I hope it isn't too conceited of me to post this but I am really excited about it! I am now an officially published author in the great wide world of academia nuts! Last summer Jon and I went to Jordan to do a study on breastfeeding among Iraqi refugees. The survey didn't quite turn out how I had hoped because we left THE most important question open-ended and didn't realize that the word for haleeb can mean breast milk or cow's milk. But despite that one mistake we got a lot of good information and this is the paper we were able to get published off the data! The journal is called the International Electronic Journal of Health Education, the article will only be published online.

Here is the link:

http://www.aahperd.org/iejhe/template.cfm?template=2007.cfm

It is near the bottom of the page and is entitled Breastfeeding Education, Support and Barriers among Iraqi Refugee Women, I am the second author.

Ahhh, the beautiful site of fluidized anionic resin. This is what I do at work most of the time--test anionic resin beads to measure how many ionic elements they remove from industrial watewater. Yep, all in a days work for a Classical Studies graduate. My vocabulary lists have simply morphed from Latin into Chemistry. My favorite new particle of knowledge is the "Freundlich Isotherm." Huh? Yep, this job is great because it's teaching me so much, letting me build things, do math...and dishes. I've broken a half dozen glass vessels and one of the square plexiglass jars pictured above.

Meauring devices--I particularly like the little syringe because of the filter screens that I figured out how to fasten to the tips to prevent the resin from getting sucked up with the sample water.

Taking samples.

Oops, top secret.

One of my favorites so far: testing ceramic filters from Brazil. These remind me of the filters that people in Venezuela used to clean their water. Figuring out how to run the tests and devising a pressurized testing chamber were particularly fun.

After we found out we were having a baby boy, my sisters, Mom and I (and Jon) went shopping for baby clothes because I don't have any baby things except for two diapers and changing table. These are the clothes that we picked out. I really love this one, because it reminds me of how Randall use to try to feed Jon sand when they were little! Besides if he's like his daddy, he'll probably eat anything:)