I heart San Francisco

Two weeks ago, Alison, myself, and our friend Tim took a roadtrip out to San Francisco. Knowing that I'm moving to DC and the east coast, I wanted a final fling in the Golden State and to see my Steffers! It was a super quick trip, but included San Francisco, Ghirardelli Square, Palo Alto, a beach house, sand castles, and the Pacific Ocean. What more could you want from a California trip!! (well maybe some warmer weather and warmer beaches, but it's still Cali and it's still beautiful.)

Thursday: Al, Tim, and I left Provo around 2pm ready to embark on the long 12 hour drive across Utah, Nevada, and California. We made a stop at the SLC airport to pick up another passenger, Carlo. The trip was quite long, but luckily the travel companions made the voyage bearable and we rolled into Palo Alto around 1am.

Friday: SAN FRANCISCO! After sleeping in just a bit, we drove into the city to see the sights! We went down to the wharf, walked along the "boardwalk", meandered through some hilly streets, visited Full House Street, drove Lombard Street, and headed back down to the Bay for some Ghirardelli ice cream!

I LOVE my girls!!!

And did I mention that I LOVE ice cream, especially mint chocolate chip...YUM!!!

That night we drove to Capitola, a beach town about 40 minutes south of Palo Alto. We stayed there for the night.

Saturday: Capitola--We headed to the beach in the morning to go exploring and watch some surfers (in full body wetsuits. Pretty sure I would have wanted a dry suit and I have a high tolerance for cold water). That afternoon we joined a YSA activity where a professional sand castle builder was teaching singles how to build sand castles. I didn't see all the instruction, but the results were pretty amazing! We ended the night with a bonfire on the beach.

Check out the San Fran skyline!

It was a fantastic trip and I really do love being with my best friends Al and Steff. I'm glad we got a last hurrah in before I head out east. Now we really will be coast to coast.

Goodbye West Coast. I'll miss you. Wait for me, I promise to come back!

AED: Center for Health Communication

With graduation a month ago, I've been putting a lot of time into finding a job. Well the hard work has paid off and I will be starting an internship June 7 at AED Center for Health Communication (http://chc.aed.org/). It's a 4 month paid internship with a possibility of being hired after that time. The internship is survey and evaluation research on a government funded project to figure out how to create better jobs to help low income people break the poverty cycle. The work involves data entry, data cleaning and analysis, survey collection, report generating (super exciting and glamorous stuff--but hey, we all have to start somewhere). It's actually quite miraculous how I landed this job, here's the story...

A professor emailed me about 2 weeks ago about an internship opportunity in DC. She knew the contact of the person looking for an intern and since it was in DC, she forwarded it onto me. I went ahead and emailed the originator of the email and attached my resume. Last Thursday I got a phone call from a lady at that organization that had seen my resume and wanted to talk to me about an internship. It's not exactly public health, but the organization does work on lots of public health projects and different departments are more public health focused. The internship is in the survey and evaluation department. The lady, Rose Ann, gave me a ton of information and pretty much offered me the job on the spot. I was leaving for San Francisco later that afternoon and I told her I was going out of town and would be back on Monday.  She asked me to decide by Tuesday if I was interested. 

The weekend was super fun and relaxing, but I spent a lot of time thinking about the internship and if I should take it. I've wanted to go to DC for awhile, but this was a lot faster than I was expecting. Well, I came back from California thought some more, and Tuesday I accepted the job. Since then I have been madly searching for a place to live in DC and to sell my contract here in Provo. It's been a miraculous past 2 weeks and I think I have a place to live for the summer and I sold my Provo contract yesterday! I found places to stay before I can move in and everything seems to be rolling along. It really has been incredible and it's amazing how fast everything has come together. My head is still spinning and I'm excited and nervous and busy and trying to get my Provo life wrapped up, but I know it will all come together.

Countdown until the move: 10 days

Just call me Master Brea

I did it! I finished my Master of Public Health degree and I'm officially a Master! I would like everyone to address me by my appropriate title, Master Brea (or Master Breanne or Master Didenhover). Graduation consisted of a two day event. Day 1 was Thursday April 22 when Commencement Activities kicked off in the Marriott Center with Elder Christofferson as the keynote speaker. The speech was short and inspiring. Afterward, pictures and a cohort party followed to continue the celebrations. Day 2 began early in the Marriott Center where I graduated from the College of Life Sciences. As a master's student, I got front row seats and received my diploma before anyone got tired. I made sure they read my name correctly by repeating "Didenhover" 2 times before walking across the podium. The rest of the program is blurry and I don't think I paid too much attention. At the the end of convocation, I met up with Mom, Dad, Kurt, Alisa, and co (who all attended) and we met Laura at Los Hermanos for some tasty lunch.

MPH Cohort 7

Alisha, me, Camille (swimming and late night lab buddies)

As graduates, we now have wings to fly. Check out those robes!

Best Support Crew

The Hoods! Welcome to Hogwarts.

Alisha, Lauren, Me, Camille, Dr. Cole (professor in charge of the Cape Town Hygiene project)

Brea and Alison:  From Carroll Hall to MPH

Thanks Mom and Dad and everyone else who was so supportive during this adventure. I accomplished a lot and there was no way I could do it without you. I love you!!!

p.s. The hood is salmon not pink!

Moab #5

 

On March 20, 2010, I ran my 5th half marathon. All five races have been in Moab at the Canyonlands Half Marathon. I started my long running races way back in 2003 when my roommate Annie inspired me to start running. I ran cross country in high school, but those are 3 mile races and even in training I had never run more than 7 miles at once. Annie convinced me that I could do it...and I did. At that point, I got a little bit hooked and I have run that same race 4 more times (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010). All the races have been pretty good, but 2010 was exceptionally fun. No, I didn't have my best time, the weather wasn't all that great, and I got terribly sick during and after the race, but somehow I still had a blast. And I'm pretty sure I owe it to this girl--Traci Garff! (picture below)

Here we are just before leaving Provo on Friday afternoon. Traci is holding a picture that I tore out of a magazine as my training inspiration. It's a picture of a very lean athletic girl out running. I figured if I trained hard enough, I would look just like her. Ok, so not really, but it was a fun inspiration anyway.

Traci was my running buddy and training partner for all the training leading up to the big race. We ran all our Saturday long runs together. Long runs can be, well long, but when you put two wacky girls together who start in North Orem and run to South Provo, you get quite the spectacle and enjoyable time. In training, we would save all our stories from the week to share with each other and of course stories would be interrupted by random bursts of singing that led to more endorphins and good times. Some of our favorites were: Empire State of Mind (Traci is actually from NY), Bon Jovi, Eye of the Tiger, and random Disney selections.

Training runs prepared us for the big day and we made it--13.1 MILES!!! And don't worry, we kept the singing and story telling alive all throughout the race and I think as we inspired each other, we may have even inspired a few others along the way.

2010 marks the end of Moab Half Marathons for me....But here's a sneak preview of my next big racing adventure.....

That's right, I'm putting all those half marathons to use and finally running a full marathon--26.2 miles. Saturday November 13, 2010 in Richmond, VA.

The Defense

Today was the final day of Reckoning for my Masters Degree in Public Health. I had my defense in front of my committee today and....I passed! The whole process went really smoothly. I did a 30 minute presentation (which was pretty darn good if I say so...I'm becoming a powerpoint wiz!) and then my committee had questions for me. I handled the questions and felt really good about my responses. After that, they sent me out to deliberate and about 10 minutes later, they called me back in. I passed with minimum revisions, mostly formatting and editorial comments. I should be able to make all the changes within a day, then print this baby out and be done!

I feel great!! And the sun came out today, I feel even better.

Thanks for all the support, calls, emails, gchats, texts, prayers, and thoughts! They were all deeply appreciated.

Fun on the East Coast

At the beginning of March, I headed back to the East Coast for some business and pleasure. I attended the Annual Heath Advocacy Summit with other BYU students. I attended this conference last year, but this year came back as a presenter! I flew in a few days before the conference to spend time in DC and with friends. I had hopes of doing some job searching, but that didn't quite happen the way I planned. Overall, the trip was fantastic and I enjoyed every minute. Here are some pictures to narrate my experience.

Day 1: Fly into Baltimore. I arrived in Baltimore on Thursday afternoon and had my friend Camille and her husband pick me up. Camille is a fellow MPHer with me and graduated last December. We hung out at her place and waited for Aaron to come meet us in Bmore. We then all headed to a Thai restaurant for some dinner.

Day 2: Playing tourist: Aaron had to work all day, so I decided to go explore our nation's capitol. Since I've been here a few times in the past year,  and have already seen some highlights, I decided to seek unexplored territory. I made it to my first stop all by myself, of which I was quite proud. I met up with some other students who also flew in early and we headed to the Natural History Museum. This museum is so cool and full of wildlife wonders! There was an Africa room, ocean room, gems and rocks (not so cool- The Hope Diamond is not nearly as impressive as I expected it to be, but Napoleon's diamond necklace is incredible!), and dinosaur exhibit. The exhibits were so fun and I was running around like a little kid, kind of expecting the animals to come to life like in "Night at the Museum." Sadly, or maybe fortunately, none did. This was a great Smithsonian. I love natural history!

 Did you know that the pig is related to the hippopotamus?

After the Natural History Museum, we headed over to the National Gallery of Art. A few wandered around, and I sat myself down on a comfy couch in an impressionism room. I've been to the gallery, and for as much as I want to love art galleries, I get bored quite easily. It was much better to crash for a bit and relax. All that running around the Natural History Museum tuckered me out! After, I still had some time to kill, so I wandered around the mall and enjoyed the gorgeous views between the Capitol Building and Washington Monument.

After that I met up with Aaron to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors Exhibit at the National Geographic Museum. The exhibit shows the ancient clay army commissioned by China's 1st Emperor, who wanted thousands of clay soldiers to protect his tomb. The Emperor was pretty crazy, but his artisans crafted some amazing warriors!

Day 3: Friends and Conference: Saturday morning started off with a run and then a tasty buckwheat and grits (not so tasty) breakfast at Eastern Market. We met Brandon and Maggie as well as my friend Alisha for breakfast and had some good times.

Eastern Market

The conference started Saturday afternoon and so I headed over there as quickly as I could. I presented during one of the Saturday sessions, "Effective Hill Visits." The MPH director volunteered me to present during this session. I was leery and a bit nervous, but it turned out really well and the presentation helped me make some professional contacts. As people were trying to ease my nerves beforehand, I realized how grateful I was that I've been giving talks in church since I was 12 and even earlier if you count primary talks. Also, if I can give a 10 minute talk in a foreign language, I can definitely give a 20 minute presentation in English! And since the presentation went so well, they asked me to help with role plays the following day. I hate role plays and was hoping that my mission was the last time I would ever have to participate, but no. That was probably the least fun part of the whole weekend, but I did it and it was okay.

Saturday night, Alisha and I met up with Camille and her husband Aaron for dinner. After wandering for about an hour and a half, we finally decided on a West African restaurant, where I ate some very familiar Caribbean like food. I'm not sure if the others enjoyed their meals, but I loved what I had! You know the food is authentic when you are the only white people in the entire restaurant!

Presenting at the conference

Saturday night with Alisha and Camille

Day 4: Conference: Sunday was a full conference day and that night after the conference, Alisha and I took a stroll around the Monuments and enjoyed the peaceful evening and not too freezing weather. We also enjoyed a scrumptious dinner made by Aaron and his friend Stanley. Sunday evening consisted of monuments, dinner, and lots of laughing. Oh, and we also snuck out of the conference to attend Church.

Day 5: Capitol Hill: Monday was spent on Capitol Hill. This is the place where the real work takes place. I had three appointments with different Washington State legislators (technically their legislative aides, since hardly anyone is in the office Mondays). The time on Capitol Hill was fun and I think we rocked the visits! My fellow classmate from Washington and I presented and discussed our issues together. In between appointments we toured the Library of Congress and the House and Senate buildings.

Capitol Building Tour

Outside the office of Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (she's from Spokane)

After the exciting and energizing day on Capitol Hill, I hurried off to meet some friends for dinner. I met up with Aaron, Liz, Chris and Lizzy. It was fun seeing old friends and good to spend a relaxing evening enjoying each other's company.

Day 6: DC Wrap-up: Tuesday was a little less structured than the other days and I had the morning to do whatever I liked. I started off with sleeping in a bit and then going for a run around the National Mall. It was fantastic! I ran from the Capitol Building to the Lincoln Memorial to the White House and back to the Capitol Building and then home. The weather was almost spring like and made the run that much more enjoyable.

Then I headed off to take a tour of the Health and Human Services Building with the BYU group. I loved the tour! We met with people in different jobs and learned what they did. We even got to see the office of the Secretary and check out what goes on behind closed doors. My favorite part was learning about the policy analyst jobs and realizing that I really might like working for the government. Who wouldn't want to be paid to think! I think I have great thoughts and should get paid for them. Seriously, I really am interested and wanted to talk more to a lady who works as an analyst for global health programs (PEPFAR, Malaria, HIV, TB initiatives, and others).  After the tour, I booked it over to meet Alisha at PAHO headquarters. Alisha and I interned with PAHO this summer and she was giving a presentation about her summer research. I went to support and to take advantage of networking opportunities.

PAHO Headquarters

All in all it was a fantastic trip! Each trip to DC reconfirms my initial impressions that I want to live out there for a bit. I've focused my job search to the area, now let's just cross our fingers that I find one!

Weddings: What better reason for a reunion!

The College crew got together for another wedding--Chris & Elizabeth. We've all been friends since our days in the dorms, and slowly each one is tying the knot. Chris got married in Salt Lake on February 12, and we all traveled in for the big day. (I had to go a whole 44 miles--thanks Chris for getting married in Utah!). Brandon, Ian, and Whitney all flew in and we were able to have some good times before and after the wedding.

Before the wedding, we all met up at the Little America Hotel for some breakfast. The breakfast was tasty and the conversation was most definitely lively! We then rushed Chris off to meet his fiance, Elizabeth at the Temple for some pictures.

The happy couple exiting the Temple

The gang at the Temple

Waiting for the Crittendens to come out.
(Ian, Whitney, Brea, Brandon, Jeff)

Reception
 

And of course, no winter reunion would be complete without some snowshoeing! We braved the roads and drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon to find some new territory to hike. The views probably would have been incredible if it hadn't been snowing. Even without being able to see too far, it was a great hike and I was reminded why winter isn't the worst thing in the world.

The next reunion will be in May for Ian's wedding. He got engaged a few days before Chris's wedding, so it looks like the boys will all be hitched by summer. Congrats! Can't wait for the next reunion.