A Wednesday Entry

All good things my friend. Not gonna lie, there is a ton of stress to be had but I think that for now, I am balancing things well. My goal is to keep my head above water and keep on appreciating my time here instead of worrying the whole time. I have found that the worries that I have are often futile because they end up being completely unnecessary. For example, I had an essay due for Medical Anthropology today which I worked on in Starbucks all day on Monday. I still hadn't gotten two of the body paragraphs written so when I got home on Tuesday night at 10 pm, I told myself that I would eat dinner and then take a quick nap before I got to work on the essay. Ummm I woke up at 6 am...by the grace of God...and snapped awake with the sneaky suspicion that something had gone wrong. It ended up being fine because I worked through the wee hours of the morning and then had 2 hours to read through it with Maggie. She offered me a ton of constructive criticisms and I think by the end of it, my essay was more than acceptable for a gringo taking a very challenging class. The thing is that I feel I have done enough work for the class in terms of reading and attending class that I think I have enough to say to write a 3 page essay. The fact that it is in Spanish is just an added challenge but I have always had ease of expression through the written word. Thus I am very proud of myself in terms of my capacity to write essays in Spanish that sound scholarly.

Here's an excerpt from my paper for all of my Spanish-speaking friends: [Dana, if you are reading this right now, you better tell me what you think because I know you will understand muy bien :)]

Cualquiera persona en el mundo podría ser afectada por el proceso de salud-enfermedad-atención. No obstante, la gente sana suele tener el hábito de no pensar en la posibilidad de que podría volverse discapacitado en un instante. Sin la preocupación, esta gente continua siendo indiferente al sufrimiento ajeno y mirando los discapacitados como ‘inválidos’. En su libro Discapacitados, Marta Allué desafía esta percepción hacia los enfermos al decir que la sanidad es sólo temporal y la gente sana será así hasta que contraiga alguna discapacidad (Allué 2003). Entonces, como todo el mundo necesitará pedir tratamiento médico eventualmente, las sociedades desarrolladas han establecido sus propios “sistemas” médicos usando perspectivas diversas hacia la salud para que la gente pueda recibir el tratamiento apropiado.

Los dos sistemas más reconocidos pero supuestamente más diversos son la biomedicina y la medicina tradicional. Sin embargo, yo creo que a pesar de las diferencias, las contribuciones de ambos “sistemas” han hecho progresar el estudio de la medicina. Como actualmente la población utiliza muchas formas de atención no solo por problemas diferentes sino también por uno solo, es importante analizar qué valores y visión existen en estos sistemas en relación al “conditions of patients, relations with patients and colleagues, the physician him- or herself [and] the medical action” (Hahn 1995:138). La biomedicina y la medicina popular incorporan métodos y enfoques marcados, pero por este ensayo, voy a argüir que hay aspectos fundamentales que ambos campos tienen en común, los cuales muestran la universalidad de la atención médica. Así por reconocer las metodologías específicas aunque distintas de la biomedicina y la medicina popular, es posible distinguir la mezcla entre las ciencias y los aspectos socio-culturales que existe en ambos “sistemas” para exitosamente alcanzar el mismo propósito para el paciente.

In reference to my progression with my grasp of Spanish, you should all know that I have good days and bad days just like everyone. Some days I really surprise myself with how much I have grasped with this language but some days and usually when I am intimidated or scared, my Spanish is severely refrained. But one thing that has really stuck with me is what Sally told me about how singers tend to have a better capacity for language learning because we have the ear for it. This has really given me confidence because it is, in part, quite true. I am listening to people speak to me in Spanish and after only 2 months, I can catch what they are saying...most of the time. When you are in the moment, it is easy to catch what they are saying but when you distract yourself by thinking: OMG I am interpreting another language right now! WHOA!...that is when you freak yourself out. But ya...I am lucky to have such a capacity for learning Spanish and of course I still need to study a ton of words that I have written down over the past months. It is so important to know the vocabulary when learning another language. But that is something that I will work on incorporating in my busy life here.