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I got lots of good presents from the bear including this huge handcrafted card :0)

http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/jobs/listings/1447

Position Description:
The Huro Program is a conservation program towards Hoolock Gibbon and other primates in northeast India, by the association SVAA (created in 2006), www.association-svaa.com.

The Program being at its beginning, it meets serious difficulties regarding veterinary subject. The local doctors are incompetent or even dangerous (you could understand it in living there), they possess any sense of suffering, life or death, that cannot be acceptable even if we understand their way of thinking and that this last protect them from a difficult daily life that can be unbearable psychologically (omnipresence of death at each moment, death of child, accidents, suffering…).

In order to situate the situation, the centre of the Program is located in Meghalaya, remote state of northeast India where the first medical structure is not less than 5 hours far by road. The only animal clinic of the biggest city (Tura), killed almost all the animals brought to them because of a wrong diagnose or excessive dose. Second thing, the Indian medicines are either under dosage, either placebo, either worst full of dangerous liquids. India provides many of the generic medicines import in Europe, you will say, but these ones are submit under rigid a control, that is not the case of the ones you find in India. Concerning this problem we will now command all the medicines from Europe or America.

The problem is actually that the Huro Program has any veterinary doctor on place and, even if the equip has certain basis, it cannot replace a doctor. Thus, this is a distress call that we send to you.

The volunteer doctor will be welcomed in a garo (local tribe) family who will assure for him or her accommodation and food, and they speak english (moreover, they are used to « the small habits” of the westerners). The only charge that the Program cannot take is the flight tickets, however, the association Yaboumba (which one the SVAA works in partnership) can eventually take it in charge if the volunteer is really motivated and for a stage of minimum 6 months on place. The volunteer will have to be in good health, vaccinated (rage, tetanos, thyphoid fever…). A young doctor is welcome but if he/she has an experience with primates it would be better (even in zoo), finally, we need someone that keep calm in every situation and has some imagination because all of the equipment is not there. To put it in a nutshell someone motivated.

So much time has passed and lots to report but as usual not sure where to begin. I'm going a little crazy this week because a collaborator on this project I've been working on is presenting a poster at a conference in Cali beginning of Feb, I think I've mentioned the conference I don't get to go to because my PI says we have no money, but anyway I'm doing all the work and sending it to collaborator so he can put together a poster. On Monday he told me he wanted everything by Tuesday which is not much notice and that was Jan 20th so really we had a couple weeks but he wanted at least a week to get the thing printed and some time to pass it back and forth between us for corrections, etc. So Monday was a holiday for me but when I got the email I showered up and went right in to work. The bear had to work anyway so I did some work until about 5pm and then went to the gym to run 8 miles on the treadmill. I would have done it on Sunday but the race we were supposed to do and risked our lives to drive to an hour south of Boston ended up being cancelled. It sucked! The bear even met us there w/ Cleo, though I told him not to come because the weather was so bad. Anyway since the race didn't work out and I didn't get the long run in then I did it on Monday. It was faster than I would have done it outside w/ all the snow and stuff. I tried to simulate a race but it wasn't so easy. I had a view of the pool and watched the same two divers dive over and over and over while their coach tried to give them pointers. It was only slightly entertaining. It didn't help that around mile 3 I puked in my mouth. I guess the pb m&ms I ate earlier were trying to escape. I had to keep stopping to go to the fountain and drink water but the puke and acid taste wouldn't go away but I also didn't want to stop the run once I got started. So I finished it up and thought I'd go to rr and jenn's for the SU Pitt game but they were in a fight so I went home and watched it on espn360. SU got killed so it sucked but at least i got to watch it. I basically missed the first half and it was still a close game at that point but things soon got ugly. I haven't written at all about SU this season. The Big East is stacked which is scary if you follow a team in the Big East since every other night it seems they're playing an awesome team. Some you win, some you don't but for the most part SU is great this year and hanging on in the top 10. We'll see how things shape up since conference play recently started. So after the game the bear came home and by bed was complaining of feeling yucky. the good doc that i am took his temp. (not even in the butt, though i wanted to) and he had normal temp. it was like 98. but all night long he felt sick and wasn't sleeping well which kept me up and by 5am he was violently puking in the toilet. it was awful! i felt really bad for him. he'd go back to bed and then have to puke again. by 8am he had a fever of 101 and i said he couldn't go to work after he said he could go. he stayed home sick and i went in to work to do a million things for this project thinking i would start puking soon enough. luckily it never happened. maybe it was the flu and my flu shot saved me. not sure. so all yesterday and all today i've been doing lovely qPCR and passing on results by email. it feels good to get rid of them. i'm a little scared to see what he came up w/ for a poster but i guess i'll know soon enough. my last assay is running now so we'll see. talk later

just so I can have it wear this. All babies should have one!

Server issues for a bit so no blog was up for a while but now it's all fixed. So much to cover, as usual, not sure where to start. Last post was December 3, 2008. I'll just jot down some keywords for what you've missed: holidays parties, running, work, birthdays, site visits, plays, races, meetings, SU basketball, drinking, food, home for the holidays, job interviews, drama, Maine, drugs, snowboarding, cross-country skiing and some other stuff. Gotta go for now...

after being away 3 weeks. I had a good run w/ the blog posting every day and then I left my mom's to come back to Boston and forgot about it again. I didn't accomplish all i wanted to while here in Boston on vacation w/ nothing to do but do stuff, though I did get a little done. can't cry about it now. it's a good day to start back, a monday, first of december, with only a year left in my current position as postdoc. all i see ahead are lots of changes, i hope for the better and i'm kinda excited to see what happens and where i'll find myself when it's all over! i'll keep you updated ;0)

as for now, headed out of work for the day to make the short trek over to Google Cambridge to hang w/ my Google friend Andy that left us in Boston to work in Cali but is back for the week and offering a salsa class tonight for his fellow Googlers and other friends so even though i went to bed at 4:30 this morning and i'm kinda tired, i'll do my best to shake my hips to the beat.

shout outs to my #20 undefeated orangemen and robreed, his b'day is tomorrow so pre-happy birthday old man!

Could not sleep last night! I was worried about beaky and the bear because they were driving back from maine and i worry about driving home late and falling asleep and the bear had a dead cell phone so couldn't call me so i was waiting to find him online when he got home but that didn't happen until we weirdly ran into each other online at like 2:40 because i was checking for him and he couldn't sleep so was online. felt better after confirmation they were alive and home safe but i still couldn't fall asleep. i finally fell asleep at 5 but thought i would be woken soon because my brother and fam were supposed to get up around then to drive back to michigan. next thing i know it's 10am and i didn't hear a thing when they left. my mom said ella wanted to come in and give me a kiss goodbye but my mom didn't let her. she really should have, that makes me sad!

so got up at 10, didn't feel that tired, had some breakfast, cereal and a piece of cornbread and diet coke. watched a couple episodes of The Life of Mammals, really amazing footage, you should all see the 10 episode series, you can watch it from Netflix. Makes me cry sometimes.

then took mom's dog cassie running. not the best idea. first of all i forgot that my mom runs her w/ a prong collar so she doesn't pull. so lucky me, she pulled me for 4 miles up and down the hills. plus she tried to get into it w/ a dog 4 times her size that decided to leave it's property and come up to us on the road. cassie wouldn't stop bearing her teeth and growling and i was trying to pull her down the road to get away and the dog kept following us. i was so exhausted at this point, it was 3 miles into the run and after yesterday's 6 miles my legs were barely moving anymore. we eventually got away unharmed and made our way slowly home. showered up and read a little and soon my mom was home.

called my dad to see if he wanted to get together tonight or tomorrow night but no call back. could he be ignoring me? last i talked to him was on my way home from indianapolis to say i'd be home at my mom's and that we'd bring the kids to meet up w/ him. apparently that same day he got snippy w/ my brother about bringing the kids to see him so my brother ended up going to see him first thing thurs. when they got into town, though it was a short trip. my brother said he'd plan to get the kids to see him again over the weekend. i didn't hear from my dad again but my brother tried his cell on sunday to see if he wanted to hang out but didn't get a hold of him and i don't think dad ever called back. today i called his cell and home phone and left a message but no call back. hello! earth to dad, what's up? i'm leaving here wed. morning so if you want to see me it has to be tomorrow. i probably won't be coming back for thanksgiving either.

i decided to go back to boston on wed. because my mom is going to a conference in saratoga springs and she can drop me at the bus station that morning. i have so much to do back in boston that i never get done so this vacation would be the perfect opportunity. i never just take vacation and stay around so i might as well use it for something. there's not much to do here at my mom's. it's in the boonies, i don't have a car to use during the day so i'm just left to run and use my laptop. guess that's good for catching up on my blog.

Yesterday I spent lots of time updating my sidebars just to somehow delete the whole file and then have no sidebars! rr was able to restore the file but then I lost all my changes. I'll have to work on it again. For now I'm going to play w/ Ella and JJ.

First woke up at 4am to go pee. Then woke up at 8am and stayed up for a little while. Then fell back to sleep until 12:30. Got up and didn't do much. Had some sugar free pudding for breakfast. Messed on my laptop, looked for something good on TV but only found Kitchen Nightmares and People's Court. Eventually took a shower and waited for my mom to get home from work and my brother and family to get here from Michigan. First they stopped at my dad's house so they made it here around 6:30 for dinner. Mom made meatloaf, baked potatoes, squash, green beans, biscuits and it was real good. Played around w/ the kids. After dinner Ella came in my room and we watched Scooby Doo on Zombie Island until her dad came and made her go to bed. There's 15 min. left we'll have to watch tomorrow plus I have another Scooby Doo movie for tomorrow too.

Gotta go to bed. Arrived about 45 minutes ago back in Eaton, NY at my Mom's house. Drove from Indianapolis today. Started the drive at 10:30am so took about 12 hrs. in total, including stopping time, though we only stopped 2 times and I tried to drive 80 mph most of the time. My talk was this morning at the conference. Went well but even though I wasn't that nervous it kept me from sleeping last night so that didn't help w/ the drive today. So right now I'm soooo tired and my eyes hurt. I'm officially on vacation now though until Dec 1st so I'll have some time to update my blog.

See ya!