Because we are so ahead of schedule, we decided to take a bit of a long weekend. Tom and Danielle went to the mountains, and Kris (my boyfriend who was visiting) and I went to the Corn Islands, two Nicaraguan islands located in the Caribbean. We had to fly from Managua to Bluefields, a port town on the Atlantic coast, then on to the islands. The plane was an large prop plane…it looked pretty old…it was probably retired from use in the States and then sold to the airline company here. One thing t…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on July 8, 2008 at 2:12pm —
No Comments
Today I went with one of the inspectors on used oil inspections. Used oil can be a big problem when people just throw it away in their garbage or when stores manage it improperly because if it ends up in the landfill it can end up in the groundwater-- not a happy situation for anybody. Most of the Jiffy Lube/AutoZone/general oil change places in the valley now participate in a state program where they get money for every gallon of oil they give to the state, as well as accepting oil from "do-it-…
Continue
Posted by Samantha Kantrowitz on July 2, 2008 at 7:45pm —
No Comments
Hello EH students!
Well, since Charlotte called me out last week, it must be time for me to write my own blog post. Can you believe that finals were 7 weeks ago? And fall semester starts in 7 weeks and 4 days, so we are halfway through the summer.
For those of you who are seniors doing a Capstone Internship for credit , I should have received your midway evaluations by now. Check with me if you aren't sure if your Preceptor has turned that in. And your Internship Notebooks should be filling up…
Continue
Posted by Erin Reichert on July 2, 2008 at 3:16pm —
No Comments
Well, it’s just down to the three of us…me, Tom, and Danielle. It is kind of a cool feeling to be on our own down here (if only for a few days), but we miss everyone that has come and gone…and we are lonely!! We are still operating at maximum capacity…5 houses per day. This way we will reach 130 households well before July 25. We wanted to leave ourselves with a little cushion time in case of equipment malfunctions or unforeseen problems. We expect to hit 100 households this coming week and that…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on July 2, 2008 at 1:00pm —
No Comments
Although I'm not doing my internship this summer, I'd like to encourage any EH student (or advisor, hehe) to write a blog! It can be about anything. I guess, I can't encourage others to do it if I haven't written a non-internship blog myself! So here it goes.....
I'm spending my summer in beautiful, hot, southern South Carolina. I happen to live and work on Hilton Head Island (a big tourist area). I'm also a native to the island. One of my many jobs is working as a kayak tour guide, rental perso…
Continue
Posted by Charlotte Boney on June 26, 2008 at 7:39pm —
Comment
#1: I am now officially a brochure-making pro. Want to know about electronic waste, sewer systems, or hazardous waste from dry cleaners, auto body shops, or car repair? Ask me.
#2: Google is actually as amazing as you think it is. One of my supervisors was panicking on Monday because she had a meeting with the health department's lawyer about a potential and very likely lawsuit, and couldn't find a map of the area in question. Solution? Google. Search subdivision name, end up with GPS coordinan…
Continue
Posted by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 26, 2008 at 7:03pm —
No Comments
This morning I met the lady who runs the health department's hazardous waste program at a park downtown to learn how to set up the farmer's market booth. At the booth we give out materials on how you should dispose of unused pharmaceuticals, electronic waste, batteries, oils, paints, etc. Some people have questions, but mostly they like the magnets. People were mainly interested in how to throw away their batteries-- alkaline batteries can go in the regular garbage, but rechargeable batteries li…
Continue
Posted by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 21, 2008 at 4:15pm —
No Comments
Well, I had a very interesting day yesterday. Work was non-eventful, although I did have to interview an elderly woman who was very hard of hearing, which was quite challenging, since instead of just one communication barrier (language) I had to deal with two. She was a delightful woman and things went as well as they could have.
So yesterday I had a very frightening experience in the afternoon. It was especially hot and I noticed that I had been sweating even more than usual-I had to change clo…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on June 20, 2008 at 6:27am —
Comment
Today was the first day I was able to get to El Fortin all week as Danielle and I have had to go in to the Nicaragua Ministry of Health for the past two days in order to try to get official approval from them for our study. Luckily, our initial contact with Casa de La Mujer is a government official in Granada and she wrote us a letter of support which then allowed us to get an interview with the director of the Ministry (otherwise we could have waited for months). Everything went really well so…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on June 18, 2008 at 6:37pm —
Comment
Today I shadowed one of the water quality people who samples swimming pools. I'm glad I didn't pick it as my summer job, but it was really interesting. The first pool we went to was one that had been shut down by the health department a week ago and was applying to be reopened. They had to change some safety stuff-- make their gate automatically lock, paint lines on the pool steps and secure the handrail-- and they did, so now they're open. The second we went to was at another apartment complex…
Continue
Posted by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 18, 2008 at 6:08pm —
Comment
So this weekend Judy and Bill's friend Luis, who was born and raised in Nicaragua, came to visit. He had already helped with some conference calls and translations with the project so nearly all of us had met him. He still has lots of family and friends in Nicaragua so he spent a few days with our crew before he moved on to Managua, and on Sunday he took all of us to Las Isletas, a large group of small islands located in Lake Nicaragua to the south of Granada. Las Isletas were formed from volani…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on June 17, 2008 at 4:30pm —
No Comments
After a hard week in the field, including working on Saturday, we decided we needed a good break. Luckily, Bill and Judy's friend Luise was in town from Fort Collins and had just the thing. Luise is from Nicaragua originally and had access to a private island in the middle to lake Nicaragua. So we chartered a boat from the dock and spent the day lounging under palm trees and swimming off the dock of an absolutely beautiful island (think paradise) in the shadow of the massive volcano Mombacho, wh…
Continue
Posted by Tom Hraha on June 17, 2008 at 11:36am —
Comment
It seems that I have been adding my posts to the comment wall instead of the official blog section, which goes to show that you really do start doing things like a Nicaraguan when you are down here. From what I have learned thus far, Nicaraguan style is usually a bit late, not according to protocol and missing some important piece. Pretty much the opposite of how Dr. Blehm teaches you to operate. Not very effective, but a nice break after a packed and exciting college career.
The big news aroun…
Continue
Posted by Tom Hraha on June 17, 2008 at 11:23am —
No Comments
I spent part of Thursday and part of today shadowing one of the health department's food inspectors. So far I have seen an ice cream store, a snowie shack, two day cares, a taco cart, a restaurant in an office building, and a Chinese buffet. The verdict: my favorite ice cream store in downtown Salt Lake passed, which made me happy. You can't really do much to make snowcones unsafe. However, the inspector I was with today said the buffet we went to was one of the best ones, which I found pretty f…
Continue
Posted by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 16, 2008 at 5:37pm —
Comments
The past few days have been pretty busy as we have been operating at maximum capacity, setting up and taking down 5 houses each day. A few of the interesting occurrences this week: There was a scorpion the size of a 50 cent piece inside the house where I was doing my interview that Maria Teresa tried to kill but didn’t quite finish off…the participant was loudly yelling to her five-year-old son, “Mátalo bien!!” or “Kill it good!!” It was kind of amusing…and a bit terrifying all at the same time.…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on June 14, 2008 at 6:17pm —
No Comments
Resident food inspector here to dispel myths, speak the scary truths, and impart some wisdom on what to order when going out to eat.
First off, let me preface by noting that inspections are not easy! There’s so much gray area in some of the regulations that you have to be confident and decisive about whether to cite a violation and take appropriate actions, but here’s what I’ve learned.
1. Places with the least amount of food preparation are the easiest inspections. False. The ones you think w…
Continue
Posted by Sarah Yoder on June 13, 2008 at 4:22pm —
Comments
Is this where the stories for the contest go? I hope it's not too late cause I've got a good one!
My internship so far has been a great experience. I am learning the great power of networking and how critical it is in any business world. My supervisor has been amazing introducing me to everyone she knows, inviting me to board meetings and speakers, and even offering to be my work out buddy. Definitely something I didn't expect from an internship.
The interesting story from my internship this wee…
Continue
Posted by Shanan on June 13, 2008 at 8:51am —
No Comments
The past week at Tricounty Health has been delightful. Waking up very early in the morning during the summer isn't so bad anymore because work is becoming very interesting with mosquito season picking up. I have come to find that the staff at Tricounty health agree with me when I say work just flies by everyday! It feels like I drive to work and by the time I notice, it's time to go home again.
Earlier in the week...or maybe it was last week? I was out driving around to Prarie Dog sites and it…
Continue
Posted by Johnny Lim on June 11, 2008 at 8:44pm —
No Comments
After four days of semi-vacation (no work Saturday or Sunday and only setting up monitors Monday and Tuesday, which takes about an hour) activity in El Fortin was in full swing today. We had five takedowns and everything went very, very smoothly. We should have 50 households by the end of the week if all goes as planned. I'm really excited to reach this milestone. By the end of our study, at least one in three households in El Fortin (there are 300) will have been visited by us and have a new st…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on June 11, 2008 at 6:45pm —
No Comments
My main problem of the day turned out not to be finding the internship or finding work clothes, but figuring out when to show up. The director's voicemail cuts out and she lost my phone number so we didn't get in touch again until last week, and then the guy I was reporting to didn't have my number so I had no idea of when to go to work. Luckily, my dad had the brilliant idea to call the office phone late at night to figure out when they open and show up then-- I came at 8 and he seemed to be ex…
Continue
Posted by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 9, 2008 at 6:16pm —
Comments
Wow…so much has happened since my last update. Things have been pretty hectic with work and travel…we just got back from the beautiful island of Ometepe, situated in Lake Nicaragua (the only freshwater “agua dulce” lake in the world with sharks!!!). We split into three groups and Tom, Leslie, Maggie, Danielle and I stayed at the Finca Magdalena, a cooperative farm and coffee plantation. It was a steal at $5 a night, and we enjoyed delicious meals and organic coffee for about $2-3 a meal. One of…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on June 9, 2008 at 3:00pm —
Comment
Well, I have been given my first assignment as an intern. I am to help the EHS manager determine the brewery's Toxic Release Inventory for the year 2007. It is actually really boring, but it is something. I just have to go through all the chemicals Budweiser uses and make sure they do not have to report to the EPA. Than we will determine the actual amounts of these chemicals that were released. I am also responsible for all the hazardous waste inspections every week now. they are actually fun. I…
Continue
Posted by Sara Kennedy on June 9, 2008 at 2:28pm —
Comment
Wow I can't believe that time has gone by this fast. I have been busy inspecting public swimming pools, sampling surface water and shadowing the many areas that EH has to offer. I have already seen well inspections, GIS operations, food inspections, radiological prepardness and septage hauling. It's nice getting paid to watch people do work and I also get a feel of what I may like to do as an EH professional. So far, all gates are still open and I haven't narrowed down anything (or out). Oakland…
Continue
Posted by T-Rent on June 9, 2008 at 11:27am —
Comment
Alright, so the first week is over and I’m so tired! Getting up early in the morning has been a lot harder than usual, especially since my drive to work is long. It’s kind of interesting though, driving through all the farms, feedlots, grainaries, ect. Anyway, I’ve been doing more inspections. I’ve finished my observation requirements and now I’m on to doing joint inspections. In a joint inspection I conduct the inspection and I’m evaluated at the end by my supervisor. My first one was SO stress…
Continue
Posted by Sarah Yoder on June 9, 2008 at 9:45am —
Comments
So much has been going on since I arrived!
I had my first day interning for the World Health Organization on Monday, 2 June!! I has already been an amazing experience just walking into the building!
I was given a WHO ID badge (which is really fun to walk around town with) ...no cool points in town for sporting the badge since everyone here seems to work for some big global organization - but it does kind of make it seem like you're less of a tourist.
My supervisor is truly amazing and the work i…
Continue
Posted by Phoenix Mourning-Star on June 8, 2008 at 4:54am —
Comment
Well, I have most of my training done. It was kind of boring but good nonetheless. Monday was HR orientation and Teusday and Thursday were OSHA training. THere is no way to lighten up OSHA. You just have to sit for 8hrs and try to stay awake. Next week is when I will really start to get into what I will be doing. I really like it so far, the people are great!
Continue
Posted by Sara Kennedy on June 5, 2008 at 9:06am —
Comments
Okay, so I’ve finally started my internship at the Weld County Health Department. I’m an EH intern, but I’m mostly working with the food safety program. I started yesterday and got to do a full day of online training. Yay. I managed to somehow do all 13 modules in a day and I am now a walking encyclopedia on all aspects relating to food borne illness prevention. Questions about HACCP or the incubation period for Listeria? Ask me ;) Anyway, those courses weren’t all that bad, and I was already fa…
Continue
Posted by Sarah Yoder on June 3, 2008 at 8:30pm —
No Comments
Today was the first official day of my industrial hygiene internship at Boeing and I loved it!!! My big intern project for the summer will be to conduct noise surveys along the 737 airplane production process. This means I follow the planes through their production process and measure every area that is producing high noise volumes. I'll then have to analyze my data for each employee and determine which of them will be required to take the annual hearing tests in August. My other big intern proj…
Continue
Posted by Lindsey Brandt on June 2, 2008 at 10:09pm —
Comments
I spent the weekend at the World Wellness Weekend Expo. I was at a booth promoting the Car Share Program which is a cool program Austin is starting that lets you check out a car by the hourly rate. So if you get alternative transportation into the city you can use these cars to run errends, or if your a college student without a car but you need to move a truck you can use rent a truck for a few hours. I also promoted Austin EcoNetwork which is an email sent out with local green activities. I wi…
Continue
Posted by Shanan on June 2, 2008 at 2:25pm —
Comments
So I'm finally starting my job at the Tricounty Health Department tomorrow and I'm pretty excited!
*EDIT* 6/4/08
Alright so I went through the training at Tricounty and I'm loving it so far! This job doesn't even feel like a job. My first day I was just walked around the office and introduced to everybody and learned about what they did, which was pretty cool and everyone seemed to enjoy it a lot. On the second day I was introduced to the 10+ species of mosquitoes that I will need to be able t…
Continue
Posted by Johnny Lim on June 1, 2008 at 8:00pm —
Comment
I got in touch with one of my new bosses and they want me to jump right in and work this weekend at the World Wellness Expo. I will be working a table representing the EcoNetwork and Car Sharing Program. I am excited to learn more about those and meet many people in the Austin environmental field. I think this summer is going to be all about networking for me. I will be doing some paid and unpaid work and can't wait for the experience I get from it. I'm really excited for the conference because…
Continue
Posted by Shanan on May 29, 2008 at 11:04pm —
No Comments
Today I woke up to the sound of rain pounding down on the roof. It had begun raining earlier the night before and as I write this entry at 3 p.m. it is still raining. Apparently there is a tropical storm (not sure if it is a hurricane yet) on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. Because of flooding in the streets, we weren't able to make the trip into El Fortin today. It's a dirt road for most of the way there and it's already very bumpy...so right now I'm sure it is impassible. Danielle and I called…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on May 29, 2008 at 3:26pm —
Comment
28-May-08
Today was exciting for me because I got to use the spirometer for the first time. My team (Tom, Ali, Judy, and Linda) set up and took down two houses. I used it with one participant and actually got some good readings. I’ve been doing it myself and have yet to be able to exhale for six full seconds, so it’s kind of hard to expect these women to be able to if I can’t even do it!!
We are beginning to develop real relationships and connections with the people of El Fortin, especially the…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on May 28, 2008 at 7:00pm —
No Comments
Today was fairly uneventful. We set up two houses per team and didn’t have any take downs since we didn’t set up Sunday, and so that makes Tuesdays fairly short. We only spent about an hour in the field (minus the driving) because the only things we have to do for setup are obtain informed consent from the participants, hang up our monitors in the kitchen, and place the personal CO monitor on the main cook. Jerry, our driver, took us on a little tour of the lakefront after we finished, and then…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on May 28, 2008 at 3:00pm —
No Comments
Well, I start my internship tomorrow. I'm kinda nervous, but really excited too. How bad is this...I don't know what to wear. That sounds so tacky, yet hilarious. Why I am so worried about that? Maybe it is because I never realized how little business-like clothes I have. I have even less proper footwear. I usually just wear tennis shoes all the time. I don't even own a pair of heels (for a very good reason :-). I will definitely keep posted what I am doing. Tomorrow I know will just be a genera…
Continue
Posted by Sara Kennedy on May 26, 2008 at 4:19pm —
Comment
I arrived in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, on May 22, with two other members of my team. There are six of us undergraduates working on this project: Alisa Tonozzi, Tom Hraha, Leslie Marchand, Matt Bruno, and Danielle Wagner. I was so excited to finally get onto the plane in Denver because only then did it set in as reality that I was going to Central America for two months. This is something that I have worked so hard on during the past semester in order to make happen, and I still can’t believe…
Continue
Posted by Erin McGuinn on May 26, 2008 at 3:00pm —
No Comments
Realistically, networking is probably the best way to find a job or internship... 99.99% of the time. For this summer, I tried the cold-calling method ("cold-emailing" to be precise), and it worked out fabulously. In ERHS 492 seminar, we were working on a project to make a resume and cover letter for a potential internship. I wanted to go home to Salt Lake this summer, so I asked Erin if it would be all right if I wrote to the Salt Lake Valley Health Department (SLVHD) instead of one of the theo…
Continue
Posted by Samantha Kantrowitz on May 6, 2008 at 7:52pm —
No Comments
I was a JrCOSTEP (intern) last summer with the US Public Health Service. I worked on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation (the FAIR) in Arizona. I was a commissioned officer (Ensign Yoder, haha) and got to know the workings of one of the Uniformed Services (I didn't have to wear a uniform though since I was there for such a short time). It was an amazing experience! I would recommend this internship to anyone interested in pursuing a career in Public Health. If you would like to know more about wh…
Continue
Posted by Sarah Yoder on May 1, 2008 at 8:30pm —
Comments
I'm soo excited to get out of town this summer. Fort Collins is great, but I haven't had the opportunity to get out of here for more than a week since freshman year! Oakland County is really just a suburb of Detriot, I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff to do when I'm not working. Thankfully I will be getting paid pretty decently there and I get the opportunity to live in the dorms again so I can meet people my age who are doing the same thing.
Continue
Posted by T-Rent on April 30, 2008 at 11:44am —
Comment
Hey everyone! Write a blog on your page so I can feature you. Especially everyone that is going to be in an internship position this summer- tell us what you are going to be doing. That way not everyone has to hear from me every time the website is opened. We should get this looking good before we share it with incoming freshman.
This is how you write a blog:
1) Click on the tab "My Page"
2) Click on the tab under that, "My Blog"
3) Start Blogging!
Everyone's blogs will be shown on the main pag…
Continue
Posted by Charlotte Boney on April 16, 2008 at 10:30am —
No Comments
The Corn Islands of Nicaragua
Used Oil Inspections
Summer is halfway over!!
Not an intern but..... :)
A Tough Weekend
Mythbuster!
Meditating on the job!
A week under my belt!
My first assignment
First few weeks are already over
Hello from Geneva, Switzerland!!
Interning - Day 1
