brain

This past summer, I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship, which funded an NGO internship in Oaxaca, Mexico for four weeks. I worked at a school that taught children of all ages (infants to teenagers) who have been diagnosed with Down syndrome. Because my Spanish was not exactly comprehensible at first, I had a hard time communicating with the students. However, one of the students sensed my timidity with the language and would occasionally strike up a conversation with me, speaking with a tone of support and patience. Every other day, we had an hour designated to a “dance party,” which was sometimes their only form of exercise. I, again, was shy at

The past Sunday's NY Times Book Review has a review of a book by Anne Harrington called The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine. Its interesting in its own right, directly relevant to a course I'm currently teaching, but connects in interesting ways to some other things bubbling around as well. The book is reviewed by Jerome Groopman, a cancer specialist, who writes ....