Friday?!

Wow, I can't believe it's already Friday! The days have all started blending together since classes ended, especially since I lost all of Monday to traveling. I've just been hanging around and shopping all week. It's been fun. I am not much of a shopper normally, but when you have nothing but a wimpy grocery store for 4 months...Also, there are a lot of fun summer things out right now. And since it's summer 11 out of the 12 months now for me, it is very fun to find new clothes! I really have no idea how this is all going back with me in August, ugh!

Day 2 and I'm Already Bored??

Okay it's day two and I'm already kind of bored. Mostly because I just want to be out and about all the time since I've spent the last four months cooped up on an island and stuck in classrooms/my bedroom studying all the time. Now I just want to be out enjoying the world!

We went shopping at Costco today. They were kind of skimpy on tasty samples, but other than that it was fun. I also went and filled out paperwork for my job that I'm starting next week! I am definitely looking forward to working full time this summer!

My welcome home treat from my immune system is my seasonal grass and tree pollen allergy. Yay for being itchy! Not. Definitely do not miss this part of spring in Grenada-and I'm definitely glad I got to chop a few weeks of misery off by being in school. Ugh!

Home!

Well, after a very long day of travel, I am finally home! The final push to complete packing was stressful-both my roommate and I had to redistribute items amongst our bags several times to get everything within the weight limits. Lots of fun. I also inadvertently ended up packing my blankets and sheet before bed time. I only ended up sleeping for about 2.5 hours before hand anyway though.

We left for the airport at 5:30am, and everything went pretty smoothly from there. I had to take a blanket and hand towel out of my checked suitcase in order for to meet the weight limit. After that it was just a waiting game. We left on time and I took a nice long nap before we arrived in Miami. Going through immigration and customs wasn't terrible. It wasn't as spacious and open feeling as JFK, but not bad. This time, instead of having to recheck my bag, the airline company just took it after customs-so awesome! I think it's because I flew with the same company the whole way and therefore already had my ticket and final destination tag. The next step at the airport was to go back through security and find my gate (D42). In Miami, there are multiple concourses and security check points, so I follow the signs and go to the one that says security for gates D1-60. Before you can get in line, you have to have your ticket double checked. Well, one of the ladies checking tickets was in a snit! She was yelling at people left and right, and I was no exception! She told me I needed to go to the left for security, to another check point. And was ranting about how people needed to look at their tickets and gate numbers before coming to her! I was very confused!! D42 seemed to be within that range of 1-60, provided that counting hasn't changed since I went to kindergarten! I checked and rechecked the signs a couple of times before approaching someone who seemed much nicer. She kindly informed me that it was simply closer for me to go to the other check point. Gee, was that really so difficult? No need to be nasty about it!

The other check point turned out to have a mini food court next to it before security. Knowing that the D concourse options are kind of limited, I decided to go to Burger King before going through security. Yum! I ordered a cheeseburger meal combo. I usually order the food and fries separately because I don't drink soda (long story short-raised in a household where it wasn't allowed and now think that carbonation is the worst taste ever!), but in the airport, you don't have a choice. Usually I'd just switch for a bottle of water, but I knew there was no way I'd drink enough to make it worth it before going through security. I was very excited that they were willing to substitute kids meal milk for my drink haha.

Security was easy. Getting 2 bags, 2 laptops, a jacket, shoes, and my box of info is never fun, but at least it went smoothly. I didn't even have to unpack anything for them to go through in Miami (Grenada always has to double check the massive amount of sea shells in my bag). I also went through my first full body scanner. Weird! After that, finding my gate was easy. Too bad I reversed mine with the guy I was walking with and was sitting at the wrong spot! Luckily one of my classmates walked by and asked if I was on the flight that was boarding next to me! Good thing she did-yikes! I slept most of the second flight too. I did stay awake long enough to get my can of cranberry apple juice-I love the stuff they give you on airplanes! We landed early evening to cloudy, dreary weather. Welcome home! Both of my bags made it through all of the trips-yay!

We hit some rush hour traffic that made me miss island "traffic." Essentially, a couple of cars waiting at a traffic circle! Oh well. I got my Chinese food for dinner, played with my puppies, and spent lots of time with my piggie! She is pretty happy to have me back. Spoiled little monster!

Today I met my father at the mall to order a new cell phone. I have an old enV2 (I think that's what it's called) from about 2.5 years ago that has finally decided to call it quits. The front of the phone stopped working years ago, but the keyboard and inside were fine so I just let it be (partly because I hate change and partly because I knew at the time that I would probably be going internationally for school). When we landed in Miami yesterday, I found that it was already mysteriously on. I say mysteriously because the front of the phone doesn't work, so the only way to turn it on is to open it up, and it was well secured from that! I also discovered that the keyboard keys weren't working. I finally was able to get them to sort of respond if I pushed hard enough, but even then, they would usually type out multiples, making it very hard to send a message to someone! The phone also turned off spontaneously a few times in my pocket, and was found on in my bag when we landed the second time. Again, no idea how!

I also did some mall shopping and wandering-first time in four months! I was really hoping to do more fun shopping today with my mother, but my youngest brother was home "sick" today. He looked fine to me, but wasn't feeling well last night. Hmph. It wouldn't matter so much if I wasn't starting work on Monday, but now I only have 3 days left with my mom! Boo.

Almost Time!

I am leaving for the airport in exactly 6 hours! I can't wait!

We got up and enjoyed a royal breakfast on our last morning here, went for a swim, finished a load of laundry, managed to pack everything for storage (2 large suitcases and 7 small/medium sized boxes between the two of us!), lug it all there, go out to Prickly Bay for Greek pizza, and now we're just finishing off the final touches! Good bye Grenada, it's been a crazy 4 months!

Packing, Packing, Packing!

We started the day off by going to town to do some shopping. We got up earlier than my body would have preferred after this long semester, but we made it and found lots of fun items! My roommate was looking to get some gifts for her family in town and I was pretty much just there for the experience. One thing I noticed for the first time was people selling crabs. Like the crabs you cook in a pan and eat. Except that these crabs were leash tied to palm fronds and still alive-some were still struggling to get free. As an animal loving individual, it broke my heart to see these poor animals like that. I know that I'm anthropomorphizing when I look at the crab and think that it is acutely and very well aware of what it is going through and what is to come, but I do know that on a basic level, it does know that it is doomed. And that makes me very, very sad. I don't eat seafood. I don't like the taste, and I can't bring myself to eat sea life. It makes me sad. I look at any of them and their eyes grab my soul. I am not a vegetarian-I don't feel that way about other animals, but sea critters are just a no-no for me. I did a search to see if I could find a picture of these tied up crabs, and found one from a news article in Trinidad here.

After a few hours of wandering around the city for a couple hours, we made our way back to our end of St. George's and popped into the mall to pick up a couple of things quickly. My roommate needed some thing from the grocery store and I needed to grab some packing tape.

When we got back, I decided I had better start poking around at my stuff. I hate packing. I HATE packing. Seriously, I would rather repeat finals and have them be cumulative for the entire semester than pack. Even once it's done, I just don't feel relaxed until everything is away and I'm on the plane. And even then, I really don't care for the international portion of the flight so it's really just best when I'm at my destination. Thankfully things are going much better than they did last year. Ugh I don't ever want to repeat that, that was awful! Such a time crunch and way too much stuff to sort through! Things are kind of approximately where they need to be at this point. We are planning on going for one final swim tomorrow morning, so after that and a shower, I'll pack up all of the bathroom stuff (the towels will need a final washing and drying) and then we'll also have to tackle the kitchen. Hopefully that won't be too bad. I have a ton of boxes that I've been stock piling which has been very helpful. Much more helpful than the two I had last term!

Oh, I should mention that not too much paint was destroyed in taking down all of my wall decorations. There are two large loose pieces, but at least one of them was really from the previous tenant, and the other isn't terrible. There are some missing patches here and there too, but oh well. Nothing I can do! It was very tedious to very carefully peel everything off and try to preserve the wall! I blame a lot of the ripping on the high humidity in my room. Today it's been at 75%, and everything feels damp. Paper feels as if I took it out on a summer night and set it in the grass, it's disgusting. Rumor also has it that they were on such a time crunch to finish this building for students to move in last fall, that the paint did not get the requisite amount of time to dry before being invaded by students. At any rate, I really don't care. If they charge me for it, whatever. I'll be annoyed, but the sanity of having decorations and pictures to look at is far more important to me than the paint!

Okay, time for bed! I have an insanely long and crazy day tomorrow and then leaving here first thing Monday morning!!

25%

Finals are over! We survived, studied hard, didn't sleep enough, and are now more than ready to hop on a plane to the United States soon!

25% represents the amount of my degree I have now officially completed! I absolutely can not believe an entire year of school has past already! Where on earth did these 8 months go? One year ago, I was just a few days past being accepted to veterinary school, graduating from Virginia Tech with degrees in Biological Sciences and Psychology, and wondering how on earth I was going to accomplish everything I needed to do before school started! Now I am 1/3 of the way through my education on the island, and 1/4 of the way through the whole program! Time certainly does fly!

This year has been full of surprises and firsts. I traveled internationally for the first time. I handled an emergency situation pretty well and some what gracefully, I learned how to live alone, and I learned how to live in another country. I learned 1000's of new facts and tidbits, worked with brand new people, figured out how to cook meals with limited supplies and ingredients, and have learned more about myself than I ever dreamed possible! I am so glad that I am at this veterinary school and no where else. All of this experience has made me who I am today, right here right now, and will be a part of the doctor I become. I have not loved every minute of it (and I will tell you that you are crazy if you tell me that you do love every minute of it), but I have loved many moments and thoroughly enjoyed myself over the last 8 months. I can't wait to pick up where we've left off next fall and help new students make the transition here, but I am certainly ready to go home to enjoy a much needed and well deserved break! Until we leave, we shall be enjoying celebratory chocolate cake and cupcakes to mark the completion of an entire year for me and an entire semester for my vet roommate!

Pretty Pictures

I went to the anatomy lab this morning to review some final osteology before it was closing at 1p, but some poopy face decided to lock it early :(. Good thing I can look at my notes, just not as effective. Oh well. On my way back up the mountain, I took some pictures. Pardon the finch one, they were being SUPER camera shy.

Well It Doesn't Look Bigger To Me...

My roomie and I went out to the dock at 11:30p tonight to see what we thought of the moon. I must say, I don't think it looks any bigger, at least not like it was hyped to be! It is however extremely bright, but I'm pretty sure that has more to do with it being nearly full than being larger. I wish pictures really did it justice, down here in Grenada we see a beautiful, bright moon with a partly cloudy sky. Wisps of clouds float over and behind the moon from time to time, causing a really neat refractory rainbow ring. There is also the largest halo I've ever seen surrounding the moon tonight!

P.S. the last picture has islands in it-can you see them?

Umbrellas and Trees

Mmm I wish when I said "umbrella" I was referring to the delicious beach restaurant, but unfortunately I am not. I was half way to my destination yesterday when Grenada decided it was the perfect time for a down pour. I know I've mentioned Grenadian rain before-it either seems to be the kind of rain that barely gets you wet, or the kind of rain that is going to soak you no matter what. This rain was the latter. With no buildings to dash to and no rain coat or umbrella with me (wasn't thinking about it when I left that morning), my options were to get torrentially drenched or to duck under a tree. I chose the tree. As it turns out, tropical trees make an excellent umbrella substitution (the exception being that they don't move). This also turned out to be a good storm to duck out of, because it rained hard for at least 10 minutes. Moral of the story, if you find yourself caught in a storm, try the nearest tree!

Also, finals week is officially upon me as of 9am tomorrow morning when I have my first "finals week" final. Due to this, I will likely be suspiciously absent over the next week or so, but I promise to return with lots of pictures when it's over because we have a ton planned for that weekend!

Kids and Cookies

I saw the cutest kid yesterday. He was running around, all upset because he had managed to get separated from his mother and he was crying (surprisingly his mother and friends did not at all seem concerned by the separation). Being the nice, caring vet students we are, we approached him quietly and cautiously, and managed to capture him and get him back to his herd safely. Yes, I was talking about a goat : D. Silly little guy (or girl, we didn't check) managed to squeeze himself through a hole in the fence and thus found himself in a small parking lot (he wasn't in any danger though) and separated from the others. Amusingly enough, none of the others seemed to really care about his panic. Maybe he's done it before?

Onto the cookies. Since the grocery store has managed to run out of cookies, I decided that my roomie and I needed to make cookies. This also served to help us use up some of our massive quantities of brown sugar, flower, oats, and chocolate chips. Since neither of us had a good recipe handy, we turned to the internet and found us a good looking chocolate chip-oatmeal cookie recipe. There was only one teeny flaw with this recipe (that we didn't realize until much later)-it called for no salt. Now apparently there are people who like and prefer their cookies without a few granules of salt, but I am not one of them. We baked them and tasted them, and just couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. I thought at first they just didn't taste sweet enough, but eventually thinking about my yummy sweet and salty snacks for the evening led me to realize that the cookies were lacking salt. Sure enough, sprinkling a couple of grains onto one and tasting it instantly made them taste like normal cookies. Go figure. So now I know salt really is an important part of the recipe (for me). Kind of like the time I had a roommate that made pancakes from scratch but had no milk and thus looked for a recipe that did not include a specified amount of milk to add. Means it must be negligible, right? Wrong! Also, if you don't have milk for your pancakes (or any recipe for that matter), don't then substitute oil. Strongest tasting pancakes I've ever had!