How quickly I've managed to fall behind... So now the whole TB protocol is looking unlikely due to problems with NIH (National Institutes of Health) approval woes. This is unfortunate since it was looking like it was going to turn into some sort of deliverable for me by the end of my time here in Brasil. All hope is not lost, people are checking into it to see what could have gone wrong, we'll see.
The weekend went by quite slow. I made some plans with people to go out and play paintball, but since I don't have a phone they had no way of getting in touch with me. It rained all day Saturday, which meant I spent most of the day reading and perusing archaic web sites. Sunday I took my usual beach trip and stopped by the mall. I considered seeing a movie but I would have had to wait two hours, so I nixed that proposal. I'm starting to get pretty anxious about returning, less than 3 weeks to go.
This morning I passes by a stray dog on my way to the lab. After a few minutes of coaxing he finally came up to me and I scratched behind his ears for a while. I couldn't help but think of how here in Vitoria they pick up stray dogs and use them at the hospitals for the students to practice surgery on. Here was this cool dog that was going to be tortured by some clueless kid trying to take out his kidney. This practice has been phased out in some parts of Brasil, but not here. Then upon my arrival I watched while one of the technicians began to sacrifice some of the rats that were no longer needed. This consisted of dumping them into a jar filled with alcohol and watching them suffocate. Needless to say not the most pleasant way to start a week.
Right now I need to work on preparing a presentation to teach some of the people here how to use an analytical software package. It has to be in Portuguese, so wish me luck.
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