Birthday, Boston, and back (& the vision of a Creator)

The site of the Boston Tea Party...on the way to the convention center from the South Station.

The weeks have been flying by, mostly without hitting too many tree-branches in the periphery :) I had the amazing opportunity of presenting at the American Public Health Association annual meeting in Boston in the past week and am mustering up patience and focus to return to a busy fall semester at the dental school. It's just a few short weeks until Thanksgiving break and final exams! Enjoy below snippets that I've captured along the way.

The traditional autumn scene at the pulpit during the Slavik harvest festival at the start of October.

My hard-working colleagues prepare for our first "tEEEth talk" workshop, a partnership with the Richmond City Parent Teacher Associations that we've worked hard to establish this semester. 

We packaged 520 dental goodie bags with brush/paste and a community resources sheet. tEEEth talk aims to educate low health literacy groups about oral health, equip individuals with oral hygiene tools, and engage groups that have trouble accessing oral healthcare with community resources. I have big hopes for the group as our class community service committee establishes what I hope is a sustainable educational outreach opportunity for dental students. 

Jenny and I with Molar Mike before our first elementary school workshop.

It was great to visit some friends for a knitting night on the evening of my 21st birthday!

A prayer bracelet--reminiscing Jamaica (July 2013):

After bouncing around on Jamaican hillsides for several hours with a taxi-driver, not convinced that either of us knew exactly where we were headed, I was very relieved to see the gates of the Robin's nest children's home. Unloading my possessions and dismissing the taxi driver, I began to wonder where I should report to inform the home director of my arrival. After moving my bags inside the main building, I greeted a boy and asked if he knew where Ms. Katie was. Receiving a shoulder-shrug and "no" in response, I asked him about the bracelet he was weaving, telling him that I thought it was pretty. Without hesitation, he said, "You can have it." I tried to resist, insisting it was probably too small for my wrist and that he should gift it to a smaller-wristed friend. Disregarding my suggestions, the boy wrapped his weaving around my wrist and had me help him tie it tightly into place, promptly moving on to his next order of business, not mentioning the action during my stay or when I departed.

After returning to the States form my brief visit in Jamaica, I thought about removing the bracelet. It has been over three months since that day and the weaving still holds strongly onto my wrist. I have considered the gift a commitment and reminder to pray for the thoughtfully generous boy and the Robin's nest children's home as a whole. Once the remaining four threads wear through, the bracelet will remain a keepsake of my visit to the Robin's nest, but I hope to seek out a physical reminder similar to this prayer bracelet to encourage me to lay individuals and ministries into the hands of our Heavenly Father.

What a great professional network!

This year's theme for the meeting/exposition 

Subway musicians are so talented! This man explained that his Chinese violin was made of a steel string, bamboo, horse tail hair, and a snake skin-enclosed body at the bottom. If I end up retiring in a large city, maybe I'll consider becoming a subway musician : ) ...I bet I could do that anywhere, really. 

During the opening session, the president of the APHA offered the below poem as a challenge to all attendees. Hearing recently from a professor that I "march to the rhythm of my own drum," I find the poem encouraging:

"To Risk"

by William Arthur Ward (and Janet Rand)


To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love.

Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited all freedom.

Only a person who risks is truly free.

The pessimist complains about the wind;

The optimist expects it to change;


And the realist adjusts the sails.

Boston Symphony House, near to the hotel where I stayed.

The best cannoli's in Boston!

The vision of our Creator:

It was one of those gloomy fall mornings when the sun lazily makes its way up while we are all still expected to heed the clock and rush to begin our daily tasks. As I made another sharp turn on my regular bike route to school--settling into a common critical routine of listing what remained on my to-do list and evaluating the outcomes of completed tasks--I swerved a little to avoid several pieces of thin black metal rods, like those used to make industrial hangers. My first instinct was to identify the object and speculate how it had ended up on the road. Not being able to come up with anything convincing, I decided that the arrangement reminded me of a mobile; in fact, I even thought about turning around to retrieve the scrap to turn it into such an item as it already resembled a mobile. Dismissing the thought as I made my next turn, I returned to inventorying weekly tasks.

Several days later, forgetting the could-be mobile encounter, I found myself swerving to avoid the same object--this time as I'd been evaluating the day and thinking years into the future. Recognizing the familiar item and feeling some kind of connection to it, my grimace (upon hearing the metal clink as I rode over it with my back wheel) turned into a smirk (as I recalled my silly idea of turning the mysterious scrap into a mobile). The fact that the object had migrated to the other side of the road and still had not been claimed (or removed) made me pity the object, now slightly personified after the second encounter. Almost immediately, lyrics from a song that I had sung as part of the Russian Baptist youth came to mind: "You just picked me up..." I never enjoyed the contemporary song as it was repetitive and disregarded the usual rich melancholy melody of traditional Slavic hymns; nonetheless, it clearly describes the transformed perspective on life that accompanies a faith commitment.

As I turned into my home's neighborhood, I saw the vibrant autumn foliage all along the lane and realized that I may have been riding around as if with blinders on for the past couple of weeks. Seeing the intricate beauty of nature, developing in its right time, I wondered how I might incorporate the Creator's vision in the trajectory of my life. I wondered about God's mind being too creative to be boxed up into seeing me as who I am today, flaws and inadequacies in plenty. "Picking me up" from the side of the road, might He care more about transforming me into His image?...shaped in ways consistent with furthering His purpose in the "now, not-yet" Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed? Ephesians 2:10, part of the sermon my dad delivered when I visited my childhood home church over my birthday weekend, provides some assurance: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (NIV). [Some classic verses from Jeremiah are also inspiring: Jer 1:5, 29:11, 33:3]. It is my wish to maintain such a perspective more consistently and treat those with whom I interact by incorporating the same mindset.

The tortoise and the hare...a classic tale. 

The historic North End offers Italian corner shops...when your cashier emerges from kneading dough with floured hands and communicates the price of a baguette by showing up some fingers, you know the bread has to be good!

I think I had found a family of like-minded professionals amidst the 13,000 attendees! I look forward to growing collegially with them in improving the (oral) health of the public.

Boston's Holocaust memorial

Each tower has prisoners' numbers and quotes engraved on them and a continuous steam is produced from within each tower that simulates what the gas chamber towers may have looked like.

My brand-new adorable niece! I look forward to meeting her in person over Thanksgiving break in a couple of weeks.