Partly on impulse, and partly to prove to myself that I could do it, I applied for an internship halfway across the world in a place I knew virtually nothing about. Like many naïve, idealistic young people, I had been inspired by stories from other idealistic young people who had travelled the world and returned enlightened and world-wisened. Yup, someday I want to travel alone as well, I had been saying. But why not now? What was I waiting for?

That’s only half of the picture. I applied to Stanford University’s Asian Liver Centre (ALC) with a clear, yet ambiguous goal: to learn and experience as much as possible, and to bring those ideas home to further the Hepatitis B/liver advocacy back in Australia. The internship opportunity itself had been a product of a growing relationship with the mysterious “Mie-Na”, whom I occasionally emailed and shared progress from our Hepatitis B Free UNSW activities, and sheer timing.

Granted, I hadn’t put much serious thought into what I was getting myself into. Being swept up in the end-of-year hurricane of organising, exams and general kerfuffle, the idea of being away from home for 6 weeks didn’t really sink in. (As my mum put so eloquently: “you haven’t really had time to think about and digest this properly, and you’re probably going to get there and wonder what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into” – or something along those lines).

I’m proud to say I didn’t freak out too much or cause a public disturbance. Granted, I think I must have been feeling pretty nervous at the airport – hands aren’t usually supposed to shake checking in at the airline desk, and the last time I checked, I didn’t have a resting tremor.

13 hours or so later, after a brief triumph for clearing customs (the queue had been agonisingly long), I had a dark moment of panic in the arrivals hall. Mie-Na’s friend Ken, another ALC veteran, was kindly picking me up from the airport and I had no clue how I was going to find him, apart from “meet curbside at the arrivals terminal”. But the hall was freakishly long, I thought I was about to be lost 5eva, stupidly berating myself for not clarifying our meeting point more clearly. Luckily, Ken drove by in his conspicuously blue pick-up truck (thank goodness for that description) and I was saved. It gave me a sense of how powerless you feel as a stranger in a foreign country.

So, dear reader, I will try my best to give you a glimpse into the wonderful organisation that is Asian Liver Centre (ALC). In a nutshell, they are dedicated to reducing deaths and suffering from Hepatitis B locally and in the Asia-Pacific region. They are a powerhouse; pumping out resources ranging from easy-to-understand pamphlets in 7 different languages about Hepatitis B, to online training modules for health care workers, to websites for mothers with Hepatitis B. They run community and corporate outreach programs promoting early diagnosis of Hep B for high-risk ethnicities, they do research for new diagnostic tools and treatments for liver cancer, they work with government health departments internationally to create sustainable infrastructure that supports Hep B care.

I don’t know if any of that sunk in for you. It takes some time, and I’ll be writing a lot about it over the next few weeks.

So basically: they do a lot of stuff for Hep B.

Tangent aside, I spent this week at ALC getting a feel for their spectrum of advocacy, meeting the team (supervisors and interns included), and starting to jump in on some of their projects. For example, some recent corporate outreach programs – trying to engage local businesses in hosting free onsite Hepatitis B education sessions for their employees. I’m not gonna sugar-coat it: this has been challenging at times for me, especially as I have little experience with the corporate world (and that’s a hopeful exaggeration: I have NO experience with the corporate world). I often find myself unable to put myself in the position of a company, seeing our program.

It’s been an incredible learning experience, and I’ve only been there for 3 days. Some lessons learnt:

Stay tuned for more on the Project Scrapbook!

Carrie

PS. Excuse that clumsy ending, I was trying to think of a better way to end…but it is late and I am out of ideas…

PPS. Happy thanksgiving, people!