Grab Bag

I have a light little blog for you all. First, today I was walking home and there was a gentleman in front of me in a nice suit who seemed fairly well groomed. As we passed through a forested area he stopped at a shrub, picked off a twig and proceeded to use it as a tooth pick. Struck me as quite odd.

Next, I feel bad that I have yet to introduce you all to me favorite new snack: Gusto’s puffs and Coke Zero. Gusto’s puffs look and have the consistency of packing chips but have this insanely addictive taste…they are Cheetos 2.0. They may also come in handy if I try to get some wine back to the states in my luggage. Diet Coke, or as Europeans like to call it Coke Light is gross. I’m not sure if the taste is different or if it’s because nothing is ever refrigerated enough to actually be refreshingly cold. I’ve decided if you are going for a semi-warm cola, Coke Zero is king. The grand total for my snack is 3 lei, conversion $1. Treats back home are going to be a bummer. 

Now onto some new Cluj discoveries for the week… We went to the botanical gardens on Sunday. It is only a few blocks from our dorms and is a very relaxing place for a walk. Wish I had one so close to my house in Coralville so I could destress on Thursday before tests. Below is a picture of one of my walking buddies in the park. Then we tried Demmer’s Tea House. The first time, I got Bio Lemon Vanilla Tea and since I’ve been back to get English Breakfast Tea with a dash of vanilla. I think I may become a regular.

Okay I can’t take this anymore. A couple has been having quite the make-out sesh at Starbucks for the last hour and a half while I watched “So You Think You Can Dance” (Go Melanie and Marko!) and wrote this blog. NOT OKAY. Please just go home.

Tomorrow I start my day bright and early at the pediatric emergency room and end it nice and late by catching the overnight train to Budapest. So I must be going. Check back on Monday to learn about Budapest and have a Happy 4^th of July!

J Kaitlin

“Death. It doesn’t have to be boring”

My last post produced more tears in my friends than I was anticipating. To counteract these tears I’m going to talk about death this time. Doesn’t quite sound like a topic to avoid tears, does it? But I promise. Trust me?

Anyone headed to a future that will involve interacting with a cadaver, the book Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers is something you should put on your reading list. In addition, anyone who hasn’t considered what they want to do with their body at the end of their earthly life, this book will give you plenty to think about. And I guess if you are just a curious person with a tough stomach go grab a copy. Emily Jarman and Stacy Rust run from this book if you ever see it, I’m guessing you would pass out before the end of the introduction.

This book discusses the numerous options available for disposing our earthly body, dabbles a bit into the soul and frequently digresses to topics that may be relevant in trivial pursuit. Ultimately, the reality is that there are positives and negatives to all the options and the way you package it can make all the difference. Would you rather be buried, cremated, make an anatomical gift, undergo water reduction or ecological burial OR would you like to decompose, be incinerated, dissected, have your tissues digested or be composted. Really none of it is pretty. I came to the same conclusion as the author, when my time comes whatever my family is comfortable with; I’m comfortable with (though family composting, or to give it a prettier name, the ecological burial, seems kinda great).  

Some readers who don’t know me as well or don’t know the structure of American medical schools may wonder what made me interested in reading this book or why I would also feel the need to blog about it. Well, the first semester of medical school at Iowa leaves students with two vivid memories: their cadaver and Rubenstein biochemistry tests. On my first day of medical school, less than six hours into my graduate school career, I stood in the cement covered basement of quite possibly the creepiest building at the University of Iowa with a bone saw in my hands. Before my first day was over I would know the feeling of scalpel on skin and saw on bone and would see my first human lungs. I’m not going to go into details about my donor (the preferred term for cadaver at Iowa) because she truly was my first patient and therefore deserves confidentiality. What I will say is I think the experience of dissecting a cadaver can best be summed up by the word bittersweet. I will forever appreciate my donor and her willingness to be selfless even in death. I will forever picture her organs, nerves, and blood vessels and apply the knowledge I learned from her to my future patients. However, the actual time spent in the anatomy lab was tedious and the unexpected moments when my donor reminded me that she was indeed human were unsettling. I will never forget the day I unwrapped her hand and saw her nail polish, coincidently the color was bittersweet.

Here in Romania, gross lab is similar to in the states but has a few serious differences. First of all, there isn’t a deeded body program like back in the states. This isn’t surprising to me because even organ donation is uncommon here. Instead bodies that are not claimed become the anatomy lab cadavers. At Iowa, six of us shared a cadaver but only two are in the room dissecting at a time. Here fifteen people share a cadaver and they are all present for all parts of the dissection; though if they participate in dissecting or just observe is their choice. I’m a little blurry on the logistics of fifteen people around one cadaver because there were some points when just two seemed crowded but they make it work.

Finally, I will leave you with the most beautiful part of the book and a marketing strategy the National Donor Network needs to think about. This exert is taken from a chapter on beating-heart cadavers (cadavers who are brain dead but whose hearts are kept pumping so they can donate organs) (H is the name given to the cadaver):

“H is different. She has made three sick people well. She has brought them extra time on earth. To be able, as a dead person, to make a gift of this magnitude is phenomenal. Most people don’t manage this sort of thing while they’re alive. Cadavers like H are the dead’s heros… H has no heart, but heartless is the last thing you’d call her.”

Lost in transition..

I warn readers now; this post may be overly sappy and not really related to Romania or my summer here and though I don’t consider myself to be overly nostalgic or sappy, my realize self-perception could be off.

You may have seen on my facebook that I was sick. Nothing terrible just a little food poisoning and I’m feeling good now, but being sick in a dorm room is no fun and being sick in a dorm room in a foreign country with a very slow internet connection is even less fun. I’ve now watched the majority of the movies and TV shows in my possession (including Superbad, Knocked Up, Two Weeks Notice, P.S. I Love You and How I Met Your Mother) and then I moved on to cleaning out my Gmail. This is where this post begins.

You may be wondering where the title of this post came from. It’s actually a phrase used by a history teacher I met in Romania a few weeks ago. He used it to describe the state he believes Romania is in trying to navigate from communism to capitalism. He said he would love to write a book with this title. (I hope the metaphor I’m about to draw isn’t insensitive though I have to admit it is a bit selfish.) This phrase continues to enter my brain when I’m walking to work and I think how it would be a great title for a book depicting the first year after college; specifically, the first year after college for me and my friends. Trying to transition from college to the future while at the same time seeing the support system we built in college move to various locations around the United States and the world. It still astonishes me that we have been out of college for a year, and I would have to guess that not many of us could have predicted on graduation day where we would be today. I had never heard of Cluj let alone thought I would be living here.

So as I said early I was going through my Gmail and I ended up reading several emails that fit the “Lost in Transition” theme. I’m going to steal some parts of emails to reminisce on the year. I hope my friends will enjoy reflecting back with me (and I hope you don’t care I’m using your quotes).  

I can say that when I walked across the stage at graduation I felt confident in my future. Three months later when I walked across the stage at my White Coat Ceremony when medical school (including my first experience with a cadaver) was three days away from being a reality, some of that confidence had vanished. My best friend was on her way Germany for five months and most of my roommates had vacated Iowa City. We were left to transition independently in many cities with skype and email to save us.

My first email to my best friend Gabby said,

“You are going through as transitional a year as me. You are moving to Germany in two and a half days, traveling to fabulous places and all the while deciding what type of graduate school you what to go to and where. This is one of the most exciting times in our lives. The decisions we make now will indeed change the course of our lives. For the past two years I haven’t been able to go out without your approval on my outfit, how could I possibly alter the course of my life without letting you weigh in?”

As the year began my emails were mainly about medical school while Gabby’s dealt with revelations about many of the things you are able to partially ignore in college.

“I was thinking how best to describe school to you and I have come up with tequila as a description. You know when some nights you know you can take the tequila shot no problem and you are even willing to take two shots, but then some nights you can't even think the word tequila without wanting to vomit and run away from the person (usually Brian) buying the shots???? That is me and medical school. Some days I know I am exactly where I should be and I’m confident and ready for whatever class they put in front of me and then some days I wonder if I made the right choice and if I am actually cut out for this. Today is a good day. I am ready for the week and I feel good and at ease but I don't know when next it will hit me. It is quite exhausting. I’m hoping this is just first month stress and it will go away.”

“So many of these people don't have the option of going back home to states whenever they want, and it's almost in a selfish way reassuring knowing I'm not stuck here. I can go home whenever I want, and it's still my choice, not the governments. Being here has really made me appreciate everything the military sacrifices for us. You never really think about the war at home, but being here I think about it every couple minutes. The other day we were shopping at the commissary (the grocery store on base) and the lady we were with told us we couldn't buy coffee because it's rationed. WHAT? Rationed coffee? Are u kidding me? It's not WWII. I was completely blown away by it.”

Transitioning from a giant dirty college house to a clean condo was one of the transitions I welcomed. I missed my roommates and our kitchen talks (even if it meant sitting on a kitchen floor with ground beef crumbles and vodka stains), but I definitely didn’t miss our parking, bathroom, laundry room, fridge. (Roommates anything else I forgot that we hated.) One of my roommates (cough cough Leah) was ready for a different transition then the one we were experiencing.

“While working (yes...I have been working for my father) I was rocking out to the radio and an ad comes on about a place to live...I was tuning out most of the ad but then something caught my ear. It says..."do you want to be able to knit and read in your room? To be able to sleep undisturbed? To have a meal with wine included?" in my head I am answering yes to all of these questions so I get excited...then the ad goes on to say..."come join us at Northern Hills retirement home"....yeppp I am a 70 year old women trapped in a 22 (yuck almost 23) year olds body.”

Some including MB questioned if some things that were normal in college were still acceptable post-college.

“So I’m a college graduate… ...is it acceptable or unacceptable that I am currently eating a piece of pita bread that used to be moldy? Meaning I picked off the moldy parts.”

One thing we refused to transition through was letting each other know about the big/hilarious/memorable/terrible/believable/unbelievable moments in our lives as they happened. This better stay the same forever because I need to know all the things listed below.

“PS: I just got bangs yesterday :)”

“Needless to say, it went well. =) Buuut I'm not gonna get too excited just yet.  One mistake on his part...I told him that I'm meeting with one of my professors next week to talk about doing my field placement overseas, preferably somewhere in Africa. (I'm super excited about it! I'll keep ya posted!)  Anywho, he was worried about safety in Africa blah blah blah, and THEN asked, "Well what if you... had a boyfriend?" hahaha. Slow down crazy. Slow down.”

“Good thing I was black out texting u at Oktoberfest yesterday. Even in another country I haven’t lost that habit, good to know. I came out of my black out later and was looking through my texts and burst out laughing because even my blacked out self knew how much I wanted you there sitting next to me in the beer tent, with a giant mug, singing "heyyyyyyyyyy heyyyyy babyyyy ohhh ahhh I wana knooowwww will you be my girl" Yep, definitely wanted you there!”

The year has had its ups and downs for all of us but I think we are, for the most part, starting to find our way and complete our transition. I am amazed to think of all my friends and what they have been able to do in the short time after graduation. Kristen, you were amazing at being Dance Marathon Event Director, Stacy, you started your own business, Grayce, you will be a CPA before the first football game this fall, Pants, you found your dream job and ran a 10K, Jessica, you have performed and done your laundry in more cities in the continental US than I can count, Conway, you got married!!!, Jarman, you are half way done with your MSW and added substantially to your really weird job list, MB, you started following your dream of acting and writing, Kara, you were brave enough to realize the career you went to college for wasn’t the career for you and rearranged the future to be the life you want, Leah, you have stuck with a challenging job and I hope this summer will make it worth it, and finally Gabby, you figured out what grad school you wanted to go to and got into it! So everyone, recharge this summer, get ready for another great year and don’t forget to email all of us along the way. 

Barcelona!!!

This past weekend, I got my first taste of Spain and there is no way I’m going to let it be my last. Let me ask those of you from Iowa City a few questions. Do you love the ped mall? Would you want several kilometers of it instead of a few hundred meters? Do you love the farmers’ market? Would you like it to be 10X the size? Do you love how cycling friendly Iowa City is? Would you like to multiple that friendliness and accessibility by ten? If you answered yes to any or all of those questions, call a travel agent or let good old Priceline help you because Barcelona is the place for you.

Now we begin “The Official Kaitlin Flannery Tour of Barcelona” with the beverages. First of all, cava, the Spanish version of sparkling wine which I can now say from experience is exceptional. Cava is produced from grapes that only grow in Spain and therefore nothing else in the world can be called cava; like champagne can only come from the Champagne region in France. There are many different blends some sweeter than others and my favorite due to my insane sweet tooth was the sweetest of them all, Freixenet Malvasia, a cava that is aged nine years and has a liquor added to it that has been aged thirty years. I sadly learned that this specific cava is not exported to the states, but I will be looking for it all over Europe for the next couple months. On Friday, we went on a tour of the Freixenet wine cellars and learned all about the process of producing cava and then taste-tested a few varieties. The other drink of the trip, SANGRIA! There is not much that can top a Friday happy hour at Saloon in Iowa City with a glass of their sangria, but, a fish bowl of sangria during happy hour on La Rambla in Barcelona does perhaps. Roommates, we need to make it to this happy hour some time together (90 under 90 list possibly). I also learned how to make sangria and I’m looking forward to trying it out when I get home. Here is the recipe I was taught:

Mix together all these ingredients in a 1.5L pitcher

400mL of red wine

300mL of orange juice

3 shots of white rum

3 spoonfuls of sugar

A sprinkle of cinnamon

Slices of apples to soak up some of the alcohol

Oranges and limes to give flavor

Fill to the top with club soda

I suggest you try it out, it is muy bien. Now after all this cava and sangria, I didn’t think I could like anything more, but then the two joined forces and blew me out of the water with sangria de cava. I’m still trying to work out why drinks besides water and sangria de cava exist, truly nothing else is necessary.

Me with my favorite cava



Cava de sangria



Okay, enough about drinks. I have mentioned previously in my posts how ashamed I am of the European history we are taught in the states. So, before planning a trip to Barcelona I didn’t know much. The thing, actually person, I did know beforehand was Antoni Gaudi. Now I appreciate why he is what is best known about Barcelona. Antoni Gaudi, was a Spanish architect in the field of modernism whose vision can be seen all over Barcelona. Below, I have pictures of Park Guell and his masterpiece La Sagrada Familia. La Sagrada Familia began being constructed in 1882 and has an anticipated completion year of 2026 (100 years after Gaudi’s death). The detail in Sagrada Familia is breath-taking. It is by far the most beautiful church I have been able to set foot in. Notre Dame and St. Mark’s Basilica, though beautiful have a dreariness and oppressiveness about them, while Sagrada Familia is bright and welcoming without losing its devotion. For the final decade of Gaudi’s life, he worked almost solely on La Sagrada Familia. He knew he wouldn’t live to see the church completed but he left behind detailed plans of the final product. These plans are still being decoded today. Unfortunately his life was cut short on June 10, 1926 when he was run over by a tram. He was laid to rest in the crypt of La Sagrada Familia.  

Entering Park Guell



Looking over Barcelona from the top of Park Guell




Had to take this picture from google because none of my pictures did the outside justice



Now on to La Rambla, the street that defines tourism in Barcelona, stretching from Placa Catalunya a kilometer down to the sea. It is filled with tourist, street performers, vendors and shops. It is much like the other streets in Barcelona being wide and tree lined but you wouldn’t want to try to bike down this one. My favorite part of La Rambla was St. Joseph’s Market, a humungous open air market with fruits and vegetables, meats and seafood, deserts, and even bars. I’m guessing it is St. Joseph’s that draws a large amount of locals to venture to La Rambla. I can’t imagine you could get a better variety of fresh food anywhere else in Barcelona.



The Columbus Statue at the end of La Rambla




The sea at the end of La Rambla



I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post that Barcelona is a bike friendly city. After travelling around almost all the city in a weekend it doesn’t seem that any location in the city would be challenging to get to on bike and with the weather in Barcelona, biking would almost always be pleasant. To promote biking, Barcelona did what many other large European cities have done (and what I hope will begin in large US cities) and implemented a city biking program called “bicing”. The program has stations where you can insert your member card (citizens can get this for a cheap annual fee) and get a bike from the rack and return it to any bike rack in the city. No worrying about bike repairs or how to get your bike home when it is raining after class. Also almost every street has a median in-between the lanes and on the median are bike lanes. My requirements for my future city of residence used to be somewhere with an effective enough public transit system that I didn’t need to own a car, now I’m adding a biking program to list of demands for my future city.

My zodiac sign is correct on at least one level, I love water. I need to add ‘by a substantial body of water’ to the list of demands for my future city of residency (this list is getting bigger and bigger and the list of cities smaller and smaller). I just get giddy looking out at water. Friday, we got to enjoy the Mediterranean in Sitges, a small, beautiful, resort town outside of Barcelona. Saturday, we ate dinner at a restaurant on the sea and Sunday, we spent the day at the beach, me mostly floating in the Mediterranean and reading my Kindle (new book recommendation coming soon…I will spare you more of my opinions for now).



Giddy because of a wave hitting me




Church in Sitges that dates back to the tenth century



Finally, it wouldn’t be one of my posts without some food. The main food I consumed was paella as you will see from the pictures. I have to say though I much prefer the food in Romania so it is good to be home in Cluj. I kept referring to Cluj as home all weekend in Barcelona! I’m sure my mom is cringing while reading this. It took her long enough to adjust to me calling Iowa City home. Okay, I will stop for now as I have gotten very long winded. If you made it down all this way, I sincerely hope it was interesting and worth all that reading!

If I had nine lives...

This week, my friend Emily pointed out to me that I have become a social worker in Romania. I told her I realized that and in addition I had become my friend Stacy (a marketing major in college who has just started her own business) while remaining partially myself. That sentence makes very little sense but hang with me and I will work it out. To start I have to say when I see pictures or Facebook statuses of my classmates in MECO (another option I had for my summer where I would have done extensive shadowing in an Iowa hospital) learning to cast, stitch, and deliver babies I get extremely jealous. On the other hand, I do know that I will have those experiences someday and the experiences I’m having this summer would be much less likely in the future. I think if I had nine life-times I would be able to do all the jobs I am interested in, but sadly I am only given this one. I completely understand when peoples’ interests are so numerous they don’t know what to do with their lives. What I can’t and will never understand are people that have no drive. How can nothing in this whole big/wonderful/terrifying/thrilling/changing world grab your attention?

If I had nine lives I would spend one being a social worker, one being a social marketer, one being an epidemiologist, and then probably a few being the several different medical specialties that interest me. Thank goodness I had almost that many roommates, who are doing some of the jobs I wish I had time to do, so I will be able to live vicariously through them. This week, I’m working on writing interventions based off data from a children’s sun-exposure study that was performed before I arrived. To do this job my mentor, Andra (whose birthday is today: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!), gave me a few books and websites on social marketing. Now social marketing isn’t talking about facebook or twitter if the word social is really jumping out at you, like it did to me. What it is essentially is using the principles of marketing in social sciences, such as in public health initiatives. The people of the world today do not sit back and get told what to do, they search things for themselves and if you want an initiative to work today you have got to sell it to each specific person. Thirty or so years ago, people went to their doctor and asked what was wrong and what to do. Today people google their symptoms, go to the doctor, tell the doctor what is wrong with them and then sometimes present treatment plans they agree with and want for themselves. In the same manner, people don’t just listen to public health messages today. How many studies have been published with results citing the benefits of getting childhood vaccinations? But, the parents of today all too frequently listen to Jenny McCarthy or other googled articles instead of the so called ‘experts’ and decide vaccinations aren’t for them. More studies citing positive outcomes aren’t likely to sway these parents. Instead we need to research what motivates them to change their opinion and use that in the formation of new initiatives. Marketing is all about discovering what the customer wants and making the services satisfy the customer. Social marketing is about making what is healthy for the public the fun, easy, and popular choice by selling it to each demographic.  

 Think about this. If you asked anyone in the world today if smoking was bad for them, the answer you would get would be yes. Therefore, ads that continue to tell us that smoking is bad for us and nothing else are not effective and limited in value. The ads are answering a question that already has an answer. So what are the questions to ask? Perhaps:

·         What are the barriers to smoking cessation in over 50 year old males?

·         What are positives and negatives towards smoking cessation for 18-25 year old females?

Social marketers ask these questions and then produce initiatives that have incentives for positive choices while reducing the barriers to making the positive choices.

Like I said above, I am not business minded, but social marketing has got me really excited about a topic so outside of my expertise and something I would have likely never learned much about if I had taken this internship. I hope I didn’t butcher the explanation too badly. I think working on understanding social marketing has made me a combo of my old roommates Emily (an MSW student at Wisconsin) and Stacy. It also made me think of a YouTube video Stacy showed me over Spring Break this year. It is about marketing in a commercial sense, but I think it can also be stretched to encompass the social marketing I talked about in this blog. To check out an intriguing video about the youth of today go to: http://stacyrust.com/2011/03/17/if-youre-in-marketing/.  

Well now I must be off to bed as tomorrow will be a long day. I am off to work in the morning and then to Barcelona in the evening! I’m not taking my computer so check back on Monday for my post about Barcelona!!!

Ciao

Life in a Day...

Do you remember what you did on July 24, 2010? For most people this day is not remarkable, just a mid-summer Saturday. But for many people, who participated in a worldwide YouTube project, July 24, 2010 will be the day that their everyday life became immortalized in film. Last year, producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin Macdonald asked people to record what life was like for them and submit it on YouTube.

This is what was asked of anyone that wanted to participate: “On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a snapshot of your life on camera. You can film the ordinary -- a sunrise, the commute to work, a neighborhood soccer match, or the extraordinary -- a baby’s first steps, your reaction to the passing of a loved one, or even a marriage.”

The goal was to get a picture of what it is like to be alive today. They received over 80,000 submissions that totaled over 4500 hours of film from 192 countries. From the 4500 hours they produced a 120 minute film. This film was the closing film of TIFF and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish the festival. For 120 minutes I smiled, laughed, and even teared up a bit as I experienced life through others’ lenses. The film premieres in theatres on July 24 of this year and if it comes to your city I would recommend you see it. Here is a link to the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT_UmBHMYzg.

Turda

Yesterday Lindsay’s mentor Dr. Coman (Alex) and his adorable daughter Andra took us on a day trip to Turda, a smaller town nearby, to go inside a salt mine. Now there is absolutely no way that my pictures or explanation is going to do Turda justice, but I will try my best. Salt began to be taken from this mine in 1271, but today the mine is just for tourism. The mine goes to a depth of 1200 meters below the surface of the Earth (that is ¾ a mile). Located at the bottom is a lake with paddle boats, an amphitheater, a ferris wheel and a playground.

Salt was everywhere. It formed icicles on the ceiling and stairs, it formed a kind of sand to walk on, and it got on your clothes if you touched anything. Andra kept running her hand on the walls and licking off the salt. It made you crave a soft pretzel from Petru really badly. The high concentration of salt in the air cleared your sinuses out nicely and Alex told us that people come to Turda for respiratory therapy.



Me at the entrance to the mine





Holding some salt



Salt icicles hanging from the ceiling and a view of the creepy bridge we had to walk on



Stairs covered in salt



When I was first walking in, I felt very claustrophobic. I felt like I needed to bend down to not hit my head even though there was a good two feet between my head and the ceiling. Once you got down to the open area though there was so much open space it was hard to believe we were so far down. We saw a sign for an evacuation plan but weren’t so sure how effective it would be. To get out from 1200 meters below there were two options, an elevator that held four people at a time or two staircases that required you to go single file up twenty stories of very steep, uneven, salt coated steps.

We spent about three hours inside the mine. Getting down into it, riding the ferris wheel, watching Andra play at the playground, paddle boating, and getting back out. It was so much fun. Sure to be an experience that isn’t repeated in my life. I’m sure Lindsay, who isn’t a Harry Potter freak like me, was sick of hearing me describe how much the lake at the bottom of the mine was like the lake in the sixth Harry Potter book. But, for those of you reading my blog that are Harry Potter fanatics, look at these lake pictures and just imagine Dumbledore and Harry in one of the boats, corpses in the lake, and a fake horcrux on the island.      



Looking down to the lake




Feeling claustrophobic




Lindsay and I on the ferris wheel



Island in the lake where the horcrux would be

Thanks Alex and Andra for such a great day!     

Two thumbs up

Three films have stood out to me this week. You will notice all three of them have a large medical component to them so it is clear I’m bias to the subject matter. One, “Never Let Me Go” from the UK I already talked about. Then there is “In a Better World” from Denmark, the 2011 Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Film and “Oxygen” from Belgium. I don’t know if you would be able to get these films from Netflix or iTunes or anywhere else on the internet but it would definitely be worth the effort it took.  

“In a Better World” is a glimpse at one of the biggest problems in our world today: bullying. Whether it is done by gang members in the third world or in your child’s school it is a serious problem with serious consequences that happens universally. How to deal with bullying is addressed. Is it better to be the pacifist or to attack before you are attacked? And what do you do when neither of these led to a solution. The movie is truly chilling in the fact that it is not off base with reality. In addition, the acting from the adults and children is remarkable. Definitely a movie to find if you can…    

I also recommend “Oxygen” to everyone, but especially to those of you in a healthcare profession. This film follows the life of a boy with cystic fibrosis. He has an older brother with the disease and due to the amount of time he spends in hospitals many of his friends are CF patients as well. What would you do if from the moment you were diagnosed (usually at birth these days) you knew that your life span was about thirty years? I’m spending the first twenty-six of mine in school. With a CF diagnosis I doubt that would have been my course of my life. The movie shows different ways to deal with the disease: accept it, fight against it, run away from it. The movie makes you ask yourself the basic question, would you want to know when you were going to die? Would you rather plan for your death or plan for your life? On top of the questions the movie poises and the glimpse into the disease, the movie has one of the cutest and sweetest love scenes. Overall just a great movie that I would check out if you can find it.    

In other TIFF news, there was a short film called “Night Fishing” that we saw the other night, before one of the full length films, that was shot entirely on the iPhone4. The video quality was wonderful, if we hadn’t been told I would have never known. So, I think I need to bust out my iPhone and start making some video blogs. Also Jessica Shoemaker, what are your thoughts on short films? I haven’t seen that many but I generally don’t like them and it disappoints me because I love short stories. Also, the other night we went to one of the competition films called “King’s Road”. The director Valdís Óskarsdóttir was there for the screening which was neat and when they listened off her previous experience and said that she was an editor for “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” I got very excited. I’m not going to talk much about the film, not because it wasn’t good, but because it was one of those movies that you were part of during the film, but, once it ends you just leave it and move on. I wasn’t left with my mind racing like I have with several of the movies I have seen this week. So far this week we have seen 11 films and have 4 more remaining and then sadly we will say farewell to TIFF.  

If you would like a better explanation of these movies or would like to explore international films that would fit your interests more go to: http://www.tiff.ro/en.

Bon Appetit

Time for some photographs of my favorite moments of the day: eating!!!

 First up drinks. I know I belong in this country for these two reasons:

1. Milkshakes are considered a healthy beverage

2. The standard beer is much larger   

Main course. Every meal here has the freshest produce and more favor than anything you can get at home so I am not sure what I am going to eat when I return. Two meals from this week mamaliga cu branza, or polenta with cheese, and dumplings with spinach and cheese.

Dessert. I know I already posted this picture but I haven’t had a pretty dessert yet. Crêpes filled with chocolate.

Finally another reason why I don’t know how I am going to eat when I get back is that I can get a drink, main course, and dessert for about 30 lei (aka $10).  

Hungry?

American Films

I went to two American films at the festival so far. I had already seen 127 Hours, but as many of you know, I like movies better the second time when I can pick up the little details I missed the first time around. I am not going to talk about the plot of the movie because I am guessing most are familiar with the story of Aron Ralston or have seen the movie. Instead I will just mention a few details. The music in this movie is spot-on. I am not sure how many songs the music director sifted through to come up with the final selections, but in a very quirky way each song makes the mood of the story enter you. The music doesn’t sit back and wait for you to be engaged; instead, in enters you and pulls you in. When he is cutting his nerve you can physically feel it with him. This soundtrack is most definitely on the top of my itunes download list.  The other thing I wanted to mention in regards to this movie is the phenomenal acting of James Franco. If you haven’t seen the movie due to his extremely unprofessional hosting of the Academy Awards I think you should go to the Redbox and give the film a chance. The other American film I saw was Winter’s Bone. The story is no cup of tea to sit through and the reality that some elements of this story are happening to children in America today is disturbing. As for the acting, I have to say that I can’t be more pleased that Jennifer Lawerence is playing Katniss in the Hunger Games trilogy. Again another trip to the Redbox is recommended for this film, but be ready for a disturbing film

Now stay with me here as I attempt do a movie review on a movie that hasn’t even begun production. I am a big fan of the Hunger Games trilogy and plan to write more on the books in the future in relation to the communist past here in Eastern Europe. The trilogy is a bit of a watered down version of 1984 and though it has a romantic plot, the core of the story is about finding yourself, defending your family, and fighting for a government that cares for its citizens. These books and the films that come with it, present an opportunity for the young generation to have a serious talk about political structure and self-advocacy, topics that are definitely missing in America and as I learned are missing here as well. When I was in Sighetu a few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to go to coffee with a history teacher. During coffee he explained that many adults don’t speak about the communist times and therefore the young generation has no idea how bad things were. Now that the whole world is in an economic depression some are nostalgic for the communist times and the children aren’t resistant against it. Now I am not implying in any way that Eastern Europe is falling back into communism, what I am saying though is that if we don’t educate the youth about the past eventually it may be repeated.  With that said, I am worried I am going to be disappointed by the movies because I have a feeling the romance (in a Twilight way, to target all the Twilight fans) is all that will be explored. But for now since it is still about nine months until a Hunger Games movie comes out I will stop and recommend the trilogy to you if you are looking for a summer read.

"We all complete"

SPOILER ALERT: This blog contains a discussion on the first movie I saw at the Transylvania International Film Festival (TIFF). If you have heard of the movie ‘Never Let Me Go’ before and wanted to see it, you may want to delay reading this blog post. I am not going to give away the ending or the twists, but I am going to discuss some of the main themes (one of which is hidden for the first 20-30 minutes of the movie). However, if you have never heard of this movie, I hope after reading this blog post you will consider renting it. When I left the states, it was in Redboxes. It stars Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield and is based off the book with the same title, by Kazuo Ishiguro.

This story takes a real medical discovery with true ethical issues and expands upon it greatly as a platform to discuss what life is all about. In the 1950s, the first cells were cloned. The successful procedure was done at Johns Hopkins on cervical cancer cells from a woman named Henrietta Lacks. Cloning has led to many ethical discussions in the medical communities and numerous ones, like Dolly the sheep, have reached mainstream media. If you are interested in learning about all the discoveries and ethical issues that have arisen due to HeLa cells (Henrietta Lacks’ cells) check out the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”. But back to the movie… In ‘Never Let Me Go’, successful human cloning is done in the 1950s. This leads to a new class of human beings raised with the sole purpose of being organ donors. Their childhood though strict seems fairly idyllic. The school masters take the stance that, using one of my favorite Beatles lines, “living is easy with eyes closed”. The children are unaware that their lives will not last beyond thirty years and that they will never have the freedom to choose their own purpose in life. This movie raises a question that is universal to all humans, what are we here for? Is the goal of life to live as long as you can? Is it to leave a legacy behind either through children or work? Is it to find a purpose? Is it to become more enlightened? The movie never sets on a simple answer and ultimately I believe we all have to decide for ourselves. The character Kathy decides, “We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.” But we complete.

Looking more superficially this movie brings up a question that is of great concern for the medical community and was actually one of the questions Iowa asked me in my medical school interview, “How can we address the organ shortage?” This movie comes up with a science fiction solution, but what can we actually do? The United States is considering switching from the opt-in system we currently use to an opt-out system (aka you would have to register to not be an organ donor). Multiple people believe that having yes printed on your driver’s license makes you an organ donor. In practice this is NOT true. If you would like to be an organ donor and haven’t registered, consider visiting http://www.iowadonorregistry.org/, or the registry website associated with you state of residency. Another registry to consider joining is the National Marrow Donor registry. For more information visit http://www.marrow.org/. I apologize for preaching a bit in this post, this movie just brought up an issue I’m passionate about. If you have seen ‘Never Let Me Go’ I would love to hear your analysis!

a beauTIFFul week

Had to steal one of the slogans from the film festival for the title of my blog, it is just too charming. Well as I imagined, I love international film festivals. Kristen Sandberg we have to go at Sundance ASAP. Friday was the beginning of the ten day Transylvania International Film Festival (TIFF). At this point I have seen seven films that were made in five different countries: ‘Never Let Me Go’ and ‘Another Year’ from the UK, ‘Little Rose’ from Poland, ‘127 Hours’ and ‘Winter’s Bone’ from the US, ‘The Untitled Khartik Krishnan Project’ from India, and ‘Innocent Saturday’ from the Ukraine. Besides ‘Innocent Saturday’, which had terrible camera work, I have enjoyed them all. Only a few people know how much I enjoy writing and though I should definitely stick to medicine for my day job, I am going to indulge myself this week and be a movie critic. I warn you all the products of these blogs may be rubbish, but I guess when in Rome… First up, ‘Never Let Me Go’.

If you want to check out the festival or some of the movies I will talk about go to www.tiff.ro/en.    

Romania Yay or Nay

After a few weeks in my new country, I have decided it is time to make a list of the things I love about Romania and the things I don’t so much love. I would enjoy comments from people about if you agree/disagree or if you have additional yays/nays.

Yay

·         Fresh food. You wouldn’t believe the favor of the fruits and vegetables here. Tomatoes were my favorite food before arriving, but, when I had my first tomato here it was like trying a different food. As a side note the E. coli outbreak in Northern Germany has me a bit worried. Good thing there is an epidemiologist at the center who receives up-to-date information about the situation.

·         Fresh chocolate croissants on my walk to work. If there is one way to get me to work on time every day, it is the lure of a delicious chocolate filled pasty that costs 2.2 lei (conversion 75¢)

·          Outdoor seating. Now as many of you are well aware (due to spending time with me there or hearing me talk it) the ped-mall seating of Saloon is my favorite location in Iowa City. Cluj takes this concept and runs with it. I have, without a doubt, eaten more meals outside than in. The set-ups, at the restaurants varies, some with seating out in front to people watch, some with a quiet courtyard behind, some with couches to sit on. All of them share the essential feature of adorable stray cats and dogs wandering in from time to time (Dylan and Pebbles don’t be too jealous).  

·         Free wireless everywhere, do I need to say more?

·         Dogs allowed everywhere. The other day I was blogging at this adorable coffee shop, Flowers, and I look over to the other side of the café and there is a table with two chairs. In one chair a man, in the other, a dog.

·         Not knowing the language. It is nice to be able to be in my own world and read a book at a café without getting distracted by conversations going on around me.  

 Fresh tomatos and ruccola

 Stopping for hot chocolate at an outdoor restaurant

Using wireless at Flowers. Wish I had a picture of the dog.

Nay

·         PDA (public displays of affection). I ordered the Mediterranean salad with a side of marinara bread not a side of second base at the corner table.

·         Couples sitting on the same side of the table. Now this is a universal pet peeve of mine and many others, but the incident rate seems to be epidemic here, to facilitate nay number one.

·         Hammer pants. Yes, I am referring to the pants made popular by MC Hammer that went out of style about the time I started to wear pants instead of onsies. For a city that’s typically so stylish it’s shocking to see.

·         Smoking. Never truly appreciated the Iowa ban in restaurants and bars.

·         Not knowing the language. You may notice that this is in both sections. It is definitely a double edged sword. I like being able to enter my own world, but on the other hand, it is a bit unnerving to watch a conversation go on and have no idea what is being discussed. On this note, I am very much looking forward to beginning my Romanian tutoring.

Thoughts?