Back to Square One
About a week ago, I took a full regimen of Cipro (2x a day, for 3 days) to get over some traveler's diarrhea that I got a few days after arriving. No big deal, expected when you switch to a new diet and a different environment, kinda like new teachers entering a room full of young students who are constantly sick- you expect to come down with something.
After the Cipro, everything was back to normal, and I was pretty pleased- in China, I didn't even need any meds, it was fine after like a day, and in South America, there wasn't any trouble at all (but then again, we did pretty much eat like kings, or at least feudal lords).
But as of last night, I'm back to square one, another regimen of Cipro. I thought that I had a craving for cheese or good dairy yesterday, so I ordered lasagne from the Blue Mango, expecting that this "western" dish would be perfectly fine. Boy was I wrong- it was too oily, and that just doomed me somehow.
I'm doing much better now, but I think I understand why Grant and Edwin lose 10-15 pounds every time they come to Africa- and at the rate I'm going, it'll be more like 20-25 pounds. But since I don't have that much fat to lose, I'll probably just lose a lot of my wushu muscles, especially in my legs (not kicking and jumping and running and holding stances nearly as much as I used to).
Work is picking up now, Grant and I did a good bit of analysis of data today, and coding automated scripts in Stata to do a lot of it for us- which will be really convenient in the long run, since there's going to be tons of new data, but all falling under the same names and headings, so if we program a script now, we won't have to retype the same commands in later. We'll see how long this keeps me busy- I'll have to code some analysis scripts too, but I don't think it'll take me the rest of my time here in Uganda. The other projects I have are to turn a room into a new office for me and a few others, which is sounding pretty easy since another department is going to pay for a lot of the work to be done by outside groups. My other project is to experiment with digital camera photos of the data sheets that we want to record, to see if we can get good images that we can print out well enough to read. It's going to involve hooking up printers to photocopy machines to print long sheets of paper, but hopefully it works well.
Last night, Derek's laptop seemed to have a fatal hard drive crash, wouldn't boot, and needless to say, he was very upset. It turns out that Edwin was able to help him fix it today- apparently when you put your laptop on standby, and your battery drains, there's a decent chance that your comp can get all its files corrupted! So don't put your comp on standby, especially if it's on battery power and you're leaving town for 4 days...
World Cup soccer matches again tonight, Grant's a big fan, and we'll probably all head over. I need to put calories in my body- for the most part, I'm just drinking fruit juices, which are rather good (Del Monte and Ceres, this fancy brand that you can get in the States for expensive, but since the mystical Ceres valley is in South Africa, it's cheaper here). I think I will try a bacon sandwich tonight, something tame.
After the Cipro, everything was back to normal, and I was pretty pleased- in China, I didn't even need any meds, it was fine after like a day, and in South America, there wasn't any trouble at all (but then again, we did pretty much eat like kings, or at least feudal lords).
But as of last night, I'm back to square one, another regimen of Cipro. I thought that I had a craving for cheese or good dairy yesterday, so I ordered lasagne from the Blue Mango, expecting that this "western" dish would be perfectly fine. Boy was I wrong- it was too oily, and that just doomed me somehow.
I'm doing much better now, but I think I understand why Grant and Edwin lose 10-15 pounds every time they come to Africa- and at the rate I'm going, it'll be more like 20-25 pounds. But since I don't have that much fat to lose, I'll probably just lose a lot of my wushu muscles, especially in my legs (not kicking and jumping and running and holding stances nearly as much as I used to).
Work is picking up now, Grant and I did a good bit of analysis of data today, and coding automated scripts in Stata to do a lot of it for us- which will be really convenient in the long run, since there's going to be tons of new data, but all falling under the same names and headings, so if we program a script now, we won't have to retype the same commands in later. We'll see how long this keeps me busy- I'll have to code some analysis scripts too, but I don't think it'll take me the rest of my time here in Uganda. The other projects I have are to turn a room into a new office for me and a few others, which is sounding pretty easy since another department is going to pay for a lot of the work to be done by outside groups. My other project is to experiment with digital camera photos of the data sheets that we want to record, to see if we can get good images that we can print out well enough to read. It's going to involve hooking up printers to photocopy machines to print long sheets of paper, but hopefully it works well.
Last night, Derek's laptop seemed to have a fatal hard drive crash, wouldn't boot, and needless to say, he was very upset. It turns out that Edwin was able to help him fix it today- apparently when you put your laptop on standby, and your battery drains, there's a decent chance that your comp can get all its files corrupted! So don't put your comp on standby, especially if it's on battery power and you're leaving town for 4 days...
World Cup soccer matches again tonight, Grant's a big fan, and we'll probably all head over. I need to put calories in my body- for the most part, I'm just drinking fruit juices, which are rather good (Del Monte and Ceres, this fancy brand that you can get in the States for expensive, but since the mystical Ceres valley is in South Africa, it's cheaper here). I think I will try a bacon sandwich tonight, something tame.
posted by Vince at 8:15 AM
2 Comments:
hi vincent!
it's your cousin vivian. your blog looks great! my mom sent me the link.
hope you feel better soon.
Hey Vivian! How's everything going for you in LA? I'm feeling a lot better now, but now I'm not so confident about trying all the exotic Ugandan foods- but then again, it's all pretty staple-food based, so nothing is really radical. It's just all radical to my stomach.
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