It Rained!

Whelp, I'm halfway through my stay in Hainan.  And I've already learned more about the unexpected.  For instance, I don't do a whole lot while here.  Which is kind of silly, but I'm here to build relationships with my school and theirs...not to destroy them.  So, make friends I will!  Hahaha.  Another unexpected learning...the kid that's been assigned to my group while we've been "working" in the villages is Catholic.  That's not the unexpected part...the unexpected part was when I asked him why he decided to join the Catholic church...he said he had a friend who took him to church (not unexpected) and he liked it.  And then the unexpected part came...he really enjoyed watching "The Godfather" movies...and apparently, those movies (I don't really know the plot in them besides the mafia) were sort of the clincher?  Hahaha.  I never knew I'd meet someone who converted to a church because of a movie, but hey, if he finds God in his life, then by all means!  :)  I asked him if there were a lot of people our age who would join churches, and he said no.  Because many of them join the polical party (yes, the one that begins with the Big C that I'm not going to type because of possible filters) and if you join that politcal party, you basically can't be known as a Christian of any sort.  Interesting huh?  Sad actually, it's so ridiculous what moral state the world has come down to.  Having a religion would actually bar (one or two r?) you from joining a political party?  That's absolutely absurd. 

 

Other than that, Hainan is dandy.  We've been bascially living out of a hotel and all day long, we sit here and input things into computers or go around the island with the hospital director and see stuff.  We've been to visit some of the more isolated villages (a few just got electricity a few years ago and a few don't have any at all).  It's interesting to see their living conditions, while you look at it and it's absolutely disgusting in some ways (pigs roam free and there is trash EVERYWHERE), their small yards and animal pens are as clean as they can get them.  It's just strange.  I'm sure there's loads of water contamination, yet no one's really mentioned diarrhea as a problem (perhaps they're immune?).  Also, the data we're inputing is inaccurate.  THAT IS A PAIN IN THE BUTT!  Thats all I have to say about that!  When you have inaccurate data, everything else is screwed up.  But don't worry, we weren't the ones that gathered most of it...most of it came from the village doctors who didn't really seem to care what they wrote down as they wrote something down.  And the most disconcerting thing yet...is a blood pressure of 30/50 possible?   YEah, didn't think so.  Even if we were to switch the numbers, the person would probably be dead..but on a number of the data sheets, those are how the BPs are recorded...so, we're not sure what's going on with that.  If the village doctor doesn't know how to take blood pressures, should they be giving shots, meds an IVs?  Yeah...how can you be sure that they're well trained in other areas if they can't remember how to take a BP?  I don't know...I'm sure something was up and we'll figure it out.  But yeah, those are my frustrations.

 

Also, I can't watch Chuck and I can't watch Psych, there is no such thing as facebook, no matter how many different ways I try to get in (minus taking my computer to Macao or Hong Kong).  :)  There are some things about the motherland that are just ridiculous and retarded, mainly the government.  But I think I'll save that discussion for another time.

 

I really love how uplifting music can bring in the Spirit so strongly into a room and just fill it with warmth and peace.  It's an amazing feeling sitting there in your room, just listening and pondering on the message, the Lord's Spirit is there to testify to you of the message of the music, it's absolutely inspiring in every way.  Trying to keep the Sabbath day as holy as possible is a bit difficult here, I can't say that I spend my Sundays doing everything that I would like to do (like go to church) but it's so comforting to know that sometimes when you are really just so tired, the Lord sends you that one tender mercy that you've been waiting for.  Just that little something that makes your Sabbath day really feel much more like the Sabbath instead of just any other day.  Anyways, the Church is true!  The Lord loves you!  Hope you have a GREAT day!

                  Suzi

Hainan

Well folks, I'm in Hainan China now! It's HOT! And humid and very
tropical...and very very very Chinese. :) It's one of the more
underdeveloped areas of China, especially when compared to Beijing and
Shanghai. We're staying in the Hainan medical school's dormitories on
the 7th floor with no elevator. :) Good exercise. Ha. The people
who were here before us, Brandon and Melinda (they're married and
pretty darn awesome) showed us around town a bit on their scooters and
then they headed off to Guangzhou, Thailand, and the Taiwan. So now
it's just Jerry and I fending for ourselves, hahaha. Everyone expects
us to be able to read Chinese...and neither of us really can, I'm
getting a little bit better (with A LOT of help from the Lord) day by
day, but in all reality, I'm still pretty illiterate. Oh, and our
internet kicks me off every 15 seconds because apparently I have
"proxy software" whatever that is! If any of you guys reading this
knows what it is, please please please let me know how to fix it!

We went to the beach today and took the bus. The beach here is well,
not really clean. The southern part of Hainan province is a lot more
like Hawaii, but here in Haikou it's more polluted. Cigarette butts,
Styrofoam, and other junk all over the place! But, Jerry and I did
find a lot of neat things. We walked down the entire beach area and
where there were less people, we found the remains of some huge fish
that got washed up shore, a newly dead squid that has a shell (I
didn't realize that some squids had shells!), jelly fish, some
mammalian skull, and lots of little sea shells. I am officially now
royally BURNT, no need to worry though, I will be tan within the week
(don't be jealous). Oh, and our best adventure yet..we got lost on
the way back. We had to transfer buses, and we had NO CLUE where the
station was, and the public buses normally display the stations (we
just match characters) but this one was BROKEN!!! And so the ticket
lady was yelling out the station names. Luck would have it, she had
an awful Mandarin accent (most people speak the local dialect of
Hainanese) and so we didn't understand her and missed our stop. Don't
worry, another sweet lady with an awful accent told us where to go,
she also did a lot of pointing in addition to talking. :)

Strangely enough, there are Pakistani students here, they're here on a
6 year contract (oh, ask me about this later! It's quite the story!)
and so we'll see them wandering around and they speak English. On our
way back, we saw a bunch of them with cricket bats! I almost stopped
on of them and asked them where they were going to go and play! How
fun would it have been to go and watch them play cricket eh? Oh, and
Amanda will be glad to hear that some guy named Jeff opened up a
burger joint/lounge place where all the foreigners hang out and Jeff
is from Australia. I think we're going to go and visit it...I need a
burger. I can't read the menus here, so, we've been eating a lot of
junk food from the stores! Don't worry though, we don't eat enough of
it to do anything bad to us...we hope! You don't really get hungry
when it's so hot outside! Anyways, this is getting super long. Miss
you all!

Suzi the Starving Springvillian (clever huh?)

First blog from China!

Well, so...remember how I told everybody that facebook is blocked?
Apparently blogspot is too? So, I hope this posts, but if it doesn't,
well, then you won't be reading it. In the event that you are, let me
tell you about what's happened thus far. I got to Guangzho, and my
aunt came and got me from the airport to kill time because of my
extended layover...my hair has magically doubled in size due to the
ridiculous humidity. I've already seen my life flash before my eyes,
and I"ve seen the lives of several other people flash before my
eyes...how they don't get killed while driving and crossing the
street, I don't know. But I've never j-walked under such life
threatening conditions. :)

My aunt is force feeding me pills because I still have a slight cold
(bless her heart) and I've already been offered more food for one meal
(breakfast) than I normally eat in one day. :) Oh, and I think I'm
allergic to the atmosphere. But other than that, it's grand! It's
good to be back for a little bit! Miss you all!
Suzi

Summertime!!!

Hey folks!
Well, it's been ages since I've last posted something on this blog, hopefully by the end of this summer, people will enjoy reading it.  If not, well, it's a good way to practice my typing skills!  :)

The past semester has been great, and there is no need to recall the nightmares of the MCAT, finals and cleaning out my room.  But I think the past few weeks is worth recalling.  First of all, my roommate put together an AWESOME birthday party--started out small...then it grew and grew.  But hey, as one my dear friends says: "Suzi brings people together."  Oh, and I got to talk to Bon while he was still in the states!  Brad manned the grill wearing pretty much the BEST apron ever, and Amanda brought a delicious cake from The Bakery...with trick candles.  Man, I have a feeling that I'm going to end up having trick candles on all of my birthday cakes from now on, people think it's way too much fun to watch me try to blow them out.  But I did!  Didn't use my fingers at all!  Anywho, my friends are awesome...which means that my birthday was awesome.

Now, onto the summer!  So, I'm sitting in the Salt Lake airport, ready to depart for China!  I'll be spending my first three weeks there in Hainan, representing the University of Utah in working in a collaborative project with the Hainan Medical College.  I know that we'll be doing surveys of the overall health of a lot of the villages in Lingshui, but other than that, not sure what's going on.  Oh, I do know I'm staying on the 7th floor of the dorms...sweet deal.  Rest of the time will be spent with my family in Chongqing, feel free to skype me!  :)

So, on the night before my departure, or I should say scheduled departure, we all got together and went to the temple!  It was awesome!  I love the temple and I'm going to miss that when I'm gone for 3 months.  No church for 3 months, holy cow!  Don't worry though, I've got plenty to read from.  Marci and I made a trip to the distribution center and picked up a bunch of stuff--oh, and Marci thought it would be great if I planned my own sacrament meeting talks, so, for every Sunday, I'll be writing 3 talks!  HAHAHA.  If they ever ask me to speak, I'll just tell them "let me check my archives!"  Right, back to the temple trip.  It was great!  And then, we took pictures and the Temple Square workers were so funny!  I love old people!  And then after that, we went home to my apartment and made dinner!  It was delicious!  I am going to miss chicken caesar salad!  And Cafe Rio!

Anywho, this is looooonnngggg.  I'll keep this updated while I'm gone!  Miss you all!  Be good while I'm gone! :)

new year, new blog

Happy 2010!  I can't believe it's 2010 already.  Seems like only yesterday we had the crazy Y2K scares and life was blissfully carefree.  :)  One more week of break, and then it's back to the books.  What a semester it's going to be!  MCAT, Project Youth, Global Health....oh, and actual school!  I'm excited, but already worn out just thinking about it!

New Year's Eve was so fun!  I love being LDS and from Utah Valley and the wonderful games that come from there...human twister, weird feet games, and just tons of laughter!  I spent New Year's at my friend Marci's, and it was half a high school reunion and half a "meet new people" gathering.  But so much fun!  Marci set up a chocolate fountain and it was delicious!  I love laughing, and being able to laugh with some of your best friends as you bring in the new year is a wonderful thing!