Whoa! An AMAZING video. Look at what these crazy shepherds (and their dogs)  are doing!

This is for the players who know where to look for the hottest ladies: in the stacks of the library. And maybe they’re giant rabbits. I just don’t know. Also, if you look to your left, my twitter stream will be filled with original fortune cookie messages that I feel qualified to write. Because I’m Asian. The comic woman is also qualified to write them as well. Feel free to write your own. Leave me comments! Unless they’re hateful. Then don’t.

Photo courtesy of Jen Wong. Vote for her here.

Jimmy is a friend I made through the work that I’ve done in the past year. He’s really an amazing person because he truly cares for many of the refugees who have come over, and not just in this state. He also speaks at least 5 languages. What is incredible to me is that he just recently came over himself but is so willing to help organize others from his country: helping them to get jobs and understand the system, translating documents for them, and taking them to keep their appointments. I think naturally it is easy to focus on yourself and your family, especially when you recently immigrate to a new country. But Jimmy has gone beyond the call of duty and this speaks more of his love for those in his community. And his family is also doing pretty well, so perhaps he is blessed as a result of the love he shows everyone else.

Yep. My wit just gave you a paper cut.

It is well documented that a lower socioeconomic status is correlated with poor health. Poor health is also associated with a lower education. So one of the solutions to combat the growing health disparity between the haves and the have-nots is to is to increase education in these poorer communities.

But let’s say that, hypothetically, the educational playing field is leveled between the rich and the poor. Would higher education necessarily equate to healthier living choices? Even though I am educated on what are the determinants of good health (adequate sleep, proper nutrition, exercise, limit stress) I do not always make the right decisions about my health (I eat unhealthily when I need to grab a quick meal and I stay up late to study). And no matter how many times I tell patients with high cholesterol why it is important for them to work on diet and exercise, many of them do not feel the need to follow through on these suggestions. Granted, because of my education and wealth, I may have more choices than some of my patients, but the outcome is still the same. Education alone cannot account for the health disparities faced by certain populations. I think the problem lies in implementation of health education; rather than assuming that the issue is in a community’s understanding of the severity and consequences of the health risks they face, we need to focus on ways to provide avenues to apply this education. In other words, the education has to be realistic to their residential environments and lifestyles.

There is an article by Brown et al. “The Neighborhood Food Resource Environment and the Health Residents with Chronic Conditions” which concludes that access to chain grocery stores are limited in poorer neighborhoods and therefore these populations are also limited in their access to fresh and healthier food options. The study’s goals were to discover the relationship between availability of food to BMI and health status of adults with and without chronic conditions. An interesting (and surprising) conclusion that comes out of this study is that the percentage of adults who did not have a chronic condition, shopped at a large chain market, and reported excellent health status was similar to the percentage of adults reporting excellent health status and who shopped at an independent (convenience) store. While other confounders exist, perhaps one of the reaons is that access to better choices do not necessary equate to superior decisions.

…A cute little story about a boy who is really a big jerk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZCP6OqRlE

Neat video of the story read by Shel Silverstein himself!

There are a few events in life that draw you away from your regular routine and make you realize that you are part of something larger than yourself. Last year, as a first year medical student, I struggled with the simple, yet terribly intricate question of “what role does my faith play in my life?” I started to ask this question to many people: my friends, my peers, and people of all ages from high school to retirement; their responses were strikingly similar in that many had no answer. They too struggled with how to live life as a Christian. What does it really mean to be a Christian, how do I find God’s will in my life, questions that seemed to be incarnations of my original inquiry. And so I searched for an answer, often returning to passages in the Bible about God’s love for the poor, both a motif throughout the Old and New Testaments. But I finally stumbled over a verse in Matthew 28:17, right before the Great Commission, which said: “When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted.” And it hit me, that my doubts about my faith, that my friends’ doubts, were similar to the doubts these worshipers had. And Jesus gave them a direct answer: To go and take action, to make disciples of all nations. Interestingly enough, He did not tell them to attend more sermons or hold more meetings, but rather to act in faith to answer doubts.

So over the summer, I started New Day Ministry with several other people at the Raleigh Chinese Christian Church, a ministry designed to create a habit of serving among Christians. In cooperation with the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, we trained volunteers attend to the physical, social, and spiritual needs of Burmese refugees who have recently resettled in the area. Amazingly and to God’s credit, we started the ministry in June and by September, had over 70 volunteers enrolled and helping 9 families resettle. Our volunteers organized a clothing drive, a Christmas party and provided care of all forms. I am proud of our volunteers, not only with their large hearts, but also with their perseverance and how they are advocates for their families. And I’ve learned that we are not coming from a position of giving to the have-nots, but we should approach our service as an opportunity for fellowship as equals.

Excitingly, the ministry is still growing and expanding, reaching out to an entire apartment complex in Chapel Hill where a great number of refugees live. We’ve started an extension of New Day called Koinonia Ministries, specifically to serve the residents of Kingswood Apartments. Several new branches are starting, such as a tutoring branch and health care branch. Since January, we’ve already had over 60 new people volunteer and hopefully we’ll get more to help. My vision is to bring about a sustainable ministry that can unite the local churches in service, that can bring congregations in fellowship with communities with whom they do not normally share communion. And there is plenty to be done.

If you are interested in helping out or curious to learn more, please email koinoniaNC at g m a i l dot c o m!

I used to have another blog. And on it, I created comics.

Yep, that’s what I used to do.

I was doing a reading the other day for class and I came upon this delightfully horrible article entitled “Down subjects and Oriental population share specific attitudes and characteristics” written by Mafrica and Fodale and published in the journal Medical Hypotheses. The date of publication was in 2006. In it, the authors seek to draw comparisons between Asian (and oftentimes specifically Chinese) culture and mannerisms attributed to Down’s syndrome patients. For a little background, Down’s sydnrome was originally mongolism in reference to people from Mongolia. Here are a few excerpts from their scientific insight:

Down persons during waiting periods, when they get tired of standing upstraight, crouch, squatting down, reminding us of the ‘‘squatting’’ position described by medical semeiotic which helps the venous return. They remain in this position for several minutes and only to rest themselves this position is the same taken by the Vietnamese, the Thai, the Cambodian, the Chinese, while they are waiting at the bus stop, for instance, or while they are chatting.

Unbelievable! Why did they have to involve the renowned Asian squat??

Another gem:

The tendencies of Down subjects to carry out recreative–reabilitative activities, such as embroidery, wicker-working ceramics, book-binding, etc.,  that is renowned, remind the Chinese hand-crafts, which need a notable ability, such as Chinese vases or the use of chopsticks employed for eating by Asiatic populations.

At the end of the article the “researchers” seem absolutely shocked that a Trisomy 21 would lead to abnormal features but somehow Asians, having a normal double copy, “do not show mental retardation or malformation in various organs and systems.”

The journal’s objective is to specifically publish articles that are not peer-reviewed, as they feel this process hinders the progress of science. Perhaps, but it definitely provides a baseline to weed out fantastical ideas that are not formed on the foundation of good science.

I am currently doing a search to see if they’ve published any articles about understanding the anatomical and genetic differences of bat boy and discovering the ecological tendancies of the species known as Bigfoot.

While much has been said about Christians not understanding those who are not Christian, I have a sneaky suspicion that ignorance is a two-way street. Unfortunately not all us are able to be scholars of humanity; ideally we would all be masters of each differing opinion while being able to hold onto and dearly defend our own. Instead we are all guilty of shortcuts in reasoning, oftentimes reducing the great thought we fail to fully grasp into comical caricatures of itself. And we then stand on such silliness as we would a dock made of solid wood, only to later find ourselves amidst muddy pools that eagerly devour us.

Take for example this recent post on the front page of Digg that received a great deal of attention: “how to spot an athiest at a wedding”.

In case you were wondering, the “atheist” is the person who’s not praying. A large part of the more vocal Digg members (and on a lot of these social content websites) are atheists and the stories they highlight echo these opinions. But was this post simply a cheap laugh or a reflection of herd mentality? Do a majority of the users who voted up this story understand the logical, philosophical, and scientific arguments of why they believe there is no God? Or are they simply responding to the rallying call of “F*** religion!”

In order for real dialogue to occur, the rhetoric of both sides needs to calm down. But then again, when people get on the Internet, they become crazy.