If you have taken Bioe 301, you know how much I love science news from NPR. Though I don't usually admit this in class, I also love Comedy Central's news. Because I go to bed early, I have to DVR The Daily Show and The Colbert Report and catch up the next day. Not only do I watch fake news, I watch it a day late.
Imagine my jealousy when I watched Emily Pilloton's appearance on Colbert last week:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/121580/the-colbert-report-emily-pilloton
But I got to thinking... I wrote a book. My students design cool stuff to solve socially important problems. Why shouldn't we be on Colbert? Along with our cool dosing syringe and salad-spinner-turned-centrifuge?
So I'm asking for your help. Let's start the "Get BTB on Colbert" campaign. Maybe you could e-mail the producers. Or edit his Wikipedia page to insert our names somewhere...
Next Week in BIOE 260: Oprah stops by class to announce that she is bringing back her book club and will feature Biomedical Engineering for Global Health as the next selection. We convince her to fund the international dissemination of the BTB curriculum. And I get a makeover. I really believe this could happen.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years
This week is about beginnings. Today in class I will hand out a project binder to each group. One of my favorite things in life is buying new school supplies at the beginning of the semester. I love the sense of organization and possibility that comes from putting together a binder with fresh tabs and ink-rich felt tip pens.
This semester, you will use the binder to capture your group’s ideas, to refine those ideas, and to build and document your final project. We have selected the projects because we truly believe in the potential of each to make a difference in an impoverished setting. As we begin, I ask each of you to think about your project in this context. Rather than thinking about what will get the job done, or what will earn an A for your group, I’d like you to think about what will truly make a difference for the people targeted by your project. And to continually ask whether your intervention is “appropriate” in all the ways that we’ve defined appropriate. Will it make a difference?
I read an amazing book this weekend, which I think is highly relevant to this point. If you haven’t read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, go find a copy. Immediately. It’s that good. I already want to read it again.
This semester, you will use the binder to capture your group’s ideas, to refine those ideas, and to build and document your final project. We have selected the projects because we truly believe in the potential of each to make a difference in an impoverished setting. As we begin, I ask each of you to think about your project in this context. Rather than thinking about what will get the job done, or what will earn an A for your group, I’d like you to think about what will truly make a difference for the people targeted by your project. And to continually ask whether your intervention is “appropriate” in all the ways that we’ve defined appropriate. Will it make a difference?
I read an amazing book this weekend, which I think is highly relevant to this point. If you haven’t read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, go find a copy. Immediately. It’s that good. I already want to read it again.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Trying to find my inner Type B personality
Well, it has happened again. I’ve been sucked into the vortex of control. This time, I’m trying to use my freakishly strong powers of control to make my cell phone ring with a very important call. I’ve been waiting on this call for over a year now. I’ve been waiting since I read a certain person’s horoscope in the in-flight magazine on a Kingfisher Airlines flight from Hydrabad to Delhi, and realized major changes were ahead. Research was done. Conversations were had. Letters were written, and applications were filled out. Months passed. And now, we are at the time when the phone should ring. Any minute now.
Somehow, miraculously, I had access to my inner Type B personality over the holidays. She was calm; she was laid back; she realized that constantly making sure the cell phone was never more than 2 feet out of reach would not make the call come one minute sooner. But she is gone now. And all I can say is, “Ring, phone, ring.”
And now, while we wait for the phone to ring, here are this week’s reading recommendations. Two books I read over the holidays before becoming one with my cell phone:
U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton. If you have not read this series, you are in for a real treat. Grafton’s books feature PI Kinsey Millhone, a take-no-bullshit PI who loves junk food and struggles with personal relationships. She once described a toddler as “finger-painting with the contents of his diaper.” As a mom of four, Kinsey brings a great vicarious escape. U is for Undertow is one of the best in the series.
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver also wrote The Poisonwood Bible, one of my all-time favorites. But The Bean Trees, Kingsolver’s first book, is pure, magical fun. Taylor Greer is desperate to escape rural Kentucky without becoming a teenage mother. She makes her way to Tucson, adopting a baby on the way to building her new life.
Somehow, miraculously, I had access to my inner Type B personality over the holidays. She was calm; she was laid back; she realized that constantly making sure the cell phone was never more than 2 feet out of reach would not make the call come one minute sooner. But she is gone now. And all I can say is, “Ring, phone, ring.”
And now, while we wait for the phone to ring, here are this week’s reading recommendations. Two books I read over the holidays before becoming one with my cell phone:
U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton. If you have not read this series, you are in for a real treat. Grafton’s books feature PI Kinsey Millhone, a take-no-bullshit PI who loves junk food and struggles with personal relationships. She once described a toddler as “finger-painting with the contents of his diaper.” As a mom of four, Kinsey brings a great vicarious escape. U is for Undertow is one of the best in the series.
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver also wrote The Poisonwood Bible, one of my all-time favorites. But The Bean Trees, Kingsolver’s first book, is pure, magical fun. Taylor Greer is desperate to escape rural Kentucky without becoming a teenage mother. She makes her way to Tucson, adopting a baby on the way to building her new life.
Monday, January 4, 2010
They're baaack.....
Welcome to the return of Notes From Home! I began Notes From Home as a weekly blog for my students at the University of Texas back in 1999. Each week, I tried to post some useful and some not-so-useful advice about my course, life at the university, or life in the real world. Sometimes, when it was really late at night and my kids weren't sleeping and my laundry wasn't done, I just posted book recommendations.
When I moved to Rice University in 2005, Notes From Home continued for one semester. And then, like so much else, Notes From Home became a casualty of my (failed) career in academic administration.
Back by popular demand, here is More Notes From Home. A weekly slice of cheesy pie to brighten your Monday.
And now for this week's reading recommendation - I give to you the book I bought almost everyone I know for Christmas: The Midwife by Jennifer Worth. I bought so many copies of it that Amazon banned me from buying more (really - I had to use my husband's account to buy the last copy for my mom). The memoir of a young woman who worked as a midwife in London's east end during the 1950s. The images of healthcare for London's poor during this time reminded me so much of what I have seen in Lesotho and Malawi in the past three years. A funny and moving book about the strength of women.
When I moved to Rice University in 2005, Notes From Home continued for one semester. And then, like so much else, Notes From Home became a casualty of my (failed) career in academic administration.
Back by popular demand, here is More Notes From Home. A weekly slice of cheesy pie to brighten your Monday.
And now for this week's reading recommendation - I give to you the book I bought almost everyone I know for Christmas: The Midwife by Jennifer Worth. I bought so many copies of it that Amazon banned me from buying more (really - I had to use my husband's account to buy the last copy for my mom). The memoir of a young woman who worked as a midwife in London's east end during the 1950s. The images of healthcare for London's poor during this time reminded me so much of what I have seen in Lesotho and Malawi in the past three years. A funny and moving book about the strength of women.
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