Woohoo!

I know we haven't updated this for awhile, but there hasn't been a whole lot going on here in Florida. We were in the middle of the rainy season and July and August are typically the wettest months of the year. And this past August did not disappoint. It rained a LOT. Therefore, the rain combined with the heat meant that our activities were mostly confined to the indoors. I have been meaning to get some pictures of our apartment and the area to post, so hopefully with the weather improving, I will do that soon and get them posted.

But for now, I have something better to post. I found out this afternoon that I was accepted to grad school! Starting in January, I will be working on my master's degree in public health with a focus in epidemiology.

The question that everyone asks is, what is epidemiology? The simplest explanation is that it is the study of the spread of disease. Epidemiologists look at factors that influence diseases- depending on what you want to study it can vary, but they can look at why a certain group is affected more than another, what behaviors are correlated with certain diseases, etc. It can also be applied to treatments as well, such as why a treatment is more effective in one situation/group than another.

I know that I am interested in infectious diseases (diseases that can be passed from person to person), not chronic diseases (like diabetes, cancer, etc). I would really like to work in a position where I can investigate outbreaks out disease, on some level. I am also very interested in international public health. My long terms goals are to get a job with an organization such as the Centers for Disease Control or the National Institute of Health and then eventually going back to school for my Ph.D.

I am very excited to get back to school, but I am a little nervous, too. It's been a few years, and I am not sure what exactly I am getting into with epidemiology. But I am ready for the challenge. And then tonight, I got a fortune cookie, and for once, it was actually a fortune and quite fitting at that.



"Don't be afraid to take that big step." Good advice. I hung onto that as a reminder for myself.

I think that's all I have for now, but there will be more to come soon!

It's official: I am a Master!

Well, I guess... At the very least it is official that I am going to be a graduate of the University of Cincinnati with my M.A. in Political Science! Yesterday I received an e-mail that the graduate secretary and my department chair were working on finalizing my paperwork for graduation! Although I will be technically done at UC in a few weeks at the end of the Summer Quarter my commencement ceremony (which I'm tentatively planning to attend) won't be until December 11th. Finals week for my first semester at FIU is the preceding week and if possible I will make the trip back to Cincinnati for my graduation ceremony and to visit with family and friends.

This is the end of a very exciting and challenging period of my life. In the past few years as I pursued my M.A. several life changing things occurred. I got married, I lost some loved ones, I made new friends and at the end of it all I made one of the most drastic changes in my life and moved out of Ohio, the Midwest and my comfort zone to pursue my Ph.D in Miami.

How did I find FIU? Well... that was the result of a late night of stress and frustration that led to my discovery of FIU's Ph.D. program. I was upset that several of the programs I was looking at for my doctorate (Miami University in Ohio, UC, and a few others) had cancelled their doctoral programs due to financial/economic issues. Thus I was panicking and struggling to find schools to apply to.

It was probably 2 AM when I stumbled upon FIU's program. It looked a perfect fit, they had a large number of faculty in my area of study, two student organizations for my specialty field, among a slew of other perks. I was thrilled, elated... I woke Andrea up from sleep to ask "How do you feel about moving to Miami?" I proceeded to keep her awake like a giddy kid to show her pictures of campus and tell her about the program... A few months later, I got my acceptance letter. Then I got funding. I was thrilled, and then I realized I was moving almost 20 hours away from everything I knew and all that was familiar to me. But this is an exciting opportunity and one that I couldn't pass up.

The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

My first impression of Miami was that it's very large and very crowded. This is probably because we were driving in on a major highway, with construction, approaching rush hour. However, I am under no illusion that it is any less crowded- the Miami metro area encompasses around 5.4 million people. That puts it around 7th in terms of the largest metropolitan areas in the US (and 44th in the world). I think the big difference is that I am much less overwhelmed than I was that first afternoon. And I really don't mind it. I am learning my way around, and I also rarely have to get on a highway to get somewhere. And I just allow for a little more time to reach my destination. I don't understand why people are always in such a hurry anyway.

My other first impression of Miami is that the weather is beautiful. Everyone was telling me how hot it was going to be, and I think I mentally prepared myself for it to be an absolute sauna. Then we got here, and I realized that yes, it's hot. But, it's not any hotter than a hot day in Ohio (especially recently, where it's been hotter in Cincinnati than it as been here with that heat wave), but it's just a little more prolonged here than it is in Ohio. Or maybe consistent is the word I am looking for. It's consistently warmer here, yes, but it's not that bad. The one thing that helps a LOT is that it isn't as humid as it is in Ohio. We've had some bouts of humidity, but they are few and far between. And the sunshine here is amazing! It is sunny, or at least partly/mostly sunny, almost every day. It rains often, but usually not for very long. We have had days where it rained 4-5 times for a total of maybe a half hour or 45 minutes. It's not that different than Ohio, just sort of the opposite: here you plan your indoor activities for when it's really hot instead of really cold.

One of the things that I noticed quickly and has since held up is that Miami is extremely clean. I have never been in such a clean big city. And when I say clean, I mean everything is clean- outdoors, indoors, wherever you go, it's clean. It sounds like a little thing, but I actually really appreciate it.

Before moving here, I knew that Miami had a very large Latin population, but until I looked at the numbers, I didn't realize just how large it was- 69.4% of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino. And in 2004, the United Nations Development Project named Miami as the number one city in terms of the percentage of residents from outside the country where it is located, at 59%. And it is certainly evident. There are whole shopping centers where not 1 sign is in English. When I go out, I hear Spanish spoken more in casual conversation than English. And often times, people will address employees of stores or restaurants in Spanish first (and to date, I haven't heard one employee that didn't answer back in Spanish). It is quite different than anywhere I lived in Ohio.

Another thing I have noticed here is that the style of dress is much different than Ohio. People dress up on a much larger scale here. When you go to a restaurant or a store, you see a lot more leggings, gladiator sandals and cute tops than girls in shorts and flip flops. And the guys too are all well groomed and dressed in polos or trendy t-shirts at the least. And after living in Cincinnati, the one thing that is really noticeable is the lack of the "thug" style. I haven't really seen guys in oversized white t-shirts, baggy pants sagged so low they might as well not be wearing any, big chains, and straight billed hats. I'm sure they exist here somewhere, but even when we drove through some of the more run down areas, they weren't any homies just chilling out in front of their houses or on the corner like they did in Cincinnati. And after being exposed to people's underwear on a daily basis, that is one thing I certainly do not miss.

So, after all of these observations the question is, what do I think of Miami? And the answer is, I love it! I have always been a big city girl. I love the upbeat, fast paced atmosphere. I love all the people and the diversity. I love that there is always something to do or places to go. And the opportunities to learn and work in large cities are always growing and changing. And pair that with sunshine, palm trees, and beaches, and you can't beat that, can you? At least, not in my opinion. I also happen to love Latin culture. The food is fabulous, magical realism is one of my favorite styles of literature, I have a growing appreciation for the music, and there is just something so fiery and passionate about the people. I am really enjoying being immersed in it.

So, I know this wasn't the most exciting post and it's a little disjointed, but I wanted to get my initial impressions of Miami down. I promise my next post will be more interesting (read: have more pictures). I hope everyone is enjoying the blog. I know that Brian and I are having a good time writing it, and we look forward to your comments.

Florida International University

Hey everyone, it's getting close to two weeks since we arrived in Miami. In just a few more weeks I will be starting classes and working at FIU and I'm very excited. We've visited campus a few times and so far I really enjoy what I've seen. It's a very pretty campus and the layout works in my favor as all of the buildings I will be using the most are close in proximity. I also thought I would share some of the pictures of the campus that we took from our visits.

This is simply a picture of campus, nothing specific in the picture but it gives you an idea of what it looks like. There are many open green areas as well as several ponds and lakes on campus.







This is my new and temporary home. It's the
Deuxième Maison, the current home of the Political Science and International Relations program. It's one of the older buildings on campus and thus is not that architecturally appealing. Although it does have an interesting feature.





It's an open air building. That's right, there are no doors to get "inside" but rather walkways and even on the upper levels it is still very open. This is the atrium in the middle.

















You can also see the skylight on the right. It does not appear to have any glass in it. I really like it.







Right across the pond from DM will be my new home in November of this year. It's FIU's soon-to-be complete $40 million School of International and Public Affairs building. With the launch of this new building, the SIPA program will seek to achieve accreditation by the prestigious Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a feat achieved by only 34 institutions in the world including JFK School of Government at Harvard, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton and the London School of Economics.


This is the Green Library on FIU's campus. It's a massive building and right next to both the SIPA and DM buildings. I'm sure I will spend a good deal of time here as well.















The wildlife is right at home on campus as well, some turtles in the pond between DM and SIPA.

On leaving comments

If you'd like to leave a comment, click on "Comments" (It will say 0, 1, etc in front of it) at the bottom of the post on which you want to comment. There is a box for you to type, and then a drop down menu to select an account, leave your name, make it anonymous, etc. If you don't want/don't have an account with the websites listed, all you have to do is select "Name\URL" from the options, and it will allow you to just type in your name. Hope that clears up any questions about commenting.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end...

Hola from Miami! Brian and I have started this blog so that our family and friends can keep up with what we are doing down here in the Sunshine State. We will both be posting entries and pictures and have opened up the comments so you can leave feedback. :)

The trip to get down here was, in a word, LONG. We picked up our moving truck on July 16th, a Friday, and did most of the loading that afternoon. We had been packing slowly for a week or so before, and I don't know how we ended up with so much junk. We tried to consolidate things as much as possible and we threw away a lot of things, and we still had a lot of stuff. Mostly books. We have a ridiculous amount of books. And we took two large boxes to Half Price Books. But we could have large amounts of worse things, I suppose. We also donated several bags of clothes to St. Vincent de Paul. Anyway, after many, many trips down the hall, up and down the elevators and through the lobby we finally had the truck loaded and ready to go Saturday afternoon. Brian's parents and brother assisted us with the move. And I am more grateful for their assistance than I can express, as we had our moving truck, our 2 cars, Tas, Stella and all of our stuff to get down here. Chris was planning to fly back Wednesday but Brian's parents were staying a few days longer and were driving back, so we also had their van, and that made up our 4 car caravan.

On Saturday, we drove to Chattanooga, TN. That drive wasn't so bad. It took us somewhere between 6 and 7 hours with stops. The animals, however, didn't fare as well with the traveling. Stella rode with Brian, and she spent most of the drive laying on his passenger seat, her head resting on his center armrest, staring at him. I had the pleasure of traveling with the cat. If he's left in his cage in the car, he will cry the entire time. However, when Brian was living in Cincinnati and I was still in Dayton, he used to travel back and forth with Brian a lot and would ride on the passenger seat. In my car however, he wanted to ride under my pedals, which obviously wasn't going to work. I wanted him to ride on the passenger seat, but he wasn't having any of that either. So, we compromised.





Yes, he spent the entire trip from Cincinnati to Chattanooga on my lap.






Sunday, we left Chattanooga bright and early, headed for central Florida. Before that trip, I had been to Gatlinburg for a weekend, had a layover in the Atlanta airport, and spent a week in Key West on my honeymoon. Shortly after leaving Chattanooga, we entered Georgia. After driving through, here are my impressions: 1. Georgia is very pretty. 2. Georgia is much larger than it looks on a map. 3. At every exit, you can buy peaches, pecans, or peanuts (usually of the boiled variety). 4. There are a lot of "massage parlors" with free truck parking. 4. There are more billboards advertising the peaches, pecans, peanuts, massage parlors, and anything else you can imagine than I've ever seen anywhere else. Seriously, the highways are just lined with them. We stopped for lunch somewhere south of Macon, and we went to Krystal. Brian informed me that I hadn't had a true Southern experience until I ate at Krystal. For all you Northerners, Krystal is basically White Castle with a few more options. I opted out of the steamed sliders and got the mini coney dogs instead.





It wasn't terrible, but I don't think I would choose to eat there again any time soon.









Not too long after we stopped for lunch, we finally made it to Florida! I was excited for a second, until I realized that we still had a long road ahead of us. If I thought Georgia was a big state, Florida is huge. We drove a few hours into Florida before we stopped for the evening Sunday, and we were still looking at a 4-5 hour drive Monday. We left bright and early again on Monday, but we opted to take a smaller, alternate highway instead of staying on 75 because traffic had been so heavy the previous day. This proved to be a good and bad decision. For awhile, we were traveling on a 2 lane highway through towns that had lower speed limits and stoplights. This added some extra time to our already long drive. However, it eventually opened up and we were able to cruise along at a good speed with little traffic.

Once we got into Miami, we had a little mix-up with our directions (it's important that our address is 142nd Avenue, NOT Street), but we finally made it to our apartment around 3pm. And that was our trip down. I'll post more about our apartment and Miami next time, but for now, here are a few more pictures from the trip.



The sun setting over the Tennessee hills.



Stella and Tas had a bed all to themselves in Chattanooga.



Stella rode with me for a little while on Sunday.



Brian, Tas and I rode together for about the last hour or so on Sunday, and Tas actually got a little adventurous and was looking out the windows.





The animals making themselves at home in our hotel in Florida.