yes, ethiopians do eat food

that's the answer i find myself giving whenever i ask someone if they've tried ethiopian food. i had it for the first time when i was in tanzania during college and was hooked. fortunately there were two ethiopian restaurants in boston, one within walking distance of campus, so i could get my fix. honolulu, though packed with great restaurants from all sorts of pacific rim countries, lacked anything from africa (at least that i ever discovered), so i had been missing it for the past few years...since january of this year though, i've had ethiopian food at least three times. it turns out that in austin, yes austin, there is an ethiopian restaurant named aster's at the corner of i-35 and dean keeton (on the edge of the ut campus). i had never introduced someone to ethiopian food before this evening--most of the people i have had it with had previously tried it. but tonight i brought someone new. he liked what he saw on the menu, which is always a good start. after ordering, i dropped the bomb about there not being silverware and how you use ingeri (spongy bread) to scoop up the food to eat. this caused some momentary concern from my dining companion, but when the food arrived, he quickly took to this new form of eating. success!

earlier today we brought the texas 4000 riders to md anderson to meet some of the physicians and patients and tour the facility. we spent our time in the pediatric ward and two of the oncologists came to talk to us about their research. one in particular mentioned two things of particular interest to me (though in general i thought all of the projects she talked about were pretty neat). the first was that melanoma is one of the more frequently seen cancers in young people (~ages 20-35). when i asked her why she thought this was she said that people suspected it was because of the more immodest dress we have today compared to the days of yore. i need to be better about wearing a hat when i'm in the sun for long periods of time. the second issue this doctor mentioned was the use of the tumor registry in some of the research she was doing. let's suffice it to say i have reservations about how tumor registries are used. i first heard about them when i was going through irb training, which is a training that anyone who does research with human subjects has to go through no matter the institution they are apart of or the type of research they do. i was (am?) very conflicted about the procedure for contacting vs. not contacting patients to ask for permission to use their tissue samples and what i feel is a lack of transparency between practitioners of medicine and/or research and patients. i have a deep seated distrust of most of the medical profession and i'm not exactly sure why or from where it originates. anyhow, when the physician who is part of our team asked me after the talk what i thought, i told him. so he decides to play devil's advocate. although i have heard this position a number of times, and i see the logic in it, it still gets me all fired up, which generally results in me crying because i have no idea how to deal with feeling that strongly about what i perceive is an issue of patient rights. while in general those of the medical profession and researchers also see it as an issue of patient rights, they're also quick to say screw patient rights in the name of finding a cure. i am sympathetic to the need to find a cure and to what needs to be done in research to get anything to the point that it can be tested on people...it is a long and challenging process. the patient rights bit just makes me really uneasy. i sort of wish i could understand why it makes me uneasy, but maybe i shouldn't be. the researchers already have to go through all sorts of red tape to be able to do anything. i don't even draw blood or give people drugs for my research and i still had to submit a 20 or 30 page proposal outlining every detail of what i would be doing to people, any potential harm it could cause them, what precautions were in place to deal with a problem should it occur, etc, for my research. i analyze how people walk in virtual reality systems. if i have to go through all of this just to be able to film people walking, i can only imagine what researchers trying to get clinical trials of things have to do. anyhow, after walking away from that conversation i was having with the team doc and doing my best to get my eyes to not be red from crying, he and i reconvened to continue discussing. i think i need to work on not letting myself get that emotionally charged about research, but he seemed to think it was good that i was that passionate about it.

and finally in sports news, i'm about a week into my taper for boston. i'm feeling out of shape and am antsy to run or bike (or swim for that matter though i haven't been at the pool regularly in awhile), which is good because it means the taper is working. i leave for boston on friday morning and am looking forward to it. i heard a rumor that boston recently had a nice day of weather. just one day is enough this time of year to put most people in that city in a good mood. a bunch of friends from college are going to be in town next week and several more from austin will be there as well. i'm excited to share some old haunts with the austinites and catch up with all the former (and current) bostonites.