Get ready 'cause here I come.

Hey all. My guess is that very few people will be reading this first post, but this is where I'm planning on keeping everyone up-to-date about what's going on while I'm in South Africa. For those of you who might not know (or maybe you've *gasp* never even met me), I have been invited to be a part of a research team at an HIV/TB clinic at the McCord Hospital in Durban, South Africa right on the Indian Ocean. My departure is about eight weeks away, and I'm still figuring out all of the things I have to get in order. Dr. Bruce Walker, the director of the Partners AIDS Research Centera and a Harvard Medical School faculty member, has graciously offered me a grant to pay for my travel, and I placed the request for my departing flight this afternoon.

With the pressure of this first post out of the way, I hope I can begin to share some of the things I'm thinking about before I leave. The tenor of this blog will change dramatically, I think, once I get to Durban; I imagine that there will be many stories about my new life to share. But, until then, you'll have to put up with a much more theoretical treatment of things.

I hope you find something interesting to read/watch/listen to here - I'll do my best to keep it entertaining. It feels like I am on the doorstep of quite an adventure.

b