APHA

First things first: I love these earrings. And these too. :)

Now with that out of the way: I don't have pictures to put up yet, but this past weekend was the American Public Health Association annual conference. It was in Philadelphia, and since it's my last year of school (and my program paid for some of us to go), off I went!

My friend, Ashley, and I drove down Friday (getting stuck in rush hour New York traffic) and stayed with her uncle, who lives just outside of Philadelphia in New Jersey. Saturday, I wandered around the city with another girl in my program who grew up there. I liked it-- definitely more energy than Providence, but not quite as crazy as New York. It was hard to get a really good picture, though, because the city's public transportation was on strike! I assume there would be more people out under normal circumstances...

Sunday, I went to church with a girl I met last weekend in Boston. It was fun to go to a singles' ward again-- and also completely strange. I wasn't used to the introductions of visitors at the end of sacrament meeting and the thunderous mingling that makes meetings start 10 minutes late. If I had it my way, I would just import twenty or so singles into my family ward so I could have the best of both worlds. :)

The conference itself was a fantastic whirlwind of presentations. There were so many that I wanted to go to, but I had to limit myself (since, unfortunately, I have not yet been able to clone myself). I stuck to presentations related to aspects of nutrition and physical activity-- policy, consumer advocacy groups, innovative grass-roots interventions, and successful collaborative models. I also visited a lot of the sponsored booths, where I picked up ideas for jobs and occasionally left my resume. (I'm not terribly hopeful that something will actually come out of it, especially since I'm not available until May anyway.) Also, a lot of the places that actually had open positions were looking for analyst/research positions. I don't want to be a research assistant or coordinator or anything else for the rest of my life! SOUL-DRAINING. So I will have to be a little more creative about where I look for work so I can be on the ground working with people.

Anyway, Ashley and I made it back close to midnight last night and today was school and work as usual, which was a little rough since I have so much catching up to do. But, it was fun while it lasted, and I'm glad I got the chance to go.

P.S. Sorry this is kind of disjointed. I keep reading it thinking I should fix it up a bit, but I'm shot. Thanks for reading anyway! :)