out and about

I asked my parents if they would get me some allergy meds because I ran out and they can get them for a really good deal.  I got an awesome package from them that not only contained the allergy pills, but eight large, carefully packed, home-grown Fuyu persimmons and a couple jars of snacks!  THANK YOU!!

VERY welcome care package!

The second Saturday in October I got a chance to go climb outdoors.  I joined David and Lisa (first and second year medical students I met at the climbing wall) to head up to Foster Falls northwest of Chattanooga in southern Tennessee.  We spent all day climbing, I got to do my first lead routes since my one and only in 2005, and we ended the day with a delicious dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger in Chattanooga.

view at the beginning, hiking in

me

david leading, lisa belaying

The following Monday morning, the five of us in the qualitative research group sat on a panel to share some of our clinical experiences with the first year DPT class as well as field questions they had.  The following Saturday was Hispanic Health Fair 2013, an annual event sponsored by the Hispanic Health Coalition of Georgia.  Emory staffed a PT tent with one faculty member and two shifts of 6-8 students working in pairs and threes.  Despite on and off rain, we were able to treat at least 20 patients with varying diagnoses including low back, neck, wrist, shoulder, and knee pain.  I had an amusing experience when I was called over to help a first and second year pair - I spoke my limited Spanish with the patient and got on well as I assessed and treated her neck pain.  We moved from her lying face-down on a treatment table to having her sit in a chair to teach her a couple of exercises.  At that point, she began to describe wrist pain that she was also suffering.  I asked her to please repeat what she had said more slowly because my Spanish really wasn't very good.  Surprised, she replied, "Oh, I can speak English!" and proceeded to speak only English the rest of her treatment time!

Friday I went as usual to volunteer with Stride Ahead.  This time, I volunteered for three hours instead of two because Jodi couldn't make it and our usual time slot was full.  I met a little girl who only needed a leader for her horse, she could keep her balance on her own.  She was very cute and extremely entertaining - the entire session was full of questions like, "So Nancy, what is your favorite kind of dog?" or "So Nancy, where is your favorite Toys R Us?"  When I went back to my car to go home, I saw that I had missed a call from my classmate Rob.  I called him back and he suggested taking advantage of the wonderful weather (Rob is one of the few Georgia locals who agrees with me that cool weather is wonderful) to walk up Stone Mountain.  I went and met him at his place and as we headed out to Stone Mountain, I saw on my Instagram feed that a couple of our other classmates had gone to Stone Mountain earlier that day and had taken a photo at the top where they were both jumping.  Rob (who happens to be 6'-5" and solid muscle - a power lifter) and I agreed that we had to take a similar picture.  It took about 8 tries - our first photographer recruit had problems with my phone not cooperating, and then didn't end up having very good timing in the photo he took with Rob's.  I restarted my phone and we tried one more time with another volunteer photographer, and this guy had perfect timing and framing:

timing, sunset, and the atlanta skyline (look closely!)

That weekend was Fall Break for the first and second year classes - we third years didn't get Fall Break this year.  To celebrate, my friend Bruce (formerly of my class, now in the first year class) threw a "Fall Break Shindig" at his house.  His wife Mary cooked up an amazing Filipino feast, a couple of my classmates and several of Bruce's came to hang out, and we relaxed in the back yard around a fire pit after stuffing ourselves.  That was Saturday - Sunday evening I went over to my friend Marissa's (from Graduate Christian Fellowship (GCF)) for a pumpkin-carving gathering.  I left my carved pumpkin there as no one but me would see it at my house, but I did take home the larger pieces carved out of all the pumpkins - more on that later.

marissa and caleb cleaning out pumpkins

jenn's dog, eric and marissa's bat, and my cat

On Halloween, after working my shift at the climbing wall, I picked up my "little" Moire and Jonathan and we went to Chipotle to meet Caleb and Eric (all GCF friends).  Chipotle had a Halloween deal they called "Boorito" - if you showed up in costume (even Jonathan's hastily thrown on sunglasses counted!) you could get a meal for $3 and the proceeds were all donated to charity.  For Moire and me, Chipotle's burrito bowl is two meals worth of food, so it was an extra good deal.  After dinner, we went back to campus and walked through Lullwater to the Emory President's Mansion.  Apparently it's an annual tradition for students to be invited in for trick-or-treating, to see the ground floor of the mansion, and to meet the president.

me as katniss everdeen, moire as an ecuadoran soccer player, president wagner,
eric as sherlock holmes, caleb as harry potter, and jonathan as... jonathan

The next night was GCF's "First Friday Dinner" - a potluck dinner held the first Friday of every month.  I volunteered to bring vegetables so I steamed a large bunch of broccoli, but also brought pumpkin bread made from the fresh pumpkin pieces from carving on Sunday.  I had enough to make a full loaf, a 4x8 pan, and 24 mini-muffins.  Since the deadline for Emory's DPT applications was November 1, I had been working extra time answering emails and went into the PT office to work on Friday morning, bringing mini-muffins with me - I was able to give away 18 of them to happy recipients.

fresh pumpkin mini-muffins with dark chocolate chunks

The Saturday after Halloween, I got a chance to volunteer at Emory's Pro Bono PT clinic.  Our department offers free physical therapy services the first Saturday of every month at the Good Samaritan Health Center in Atlanta.  Volunteering for this has been popular among the PT students - so much so that it is rare for someone to get scheduled for more than one Saturday.  Six students paired up and worked with three PTs to treat a total of ten patients for an hour each.  I got to use my Spanish skills again for two of our three patients as the second year with whom I worked knew no Spanish, and neither did our professor!

pretty sight on my morning walk to school one day

November 6 was "Networking Night" for the undergrads - Annie and I attended as representatives of the PT program as part of our graduate assistantship for Admissions, and enjoyed chatting with undergrads who were interested in pursuing physical therapy.  Two days later, Ashley (a second year) and I went to see Chris Tomlin for the closing concert of the Burning Lights Tour.

clockwise from top left - ashley and me waiting for it to start,
the lights of 1000 phones, bouncing beach balls, and what the whole concert was about

The next morning I got up slightly early and joined 3 Emory alumni and two other current students, all from GCF, for a hike at Cloudland Canyon in the far northwest corner of Georgia.  We were hoping for spectacular fall colors but as seems to be my luck here, most of the color had faded and fallen by the time we arrived.  Nevertheless, it was beautiful.  We took a 4.8 mile loop mostly along the rim of the canyon before descending to the bottom (according to a website it was over 1200 stairs, but I'm not so sure about that) to check out Cherokee and Hemlock Falls.

looking into the canyon at the start of the hike

marissa and me living life on the edge

sherry, jenn, marissa, katherine, me, and eric at our lunch stop

cherokee falls