work starts for REAL, more food and culture/history?

today's weather was even more beautiful than the weekend...not a single cloud in the sky. so much so that even table mountain had no "tablecloth" around it :]

anyway, woke up and left for work for the last time in a cab..and thank god for that. unreliable and way too expensive. unfortunately, i started talking to the driver and found out his son had recently been murdered by his girlfriend two nights ago. i couldn't believe this old guy was working this early in the morning driving people around. women are crazy >:-(

i got to work and my supervisor, dr. zaier, was late by an hour but it was all good cuz i just read sports illustrated.

we had a nice chitchat about what exactly i would be doing. the specific research project she wants me to work on right now is seeing if there's a correlation b/w diabetes mellitus and HIV.

the researchers noticed that the CD4 counts of HIV patients appeared to regenerate faster in patients also diagnosed w/ diabetes than those who were normal HIV patients. that's what im looking into. of course it'll take some time cuz clinical research is much more longitudinal, and there are infinite variables which are out of your control, unlike in a lab setting where you can control say the growth media, temperature, time, etc.

but that's only the first phase. the second phase is once a conclusion is reached, determining if it has actual statistical and immunological significance. she mentioned doing ANOVA tests and whatnot, which i don't remember at all from 36-201...but it was easy stuff so im sure i could pick it up quickly.

in the case that diabetic patients do regenerate CD4 cells faster (which is unlikely in my opinion), i don't think those CD4 cells would be competent immunologically. oh gosh i told myself i would never talk about competent cells ever again after bio lab, but i guess i can't escape it...anyway, just because there are increased numbers of CD4 cells doesn't mean they're able to perform their physiological duty. thus, the next step would be to determine the efficacy of these CD4 cells as well as the concentrations of other blood serum immune cells like platelets, CD8 cells and whatnot.
in the event that a link is NOT found b/w diabetes and HIV, then that's that and i can move onto something else.

although i personally don't think there is a relationship, it would still be really exciting to find such a correlation because it means diabetics may hold a key in developing a drug to perhaps boost CD4 production to compensate for HIV infection.

i guess i should've mentioned this earlier, but for those non-science people, HIV infects CD4 cells and in effect destroys them or renders them unable to properly function. once the CD4 count falls below 200, it's considered...for lack of a better word...very very bad. actually, the crisis threshold is 250 in tygerberg hospital just b/c of the situation.
------------------------------------
french fries are called chips here...that was really confusing for awhile. the ketchup is also a little different..it tastes slightly sweeter. i kinda like it. dr. zaier bought me lunch today so i had a south african burger. nothing special, but it tasted fresher and was of course, way cheaper than an american equivalent would be.

i went grocery shopping after work today with my roommate jeff and dropped 280 rand. i was like omg this is so expensive, but i keep forgetting that the exchange rate is ridiculous. it only came out to about $40, but the amount of stuff i got would be like $60-70 in the US. again, i love this place :]
------------------------------------
so dr. zaier took me on a tour after our initial meeting of the hospital and university. the university of stellenbosch's medical school is adjoined to tygerberg hospital.

a little interesting info on tygerberg hospital...it's gigantic. like...huge. i mentioned it looks like it's out of silent hill and it's like a prison. only the section i work in is like that.

everyone knows about apartheid and all that. the hospital was built during the peak of apartheid in the 70's and was pretty much constructed as a mirror image. however, they split the hospital in half--the upper wings were for whites and the lower wings were for blacks and colored people (yes there is a difference which ill get into in a bit). the infectious diseases clinic i'm in is unfortunately located in the then blacks/colored people section.

the white people's wing is obviously much nicer and better equipped. they even have a 3T (tesla) fMRI machine...which i didn't really expect i guess in a south african hospital not located in the city. again, i have to commute 30-60 minutes to work depending on traffic :( so i learned some history about the hospital and then we walked underground into the tunnel that joins the hospital and university of stellenbosch's medical school. i saw the dental school (steph kim!) and noticed that the med school was really clean and very much so more modern and newer looking. which is totally my thing.

there were an assortment of all kinds of students there--i even saw asians for the FIRST TIME SINCE I GOT HERE! anyway, saw asian people, got excited cuz then i knew i wasn't alone, and stared at the south african girls.

this is where dr. zaier probably noticed and told me about the difference b/w black and colored people.

blacks are the native africans who were here. simple as that.
colored people however, are an ethnic mix of the dutch who came through imperialism and the malaysian slaves they used. also, some colored people have a little native african blood in them as well. i had no idea, but the dutch used indonesian/malaysian slaves a lot. their descendants are the colored people, which gives them a much lighter complexion than the very dark blacks.

it shocked me how much the remnants of apartheid are still seen and felt in this country. blacks commonly yell at white people and call them "hey whitey!" and the N word is still tossed around, although not so much within the city. it's also not necessarily a degradatory word, although it depends more on tone of voice and context.
but even as you drive along the road in the countryside, on one side of the road are tin shacks that blacks live in and the other side of the road are normal homes built where whites live. on some roads, there's even a split b/w black people's shacks and colored people's shacks. i know this sounds racist, but that's the politically correct terminology here i guess.

it's strange imagining that less than 20 years ago, this country was incredibly segregated.