictures from Uganda

Ever wonder how the other half of the world lives? Here’s a glimpse….

Attending school barefoot, trying to learn with over 100 other kids crammed in a single floorless classroom with only one teacher is a reality.

Many people build their homes with sticks, mud, and cow dung.

Babies are responsible for caring for other babies. This little girl could not have been more than three or four years old. I had to completely squat down to be at her eye level…

Children are asked to fetch water from Schistosomiasis contaminated lakes, their only available source of water. Schisto can lead to many gastrointestinal problems, including bladder cancer.

Soft leaves are used instead of toilet paper. This picture was taken inside the staff’s bathroom at one of the primary schools in the villages. You can't really see it, but there's a hole on the ground... and that's the toilet.

And yet…

People laugh

People dance

People want to share what they have with us... we met this lady on the village streets and she not only gave us sugar cane from her garden but also let me use her machete! :)

We really live in an unequal world...

Ummm.... another update

Ummm.... well, I think I should share this with all of you.... please see

www.xanga.com/jagaime

Back from the dead

For those who have been wondering where I have been ... Well to make a long story short I am now in Edmonton studying Global Health at the University of Alberta and I've been there for 4 months now and it's soooo cold here. It started snowing in the middle of October and one weekend it was -30 degrees C. It was a lot more work than I thought. My plan in the beginning of the semester was to go workout, update this blog and get a job. Well I've only been able to accomplish one of these goals since starting. Now all my finals are done and all my papers have been painstaking written. And oh yes ... I have a boyfriend for 6 months. hope everyone is doing well. His name by the way is Jimmy and he thought that I was ashamed of him because I didn't write anything about him on my blog. So he took it upon himself to post this on my blog for me. Well hopefully I (Jimmy) was able to give everyone who loves this dear person so much whose been wanting to know what's been going on in her life but we all know and love how awful she is when it comes to receiving replies or calls from her, this update of what's been going on in her life. And yes for those who have been wondering, she still is very much alive and freezing.

Right now she is on winter break and is Toronto with all her brothers and her man celebrating the holidays together with her parents. To all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Cheers!!

This is Jimmy and I. He is the one on the right.... your right, not mine :) I'm the one on the left... your left, not his :) Just in case for those of you who I have not talked to in like forever

ANR conference

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. (I can't believe that I'm starting my blogs the same way I start most of my emails!) The past four months (wow, has it been THAT long!?) were filled with nonstop activity that I guess I just got really behind updating this space. Well, better later than never right? ;)

Recently (okay, maybe more like a month ago...), I traveled to sunny California for the Advances in Neuroblastoma Conference at the Hilton Universal City. As a lab, we had a total of 4 posters and 1 presentation. The conference was amazing. Not only was the science great but it also made me realize how influential CHOP was in the area of neuroblastoma research. The CHOP abstracts easily outnumbered all others, several people wanted to collaborate with us, and many of the resources available to us were still in other people's wish list. I really felt so privileged and lucky to have had the opportunity to work for CHOP.


Here are some of my colleagues in front of one of our posters. From left to right, Xueyuan (who is like my older sister here in Philly), Kelly (Dr. Goldsmith), me and Kim (little Bryce's mom).



They fed us so well at this meeting! Look at how beautiful the lunch looked! I almost didn't want to eat it because I didn't want to destroy this piece of art. Here, Xueyuan, Mark (Dr. Fluchel) and I are getting some yummy desserts :)

Since the meeting was so close to Universal Studios, we bought a general admissions ticket that allowed multiple re-entries to the park, and enjoyed it in small chunks (2 hours here, 3 hours there... you know? when there were no interesting talks going on, ehemm...). We saw the cutest baby orangutan, and maybe Steven Spielberg (or someone trying to impersonate him. What do you guys think? Is it him?)














The meeting ended with a Gala Dinner at the Globe Theater, where we got treated like kings and queens. The theme was Hollywood and we got the red carpet entrance (just like the Everglow girls!). There was a live band, a Lucille Ball and Marilyn Monroe impersonator, and the guest speaker was John Dykstra (the special effects supervisor for the original Star Wars movies and Spiderman).

Here we are enjoying our red carpet moment with fellow colleagues from CHOP (left to right: Jay, my boss Mike (Dr. Hogarty), me, Xueyuan, Ruth, and Mark).
Inside the Globe Theater, we got to meet the stars (top: Karen, Lucy, Marilyn. Bottom: me, Xueyuan, and Ruth :)


The ANR conference was a lot of fun, but paled in comparison to the rest of my week in California. I'll tell you guys about that in the next few posts :)

Personal Statement

Haven't updated my blog in a long time. A lot has happened in the past month, from visitng and loving this new church, joining a new Bible Study (so now I am going to two small groups), applying to become a Sunday School teacher, to May's visit (miss you sooo much! btw, love your entry about your Philly trip and can't wait to see you again!)... but one thing that hasn't "happened" is my personal statment. :(

For some weird reason... I'm having a very difficult time writing this rather important part of my application. It's been a great exercise to be introspective and reflect on why I want to go back to school, but while all the ideas are in my head, somehow I just can't put them into words! Sighhh... If it were up to me, this is what I would send to the school:

"You’re giving me a maximum of 800 words to describe my academic and scholastic background, my work experience, motivation to apply AND my career goals? Do you know how hard that is?! Seriously… I’m so wordy that I can’t even address the first point without going over the word limit. Sighhh…. This really stinks.

Oh well, guess I’ll have to play by your rules if I want to get in eh? Let me try to convince you of why you should admit me to your school then.

Okay, here I go…

First of all, I am not all that incompetent. I mean, even when I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life, I managed to finish a master degree that led to two first author publications. Not to shabby eh? So imagine what I am capable of when I’m actually passionate about the subject! Think about it… seriously… think about it. Fine fine fine… so it’s true that had it not been because Michael, Sandra and Ron were so nice and so patient and super helpful, I would have never completed it… but at least this shows that when surrounded by really amazing people, I can get great stuff done. So, you’re a pretty decent school right? You’ve got a couple of good people to spare don’t you?

Second, my current boss and my co-workers don’t want me to go… so that must mean something right? My co-workers keep asking me to look into programs in Philly, and when I asked my boss if he would be willing to write me a reference, our conversation went roughly like this:
Mike (ie, my boss… he’s really smart, went to Johns Hopkins and Columbia… and he’s a pediatric oncologist… reaaaaaally smart!): So are you thinking of applying back home in Canada or here in the US?
Me: Back home, to the University of Alberta
Mike: Starting next year?
Me: Ummm…starting this September…
Mike: YOU… diiiiiirty dog!
Me: Well, I’m not 100% sure yet. If I don’t get in, I’ll definitely want to stay here (in hindsight, it was probably pretty dumb to say to your boss that working for them was not your first choice… oops…)
Mike: Oh, you’ll get in… unless I write you a s(censored)ty recommendation.

And here’s what he said when I actually handed him the appraisal form:
Mike: Oh you… stinker...so these are due in October?
Me: No, they’re due in March
Mike: Why don’t you apply in April?
Me: haha… ummm... so you’re okay with doing this?
Mike: Yeah… it’ll be great (then added under his breath) for you… stinker!

Third, hmmm… third…. errr… oh, I’ve got one! As much as people claim to be politically correct and recruit based on education, training, achievements, and so on, let’s face it, appearances do make a difference. Employers, schools, and you name it… all prefer to have good-looking people working for them. I’m NOT saying that I’m physically attractive or anything like that. In fact, my own mother compared my looks to that of a “bull dog” when I was a baby… you know, at the height of everyone’s cuteness I looked like a dog? Really chunky cheeks that hung down because they were so heavy… no nose… well, don’t think about that too much for now… I’m trying to convince you to let me in and not disgust you into throwing my application away. My point is… my cousin is a supermodel in Taiwan, ask anyone living there and they can attest to her hot babe status… so having said that… I can’t be that bad to look at right? (you know? genetics… inheritance… yada yada yada…)

So... please let me in?"

What do you guys think? Probably not eh? Guess I better get back to the drawing board. Sighhh... this is painful...

20 Random Facts

Another long overdue post. I was tagged last year with posting 20 very random facts about myself. Here it goes:

1. I'm a HUGE procrastinator. But apparently not as bad as someone whose name *cough* starts with a R *cough* and ends with *cough* a L *cough* who still has not gotten her list up *cough*. Need more hints? Think: like, coffee, dude, old people over 25. :P
2. By nature, I'm an introvert and I hesitate to take leadership roles unless there's really no one else who can do it. I feel more comfortable working in the background, with small groups of people, and feel drained when surrounded by large crowds for people. I need a lot of quiet time alone.
3. I get cranky if I don't drink coffee... or if I have to write.
4. I guess I'm pretty secretive. I can take a secret to my grave and my deepest thoughts will never be shared in this blog :P I write them on my own personal journal :)
5. There are three of us kids in my family, and I am the oldest. My two brothers are Tomas and Andres, and we were all born in different decades.
6. Growing up in Guatemala, I went to an all girls school that was founded with the specific purpose of training bilingual (Spanish/English) secretaries. I was the only Asian in the entire school!
7. My family left Guatemala because we got assaulted at gunpoint twice and had our car window broken once within a period of 2 months. In one of the assaults, the guy actually fired at my mom and I but thankfully, he missed.
8. I have the most non-traditional Chinese dad ever! While other fathers were strict and instructed their kids to study hard, etc. mine used to tell us stories about how he would walk to school with his brothers and sneak out when they weren't looking. He would skip school and hide in movie theaters until classes were over!
9. When I was 16, people thought that my youngest brother Andres, who was 5 at the time, was my son. Ten years later, people thought I was his girlfriend! Everybody also thinks that Tomas is older than me.
10. I help promote the "female stereotype" by being horrible at parallel parking but also help break such stereotypes by hating to shop. And when I HAVE to go to shopping, I'm more drawn to the power tools section than to the clothing section. I want to learn woodworking.
11. I've had two surgeries, both on the left side of my body, both involving joints and due to sport injuries. When I was 12, my left elbow was dislocated in gymnastics as I hit the ground in a handstand position after letting go of the high bar. I was supposed to grab the lower one but missed it. They had to put in two 10 cm long nails to hold my elbow together. Two years ago, I tore my ACL while skiing, probably made it worse by going skydiving, but didn't get it checked out until my knee completely gave away while I tried to do back tucks on a trampoline. I had to get my ACL reconstructed.
12. I didn't have a sense of humor until I started working in Michael and Sandra's lab. The twisted conversations, the pranks, and just the comradeship that we shared there is something that I will forever carry in a very special part of my heart. I miss you guys like you can't imagine!
13. Along with Ron, Roger, Kurtis, and Stacey, I helped break the Guinness World Record for... oh... kids reading this... ehem... yeah, just ask me if you're not a kid :) Nothing bad or illegal, but... yeah. Suffice to say that it was also a fundraiser for Kingston charities.
14. One of my most treasured gifts is the card that the lab made for my Msc graduation. They each drew part of the card with inside jokes and shared memories. There were several drawings of me kidnapping babies (ehemm). A photograph of me staring at the birds that we had in the lab, with a bubble saying "would you write my thesis for me pleeeeeease?" courtesy of Michael (my supervisor). There was Ron's depiction of the process of my "corruption" by the lab, starting with "Agueda the Angel" through several "incidents" that happened over the years, ending with a picture of me with horns, smoking and drinking (IMPORTANT NOTE: for the kids reading this, he's just exaggerating ok? I'm not a smoker or an alcoholic!). I love that card!
15. The 5 months that I spent in Honduras in 2004 were the most life altering, eye opening, humbling experience in my life. I went there thinking that I wanted to help others, but instead was saved myself. Words fail me to describe the impact that those 5 months had on my life. The people that I met there and the circumnstances that we faced together taught me so much about life in its rawest form. It gave me a better understanding of myself, and for the first time in my life, God was real to me.
16. I always thought of myself as a low maintenance person until I went to Honduras. There, I realized what a spoiled little princess I was. I was taking so much for granted, from water and electricity to my education and all the opportunities that I have been granted in life. What I saw and experienced there gave me a new appreciation for life that I wish I knew how to share with others.
17. I was baptized in a river in Honduras on March 2004 by Joe and Charles, two northamerican missionaries there that, along with many others, guided me to the right path and served as my spiritual counselors as I started my walk with Christ.
18. I truly, honestly believe that the most precious things in life are invisible and cannot be bought.
19. I've since been back to Honduras once for a short term missions in 2005 and also got to serve for a week in Mexico with the most amazing group of people (yes, that's you kids!) that continue to be an inspiration to me to this day.
20. I'm planning on going back to school to study Global Health.

My drinking room

This entry was oh... meant to be posted last year (just like many of the entries to come), but as you all know ehemm... I'm a horrible procrastinator.


Last year, Min-ching asked to see pictures of my "new" room since her latest visit to Philly was largely spent painting it. Over a period of two days, we had gowned ourselves with the ever handy CHOP scrubs, filled in the gaps on the walls, sanded it, taped the edges of the room, primed, and painted away.



Interestingly, while we both were engaged in the same type of activity, at the end of the day, Min-ching was absolutely spotless, while I had paint all over myself. There had been a lot of oops, darn, and shoot! Can you pass me the wet towel again? Please fast! Ahh…


The efforts paid off. I now have what I refer to as my drinking room. Half chocolate, half cream… or more accurately, half coffee and half white mocha :)

Here are some before and after pictures. I really couldn’t have done it without Min-ching’s amazing help! (AND encouragement. In fact, I was planning to put it off until after the GRE, but she insisted on doing it back then. Good call!)

BEFORE


Look at how nasty the walls used to be! It's amazing what a bit of putty and a coat of fresh paint can do to a place!





AFTER





Thank you Min-ching!
I really like my new room!