Bahama Momma

Took all these during my first trip to the Bahamas pre-college. 

Summer is right around the corner; I can practically taste it's sweet freedom! And freedom it is as this semester has been the busiest yet. My summer plans are awesome but are definitely very different from what I had imagined. I'd pictured something more along the lines of a traditional 9-5 internship here in Hot-lanta, but life has a way of bringing awesome opportunities. Instead, I have been lucky enough to receive a research grant to go to the Bahamas!

I will be living on the island of Eleuthera for 6 weeks with 2 other grad students while we conduct a hybrid needs assessment/program evaluation for the cancer society on the island. The organization just recently hired an outreach coordinator, who has a big job to do and isn't get paid a whole lot to do it, so our team is going to assess what are the biggest needs of the community in order to help craft a plan for the outreach coordinator to be able to do the best job possible. Again, coming into grad school I had never imagined that I'd get the opportunity to travel abroad. I hadn't even bothered to go to the research abroad information fair they had held in the fall because I didn't think it was something I really wanted to do, but after hearing that they pay you to go and do research that's actually applicable to what I'm learning, my interest was piqued. And the rest is history. So yes, I'm not getting paid to do this, but how often in life do you get to go on an all expense paid trip to the Bahamas for 6 weeks? That's my reasoning, and I'm so pumped I decided to take this opportunity. 

Post-trip I will be back in the ATL, synthesizing our project into something that will hopefully be publishable. I will also be helping this Emory emergency medicine doctor write up the results for this project he's doing in Ghana, assessing barriers to accessing EMS services (I'll actually be pilot testing this survey in Atlanta in the next couple weeks so be ready to volunteer to sit down with me). I will also hopefully be getting to continue to work at my CDC communications job; I sat my supervisor down and basically told him how much I loved working there and that I'd love to continue, even if it's unpaid (lets face it, I'd do anything for free at the CDC). My library job that I'll also be continuing to do over the summer provides me with some monetary cushioning. Yes, I have my fingers in a lot of different pies, but it's prime-time here for working my ass off to make connections and expose myself to as many opportunities as possible.

Let's go summer!!! 

My first and only encounter with a shark was in the Bahamas while we were kayaking.

I wouldn't mind seeing one again, as along as my leg wasn't in its mouth!