unas canciones.

from Aruba, last summer

as you read this I’m currently hanging out on a beach in Mexico, soaking up the sun, reading for pleasure [!!!], and hopefully flexing some Spanish-speaking muscle [three classes in, and I need the practice!].  so as a result, this month’s playlist features a selection of songs from Spanish-speaking artists.  I like to listen to listen to music in other languages as a way of immersing myself, and I’ve come to learn there’s something about the liveliness of Latin music that puts me in the mood for summertime.  hope you enjoy!

on a semi-related note, I really don't the difference in usages between usages of Hispanic/Spanish-speaking/Latino/ etc, in terms of when it's appropriate to use each adjective.  like, I used "Latin music" above because I didn't want to repeat Spanish-speaking again [hello, mouthful], but Spanish didn't exactly sound correct because it makes me think of the literal "from/related to Spain."  and Hispanic I feel like is more used for describing a person's ethnicity, maybe? can anyone offer a clarification? please and thank you!

louisville in pictures.

UHP girlies looking snazzy.

shadowboxing at the Muhammad Ali Center.

a round of ninja while waiting on our dinner reservation.

maybe half of the UHP group?

Southern Regional Honors Conference.

long time, no talk, right?

I’m happy to announce that my three-week vacation has officially commenced!  then, come the beginning of June, I’ll be returning to Birmingham to [temporarily] resume my student lifestyle.  I’ll finish school at the beginning of August, “graduate”…and then, who knows?  the world is my oyster, as a classmate reminded me [en français] when I posted on Facebook last week about being completely finished with French classes after 8 years.

anyway, now it’s time to play a bit of catch-up.  I have quite a few stories and photos to share from the past month and a half that I’ve put off sharing in the name of making myself get sh** done.  thank you, college, for always keeping me busy.

first up: the Southern Regional Honors Council conference, held in Louisville, KY back at the beginning of April.  I tag-teamed with a couple of my Alliance cohorts/fellow members of my honors program to present on HIV in Alabama: an overview of statistics, aid programs, bureaucratic red tape, and challenges to daily life related to being an individual living with HIV/AIDS in this lovely Southern state.

for the record:

• 11,908 known cases of HIV/AIDS in Alabama; an additional 2,000-4,000 more cases are undiagnosed
• 1 in 3 new HIV/AIDS infections occurs in youth ages 13-24
• 13th highest HIV infection rate
• 8th highest AIDS-related death rate
• “Any person afflicted with a sexually transmitted disease who shall knowingly transmit or assume the risk of transmitting, or do any act which will probably or likely transmit such disease to another person shall be guilty of a Class C misdemeanor” – from AL Code 22-11A-21
• Alabama also has in place a quarantine law that allows public health officials to isolate individuals with STDs deemed to “present a danger to the public health” which has been invoked against individuals with HIV in the past
• Each prevented HIV infection is estimated to save $385,200 in lifetime treatment costs
• the South has the most people living with HIV/AIDS, the most poverty, the most sexually transmitted infections, the most people without health insurance, the most vulnerable populations, the fastest growing epidemic, the least access to health care, the highest mortality rates, and the least resources.

One of the main problems facing fighting the HIV epidemic in the South is funding.  Historically HIV/AIDS has been concentrated in other parts of the country, such as New York and California, where the LGBT populations have strong populations.  In more recent years, HIV has been moving its attention to the southern states; it’s been changing from a “gay disease” into a disease plaguing predominantly African-American populations.  this has yet to be reflected in several funding programs, who allot federal funding based on cumulative HIV cases, or cumulative AIDS-related deaths.  when looking at cumulative numbers, of course someplace like California will beat out Alabama; the virus has been present in other parts of the country for far longer.  but if you look at current statistics – current transmission rates, death rates, etc – the edge goes to the South.  our lobbyists have to fight tooth-and-nail to even get the meager funding from Ryan White and other sources that comes our way.

I’d highly recommend the documentary deepsouth – here’s the trailer - for anyone interested in HIV/AIDS epidemic in the South [hint: that should be all of you.  this is a worldwide issue that we all need to be actively fighting in order for progress to happen].  outside of the passion I have for sexual health [and the fact that I’ve met Kathie Hiers several times!], it’s an exquisitely made film, and a real eye-opener even for someone like me, who already knows a lot about the issue at hand and the problems we face as a state.

the conference itself was a crazy experience – mostly in good ways.  I had to drag my butt down to the honors house at some crazy hour of the morning [4:00?  4:30?  I don’t even remember] to load up the bus we were taking.  it was wet, horrible morning, and I was so stressed out about not waking up late that I barely slept the night beforehand; I kept waking up at 30 minute intervals and leaping out of bed to check the time and make sure I hadn’t missed my alarm, which of course culminated in me feeling like crap all the next day.  then, during the first leg of the bus ride, the heat wasn’t working so all of us honors students were freezing our butts off.  after 3 and some hours, the driver finally got the heat working while we took a breakfast break.  that made a HUGE difference.  and then, when we were maybe an hour outside of Louisville, the bus blew out a tire.  so we were stuck sitting on the side of the road for three (?) hours waiting for assistance.  this happened as a result.  followed shortly by this.

when we finally made it to Louisville, the actual conference was pretty uneventful.  the first night had an hors d’oeuvres reception followed by a trivia competition, at which my team kicked some booty.  we placed 2nd out of everyone – including the other UAB UHP team (who had twice the number of students and even one of the professors!).  the second day I presented in the morning, and spent the rest of the day learning some nifty things, and then the third day we jumped back on the bus right after lunch.  the whole trip was a whirlwind, but I had a good time.

my view from the side of the road.

all of my belongings, squished into my tiny amount of leg room.

Qdoba for lunch!

this girl from a different school created/branded Magic 8 Ball-esque lollipops for her final project!  how cute, right?

and some action shots:

for the sake of not putting a bajillion photos in one post, I’m sharing some photos I took around Louisville tomorrow.  we were housed in a swanky hotel in the downtown area, right near the convention center.  downtown had a very charming, urban vibe that made it fun to poke around and explore a bit.

also, here’s the slice of cheesecake I had with lunch on the second day.

year two.

a random shot of my feet for your viewing pleasure.

my blog is now officially a toddler.

you know, thinking about it now, the very end of the school year was NOT the best time to start a blog.  I guess it worked out well sophomore year, when I was all hyped up about surviving the crazy tornadoes and watching the royal wedding and getting ready to go to France, but since then May 1 keeps coinciding with the most hectic time of the year – studying for finals, writing term papers, preparing presentations…plus that beast that is the MCAT looming over my shoulder for the second year in a row [although on the bright side I can say with confidence that, at this time next year, I will NOT be studying for an insanely difficult medical school entrance exam].  I would love to devote more time and attention to recognizing that I’ve been able to call myself “blogger” for two years now, but the truth is this celebration ranks pretty low on my radar at the moment.  honestly, the only reason this blog post is being written right now is because I’m trying to avoid writing my final paper for my world cinema seminar.

all of this is to say that I’ve enjoyed the past two years.  it’s crazy to think about how much things have evolved since then; I started blogging in order to record memories of my summer in Antibes.  I shared the occasional picture of the gorgeous Riviera beaches and the little daytrips I took with my study abroad program, but overall my focus ended up straying from my French adventures.  I shared a lot of articles found around the web, and wish lists, and random pictures.  I talked a lot about John Krasinski, and how I’m obsessed with his handsomeness.  no one was reading and I pretty much just did what I want.  and then at some point along the way I started picking up followers.  I participated in a couple of photo challenges for the sake of trying to be more creative.  I found other bloggers whom I love and started following obsessively.  I made friends with random people on the internet who started taking the place of my real-life college friends as they dropped off the grid.  I became a social media addict [Twitter and Instagram, I love you!] and a self-professed blog lurker.  I’ve learned a lot.  I’ve changed a lot.  my blog has changed a lot.  and it all makes me look forward to exploring whatever the future has in store.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again, but this year will be a year of change and of adaptation.  I don’t know what’s going to happen to me or to my blog after the beginning of August, but I’m incredibly excited (and anxious) to find out.  my blogging journey will continue to evolve, and I hope that you’ll come along for the ride.

some posts to [re]visit:

• a few of my favorite French adventures: one. two.
• snippets of college life: one. two. three. four.
• for my family: one. two. three.
• musings on various subjects: one. two. three. four.
• some things to eat: one.  two. three. four.
• first blogiversary
• first post

to everyone who has read my blog, at any point in time and for any duration – thank you.  thank you for your time, and for your support, and for your care.  sometimes it’s all that keeps a girl like me from feeling insane.

dots on the brain.

top – Ruche (different colors); jeans – Target; scarf – Modcloth; bangles – Kate Spade; earrings – InPink; booties – DV Dolce Vita (similar)

a few things:

1] this outfit is from a couple weekends ago, after a big storm had blown through and dropped the temperatures again.  [and I do mean dropped – it went from 82 to 52 overnight].  so I dug my new favorite polka dot jeans out of my closet for [hopefully] one last wear this spring.  it’s time to pack away the long pants and embrace the bare legs!  and hey, remember how I’ve been complaining about wearing pants to lab?  I’ve been testing the waters of shorts lately and yet to receive any contradiction, so as long as I don’t drop any glasswear on myself I’m golden!

2] this turned out to be one of those photoshoots where almost all of the pictures of me looking anywhere other than the ground turned out like crap.  I’m talking unfortunate faces, weird posture, tripping over myself…it’s bad.  so we’re going to pretend those pictures never happened, and instead you can look at me looking at my feet.  woo!

3] the slightly chilly weekend in question I trekked out to Trussville in search of this top at seemingly the only Target in Alabama to carry it in a size other than XXL – and by “trekked” I mean drove 15-ish minutes.  I’ve noticed people here like to complain about having to drive distances longer than, like, 5 minutes.  I’ve heard friends complain about driving into Birmingham proper from Hoover, or having to drive all the way to Pelham to go home, and it just makes me shake my head.  but then again I grew up in small town Colorado, where it took >10 minutes to make it to the nearest grocery store; it’s all about perspective.  [I also ended up leaving with this bag, because hey – that’s how Target works]

4] I don’t normally wear this many accessories all at the same time, but this particularly Saturday I guess I was just feeling it.  I’ve been trying to be better about actually wearing my jewelry so that it does more than just collect dust on display, so I’d say this was a good step in the right direction.  also, that striped bracelet?  I found it in the parking lot of the beautiful new Target earlier this month.  it’s from freaking KATE SPADE!  so, to whomever lost this bracelet, I’m sorry for your loss, but I have no intention of ever giving it back.

---

there are a lot of words in this post; I guess that’s what happens when a girl tries to cut back on blogging.

ps – it’s the last week of classes!  then one week of finals, then the MCAT, and then I’ll be in Mexico!  hallelujah, the end is in sight.  my last full semester as a college student has been EXHAUSTING.

spring playlist.

gorgeous, right?

another month, another playlist.

this one's full of songs that put me in the mood for spring weather - and by that I mean the general idea of spring weather, not the actual spring weather.  in Alabama that usually involves soaring temperatures and crazy humidity punctuated by tornadoes and crazy storms.  'cause that's fun.

on a related note, I'm beginning to think I have some mild PTSD-esque issues as a result of the April 2011 tornado spree.  tornadoes have always scared me, but the past couple of years that fear has gotten bad.  now when spring rolls around and the sky starts to darken it sends me into nervous freak out mode.  tornado sirens put me on the verge of a panic attack - and the sirens get tested the first Wednesday of every month, so that's great.  UAB wasn't even really affected by the tornadoes two years ago; thankfully the storm passed through the city north of campus, so we emerged relatively unscathed.  I can't imagine how much worse I would be now if I had actually been in the tornadoes' path at the time.

all of that is to say that Alabama in the spring keeps me feeling incredibly nervous all.the.time.  so please keep your fingers crossed that no crazy tornadoes strike the Huntsville/Birmingham areas until after May 11. I don't think I could handle attempting to study for finals while taking shelter in the basement of my dorm again.

[that's right, I had my two HARDEST exams the day after the April 27th tornadoes.  clearly the universe just did not want me to do well]

ps - just for fun, here's a picture of the tornado that a friend took from our dorm as it hit Birmingham.  that sucker was a mile wide, for the record.