Alright.  It's been almost one year since I have been home from the Philippines!  It seems incredible that it was only one year ago, while also seeming very inaccurate that I have only been home that long.  Time to update.

I am not even sure where to start.  Hmm.  Well, since I got back, because the lab space we were in was located in a wing slated for remodel, it was time to clean, which meant more specifically that it was time to get rid of a whole bunch of gnarled-looking old animal specimens from the 50s someone gave to (my boss) Dr. Julienne Rutherford. 

Some were way cooler than others.

                    

Ew.  Callitrichid?

Trendy sea monster.

And, low and behold, I found this as a parting gift under some giant filing cabinet.  It must have followed me back from my apartment in Cebu in my luggage, just as I predicted in my last post from the Philippines.

So, I traded my spacious office with a view of the city for this one:

Yes.  There are more work stations (3) and fewer windows (0), but all the supplies I could need are within reach (because there is no further distance to go than 5 feet in any direction from my desk).  And why do I need supplies, you ask?

BECAUSE WE HAVE GOTTEN 8 HUMAN PLACENTA SAMPLES SENT FROM THE PHILIPPINES!!! And, an email late last week revealed that a 9th is making its way to Chicago right now!  This means that the awesome ladies that I trained in the procedure of taking samples, the presentations I gave to the hospitals, and the system we all came up with for notifying the hospitals that one of the women involved in the study was delivering all worked out!  The samples are exactly what we needed them to look like and all appear usable so far.  Cue successful trumpet blasts. 

Getting these boxes in the mail is pretty incredible.  They are all covered in tons of packing tape and say "EXEMPT HUMAN SPECIMEN ON THE SIDE;" inside they are packed in newspaper in Cebuano with partially completed word searches and articles I understand about every 10th English word in.  My favorite packing material was this:

Man do they love Chicago basketball over there, or what?  (I wonder how the country at large took it when Derrick Rose went down with his ankle injury last month.  Most likely, there was rioting.)

So, now I have processed the samples from the eight placentas we have received to be made into slides. 

They look so much different than one would expect, having started like this:

In more news, Dr. Rutherford and I just got back from the American Association of Physical Anthropology conference in Portland, OR, a few weeks ago, which was a wonderful experience.  There were so many interesting talks that got my wheels turning on how I might want to approach some things I have been thinking about as potential research projects.  I presented a poster on some of the data from the vervet monkey slides I have been working on.

Fun read for the whole family!  The little ones love learning about the gross characteristics and microscopic architecture of the vervet monkey placenta.  This will be a kids' book soon. 

That's my name!  Right there on the poster!  Public speaking is still not my favorite, but Dr. Rutherford is working towards breaking that.  I really appreciate it!

Portland was a good time.  I was reading in an old post that I hadn't finished a single episode of Portlandia.  Well, I studied hard before I got there.  Somehow it seems no one else did.  How do you miss Julienne's joke of putting a bird on every slide of her presentation?

Disappointing to say the least.  And these people consider themselves scholars.  Geez.  Anyway, this was the view from the windows of the planes that took me there:

Seattle, I didn't even know these planes were legal.    They have you actually go outside and walk up a staircase onto the plane.  Who  besides presidents and members of the pop culture elite of the 60s gets to do that?

Don't worry.  My phone was in airplane mode.  

These are the views from my 11th floor hotel room:

And my friend Mathias was kind enough to take me around to fancy bars and ridiculous parties and other things Portland that had nothing to do with the conference whatsoever.  Sort of necessary when the meeting is 5 days long.  

Oh oh!  And, I have my first published paper!!  "Comparison of fresh to fixed weights of the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus sabaeus) placenta and its relation to gestational age" in the Journal of Medical Primatology.  You can see it here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0684.2011.00534.x/abstract

Yes!  

I am very happy to be back home in Chicago, but I miss travelling.  I am hoping to return to Cebu at some point, and in the meantime I am going to try my best to convince someone to fly me somewhere new for an equally as fulfilling project.  My passport needs stamps.

Still hate packing.

Pretty sure my luggage weights even more coming back.  What happened?  Maybe it is all the cockroach guts on my stuff?  Everything is getting packed in bags.

I truly hope that this is the last one of these I will ever have to see and/or kill.  I made a mistake and watched an episode of some show hosted by some guy with some of the mos unfortunate hair I have ever seen:

It is called "Billy the Exterminator," and Billy was set to deal with the worst cockroach infestation he had ever seen.  Worst thing for me to watch, right?  I keep picturing them getting into my luggage.  Then I keep picturing Cathay Pacific not letting me get on the plane with my luggage (it is tremendously heavy).  Then I picture getting stuck here because of credit card issues (again) or because I don't have something I need or any number of other things that could go wrong.  Thank god there is Beezer for me to Skype with.  Calms my freaked out nerves all the time.  Thanks, Beez!

Leaving here is a weird sort of thing.  I will go home and won't be as important.  I won't get to put on scrubs and do something totally rad.  I will even miss giving presentations.  Though I never really got over my aversion to public speaking, it felt really great to be taken seriously by a room full of people about something valuable.  But, as talked about with Beez, what matters is how I take that feeling back with me.  Maybe I will start giving Powerpoint talks to people at the poster store I work at back home.  Speaking of, anyone know of any job openings in July, please let me know.  The store is closing, and I got billz.  And Powerpoint/placenta washing/travel experience.  I also have all my shots.

Now, it's time to watch Portlandia (still have not seen a full episode) and sleep, or try anyway.

It's been an incredible trip.  Thanks for reading along with me.

-Tory

Final Countdown

Title theme brewing?  Not deliberately, but I like it.  So we, are getting towards the end of the journey here, and I have to say that this last bit is absolutely speeding by.  The only full day I have left here is Monday.  5:50am Wednesday morning, Chicago time, you are so close and yet so far.

Karaoke was a success.  I did "Don't Stop Me Now" as my starting piece.  I wanted to sing it again and again, but I saved everyone that awful experience.  As luck would have it, I also got to finish out our room with "Bohemian Rhapsody."  In the middle, I did some Paul Simon, ABBA, Joan Osborne, and others.  I had a bunch more queued, but so many people had entered songs (and then left) that I didn't get my shot at "Love Fool" or "Billy Jean."  There were questionable holes and more questionable inserts into the song list at the karaoke place.  No Blondie?  Really?  Why do you have a Dashboard Confessional song?  AND one that my unfortunate high school Dashboard phase didn't even introduce me to?  One of the people from my office insisted on singing forgotten mid-90s songs ala The Verve Pipe's "Freshmen," Duncan Sheik's "Barely Breathing," et al.  It was amazing to hear all those songs again, curious to discern how many lyrics I still know, and wonderful to give one of my co-workers a hard time about it.  Everyone was such a good sport.  Lots of songs in Filipino as well.

You know, cause this Def Leppard song is about driving, so it makes sense that the B roll is of really boring suburban traffic.  

So the driver, Darwin, came and joined us.  As it turns out the man can WAIL to any song in the genre of rock ballad.  Lots and lots of Bon Jovi.  He doesn't speak all that much English with me, but he can get accents down pat.  And high notes.  I cannot wax poetic on the karaoke skills of the man to the left, though don't tell him I said that because I don't think he knows.  He is, however, somewhat aware of his range limitations, so he would hand the mic off to Darwin.  It was a crowd pleaser every time.  

Those two ladies with their mics also did pretty darn well

For a while now, I have been telling all the people at work about how I want to go to the comedy clubs I keep seeing in this one area we drive past on the way to some of the hospitals.  After the karaoke, those of us who were left crossed the street so I could cross this one off my list.

Aw, note the little Jeepney in the foreground.  Goodbye, little Jeepney.  I'll miss your confusing presence in my life.  

This is the stage:

This is the room full of empty chairs in front of it:

Turns out it wasn't a comedy night.  Unfortunately, this means I have no coveted tips on how to do comedy like the legendary Filipinos to extend to any of the people back home (sorry to let you down, A).  Don't worry; we'll write a grant to get back here for comedy research.

I am finally getting training in at all the hospitals!  One more to go, and it is slotted for Monday.

Where the magic happens

Paging Dr. Avila.  Just kidding.  She's not a doctor.  

 In the background of this image, you can see a sign with the Nurses' prayer on it.  There is an interesting quantity of religious paraphernalia around at all the hospitals, especially in poster form.  The creepiest one, by far, was at Cebu Maternity.  It had an operating table, and one of the surgeons was Jesus.  It read, "you only get one chance for this performance."  What?  Is that supposed to stress you out or make you feel comforted?  Is that for the benefit of the doctors, so they are reminded not to mess up in front of Jesus, or for the patients, to remind them that if the doctors do screw up, it's totally not their fault; they couldn't rehearse this.  I wanted to take a picture, but that would have been tremendously tacky for so very many reasons.

Speaking of tacky:

By far the most amazing statue find here on the grounds of Pete's Condoville yet.  It doesn't get better than 3 clowns performing the 'speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil' thing because if their are two words I want my place of residence to put in my head together, it is definitely clowns and evil.  Good thing Oliver Hardy is there too?  That Charlie Chaplin one, as seen here

 still creeps me out.  He is at the top of those dastardly stairs that skinned my arm, so as you are walking up them with your head down to make sure you are not going to fall, all you see are shoe tops hiding in a little corner.  I take note every time, "Tory, those are just Charlie's feet.  No one is there."  But, because I am almost non-functionally skittish, it will never help.

This evening after leaving SM, the most intimidating mall I have ever been inside,

the cab driver asked me the following questions (all of which I am pretty sure are scripted since everyone asks):
-What nationality are you?
-Where do you come from?
-How old are you?
-Are you married?
-Why are you not married?  Something wrong?
-You are getting older; when are you going to have kids?
-What have you eaten?

He threw some new ones into the mix, such as:
-Is abortion legal in your state?
-Is pot legal in your state?
-How are you going to find a husband that will let you travel like this?
-Have you found any Filipino suitors?
-Oh, so the Filipino men don't tickle your fancy? (because me having a boyfriend at home wasn't an acceptable explanation)

It was hilarious.  He got a generous tip.

I did the awful, bourgeois American thing and went here.

Mango yogurt cheesecake.  Yes, I'll have one.  It all cost like $5, and that includes one I bought for Jo Jo.  Starbucks, why are you taking so much of my money back home?

So, a few times while going to the bathroom, using toilet paper I had to make sure I packed with me so that I wouldn't be SOL on that one, I haven't flushed.  And it is because it looks like this:

So, there's a shower or some other water source that leaks into a bucket.  Then there is a cup in the bucket.  Then there is a toilet.  In my experience, those things, while often sharing a room together and a section at hardware stores, are not directly linked.  I didn't realize until yesterday, in fact, that if you scoop a large amount of water into a toilet at fast speeds, it flushes.  The more water and the faster, the more it flushes and better.  I feel really bad about the bathrooms that happened before I connected the two.  Some I feel much worse about than others.  By the way, I had nothing to do with that toilet water color.

I am getting stuff together and starting to pack.  I knew that I would be going home, and that I would be going through the process of packing again the whole time, but it is sort of crazy to me that it is almost here.  Tomorrow is my last night in Asia.  That is pretty odd.  It is also weird that I have been in Asia.  These twos ideas compete for surreality.  This has been an incredible experience.  I think the experiences at the hospitals have by far been the most influential.  People do that all the time.  People have babies constantly, and people are there to deliver babies almost as often.  The whole experience of all of these things is so much more invisible back home.  No one really sees women in labor, except on TV, because they have their own rooms. Women who are delivering are absolutely not in any sort of common area.  Here, they are.  They are often sharing beds, at least in the public hospitals.  It makes me feel pretty prudish about the way things are approached in the states, but there are definitely things about the way things are done back home that I appreciate and really wish I could share with these women.  These are pretty heavy thoughts that have been rolling around in there.  They make me want to participate in healthcare in some capacity, but then I remember that I also couldn't get the smell of blood out of my nose all day yesterday.

I think I overbought.  I haven't actually put anything in a suit case yet, since they are still over at the office, but it looks like a really big volume of stuff has got to fit in there.  Stupid not-Tetrislike packing, I hate you.
This T-shirt I found on Threadless pretty much sums it up:

Oops.  It's sold out.  Hope you all hated it.

Oh, and another summer-pumping movie was watched today.

What is it about horror movies and summer?  I don't know, but it is something I cannot wait to do more of.

Don't Stop Me Now

Hey-yo!  As it turns out, I am at the tail end of a sort of bad day.  I didn't do anything aside from pout, sweat and kill a cockroach, thus ending a roach-free streak I was enjoying fondly for the last week or so.  How carefree and naive I was back then.  Thinking I could conquer the world.  Life comes at you fast, especially when you go to the bathroom and the light strikes the diaphanous shower curtain to reveal the shadow of a large cockroach meandering on the other side.  Though not necessary, I would like to stress that it was in my shower; the place I go to feel clean.  Don't worry; I took a picture.

Don't know where the missing legs went; some of the graininess is from leg shaving.  Maybe I should thank this guy for forcing me to bleach the tub. 

Before this, I sat at work, using my time without meetings to run out of things to do online and to finish my GRE practice test.  41 wrong answers.  I'll pretend that it is because I didn't eat breakfast, didn't pack lunch, forgot my badge this morning and couldn't leave to get food and come back without it.  But, in all honesty, it is likely not due to those things.  Kaplan won this round; I went ahead and bought three more study books.  I'm freaking out.

Before that, as in last night, I went to Ayala mall (AGAIN), this time to get my hairs cut and to meet up with that wonderful couple who took me to Catmon for dinner.  I went there directly from work, since we have a driver, and that meant I had three hours to kill.  The haircut was wonderful.  Things were showing mullety signs.  She made that go away.

Photo of me taken at the barber shop

I figured it was worth asking about, since things here are often much cheaper than at home.  You know how much it costs when you get your hair cut at a semi-nice place?  P120!!!  Currency exchange: $2.80.  Seriously.  And that was because I got my hair cut by the owner.  Simply amazing.  Still had time to kill though.  I bought something at a makeup store, mostly because they seemed to think I was shop lifting.  I don't blame them; I had no makeup on at the time.  But, I didn't really want to spend $16 on some eyeshadow.  I also bought stuff at another store because the women wouldn't quit asking me what sizes I wanted things in, and so I felt pressured.  I think I spent like $35 there.  Regret.  I regretted it even before I brought the stuff over to the cashier.  They know how to get me.

Dinner was great.  We went to a Bennigans knock-off, weird, dated Americana and all, called . . . wait for it . . . Casa Verde.  Um, why did they give this American-interpretation-of-Irish-themed restaurant a Spanish name??  Hahaha.

Knock-off Bennigan's

Aw.  They are wonderful people.

This one is for Weez

Brian's ribs.  I ate a lot of them.

Giant burger!  He had it cut into 8 pieces; if this were in America, we would feel challenged and have needed to conquer that thing.

It was a good time.   

Before all that, I went to AA!  Barbecue!  When you go to the awesome barbecue places here, you approach what is a buffet of uncooked meat of all sorts of animals and cuts.  You pick up what you want, hand it to them, they perform magic, and voila!  You are eating glorious food.  

Pork belly, giant squid, eggplant salad, more pork belly, vinegar stuff with green tomatoes that comes with most things here

Clam soup, chicken wing, spicy chorizo and some other type of pork

Dirty clams. 

An aside: my mom always tells a tale of one of her earlier attempts at hosting a dinner party.  She made and served some sort of clam dish.  She didn't realize that she hadn't cleaned out the clams properly, so everyone was eating sand and trying to be polite about it.  The point here is to say to Mama D: even the pros do it.  This restaurant serves tons of clams all the time, and theirs have sand.  Still good.  

These chilies are served with most things too.  You add them to the vinegar+soy sauce stuff.

Tomorrow is the big day.  I am going out with the office folk to a videoke bar!!!  I have a lot of Queen to get out.  

I made big promises and need to see a score of 100, especially since I was the one who pushed and pushed for us to go.  To be honest, I am getting nervous about it.  Why?  I have no idea.  Perhaps some mojitos will help.

Final weekend plans are not yet solidified.  I need to get on that.  They will likely involve the Outpost.  Maybe I will even luck into some plans after that with people too.  We'll see.