Dreamland

So I got a surfboard yesterday. And she's a gorgeous, quad-fin, 5'8'' fish. PERFECT. Been to a couple spots in the past day and a half: Dreamland, Ku De Ta, Tanah Lot, and some others. There's a big swell coming through right now, and it is EPIC. I've been cut up a bit on the reef/rocks, and my leash snapped this morning, but I'm too overwhelmed by the fact that I'm getting wicked surf in Bali. I'm now staying till the 15th of June in Bali, waiting for my friend Señor Michael Billingsley before leaving for Flores, at a little Robinson Crusoe-type surf hostel. All the people are all so friendly, and I'm having a great time. One thing I've noticed though, there are very few Americans here! All Europeans and Australians. Anyway, I think I'm going to go ahead and take a nap so that I can get up for an evening surf session. I was up at 5am this morning to go to Tanah Lot! But it was soooo worth it. Be easy peoples.

Bali!

Just got into Bali!!! And its so friggin humid and gorgeous. I was picked up at the airport by one of my father's friends Mimi, who happens to own the internet cafe I'm in right now. We are gonna go eat some food, and then head up to the mountains for the rest of the day as she has to oversee some construction at her properties out there. I'll spend a couple days here, recuperate from the journey, SURF, EAT, and then head onward to Ende. So excited! Talk to you all soon!

24hrs. in Bangkok

FINALLY IN BANGKOK....what a relief. Time to party it up till I head to Bali tomorrow at 6am.

United Airlines Sucks. A lot.

I don't have a lot of time as I am about to finally board a flight to Bangkok, however let's just say that the past 30-40 hours have been a living hell. What kind of pilot shows up 2 hours late to his plane? I can truthfully say that's never happened to me and my entire life, and I've been in planes that had to make emergency landings because one of the engines was out. Anyway, this wonderful pilot ruined my entire flight itinerary, and over the course of the past 12 hours I have probably talked to around 25 different members of United and Continental. Of those 25 about 2 have been helpful. And only ONE was able to finally go back and physically find my bag...that happened only a half hour ago...ugh. Nonetheless, you gotta look at the positives in every experience, and I ended up being re-routed to LA with a long layover and got to hangout with my friend Tristan who I haven't seen in pretty much a year. In-N-Out burger! Heck yes. I'll also have an extra day to hangout in Bangkok so that should be fun. Be easy peoples. Talk to you in Thailand.

Sleep is just a waste of time...

Copied from what is to be my first blog post at www.endtheneglect.org :

"Its 2:30am on June 5th, 2010 and I am supposed to 'get up' for my flight to Indonesia in about three hours. I’m also not nearly done with my packing.

Hi. My name is Seth Hoffman, and I am going to be a junior at Cornell University. This summer I am setting out for the experience of a lifetime. I’ll be spending the next 8 weeks working with the University of Indonesia and Leiden University Medical Center at their field sites in Flores, Indonesia. Flores is right smack dab along the path less traveled, and that is my kind of party. The project aims to attend to the issue that in many parts of the developing world, malarial and helminth (i.e. hookworms) infections are co-endemic. Investigation on the immunological associations between helminth infections and malarial parasites in co-endemic areas holds the key to answer the question whether helminths, by downregulating immune responses, increase susceptibility to malarial parasites on the one hand, but protect from cerebral malaria on the other.

The purpose of this blog is to describe the experiences of an undergraduate trying to immerse himself completely in the broad (scientific, socio-political, anthropological, etc.) aspects of the field of Global Health, specifically in regard to neglected transmitted diseases (NTDs). I am going to be helping out the doctors and scientists in the study by conducting blood analyses, stool samples, physicals, PCRs, and much more. I personally am overjoyed at being given such an opportunity to develop my medical/scientific prowess, especially in regard to hookworm, an NTD that prior to becoming involved in the field study I had little knowledge of except for what I had learned in my medical parasitology class. I have done a lot of research with malaria, but helminths and NTDs are a whole new 'can of worms.'

I will also be traveling to Flores with my best friend Michael Billingsley (University of Glasgow) and my younger brother Benjamin Hoffman (Stanford University) who both happen to be pursuing medical careers as well. Furthermore, the three of us are members of a band called Nigeria (www.facebook.com/nigeriamusic) that has had some local success, and whose debut demo album Mango ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/mango/id349858417) is currently being passed around several major music labels (fingers crossed!). As a band we plan on writing and recording a lot of music heavily influenced by our exploits in Flores to be released at the end of the summer as a free digital-download mixtape. The three of us have grown up in families fixated on tropical diseases, and work in Global Health, and we have pledged a portion of the proceeds of our album Mango to Share Our Strength’s campaign to end childhood hunger (www.strength.org).

I truly hope that this summer’s experiences will help to enhance my parasitological knowledge and general understanding of the grand scope of Global Health; and that is precisely what I plan to communicate to you all through this blog. If I can impart just 25% of what I hope to learn this summer onto another reader, who will then hopefully pass that new found knowledge onto another, then my blog will have been a success.

More posts, pictures, video, and music to come! Until then...I’m going to go ahead and finish packing."

A new Journey?

This Saturday the Quest begins once again. I will be heading to Flores, Indonesia to work at a helminth/malaria clinic until the middle of August. I could not be more excited to get out of the US again for an extended period of time, its the best feeling in the world. There will be limited, and extremely slow, internet access while I'm there, but when I can I'll update y'all on what's what, and post some photos.

Flores is one of the least traveled places in the world! Where else can you find a black lake???(http://www.goseentt.com/Photos/Flores%20three%20lakes%202.jpg). Furthermore, the opportunity to make this such an enriching medical experience is overwhelming. I mean, at my age, who get's the chance to do midnight bleeds of patients to test for filariasis? (they only come out in your blood stream at night) And in Flores for that matter! The land of Komodo dragons, spitting cobras, super venomous sea snakes, and hobbit people!

And for those of you interested, I will be heading there with Michael Buntingsly and BenJammin Hofferstein, two members, in addition to myself, of up and coming, world renowned, popular, new-age, rock/reggae sensation Nigeria (www.facebook.com/nigeriamusic). We'll be writing, and making rough recordings of a plethora of new songs that will be released on our return as a free digital-download mixtape called "Nigeria in Flores." We are really interested in playing with new rhythms, broadening our horizons musically, and fusing our habitus with our new field by way of being influenced by the local music; thereby changing our practice (basically a whole bunch of mumbojumbo - we are gonna make some sweet, sweet new music for your eargasmic listening pleasure). Stay tuned to the Nigeria facebook page for more updates.



So Stoked. SO STOKED.


Peace. Kedamaian.

A Casa

I am Home?
      Its kind of surreal really. I mean, I've been home throughout my year off, but this time I'm home for good (except for maybe a little bit of traveling to south east Asia right before school starts). No 2 month trip to look forward to, no interesting adventures to prepare to make, no more 20 hr. flights. Its kind of a bittersweet ending to my year off. On the other hand, people keep asking me, "are you even going to want to go to college next year after all that traveling?" To answer all your questions, YES, yes I am ready for college. You want to know why? Because I have had the most ridiculous, inspiring, and challenging year of my life. I have absolutely no regrets, whatsoever. I've been faced with insane self-discipline (i.e. waking up everyday at 5:30 to look forward to running up mountains, hitting trees with my arms, and meditating for 4 hours everyday), copious amounts of fun (i.e. surfing everyday, speaking Spanish, speaking to Spanish women, and partying with people all over the world), and of course getting in touch with family and my religious side (i.e. learning Hebrew/traveling all over Israel).
      I mean I've also faced some weird/difficult things like getting used to sleeping in an updated 1940's Chinese mental institution, having to deal with being provided only 1 shower for 40 people, no heating during blizzards, eating scorpions, and real Chinese driving (the general population in China has only been able to legally drive for the past 10 years). Also, emergency landings/broken airplane engines, sea urchins, reef cuts, sharks, 12 foot waves, only having running water between 8:30 am and 9:15 am, broken bicycles, and more. And finally, a shower not even fit for a midget, being turned away from clubs because the age was 24 that night, kosher Brazilian BBQ, everything being kosher for that matter, running the Staircase to Hell, and learning to like hummus way too much.
      The best parts of this year are the people I will never forget. All my friends at Kunyu Shan Martial Arts Academy, while we all raced to eat as much boiled cabbage as possible, drink large bottles of Pijiu, run up 15 km mountains and take 4 hr. bus trips just to get a glimpse of satellite television. My friends in Bocas del Toro and at Spanish by the Sea who are crazy dutch people, musical inspirations, surfers, 3 Question game players, private beach campers, shark swimmers, local gangsters, mami chulas, and papi chulos. And finally my friends in Israel who are soldiers, crazy partiers from Miami/Switzerland, students of Seth Rogen, French people who only know me as Jaque Cousteau, and the amazing mind of an MIT engineer that probably rivals that of Albert Einstein, and Albert Einstein's looks too.
      What can I say. Well I could say I wouldn't trade this year for the world. But between all the ups and downs, and all the engine failures, emergency landings, and long travel hours, and all the injuries....well I could say:

和平, Paz, שלום, Peace.

till the next journey begins...