Caught in Between

Hello all,

Apologies for my lengthy absence from the world of blogging. Hope you have all been having a wonderful summer!

My blog disappearance can be wholly blamed on my own failure to understand the commitment of a full-time job. The learning curve was steep, and a few weeks into my internship, I felt I had to duck out of blogging for the sake of my own sanity and those forced to spend time with me. (For those of you just joining, I spent the summer as a Summer Business Analyst with McKinsey, a global consulting firm). I’d had jobs before, on and off campus, but nothing quite prepared me for the round-the-clock emails, travel, and strict deadlines.

During ten weeks of work, though, I adjusted–things went from impossible, to stressful, to just challenging. I learned everything from logistics (how do I get a new charger/better coffee/more sleep) to basic business survival skills (e.g. Excel modeling–my personal hell), and was able to serve two exciting clients during my summer. I traveled to DC, Philly, Boston and LA, met some of the most crazy accomplished people I’ve ever seen, and generally got my first real look at the wide world of adulthood.

me on my first day of school..work wasn't quite like this

I finished up this past Friday and am still in shock, but thrilled to report that I was extended a full-time offer to return after I graduate.  I haven’t accepted my offer yet, but I’m feeling pretty good about it. I learned so much in ten weeks that the chance to return for a full two years slightly boggles my mind. I’m sure I will learn things I didn’t even know I didn’t know. The one thing tugging at my heart is the chance to return to Africa after graduation, perhaps with the Fulbright program. The jury’s out for now, but it would be an amazing opportunity, and a great excuse to return to this place.

beautiful cape town

In the meantime, though, I have the slightly unreal luxury of an application-free senior year. On the plus side, this means much more time to explore Baltimore, take interesting classes, catch up with friends, and generally enjoy myself. On the downside, this may mean that senioritis sets in…now.

I’ll blog more in the next few weeks about the non-job related things that happened this summer, but I thought it only fair to explain why exactly I had gone AWOL on you all.

Here’s to a wonderful August, hoping the heat finally breaks, and a very happy 19th birthday to my sister, Suzi!

LB

P.s. photo at top courtesy of the New York Times.

hello, all! happy new year

this will be a brief one, as i’m off in the morning to move into my very own off campus apartment with my lovely roommate Laura! naturally i left all the packing to the last minute, so i’m frantically throwing piles of recently folded clothes into duffel bags as it gets later and later. more updates to follow, and perhaps even a cribs tour of our soon to be decorated home. we currently have not a single piece of furniture to our name, so this should be a real adventure.

anyway, i’m just back from a lovely vacation in the great state of Ohio (where Laura lives). my younger sister and i ventured out there several days ago as part of the longest road trip i’ve ever taken. 1000 miles, one speeding ticket, some insane souvenirs and a lot of coffee later, we are all back in NJ, prepping for move in and intersession, and for me at least, a return to hopkins after a nearly 8 month hiatus. wow.

christmas was celebrated here with nearly two feet of snow and a lot of postponed plans. we managed to eventually see the whole family–including five cousins who were born during my time abroad. it was lovely to see everyone and catch up, chat about south africa and hear about everyone’s lives over the past year or so.

as promised, this is a very short post, but ill be back in the next couple of days with pictures of our apartment and a better review of the christmas holiday and (i promise) a more reliable blogging schedule

hope everyone had a lovely new year!

-lauren

So unlike the rest of the SAABers, who are writing to you after an exhausting week of exams, I’ve had a slightly different December. After an amazing weeklong trip to visit friends studying abroad in Paris, I came home with what I thought was a bad cold and turned out to be a nasty case of pneumonia that landed me in the hospital for three nights. I’ve been recuperating at home for the past few days, on a veritable pharmacy of medications, wearing sweatpants round the clock, taking far more naps than I ever thought possible for a 20 year old, subsisting on tea and soup, and I finally seem to be feeling a bit better.

So I apologize for the delay in blogging, but I really didn’t see this one coming! Now that I’m on the mend I’ll recap December for you.

After Thanksgiving, feeling a little stir-crazy at home, I trekked out to Bethlehem, PA to visit one of my best friends from high school. I spent a fun few days there, seeing another college, braving the insanely cold weather, and catching up with a few other classmates also studying at Lehigh.From there I headed down to Baltimore, arriving just in time for Phi Mu winter formal, which I attended as my lovely little’s date (thanks, Becca!). Formal this year was held at the top of the Belvedere, a schmancy hotel in downtown Baltimore with a really cool bar on the top floor. We got to dance the night away and look out on the whole city. It was a great re-entry back into Hopkins, and a really fun evening.

Early the next morning I Bolt Bus-ed up to New York, in time to say a quick goodbye to my family, and headed off to Paris that evening. Needless to say, Paris was beautiful. I arrived on Tuesday morning in a cloud of snow that didn’t stop until late Wednesday night. It was such a wonderful winter holiday, and I had an amazing time tripping around the city with my friend Dani–by now nearly a native Parisienne–as my guide.

I walked along the Seine, pretended I knew French (I barely speak a word), ordered cafe au lait, tried to avoid getting mowed down by bicyclists, and generally just enjoyed the city. It was hard to hold a candle to those cool French girls in the freezing cold weather, but I observed, and I am determined to grow up to be a Parisian woman.

(all pictures from thesartorialist.com)

Paris was a quite a sight, especially in the snow, so I’ll leave most of the describing to the thousands of pictures I took, but before I sign off I just wanted to wish everyone an amazing, healthy, snowy, cozy December and a happy whatever holiday you celebrate!

-Lauren

P.S. CONGRATULATIONS NEWLY ADMITTED CLASS OF 2015. YOUR LIFE IS SO IDEAL RIGHT NOW! MAKE SURE TO CELEBRATE, WE ALL CAN’T WAIT TO HAVE YOU HERE AT HOPKINS.

Sanibonani, Blog Followers

I am writing to you as someone who has officially gone to one of the most dangerous cities in the world. And I loved it. According to various semi-reliable online sources, Johannesburg South Africa is more dangerous than Baghdad, Bogota, and all of Thailand. However, this same website informed me that “going out at night is not recommended”…..in Cape Town. Whoops. I think they might be alarmists.

how dangerous does this look? these beautiful purple trees were everywhere!

Despite the international impression that Joburg is Crime City, SA, I had an amazing weekend. I did, however, make sure not to tell my mother I was there (sorry, mom). My dad got the inside scoop, and we planned to surprise her in the Joburg airport on the layover on their way to Cape Town. Alas, that plan didn’t quite work (more on this later) but I did get to meet up with my Dad on his way.

Before heading to Joburg, I was told by numerous people that it would help me to understand Cape Town better. Not quite sure what that meant, I set off with my friends Avery, Nicky and Mike on a whirlwind three day adventure, unsure of what we’d find in Joburg, but excited to see what all the fuss was about.

Friday morning, at an hour I don’t often like to see (turns out it is light at 5 am though, who knew?) we met up in Mowbray, our little neighborhood in Cape Town, piled into a taxi and headed off to the airport. We all congratulated ourselves on our light packing (backpacks all round) and tried to strategize about our first moves when we got to Joburg.

After a two hour flight we landed in weather nearly twenty degrees hotter than what we’d left in Cape Town, and searched without any success for our hostel’s pick up car. We had given them Avery’s name, somehow failing to realize after four months here that Avery, Lauren, and various other American names (Pearl, Whitney, Courtney, anything slightly gender ambiguous) tends not to translate very well into South African English. We eventually located the man looking for “Army” (Avery?!) and piled into another car, off to our crazy hostel.

Our hostel, Brown Sugar, was the old mansion of a Russian mafia member stationed in Joburg. We got a great four person room in what we can only guess used to be a very fancy car garage. From Brown Sugar we headed off to Parkview to look at some galleries–Avery is completing an independent study in Contemporary South African Art. We got to see some amazing photography exhibits on Joburg and the World Cup, which was a great way to start the trip.

outside the museum: freedom, respect, diversity, democracy, reconciliation and responsibility.

Friday afternoon was a trip to the Apartheid Museum, which was intense, amazing, and an incredibly well done museum. We spent hours there, looking at exhibits that covered everything from Nelson Mandela to Afrikaner nationalism, segregation, political prisoners, the ANC, the Soweto Uprising and the changes after 1994. It was definitely emotionally draining, and overwhelming to take in so much information at once, but it was an incredible museum. I’m glad we got the chance to be there, especially towards the end of our trip, when we know enough about South African history to really understand it.

in the apartheid museum, a view of pre-94 South Africa: “net blankes” (whites only)

Friday evening we called it an early night after an amazing dinner, where we mysteriously got a ride home from our waiter after inquiring if he could call a cab for us. Saturday was jam-packed. We woke up early and headed off to Melville, a cool artsy neighborhood, to have breakfast, and spent the rest of the day on a serious adventure.

me and avery on our bike tour of soweto, and one of the kids we picked up along the way.

After breakfast we headed to Soweto (South-Western Townships) where more than 5 million Joburgers live. We spent the night in Lebo’s Soweto Backpackers, but before that we had an amazing four hour bicycle tour of the township. We saw Orlando West & East, the informal settlements, Nelson Mandela’s house, the Hector Peterson museum, Desmond Tutu’s house, and visited two shebeens (semi-legal township bars, basically off-licenses) where we got to taste traditional township beer, called umqombothi (the Q is a “click” in Xhosa…try pronouncing that one).

Soweto was amazing, everyone was incredibly friendly, and I don’t think I’ve ever met so many people in the space of a few hours. Our guide talked about how in the wealthier areas of Joburg, people were so afraid for their safety that no one was out on the streets, while in Soweto a real sense of community and ubuntu (go to 0:26 to hear Mandela explain the idea) existed, and I couldn’t agree more.

next to Mandela’s house, and the only street in the world where two Nobel peace prize winners live!

The northern suburbs of Joburg were definitely beautiful, with green lawns and sprawling parks, but the streets were deserted and the houses holed up behind high brick walls and electric fences. In Soweto, the people were beautiful. I was taught secret handshakes, kids danced with us in the street and little girls played with my hair, we passed our cameras around, people invited us into their homes for a drink or a chat, and every single person looked up when we rode past and waved, yelling back “hi” in a great imitation of our American accents. I really could have stayed there.

We all felt so lucky to be able to spend the night in Soweto! It’s an interesting position, being a long-term tourist here. A two week trip can’t possibly begin to cover everything you’d want to see here, but people who’ve lived in SA for their whole life often haven’t been to townships or things like Mzoli’s in Cape Town. We’ve gotten the best of both worlds–we’ve been able to really get settled here, we’ve had enough to time to do almost everything we’ve wanted to do, but there’s still a time constraint to put pressure on you to get it all done.

a few more shots of Soweto…

my dancing partner

Saturday night we got to braai with the rest of the people staying at Soweto Backpackers, and then headed back into Joburg after a slight change of plans. We’d met a few American Davidson grads at a music festival a few weeks ago, who are currently living in Joburg to spend a year with Grassroots Soccer, a really awesome program. When we told them we’d be in Joburg, they insisted they take us out and show us around–it was amazing! Joburg is such a diverse, crazy, fun city, and it was so cool to get to go out there. It felt very different from Cape Town somehow.

After all this, it was nice to head back to Cape Town, and even better to see my Dad after such an insanely long time (four months and counting) away from home. I couldn’t help but think of that scene in Love Actually as I sprinted across the arrivals hall in O.R. Tambo airport, all but knocking him over with a hug. It’s been so, so nice to spend time with my parents this past week, and as we speak I’m waiting for them to arrive back from a safari in Kwandwe Game Reserve, out in the Eastern Cape.

shebeen numero dos.

As promised, I’ll explain my mom’s delayed arrival. So it turns out that you need two blank pages in your passport to get on any flight to South Africa. My mom is quite a worldly traveler, and unfortunately, the only member of our family without dual citizenship, so her passport is extra packed. Needless to say, we did not investigate this silly rule prior to boarding the plane, and she had the terrible luck of finding out only as she went to pick up her boarding pass in the airport last weekend. Two days, a trip to the passport office, and an insane level of stress later, she met us in Plettenberg Bay, out on the Garden Route.

In an hour or two they’ll both be back in Cape Town, and we have a crazy-busy week of activities planned (somewhere in there I’ll be taking two final exams as well). I can’t wait to show them around!

I’ve officially passed the very sad marker that I have less than a month left here, and I’m very tempted to make the move many of my friends have made, pushing their flight home later and later, way into December. Quite a conundrum. For now though, I’m busy enjoying my time here, and now now I’m off to collect my parents from the airport.

SIYABONGA,

Lauren

P.s. thanks to my lovely travelers for providing the pictures for this blog

P.p.s. Yebo = Yes, Siyabonga = thanks, Sanibonani = Hello (all in Zulu)

P.p.p.s for those of you who actually know me, as you may have surmised from the pictures, I got my nose pierced recently. When in Africa…

I’m supposed to be writing a blog entry that is a look back at my fabulous summer.

That fabulous summer where I interned at the Global Business Coalition (on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria). An internship that I just finished yesterday.

And it was great. I got to listen in on calls with my supervisors to Stop TB, Millennium Villages Project, International Labor Organization, Partners in Health, and lots of other key players in public health. I got to e-mail back and forth with the South Africa office while assisting on the planning for an October conference in South Africa on TB. I learned acronyms that I never knew before that now seem like everyday terms: CSR, PPP, ICT, ROI, PS, PDP, COB, etc.*. And, of course, my favorite: JK (that would be the office acronym for me). I kept myself busy and met some fabulous undergraduate and graduate interns from all different schools: Georgetown, Columbia, Nortre Dame, and Tufts. And I got a new appreciation for New York City. Seeing the WTC (I think I’m getting addicted to acronyms) being rebuilt is one of the most inspiring sites. I’m so glad I got to see it every work day. I can’t believe the summer is over.

I’m also supposed to be writing about what I’m looking forward to in the coming academic year…as a senior!

I’m looking forward to TONS. But I really can’t think about all of that yet until I get through the next week: I drive down by myself on Tuesday, stay at a friend’s apartment that night, move-in on Wednesday to an unfurnished studio apartment – which I’ve never seen before (I’m surprised I haven’t had nightmares of carrying a mattress down N. Charles), and that exact same day I have an orientation at JHSPH, and, well, the very next day I’ll be taking classes at JHSPH (as a senior public health major, it is a requirement to take classes at the graduate school). Throw in a few meetings to get through junior clearance, declare my minor, get my study abroad credits transferred and I think I’ll be keeping myself busy.

Stressed? A little. Yes, I’ll be running around like a madman (madwoman?) next week. But I’m taking advice from the most important people in my life: my family. My dad’s advice? “It’s OK to flirt a little with boys if it helps you set-up your apartment…just not too much that you lose your virtues.” My grandma’s advice: “Remember to sleep. Remember that the next stressful week (or two) will end.”

My advice to the class of 2014: Don’t pack too many t-shirts. You’ll be getting 983483 more (that’s no exaggeration).

Am I ready? More ready than ever before. Well, except for one thing:

I need to get this current pile:

Into a pile that looks more like the meticulously built and planned pile that I had three years ago as an incoming freshman:

Notice how the current one doesn’t have any clothes in it. Yeah, that’s a problem. I think I’ve finally convinced myself that it won’t come magically. I should probably get on that…

- Jessica

* In case you’re interested: Corporate Social Responsibility, Public-Private Partnerships, Information Communication Technologies, Return on Investment, Private Sector, Product Development Partnerships, Close of Business.

Photo Credit: Greco

My summers before "abnormality."

As someone who has taking statistics classes before, I believe in “norms.” And that when it comes to graphing many things, let’s say height, there have got to be some people that are on the shorter end, some people on the higher end, and let’s say, assuming a normal distribution, around 68% of people within one standard deviation of that “average” height. When it comes to height and weight, I’m the one having a party with the 68% of people in the “average” population. But when it comes to summer vacations, suddenly, I’m not in that party anymore. I become that “abnormal” one sitting over two standard deviations away from the average with just 0.3% of the population joining me.

Sure, not all of us believe in “norms.” And maybe there isn’t a “normal.” But, when it comes to summer vacation, I begin to imagine that 68% of American students are enjoying some kind of “normal” summer. You know the kind I am talking about; the kind filled with pools, a part-time job, barbecues (stocked with veggie burgers, of course), and a trip with the family to a beach. I somehow believe that, by September, 68% of the population will describe their summer as “relaxing” and will have found the time to be in a bathing suit.

The post-"normal" era begins.

The “abnormalities” of my summers started in middle school. At the end of 6th grade, I decided to spend my time in California (visiting my relatives) and at a farm camp for a month. I participated in two farm shows: in the first show, I showed a pregnant goat named Briana and then, in the second show, I showed an adolescent cow (aka a heifer) named Miranda.For the four summers after that, I moved on to a whale camp, where the ocean became my classroom. I spent a total of sixteen weeks whale watching on a schooner off the island of Grand Manan in Canada. When I wasn’t whale watching, I spent time in Hawaii visiting my grandparents.

Well, after that, summers became a little less relaxing, but still weren’t “normal.” After my junior year, I participated in a four-week New Jersey sponsored-program: Governor’s School on the Environment. For the rest of the summer, I interned at a local assemblyman’s office. The summer after my senior year I volunteered in an orphanage in China and interned at a local congressman’s office.

And when college came around, I was still finding ways to build-up an “abnormal” summer history. After my freshman year, I piled on part-time internships by working at a non-profit that promoted art programs in hospitals, working on child nutrition programs with my local health department, and promoting a conference on maternal health disparities. After my sophomore year, I ran off to Brazil, and as a grant recipient, assisted on an epidemiology study on HIV/TB co-infection.

This summer I add to my summer repertoire but similarly to the way Sarah wrote about this year’s summer, in a slightly more “normal” way. I am an intern at the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in New York City. Although, I feel rather “normal” interning in NYC (it’s practically a high school reunion when I get on the bus to go to work), I find my experience with GBC unique.

I’m exposing myself to an area of public health that I haven’t been exposed to yet: the financing side. GBC has made around 220 partnerships with the non- and corporate sector, including businesses (such as, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, etc.). The mission of GBC is to turn business assets into disease-fighting assets by joining the corporate sector with governments and civil society. The more time I’ve spent at GBC the more I’ve begun to appreciate their role in the public health world. Public Health has also become even more interdisciplinary. Suddenly, I’m working alongside experts in business, economics, and marketing, all with a different academic background than mine will probably will ever be, but all of whom are focused on public health.

I’m working on two major projects with GBC. Half of my time is spent strengthening our tuberculosis projects (my supervisor for this project actually happens to be a Peace Corps friend of my academic advisor’s – maybe the public health world isn’t so big after all). Tuberculosis fascinates me and I’m really glad I’ve been given a chance to incorporate that interest into my summer days. The other half of my time is spent working on building up our memberships with the ICT industry (Information and Communications Technologies). The ways in which these companies can help fight diseases is staggering and something I would never have even researched if I hadn’t interned at GBC. Don’t believe how powerful this industry can be? Wikipedia “mHealth” and you’ll see how.

Nevertheless, the relaxing days of my “abnormal” summer vacations have long past. I quickly went from my internship at the WHO to my internship at GBC and will transition, even more quickly, right into my senior year classes at the JHSPH. My days have been tiring: every weekday I work from 9 am-6 pm with a 3 hour commute. It still amazes me that I don’t have to go outside in NYC if I don’t want to (my bus enters Port Authority, I can enter the subway station there, and exit at a subway station that leads to my office building).

It’s these days combined with the piling of odds and ends: deciding on and applying for programs for future life steps (just the idea is stressful; this should take up all of July), fitting in time with my boyfriend (he headed off to Cambodia yesterday), recording and watching all of the World Cup games, doing some independent research, reading development books, and, with my remaining time, helping with Public Health Student Forum and Student Admissions Advisory Board.

Although I may be having a more “normal’ summer than years past, I have definitely reached an “abnormal” point of exhaustion.

But, as I learned the hard way after my first week, as long as I make room for six and a half hours of sleep and a NY bagel, there will be no complaining on my end. No matter how “abnormally” exhausting my summer gets, I love all the opportunities that I have been given and wouldn’t want the life history of my summers to be written any other way.

Until next time,

Jessica

schnazzy skiiers celebrating st. patrick's day. wow.

I’m writing this from sunny but cold Colorado, where I’m taking a great Spring Break with my family….

the lovely view from the top

We’ve been lucky enough to have a great week of conditions, with new snow and pretty empty runs almost every day. As half my family snowboards and the other skis, there have been some serious debates over the relative merits of each, but other than that all has gone smoothly. My lovely mother recently won a self-nominated bid for “most improved brown family skier of the year,” so obviously it’s been quite an entertaining vacation, as well.

I’m taking a day off from the slopes today, as my Lindsey Vonn aspirations have come to nothing, and my legs currently feel like lead. Also, as the only gold medal I could take home is in procrastination, I’ve got quite a bit of work to catch up on

my sister and i taking a break

The week before Spring Break was a good one…

hopefully i'll be here next semester! (africa, for the less obsessed)

My parents finally relented on what has nearly turned into World War III (where will Lauren study abroad?!) and said that I may apply to a program in Cape Town, South Africa. I’m still waiting to hear where I’ve gotten in, and there will be more debate on the decision side of things, but at least I got the application in! I’m really excited about the chance to not only study, but see Public Health first hand, in such an amazing country.

!!!

The Study Abroad process is a little like the college application process all over again, and it left me much more sympathetic to my sister, who has finished applying to schools and is now just waiting it out, nervously. My mom pointed out this week that neither of us know where we will be next fall–I could be anywhere from Copenhagen to Cape Town, and while Suzi’s options are limited to the East Coast, hers are all the more nerve wracking. I feel like I’m getting into college again!

Other exciting things in the pre-SB week included Blue Key (tour guide) training, which makes me feel important, but it turns out my walking backwards skills really need practice. I also found out that I have been offered a position as an Admissions Representative, which means that not too long from now I’ll be able to interview prospective students when they visit campus. I’m so excited about this! If it wasn’t already clear, nearly everything I do on campus revolves around Admissions, which I really enjoy, but has started to make my resume look a little crazy.

Mason Hall!...my new home, apparently.

The only downside to this lovely week was the amount of work (midterm season), but I’m really enjoying my classes this semester so it wasn’t all bad. This is also the first semester since I’ve gotten to Hopkins where I haven’t taken an English or Writing Sems class, so the work was quite different as well–problem sets and exams, rather than papers and presentations. It’s nice to change things up a bit, and brush up on different skills….plus if I do study abroad, most of the foreign university systems rely heavily on exams so this is good practice!

the whole family!

I love having this week off of school to regroup and maybe sleep a bit, but it’s been hectic. I arrived home in NJ much later Friday night than I had intended, due to a train booking debacle in which I thought I could leave said booking until Thursday night. It didn’t go all too well, so I got home around 9. Saturday was occupied by frantic “Big-Little” shopping prior to dashing to the airport, where our flight was delayed around four hours. This week has not been a transportation success, but almost every flight out of New York was delayed that day, so we had good company at least. I’ll be heading home with my family on Saturday afternoon, and returning to Hopkins Sunday night. This week has been busy but great, and there are lots of exciting Baltimore Spring things to look forward to when I return.

As I mentioned before, “Big-Little” week is coming up after break. Another weird but fun sorority tradition, we each get a “little” (Little Sister) and we try to keep her in the dark about who we are, delivering gifts and clues all week long before we reveal our identity on Friday. I’m so excited about it, and the new additions to my Phi Mu family are simply fabulous, I can’t wait for revelation! There’s so much going on after break and it seems the end of the year is way to close for comfort, this has been such an amazing semester thus far I really don’t want it to end.

Good luck to all the high schoolers still waiting on RD acceptances! Hope everyone’s having an amazing Spring Break, enjoy the great weather!

Till next time,

Lauren B.

Sometimes I don’t believe this crazy planet that we call Earth and this crazy life that I live in. I finished my French final and then… one day I’m in Amsterdam, the next day London, then back to Switzerland, and then, you know, just a weekend in Paris followed by my first day at the World Health Organization as an intern. No biggie…just kidding. I just finished my ten-day spring break and have started the second-phase of my study abroad program a 9-5 pm for-credit internship followed by a five-hour public health class on Fridays. Although it was weird to return to a place that I don’t quite consider my home, it was nice to give my legs a break from endless days of walking foreign streets looking for good food and famous sites. In the back of my head I know that my future will have many more endless days of navigating streets around the world—hopefully without such terrible currencies as the Swiss Franc, Euro and Pound.

I don’t even know where to begin with my spring break.  I guess the 500+ photos that are being uploaded to my computer will prove to myself that I’m actually not in some sort of dream. But, really, even today felt like a dream. Coming back to Geneva and dressing up for the “real world” and having the usual not-dreamlike “first-day on the job” experience that included many technical failures—a computer that decided to open random applications, a password that wouldn’t agree with me, and needed to be changed by IT three times, and a badge machine that didn’t work for 30 minutes—still felt like a dream. I mean I’m working in THE World Health Organization where so many of the reports that I read about are produced and a place that has always, to the public health major (that would be me), felt like some sort of fantasy land. And there I’m this morning just hopping on the number 8 bus to the WHO.

And though I admit I get home sick and sometimes campus sick for spring at Hopkins filled with lacrosse games and cherry blossoms and long M-level days, work days at Center for Livable Future, I also know that studying abroad was the right choice. I know that in just a few minutes I’ll be missing Geneva. So, like I always say, please prospective students and current students, consider running away from Hopkins life and studying abroad.

So instead of writing on and on about my dream, I’m just going to include my  favorite and interesting pictures of my travels throughout Switzerland and during spring break… So get ready, set, go!!!!

I’m currently stranded in the New Orleans airport, watching and laughing as the departure time on my flight back home moves further and further away. I’ve now got about five hours to kill, which, coupled with the airport’s free wireless, has given me the perfect opportunity to blog about my winter break.

I’m actually looking at train tickets back to Hopkins as I write this, so if Amtrak works with me and my last minute planning, I should be back to Baltimore in less than 24 hours. This break has gone incredibly fast, in part because it’s a full three weeks shorter than winter break freshman year (I signed up for Intersession) and in part because I’ve been so busy.

For the past five days, I’ve been in New Orleans with my family. We’d never been here before and it turned out to be a fabulous trip. We stayed just outside the French Quarter, so we got to see the craziness of Bourbon Street without actually having to listen to it round the clock–my parents were a bit appalled, but I think 2 years of college desensitized me a bit, and Bourbon just seemed like a really big, spread out frat party with a lot more adults.

I was able to cross three states off of the travel list–on Tuesday we drove through Mississippi, Alabama (which I slept through) and rural Louisiana. We visited quite a few interesting places that I certainly wouldn’t have been able to find “up North.” I also got to visit my roommate from Hopkins, Laura, who was staying with family just north of New Orleans. It was great to be able to see her and her family, and good to hear their input on what we had to see in New Orleans.

Lovely New Orleans.

Now that winter break is almost officially over, I’m getting excited for the spring. While in New Orleans , I was living almost internet free, just relying on emails coming through to my phone, but I got word while I was there that I got an interview for an internship I’m really excited about! I have a great class schedule coming in the spring, and hopefully I’ll be able to get some work experience off campus as well, which will be a nice change of pace. Over break I’ve had about 10 people try to convince me to study abroad in South Africa, and I saw the equally convincing “Invictus” (so so good, and great accents) so a big part of my spring will be occupied by trying to sort out study abroad plans for the fall semester of this year.

It seems I’m sitting in the airport all afternoon because of some pretty serious snow at home, shutting down parts of Newark airport, so at least there’s still plenty of winter weather left! I’m hoping for some snow in Baltimore as well, maybe even a snow day or two. I’m pretty optimistic.

Hope everyone had a great New Year’s, and a wonderful holiday season, HAPPY 2010!

-Lauren B.