Calvin and Isabel had a joint birthday party at the new house, which is officially broken in now. We had people from all directions, including my uncle and cousins from Binghamton. It was nice to have a social event after a very busy week of school. Isabel helped me to put the layers together after camp on Friday.

Due to the rain, yes more rain, we had the pinata in the attic, which was actually a comfortable temperature for July. The kids had a good laugh when it was my turn because I missed the donkey with a little help from Dave. Wielding baseball bats was never my forte. Calvin was later found under the coffee table in the living room munching his way through a handful of the candy he collected from it. He's got a real sweet tooth that boy -- in fact he was more interested in the candy than in opening presents! He reminds me of someone else I know. ...

Last week I spent some time volunteering at a migrant farm worker clinic at Emmet Farms, a large operation outside of Syracuse that has over 40 farm international workers, may from Chiapas. As a first-year student, the only thing I was much use for was translating for the doctors and upper-class medical students who were doing the actual physical exams.

My team saw four patients: several young men who simply wanted to have their blood pressure checked for the hell of it, and a couple of people who had serious medical problems that didn't have access to pharmaceuticals. One man was 46 and had uncontrolled diabetes with very high blood sugar levels. His habitual consumption of 4 to 6 beers a day wasn't helping him either. The university pharmacy is able to donate a certain amont of medicine so at least he was going to get that for free.

It's frightening to think how the changes to immigration law could ramify through society. I think that it is in these underserved populations that emergent infections diseases are likely to show up and go undetected, with potential dire consequences. Clinics like these, where there is no danger of being turned in to the "Migra", are important both for providing access points to care and also for keeping an ear to the ground for new diseases.