To the Great Outdoors

Yesterday I finally submitted my IRB application! Hooray! I'm not sure what's going to happen now, but at some point this month it's going to get reviewed, and hopefully it'll be approved. Now I'm working on the questionnaire that my fieldworkers will be using to interview my subjects. I'm really excited about my project, and I can't wait to get things going!

Today I decided to take things easy since I had been staying up late every night working on the IRB application. So I did some laundry, went to the pool, and joined the church choir at CMC campus. They practice every Sunday from 4pm until 6pm when service starts. I hadn't sung in choir since college (wow, that's 4 years ago...), but I still remembered how to sing and read notes (I definitely felt a lot sloppier though). It was a lot of fun singing in choir again.

RUHSA

Tomorrow I'm going to RUHSA (Rural Unit for Health and Social Affairs), which is a department of CMC that is located about 30-min drive from the main hospital. As the name implies, RUHSA serves the surrounding rural areas. (More info on RUHSA here). Lucy and I went to RUHSA about 3 weeks ago and got a brief orientation there. This time we're going with all the 1st-year (soon to be 2nd-year) CMC medical students and OT/PT students for a 2-week long Community Orientation Program (COP).

Basically, we'll be spending the next two weeks in a small village called Kavanur near RUHSA. In groups of 3-4, we'll be going door-to-door to collect their demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related information, while learning to build rapport with the people in the community. It sounds like a great learning experience. I'm really excited because this will be very similar to how my research project will be done (although it will be done by fieldworkers that I hire).

The boys will be staying at the village throughout the week, while the girls will be staying at a hostel in RUHSA. I'm guessing I won't be having much internet connection while I'm out there, so you probably won't be hearing from me for the next couple weeks.

So just to entertain you while I'm gone, here are some random pictures:

Everyday, a herd of goats are brought to a patch of land by the main road that is piled up with garbage. It appears that goats clean up all the edible garbage (e.g. paper), while people burn the rest. Hmm... doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it does make a lot of scent (it smells pretty bad—another good reason to have a bike, so I can zip past it while holding my breath)

A sign in the computer room at CMC campus library. Looks like the Lord isn't the only one who sees what you do there.

A mantis at the pool. This crazy insect attacked me while I was in the pool. It fell into the water, so I saved it. Then it kept following me... it must have thought I was its mate.