Alayna's blog

Every once in a while I am overwhelmed by the sense of enormity looming in the future. I want to be a surgeon, and current plans are to take the MCAT next spring, apply summer, get accepted fall/spring 2007/2008, and matriculate fall 2008. And yet while this has been my plan for at least 10 years, it is scary now that it's less than 2 years away.

I've started studying for MCATs. I've been researching schools for not only academics but the area so that hopefully my boyfriend and I can end up close to each other. And it's all so crazy.

It's funny to me that next to the news of which celebrities are boning who, the next biggest news item is who is adopting. It's a big deal when celebrities adopt. And they usually adopt cute little babies who would not have a chance at a good life, and now will grow up in a loving family.

So what? There are so many older (4-10 year old) children in orphanages and foster homes around the world that need help. Why do we care that celebrities are adopting babies? Lots of couples want to adopt babies. But the other children need help too.

This summer two pieces of legislation passed this summer by the Chicago City Council received a lot of news. One outlawed all indoor smoking and smoking within 15 feet of a buildgin entrance. The other outlawed foie gras in the city.

Both of these legislations have reasons, so I'm not saying anything about whether or not these should be laws. I live on the south side of Chicago, however, and I get to see daily the neglect of this neighborhood. Directly across the street from campus are the Dearborn Street Projects, one of the two remaining left in Chicago. This summer the afterschool program that helped 4-6 graders with hw had its funding cut. Now there are no programs left at this school to help these children.

I'm team leader on a project (IPRO) here at school. I've never been involved in one of these before, but for one of the responsibilities I have here on campus, I had to be a leader in the IPRO. So this ended up with me being the total team leader.

It's been super hard trying to grasp the scope of this project as well as do the work expected of me as a team member and to lead the group. I am learning a lot. But I think there should be other ways to learn this. I know that the team itself is suffering too because I don't know how to lead it.

One of the scariest things now about "growing up" is trying to find someone to spend the rest of your life with. When I was little I was excited about the prospect. Now I am terrified.

I've been dating this guy for a little over 2 months now. But we've known each other for over a year, and we dated before I went away for the summer. And we're fairly serious.

I'm in a sorority, and I live in the house, and our cook has been having his friends come in and talk to us over lunches. Usually nothing big, but this week I was impressed.

The woman who came in this week has been spending the last few years living in Iraq as much as possible. She is a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams. www.cpt.org. I don't know what your thoughts on religion are, especially religion mixed with politics, but I think just about anyone will respect these people.

Latin America and the Caribbean has a population of approximately 550 million people. So, almost twice the size of the United States. However, most of these countries are third world countries with health care standards miles below ours.

In the US there are roughly 5000 certified Orthotic and Prosthetic (O&P) Practitioners. O&P is one of the so-called Allied Health disciplines, that does not involved medical school but is still necessary for care of patients. In Latin America there are roughly 150 certified practitioners. The number of people with unmet needs in these countries is huge; estimates say that roughly 2 million people are living in pain because they don't have access to O&P care.