Winter reading, health style

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season -- and staying warm!

Just a quick tip for those of you who have a few weeks of nothing before heading back to school (and nothing to read beside last semester's text books):

'Health Books You'll Actually Want to Read' from the Wall Street Journal --

Good picks, from what I've heard! I'm thinking of going for the first and third on the list with my B&N gift card. Has anyone read and enjoyed/not enjoyed any of these?

Semester review and Health Nuts hiatus (sort of)

I have no idea how it happened, but the semester is just about over! I'm done with classes on Wednesday, then after a two-day study period, get cracking on those finals. And lucky me -- I only have two exams! Not so lucky that they're in biostatistics and epidemiology, but hey, they'll be over soon.

My first semester of grad school was awesome. Really. Sure, there were some bumps in the road, which is to be expected, but I really love both my public health (MPH) and journalism (MA) programs.

I heard time and time again that the first semester is supposed to be the hardest because of whole adjustment thing and the classes themselves (*cough* epi). But really, it wasn't bad. I assumed I would hate biostats -- and I love it. I was skeptical about epi -- and I think it's pretty interesting. I figured community health theory would be good -- and it was OK. And health journalism was pretty much what I expected -- good.

The workload was totally manageable, lighter than I expected, even, if you ignore the few weeks right after midterms when all hell broke loose. (This led me to take a couple more credits next semester, which I hope I don't regret.) And, most importantly, the stuff is interesting. Yes, I admit to glazing over/dozing off/zoning out during some lectures and readings, but overall, I feel I'm getting a good, broad public health education with plenty of new things to pique my interest.

It's already opened some doors for me: hooking me up with a cool public health mentor with lots of connections, getting me an internship for the spring with the health team at a huge newspaper, potentially putting me on a really cool (time-limited) project with the state health department and -- I hope -- looking good on my resume as I apply for summer internships (keeping my fingers crossed on one at the state human services department).

And I've made some great friends, done some fun stuff and more or less stopped dreading the fact that I'll be carrying on like this for two more years. Wow. That's a long time.

I hope everyone's semester went as well as mine! I may check in now and then before the spring semester gets into gear, but for the most part will be finishing up finals, relaxing, holiday-ing...and maybe doing a little something to further my career. Maybe.

Keep checking out the health content on Experience.com, poke around ExploreHealthCareers.org and look for ways to get involved in your community on Idealist and VolunteerMatch. And good luck with grad school applications if you're working on them over break!

Anything else going on? Leave it in the comments -- I'll be checking.

Happy holidays!

Thanks, Silfverduk, for the crazy parade photo!

Reindeer Run

Lifetime Fitness Reindeer Run 5K to benefit Toys for Tots -- freezing but fun!

Operation Distraction

I know when finals approach, lots of people get in the zone. They're productive -- and stressed -- because they have to be.

Now I have to say I'm lucking out with my finals load this semester (and am totally thankful), but I've always been one to try to avoid that home-stretch work and studying at all costs. But I have a lot of energy (usually), motivation (sometimes) and will to get things done before the last minute (as often as possible) -- so trying to avoid schoolwork means I have to find something equally (?) as productive to do.

Which means:

• I suddenly like to clean. Toilets? I'll scrub 'em. Dishes? Let's wash 'em! Laundry? Folded and pressed, please. It's a good distraction from work, and if I try hard enough I can just about justify its relation to public health!
• And cooking? Bring it on. In the last week, I've made frozen pumpkin mousse pie, apple pumpkin muffins, blackberry-raspberry-almond muffins, turkey lasagna, honey pecan pork chops (for The Boyfriend) with roasted brussels sprouts and au gratin potatoes and -- for tonight -- this delicious-looking mushroom bake. (Check out the links for recipes! I usually don't follow them even remotely closely, but they're all yummy.) I'm already dreaming up scrumptious things for the two potlucks I have next week.
• I LOVE to plan. What am I going to do this summer? Intern? Work? Laze? Oh, and winter break. I have a month off -- am I going to be bored out of my mind? I better start contacting people and looking for stuff. This is definitely productive and urgent, right?
• The dog gets a LOT of attention. How could this face not be a welcome distraction? And he, of course, needs lots of food, water, walks, playtime and snuggling for his physical and emotional development. Right?
• Running doesn't seem so bad. I've been on a running kick lately and have two more races to go yet this year (well, one is on New Year's Day. Outside. In Minnesota.), so I have to keep myself moving. When it's "feels-like-6" degrees outside, that can be tricky to do, but when it's a chilly jog or an epidemiology lab, it somehow becomes much easier to lace up the sneaks.

So far, my distractions have been working -- and productive! But next semester or the next semester or the next semester I will surely have a rough finals week and will have to buckle down. Sigh. I don't know how well that's going to go.

Do you have any classic distraction moves for finals time? I, for one, am always in the market for new ideas. :)

Get a flu shot, get an A?

Did you get your flu shot? Good. You'll probably ace your finals.

OK, maybe not so fast...but researchers at the University of Minnesota found that students who receive flu shots are less likely to miss class (obviously) but also do better on tests and homework. 

From the article...

Vaccinated students are:

- 46 percent less likely to miss a class.

- 40 percent less likely to botch an assignment.

- 47 percent less likely to have a bad test.

- 47 percent less likely to have to go to the doctor.

What do you think? Do the benefits outweigh the concerns?