Meet Lucy!

Welcome Lucy!

Lucy is my new dog! I adopted her a week ago from a local rescue organization to be my new friend, walking buddy, and Grenadian protector. She is 4 years old, is being called a collie/Australian Shepard mix and is generally a sweet and loving girl! She is perfect when it comes to interacting with other dogs, walking, eating politely, sleeping and hanging out, and is an all around great dog. She does have some anxiety and fear of men we are currently working on, but love and patience will help us to over come these issues. She unfortunately would LOVE to eat Penny, so they aren't being housed in the same room. Maybe some day we will be able to work on this, I miss having Penny in my room but her safety comes first!!

Listening

Being back in the US over the last week has reminded me of a few things I don't miss about this country. Compared to Grenada (and I am well aware that I'm not comparing apples to apples here), there is so much sadness and tragedy. It is common place to turn on the news and spend the show learning about murders, stabbings, and violence, transportation accidents are frequent, and emergency vehicles are present in abundance. I know this is all just part of our society, but it still makes me sad. I passed a couple of serious accidents today - it breaks my heart to know that their families are probably hurting tonight. When I pass a fire truck or ambulance, it saddens me to know that someone is on the other end of those vehicles and in distress. Am I grateful that we have those services? Absolutely! We certainly do not have them so accessible in Grenada meaning that urgent care and services are delayed when they are needed most.

I found myself cornered today in a public restroom. An innocent comment by a woman about how dark the facilities were turned into hearing about the tragedies and difficulties in her life currently. A family member was just diagnosed with a large tumor after suffering through painful episodes over most of the last year and a half and is currently kind of in limbo as her doctors figure out the next plan of action and her husband has had 2 bouts of cancer (different types) in the last several years. I don't think she intentionally began blabbing to a stranger, but I imagine that having someone to sympathetically listen to her troubles just kept her going and going. I didn't mind. I know it helped her. She has a lot of emotion built up in her life, and as humans, we have a social need to share our burdens and joys. As she was explaining her life away, I smiled thinking that as a future veterinarian, this will certainly not be the last time someone borrows my ears and smile to help themselves to feel better. We might officially only have degrees in veterinary medicine, but your veterinarian plays multiple roles, one of which is that of a psychologist. It's something you accept by choosing this field, but perhaps if as members of society we decided to adopt a little more patience and caring for those around us (in the car, at the store, waiting at a checkout counter, entering/exiting a building, etc.) we might find ourselves feeling a little less burdened.

Just a thought, but try to remember your smile, your patience, and your manners as we proceed through a very hectic time of year. Hold the door for someone, let someone merge into your lane in traffic, offer a helping hand to someone who needs it (heck, even if it's just to help pick the cans of soup someone knocked over!). You just might find yourself feeling better about your life and who you are. I try very hard to think of people as individuals and not just as a generic mass - everyone deserves proper treatment, but it only works if we participate ourselves!

A Little Update...

Done with final exams! Done with term 3! Done with Grenada!

Finals were obnoxiously tough. Grr!! Our professors were not very kind to us this go-around! Oh well, I can be satisfied with how it all turned out I suppose. It seemed to take forever to get through the 4 of them too! Not appreciative of that! Monday night was spent relaxing and poking around at packing. Tuesday we went for a final swim and then I had to pack like crazy to move into my new apartment! One thing they failed to mention to us when they were letting us store things in the closet, was that the apartment complex is currently left open and unlocked all day as they are still finishing construction. Great. I really hope I still have clothes when I get back in the spring or else we are going to have some serious problems!!! Nothing valuable was left there, but we did store a ton of things.

All day Wednesday was spent in airports and on planes! I had an 8 hour layover in Miami, but managed to pass the time chatting with classmates so it was pretty fast and great. My first American meal wad Burger King (convenient fast food basically haha). It was delicious! I didn't get home until after midnight, but all of the animals were pretty thrilled to see me! I'm pretty sure Penny could have laid on my lap happily for hours, but I did eventually call it quits to sleep. It's pretty cold here! We've been puttering around doing some shopping and baking. I'm off to bed but I'll update soon!

Final Exams

Ahhhhh final exams time :(. We finished classes today officially, so a couple of last minute cramming days for us as we get ready to meet 200 pages of pathology on Monday. Kill me now please? Ugh!! I feel like I know nothing and even worse, I feel like I don't even know where to begin or how to study. My usual methods cannot apply here. Bah.

The line up is pathology, parasitology (which now there is serious pressure to get an A because the professor nominated me for the Bayar Parasitology Award), pharmacology (to the geniuses who thought this would be better as a cumulative final, I hate you!!! hundreds upon hundreds of drugs, mechanisms of actions, pharmacokinetics, side effects, contraindications, etc. to know? gee thanks!), and lastly clinical pathology.

One of my classmates is counting down like crazy, and apparently we are at 13 days left on this island (crazy!!!). I just want to be home! So much exam pressure and stress to overcome first though. ugh!

I still haven't solved the picture problem. Unfortunately it looks like that's going to be looked at more closely while I'm home over winter break. I'm probably going to have to outsource pictures to a public album site since apparently Google has a 1GB storage limit that I have reached in the last year and a half. What a bummer! They offer you more space for money, but I am a poor student and am definitely unwilling to pay! Oh well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy American Thanksgiving! Try not to kill anyone tonight/tomorrow (or any day really) while you're out shopping!

We had our "traditional" vet school dinner tonight - super thank you to Hill's and Novartis for donating turkeys and drinks for tonight. We really appreciate the ability to have a thanksgiving dinner even though we're thousands of miles from home and away from our families. It's a bitter sweet time for everyone.

The food was amazing! I didn't have a single dish tonight that I didn't like (although I was not particularly fond of the taste combination that resulted when I set something chocolate on top of mashed potatoes!). No other place will I have my pick of dozens of different side dishes - tonight alone I had 3 different kinds of mashed potatoes! I only stopped at 3 because I didn't want to get too many stares from my friends when I showed up with a ton of potatoes haha - I'm Irish, it's in my blood? I'm pretty sure I picked up at least 4 different turkey pieces too, because everyone has a different and unique way of cooking it! I squeezed a little bit of pumpkin pie in tonight, someone made a fantastic pumpkin pie dip (yum!!), as well as my pumpkin bars. I also had a rice krispie treat, some strawberry cheesecake and a couple of buckey balls. Please don't judge me too harshly! I swear I only had about 2 bites worth of the above mentioned foods! The key is to take just a tablespoon or so of everything so you get to try lots of dishes without getting too full to try everything! I love it! I guess it ended up being very convenient that I forgot to eat lunch today (yes, I seriously forgot! I was so busy checking tasks off my list this morning and then suddenly it was almost 1:30!). 

Less than 3 weeks left officially! 4 more days of class, 4 final exams, 1 presentation, and 1 more pesky pharmacology exam before it's time to pack up and go home. I really miss my family and friends right now, and most of all I miss Penny. I'm tired of getting up every morning and going to classes all day and then coming home just to study the rest of the night. It's draining, even if I do get plenty of sleep most nights. I'm worried about final exams because I want to do well and not fall short. December 12th just cannot come fast enough!

Kitten!!!

My roommate rescued an adorable little kitten today! It's so wonderful having such a cute and fuzzy little critter around! Her name is Pandora and she is just under 4 weeks old. She was rescued as a feral (and don't worry, we consulted with several doctors including boarded internists and a nutritionist as well as the director of the feral cat project here so she is in good hands getting everything she needs!) but she is so stinking cute and has the most opinionated voice ever! I'm sure you will be inundated with pictures over the next few weeks as she grows up!

And in case you're wondering, no we don't get Thanksgiving off tomorrow. We have classes, but we do have a yummy school-wide dinner tomorrow night!

..."Houston, we have a problem!!!" I tried to upload pictures tonight and Google told me that I've uploaded my 1GB quota!! Huh?? So sorry to leave you hanging - I'm going to have to wait until this weekend to figure this out :( 

Pumpkin Bars

I finally got around to making pumpkin bars tonight! They turned out so nicely - I am very pleased. I managed to track down the right ingredients for my mother's recipe, mix everything up well, bake it nicely, and then frost it to the ultimate deliciousness! Sometimes things do turn out even when you're on a Caribbean island with expensive ingredients, limited supplies, and just a toaster oven : D.

Recipe:

Bars

4 eggs

1c. oil

2c pumpkin

2c sugar

1/2 t salt

2t cinnamon

2c flour

2t baking powder

1t baking soda

Beat eggs and add oil, pumpkin, sugar. Add dry ingredients and beat mixture well.

Place in jelly roll pan and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

 

Frosting

1 stick butter

3oz cream cheese

1 t water

1 t vanilla

11/2 c confectioners sugar

Cream together and spread on cool pumpkin bars.

Keep bars refrigerated

Sand Dollars

I went to Grand Anse beach today for the first time since early last term. It's such a pretty beach but not so great for snorkeling (at least not compared to everywhere else) and getting there and back on the weekend bus schedule is a huge pain, so I just really haven't been. But a friend wanted to go today, so a few of us trekked over and enjoyed a lovely afternoon in the sun.

For the first little bit, we just hung out in the water. It felt "cold" getting in initially, and then it just felt wonderful to float there. After the others decided to get out, I opted to snorkel for a few minutes and see if there was anything worth taking pictures of. The area with vegetation and stuff happens to be rather far out and at least 20ft deep. Angry congested sinuses are not a fan of doing anything more than looking from the surface, so I couldn't really dive down and see if anything deserved a better look. The water was crystal clear today, but it was still kind of difficult to distinguish all the darkly covered objects from one another so I decided to head back. On my swim back, I came across my first ever sand dollar!! I was super excited! I think I saw one or two with the help of one of my classmates where we used to swim by the cliff and he would then retrieve them, but this was just lying there on the bottom staring up at me! I of course had to get a picture of it - must document the find! Let's just say that diving for pictures and retrieval was rather painful. The amount of pain an pressure in my face while I was deep under made me wonder if I was going to hemorrhage out my nose and ears! Luckily that's a bit dramatic and was most certainly not the case haha.

After I collected my sand dollar, I excitedly continued my journey to shore to show my friends. Maybe 20-30 ft from the original spot, I found another!! No picture taking this time, just down and back. Two in one day after 1.5 years?? Crazy!!

I also saw an eel while I was swimming - wish I could have gotten better pictures because he was pretty cool looking, but oh well. All in all, an excellent swim and it ended in spotting a rainbow!

The Verdict Is...

More orange juice and cough syrup!! After 6 weeks, I caved and visited our university health services today. Waste of 80 minutes and $25 US. To recap the issues, I was lucky enough to have acute bronchitis the entire week of midterm exams. Lots of coughing, feeling miserable, and sleeping. At the end of all that, I started feeling better and the coughing just seemed to become a residual thing. Fast forward five weeks and the coughing began to pick up and get worse. Yuck. So after pointed stares from my roommates and friends, I finally made an appointment to see someone. The only advice the doctor could offer was get enough antioxidants, drink more orange juice, and try some cough syrup. Helpful. Really helpful. Grr.

Flights Resolved

Resolved my flight issues today! I called American Airlines again during my lunch break and asked for an explanation. When this person priced the flight change out for me, it came up $50 cheaper (so $210) which had me very confused. She said that basically the "class" of ticket I purchased back in March was no longer available on this flight so I was looking at a cost difference between "classes." So when the round trip previously was $837, the new total went up to $900 something. Okay, all makes sense to me, I tell her I'll think about it and get back to her. As soon as I hang up the phone, it occurs to me that no matter how you multiply $369, you can't get $900 on a round trip flight, so I am once again very confused. I decided to call my father to see what he thought and ended up leaving a long winded message.

Tonight when we're talking, I am ranting on and on about how I just want to be home! I am so sick of being here, I am so sick of pathology, I am so sick of studying and going to class. He can't really offer any insight on the flight situation other than the airline companies like to make things secretive and extra-complicated in order to make extra money. I'd have to agree after all of my AA phone calls! At the end of the call, he sweetly offers that they'll pay half of whatever the total cost ends up being. Yay!!! I love my parents :).

I decided to call AA one more time and ask again about the $369 flight. The lady this evening was not as nice as the one this afternoon, but nicer than the lady last night. You can tell as you're talking to them that they deal with very rude and angry people all the time, because the second you pose a question to them, their tone of voice gets defensive. I enjoyed listening to tonight's woman, because she would weave in and out of the defensive tone as she realized I wasn't going to be mean and yell at her. Quite honestly, I don't think I'm capable of being mean to people like that. I have a tendency just to be submissive and non-confrontational. So this woman starts looking around at flights and the various airports in my home area, and finds a flight that will only cost me $30 extra. She tells me this is the best deal for that day, and I decided to take it! Is $180 an absurd amount of money to pay? Absolutely. But I want to go home!! I want to be with my family, I want to eat real food, I want to be with my Penny and my dogs, I want to have more time to shop, more time to dog hunt, more time to basically not be in Grenada. I love it here, but enough is enough! Island fever at this point haha.

When I talked to my mom after the switch, she was telling me that after I spoke to my dad earlier, he was very confused. He was surprised I wanted to come home so badly, he thought I loved it here! And I do, but I am so ready to be done with this semester! I am tired of Grenada and school, I just want a break :). So now I get to fly home on December 12 - less than one month from now!!! I am flying into a different airport at a later time at night, but that's okay, I get to be reunited with all the ones I love!

Pharmacology

It's pretty rare that things we talk about in class on a day to day basis are interesting enough to warrant a blog post (after all, you don't really want to learn about the intricate details of the liver or eyes, the exact mechanisms of action for a variety of chemotherapeutic agents, the parasites you might get doing seemingly innocuous things-like eating-or how to break down the boring details of clinical pathology), but occasionally a professor will add a little extra something to their presentations that just deserves a shout out.

Today's post is brought to you by pharmacology. The current topic of discussion is reproductive pharmacology, so I guess this at least sorta-maybe-kinda makes sense to have in a presentation, but I am a very conservative and rather shy person and I'm also pretty easily shocked. It's small and in black an white on our handouts, so we knew a cartoon was coming, but extra close inspection would be the only way you'd get to see all the..err...details. This pops up on the screen and there are some giggles of amusement and embarrassment as the professor launches into detail about oxytocin. I figured it would be the sort of thing that would get changed quickly as we moved onto a more suitable slide, but no, I had the pleasure of awkwardly averting my gaze as best I could for what felt like at least 5 minutes!

So if ever you were wondering if we ever do have some fun in veterinary school, I suppose this proves that the answer is yes!

American Airlines

So when i book flights for Grenada/home, I do it many months in advanced. You do it based on the principle the term starts on day x and ends on day y. Imagine my inner turmoil when I found out we were going to end 4 days earlier this semester than normal. For many months now, I have been going back and forth on whether or not to move my flight up a few days so I can be home with my family and eat real food and play with my pets for just a few days longer. The kicker is that there is a $150 flight change fee. Ugh, that's a lot of money, and it's been keeping me from just doing it. 
 
Fast forward to today. I finally make up my mind, I'm going to do it. I'm going to change the flight, pay the money, and be happier than I will be if I'm stuck here for a few extra days. I like it here, its a great country and all, but after 4 months I just want OFF!!!  So I look up the flight - it's still there, the cost for it is $369 (which is mysteriously down $5 from when I looked this afternoon...), get all my info together, and make the call. A grumpy lady answers the phone (it's no later than 6:30p her time, but whatever). She blandly asks me for my info and what I want, and then tells me that it will cost me $260. WHAT?!?! Now I'm stuttering on the phone. Huh?? How is that possible?? She tells me that there's the $150 change fee, and that there is a $110 difference between the flight I previously booked and this one. I politely tell her I'll have to think about that.

So now you're probably thinking "well duh there's a difference between the two flights," except that would make my original flight out of here $250. Those of you who have even glanced at flights to and from Grenada are now laughing, because there is no such thing. I paid $866 round trip for this set of flights. You're trying to tell me that coming here in peak times was more expensive than leaving here on peak times?? Nope, not buying it. I didn't even get off that nicely with the last set of flights I purchased where my total came to $640. I am extremely lucky with flight costs. I come from a major city on the east coast and flights are pretty cheap for me, but they are not $250. You can't even fly directly from Miami to Grenada for that price. 
 
I get back on the AA website to do some fishing. I decide to pretend like I want to buy the flight I want singly. I look it up, select it, and... error notice! Huh?? "Flight no longer exists." Wait what?! Fine, I'll try a later time. Same deal. Okay, what is going on?? Refresh the page again to find that the 1st flight is still missing, but the second is available but $30 more. ...Huh? Okay so maybe the 2nd flight in my original combo is booked, seems reasonable. Nope, checked that and there are dozens of seats available on it. 
 
What the heck?! I am so incredibly confused!!!

Expectations vs. Reality

Well, there are officially 2.5 weeks of class left and 4 final exams before this semester is over with. Some how the end still seems like a long ways off. I feel like we have a lot more material to cover still, and I'm already starting to feel panicked about final exams. I'm mostly concerned about pharmacology (cumulative) and pathology (because I find the subject matter so incredibly dull). I understand clinical pathology on a fundamental level, so it will mostly be cramming the quirks and facts into my brain. The jury is still out on parasitology, but in general I tend not to have problems with that class.

6 exams total and one presentation left. Can I make it? I can't believe I'm nearly finished with term 3 of 6 here. Everything could not have turned out more differently with vet school than I had imagined. Expectations vs. Reality. Sheesh. Life is just not interested in going according to my plans!

Expectation: my friend from home and I would tackle our four years of vet school together. We would carry each other through ups and downs, and hopefully not hate each other at the end of the day. We could study together and feed off of each other's strengths. Reality: we're a semester apart due to circumstances beyond our control. We have different class schedules, different class friends, and although we certainly don't hate each other, we're not close when it comes to school and hanging out anymore.

Expectation: I would go to vet school and make lots of new and awesome friends. Maybe I would finally feel like I fit in and wasn't such an outcast for once. Reality: we might all have a common goal and passion, but I don't think I could feel more isolated. I'm still wondering where I went wrong. The fundamental problem seems to come down to the fact that I am not a party person and I am rather quiet. I don't really mean to be, but I feel like I am really boring compared to most of my classmates. A lot of them have some really amazing life experiences, like cool previous careers or working with animals in a really unique way. The straight arrow path has certainly gotten me where I wanted it to, but I am really lame and boring compared to everyone else. I think they think I am grade obsessed and snobby since I spend most of my study time in my room rather than in our classroom and I tend to do well on exams, but the truth is I should study way more than I do. I get distracted or lose focus and it is way more fun to stare at the wall and do nothing than it is to study! I envy them. I would love to be more carefree and outgoing, but I just can't seem to make that happen.

Expectation: I would not be smart enough and really struggle. I really didn't think I would do very well. I really questioned my intelligence and ability to handle the course load even after I was accepted. I was really scared. Reality: so far, when I put the time into studying and learning the material, I tend to be rewarded. Sometimes I still question my self and my abilities. I almost feel like it's all a lie and I'm just pretending. Not sure how you can pretend to be more intelligent than you are and actually have it work, but sometimes it certainly feels that way.

There was a lot I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what the island was going to be like, I had no idea how I was going to eat for 3 years (because I kind of imagined being dropped into a country that solely native fruits and foods, and I'm pretty picky). I wondered how I'd handle living in a third world country, what it would be like to spend all day every day with the same 80 people for 3 years. I was pretty nervous about avoiding tropical diseases such as dengue, but this term it seems to be something familiar doing my immune system in! I didn't really think I'd miss my friends and family from home too much, but I didn't take into account what it would feel like to be so isolated from them. 

All in all I love it here. I wouldn't pick another school even if I had the choice to do it all over again. Things might not be as I had planned, but generally that's okay. They're working out the way they're supposed to and I can be happy enough with that.

Slacking

Ack! I'm sorry I have been slacking on posting lately. The thing is, this semester is really boring. Lectures day in and day out with very little excitement happening (unless you count the class drama, which is just mostly immaturity and obnoxiousness).

Tomorrow morning ends the week-of-exams with a parasitology quiz. It started last Thursday with pharmacology, then continued with a parasitology quiz, a pathology exam, a virology final, a clinical pathology exam, and finally tomorrow's parasitology quiz. Exhausting!

One of my classmates and I have signed and put a deposit on an apartment for next year this week - that's pretty exciting! It's all official now I guess! While I know we'd both prefer to stay right here on campus in our current rooms, this really isn't a terrible alternative. It's not too far from campus, right on the bus route, and brand new. And did I mention the pool?! Okay okay, stop laughing! Yes, it is very exciting that we will have a pool! Right on the premises and not made of saltwater. I am looking forward to swimming laps. Yes, the ocean is right here and is much nicer than any swimming pool, but there's the added element of sand and salt and messiness. Also, I never want to leave the ocean. Ever. I could stay in and snorkel all day (a problem when there are tests to study for!). Therefore, a pool will be awesome because I love to swim, hate to sweat, and will not be attracted to beautiful reef items keeping me in forever!

A Laundry Story

First final exam of the term tomorrow! Yikes! Time to be done with virology forever - woohoo!! Just a short story about a laundry experience from tonight to tide you over.

I normally try to do laundry on Friday or Saturday evenings, as there tends to be less traffic because people are out partying, or just out and about not thinking about laundry. This weekend, that turned out not to happen because I put it off on Friday night, and then ran into troubles last night. Oops. When I got home from studying with a friend this evening, I decided to take a peek and see if by chance either of the washers was open. I lucked out! Stepping into the laundry room, it was completely silent. I did discover finished clothes in both washing machines, but since all the dryers were open, I had no qualms about kicking that person out. Snooze you lose, too bad buddy. I've done laundry in that room long enough to know that there are two types of laundry-doers: those who are hovering over the machines as they are finishing, and those who forget and leave their clothes for hours. This guy struck me as the latter. So I politely pulled all of the clothes out of one washer and stuck them in a dryer. I won't turn it on for people, because everyone has different settings they prefer, and sometimes clothes in the wash are not meant to be dried.

So while I am doing this, a guy pops his head in the room and then quickly disappears. The door is propped open, so I hear him say to someone, "no, it's a girl." Before I leave the laundry room, I always start the water running (so as to claim my machine). When I return my things, I find a guy peering into the currently occupied washing machine with rubber dissection gloves on. He grimaces, and starts pulling the clothes out and shoving them in the drier. As I am watching and trying not to laugh, he says that he's been waiting on this person for over an hour. I chuckle and say that I am not "nice" enough to do that anymore. Too often I have watched people leave things for hours, and I am on a time budget. He says yeah, and reluctantly admits that although he doesn't mind as much when it's a girls belongings, the thought of touching another guy's underwear just grosses him out. He's a med student by the way.

I can't decide. Is this normal? Am I the freak who doesn't mind touching other people's presumably clean clothes without protection? I think perhaps I just don't really care, because in vet med, I've touched and dealt with so many gross things all the time that touching reasonably clean (even if was just water!) guys clothes doesn't bother me a bit. I mean, it's not like I can't come back to my suite and wash my hands with soap! The part that bothers me about touching other people's clothes is my fear that they'll walk in on me in the process. How embarrassing!! Then I'd feel terrible and horribly guilty haha. But not grossed out. After all, doctors must certainly deal with worse on a day to day basis with their patients. And people diseases are much more likely to be transmissible when there is sickness involved!

Favorites

Two exams and one quiz down, a final, an exam and another quiz to go next week! All in all so far so good. Hope I can say the same about next week!

I can't believe it's already November, how did that happen?! Time just flies down here. It probably does at any school, but when it still looks and feels like August outside every day, it's hard to argue against time going fast! 3.5 more weeks of classes and then a week of exams stand between me and being halfway done with my classes in Grenada. Wow. Next semester we start introductory surgery skills and medicine classes - it feels like just yesterday that I was learning about basic anatomy!!!

Anyway, I thought I'd post my absolute favorite pictures from this semester. Photos that I consider worthy of framing potentially someday. Enjoy!

So these are my absolute favorites. I've saved 2,088 pictures to my computer from this semester alone. I've deleted some of the really crummy ones, so in 3 months, I know I've taken more than that. But these are my favorites. I have a lot of really nice pictures, and a lot with fun memories, but these ones make me inhale sharply when I see them. If you are wondering what the real secret to taking beautiful photographs is, it's really simple. Take a lot. I'm almost guaranteed to log 100+ pictures every time I take my camera out. They don't all turn out great, some are just down right terrible, but if you take 6 different shots of the same thing, you are much more likely to have a really nice picture. So take a lot of pictures. Try out your camera settings for fun. USE MACRO. I just figured that setting out last spring - best thing ever! Be persistent. Underwater shots can be tough with moving subjects in moving water. On things that are sitting still in the water (like the crabs, lobsters, urchins, corals, etc.) I probably average 8-10 shots. Moving water is the devil! You'll line something up and you'll snap it and it won't quite be in frame. Or it will be slightly blurry. Then its reset, snap again, and see what I've got. Over and over again. So be patient, be persistent, and take a lot of pictures. That's how you become a truly great photographer. You don't have to have some super fancy camera! These are all from a point-and-shoot!

Happy Halloween!

There was a Halloween hash tonight, but I have a pharm exam tomorrow, a path exam and parasit quiz on Friday, a virology final on Monday, and a clin path exam on Wednesday. Sadly hashing was not in the cards for me tonight :(.

So be sure to eat some candy for me and have a lot of fun! And check out all of these really cool pumpkins! http://slideshow.nbcnews.com/slideshow/today/ghoulishly-grand-carved-pumpkins-39421834/

Sandy

Stolen from a friend on facebook:

"Hey folks at home, enjoy Sandy! You wanted the beach to come to you and we have provided! Oh? You didn't want the sand in the form of a hurricane? My apologies. Some things get lost in translation. ;)"

I am quite amused that as we are winding down hurricane season number two here on this island, I am 2-0 in hurricane/tropical storm avoidance as a Caribbean resident while my family is 0-2 in hurricane avoidance. Sorry about that folks. It really is better that you get the hurricanes though - this poor little island simply couldn't handle it and it would add an infinite amount of unwanted stress to my life (not that storms aren't bad in the US for sure).

Doubts

If you choose to go to veterinary school, you will have days were you doubt everything. You will wonder if you are doing the right thing, putting yourself in so much debt, studying for long hours, and turning your eyeballs and brain into mush. You will wonder if this is really the career you want, if you actually truly want to be a veterinarian every single day for the rest of your life. You will question your intelligence, and doubt your abilities to make good judgements on behalf of your patients. You will wonder about the terrible mistakes you make in the future that will cause a patient harm. You will see nothing but dark tunnel on some days, and you will want to curl up under the blankets, close your eyes, and want to never come out and face the world. (The good news is that there are lots of days where you will feel energized, enlightened, and in love with what you're doing. You may not love vet school because not everyone does, but you will do and learn things that you love. Those are the days that help you get through the rough patches.)

For students that choose to go to foreign schools, there is an added burden of being in a new country. Whether it is somewhere like the UK or Ireland, Grenada or St. Kitts, you will have extra things to over come.

Let me start by saying that I love Grenada. I love going to school here. I really wouldn't want to be anywhere else, because I absolutely love waking up to beautiful, sunny Grenada skies every day. And the following stuff I'm going to say are my personal views and opinions. One person. So please keep that in mind.

I have two roommates and we currently live on campus. One is a good friend from Virginia Tech and is a semester behind me, the other is a classmate who I have been friends with since we started classes. I'll call them T2 and T3 from here on out.

At the beginning of the term, T2 announced her intentions to seriously pursue off campus housing with another classmate for the upcoming spring term. She was tired of having little space to herself and really just wanted something to come home to at the end of the day to call "home." I was disappointed that we were going to be splitting ways for the upcoming term, but fine with out personal opinions. A lot of students prefer not to live on campus. The housing is small, expensive, and there are other little things that people don't care for. I on the other hand, enjoy living on campus. It is very convenient for classes, it is quiet and well kept, it is pretty darn safe, and I like having a small living space. I definitely wasn't considering moving off campus until at least my 3rd year just to maintain continuity.

Unfortunately, I don't get that choice. A lot of students have found themselves in the same boat now, as the housing lottery came back negative for many people. Boo, no more living on campus, and same for T3 (who was also perfectly content to live here forever basically). I am not a fan of change. I do not adapt well. Force it on me and I will panic and rebel. That is how I deal with change. So being forced to move off campus is a MAJOR deal to me. I am a young, caucasian female who spent childhood growing up in quiet, sheltered suburbia, and then moved to practically the safest town in the US for college (Blacksburg, VA). Living in Grenada is a vast difference for me, and it's probably safer here crime-wise than living in a major city!

However, the events that took place during my first ever two weeks in Grenada robbed me of the ability to feel totally safe and secure. Some times I feel complacent and comfortable, but I have never truly felt safe. I feel like a walking target. I feel like the words helpless and weak are stamped across my forehead, and I am just generally untrusting. This makes me more alert and aware (which is a good thing), but it leaves me with a general feeling of fear and anxiety when I stop to think about it.

T3 and I are currently facing the dilemma of finding an apartment. We are both terrified. We have no experience with this, we are naive, and we are both young and white and generally look vulnerable. The ideal apartment for us would be right next to campus, fortress protected, pet friendly, and like a lavish palace (okay, just a modest little 2 bedroom apartment will work just fine!). While I would be scared out of my mind to have to drive here, I think I could do it and be just fine. T3 does not feel this way, and therefore we will be stuck relying on the bus system (because I cannot afford to have a car on my own). I DO NOT want to live alone. I will not rent a studio apartment unless I am absolutely forced to. I have made my opinion very clear, but T3 really likes looking at studios despite not wanting to split up and wanting to live together. ?? Huh, not so sure there! So that part is stressful.

It is stressful thinking about relying on the not-so-reliable SGU bus system (although it has improved in my 3 terms). It is stressful to worry about finding a place that is safe and located in a safe area, especially when you have no idea where to start. I am for sure getting a dog to live with me and be my ears when I'm being oblivious, so I at least can cross that off my list. However, a dog will be an extra time and financial stress, and bring an animal to the island will be a challenge as well. One day at a time! I am stressed because the only people who seem to think this is a big scary deal are my parents, T3, and myself. I'm not getting the sympathetic support of my friends who seem to think I am being silly. Am I being silly? Okay probably a little. But the reality is, burglaries do happen here. People have been mugged at knife point in the middle of the day. People have had knives pulled on them in totally innocent situations, and occasionally someone breaks into your house while you're in it. Does this happen to everyone? Probably not. But any one of those things would be a BIG deal to me!

This is all really just an incoherent rant to say that I'm scared. I'm really scared. I feel really vulnerable at the moment. I feel really helpless, and I'm scared to become a victim. There are things that you have to over come in life, and there are times when you will doubt whatever it is that you're doing. This is one of them for me. It's all just been a week of what the heck was I thinking when I decided to come to another country for vet school, and what the heck am I doing?!

Claws

Happy Grenadian Thanksgiving! If you are wondering what Thanksgiving is like in Grenada, read all about it here! Not a particularly exciting day, but it was a day off from classes, so that is always a plus in my book!

I was planning on a leisurely early afternoon swim, but the idea of having to put sunscreen on was quite deterring. Instead, I opted to go later in the afternoon around the time the sun started to set so I didn't need any sunscreen haha. Lazy!

I have noticed the underwater world tends to be pretty active late afternoon. I feel like I see more activity and more fish when I go swimming later in the day. Could be a coincidence, by I like to think that it's dinner time and everyone is out getting a meal before it's dark out. Who knows.

Today's theme was things with claws. Lots of different critters with claws, and some I've never seen before! I also saw a new type of eel. He was pretty cool, but he definitely scared me silly because he was pretty interested in me! I saw him, snapped a really good picture, but wanted more. So as I reset and swam in for close ups, he began to inch is way out of the hole, watching me the whole time. When he was far enough out to sufficiently freak me out, I swam away fast! I'm just not used to the marine life being very interested in me. Usually the animals are indifferent or terrified! So I swear he was going to eat me (although I didn't see any teeth!).

Proptosis

Heads up, this is not a post for the squeamish.

Last night I was on call at our hospital. I was torn as to whether or not I wanted it to be a quiet evening, as I really have quite a lot to study these days, but it is refreshing to think about clinical medicine with a live patient!

We started off with the cutest golden retriever. She was apparently hanging out on the beach and found by some students. They dropped her off hoping that because she had an external fixator on her leg (for a fracture repair) that perhaps she was a clinic patient and they had owner contact information. Well, it turned out that the fixator was supposed to come out months ago, as it was an old break! We were going to anesthetize her and remove the device after taking confirmatory radiographs, but the clinician decided to grab a second opinion in the morning instead. So she got to hang out with us and cover us in dampness and sand :).

We received one emergency call about a kitty who's owner suspected had been hit by a car. The owner brought the cat in, and I had my first real ophthalmology case!

I think eyes are gross. They weird me out, and I really prefer to have nothing to do with their abnormalities, with the exception of an easy eye infection or simple corneal ulcer. Get much beyond that and all I can think is "yuck!" I had always heard stories of emergency veterinarians seeing cases where a dog got to excited and popped its eyeball out of the socket, and that makes me seriously cringe. This is usually in the little bug-eyed breeds such as shih zhus. Obviously trauma can cause this "proptosis," but it isn't necessarily uncommon for a smushed face breed to pop one out. Gross. Just talking about this makes me cringe. I hated our "pathology of the eye" section in pathology a few weeks ago. 50 minutes x 4 loaded with nasty eye disease pictures, and not usually on live animals mind you. Because pathology is all about the dead. Sometimes these nasty eyeballs were attached to heads, most were just set on a dissection board and photographed. Did I mention that quite a few of them were human?! EW. While I am not seriously grossed out by human stuff like some people, I REALLY prefer that pairs of nasty looking human eyeballs didn't stare back at me during class. All this is just leading to me stating that I figured that if I ever had to deal with something super nasty in the ophthalmology department, I'd be really rather freaked out and grossed out.

Turns out I was wrong. Or at least sort of. Our dear friend came in with his eyeball and all attached muscles just sticking straight out. not hanging there by a single attachment or anything you see in cartoons, but looking like a completely "normal" eye just sticking an inch out of the socket. (And don't say I didn't warn you, it was sentence number 1!!) So some answers to questions you might be thinking - yes I'm sure it hurt like heck, but kitty was in shock, had some head trauma, and was not quite mentally right. What did we do with the eye? Well, a proptosed eye is not life threatening. Head trauma and open wounds are. Being in shock is definitely life threatening. So assessing our friend and getting him started on fluid therapy, heat therapy, and pain meds were crucial. We determined that the poor cat had quite a few cranial nerve deficits and he really didn't seem to care about all our poking an prodding (which isn't a good thing, because if it was you are me and we were mentally appropriate, we'd be freaking out and very painful). We could have theoretically tried to replace the eyeball in the socket, but with the other head trauma, mental inapproriateness, and his blindness in that eye had us deciding to leave it and en-nucleate it when he was stable at a later date if that was in the cards for him. The plan was to support him over night, keep his eyeball well lubricated, and assess him the next day.

I believe the outcome of this case was euthanization. I am sad that we were unable to "fix" him and give him another shot at life, but I am very glad that he is now pain free and doesn't have to worry about everything he would have to overcome to get back to a "normal" life. I am so glad we have that option sometimes, because to watch a patient dismally suffer for a long time is heart wrenching. I know finances played a role in this case, but that is often the case in veterinary medicine. It is everyone's least favorite part.

So long story short, it really didn't bother me at all. I was surprised but pretty pleased! And if you're really brave, here is a link to a proptosed eye. 

A Failed Criminal

Today I learned that neither my roommates nor I are cut out for crime. We all fail miserably.

We were benignly hanging out in our rooms idly pushing papers around (or at least I was!) when all of the sudden, the power dies. Beep! Go the computers, the AC unit's quiet hum cuts out and the kitchen lights go out. Well dang. At least the internet still magically works!

My first thought is "oh no, what if we're without power for a long time and have no water?! or if we have water, what if it's not safe because there's an issue at the filtration center we don't know about!" So one of my roommates and I begin crazy stock piling water into every container we have as the stream begins to slow to a trickle.

Well, perhaps that was a little over board, because the power came back on in 10 minutes. Sighs of relief all around. Unfortunately for us, the return of power meant that some idiot med student could then cook and viciously burn something. Good job future doctor who we will crazily entrust our lives to, you have now set off the building fire alarm. And this is exactly why our smoke detectors are beeping low battery all. the. time!

So with the alarm blaring in the background, we begrudgingly turn to our new problem. You see, when the power cuts off, the AC unit resets to off. This used to be an easy fix - just open the closet door and turn it back on, but some genius university official decided that locks should be on these doors so that students cannot "tamper" with the units. Gee thanks. MUCH appreciated. By the way, I think we'll do the same to your cushy home and let you sweat it out for a few days, as the people with keys now have to go to EACH individual suite, unlock the closet, and reset the unit. Last time the power glitched, this took several days. And we still had access at that point, so that was a 60ish fewer rooms to visit. There are 7 superdorms on campus and at least a dozen other small residence halls, not to mention all the other buildings on campus that will need to have their AC reset because for some reason all the defaults are to off.

Now what? We were standing there rather annoyed at the new situation, and declared "well lock picking can't be that hard, right??" Wrong. Well over an hour was spent between the 3 of us trying out different techniques, reading articles, watching videos on youtube, and making homemade tools out of paperclips and bobby pins with a key-chain multi-tool and pocket knife. No luck. Or rather, no skill. We stink. We even tried the supposed credit card trick and failed. The locking pin is in the front and prevents the card from sliding in to open the door. So we are not master criminals. We should probably stick to our day jobs, as we were clearly not meant to be criminals!

Oh yeah, and 10 minutes into our antics, the power went out again. Alarm still blaring in the background, I couldn't help but add a little more water to the collection! This time it was out for an hour. The internet also finally died about 20 minutes in as well. I tell you, there is no worse feeling than that of being completely alone and isolated on this island. Being cut off from the rest of the world is a very scary feeling. I'm not entirely sure why, but it is. At least we still had working cell phones today.

It was a good reminder of how woefully unprepared we are for any sort of disaster or crisis. Our water comes from the university filtration center, otherwise it wouldn't technically be safe to drink (though I'm not exactly sure what the risk is). We rely on electricity and internet to study and make contact with the outside world. Friends, family, etc - we are almost completely reliant on the internet for this stuff. Cell phones run on batteries, and what happens if the service suddenly cuts out? It's how we connect with each other and an extra lifeline (albeit very expensive for the receiving end) to contact people throughout the world. Food? All of our perishable products are in the fridge, and that's most of our food. We don't have a gas stove, so without power we can't cook anything. At our apartment, that means meals made of raw pasta, cold tomato soup, cookies, chips, dry cereal, and crackers. So admittedly we'd survive for awhile, but no power also means no water. I have a couple of flashlights on hand, and we would have been heavily reliant on those tonight starting at about 5:30p when the sun goes down if the outage had continued. Now what if it's not just a fluke but caused by a severe weather storm? We could be living like this for days. Could we do it? Of course. But it would be a frightening and eye-opening experience.

Just a week ago, we came very close to being hit by a near tropical storm or actual tropical storm. By some miracle, it passed over us without a drop of rain. We were teasing ahead of time as we watched it come closer and closer to us that if it was going to be a total wash out weekend, then it needed to be a tropical storm so that we could at least claim something cool. Seeing pictures from other islands that were hit by Rafael, I almost cried. The damage was significant. Cars were flooded under feet of water, trees and foliage were broken, buildings were damaged, the place looked like it was hit with a hurricane. Except that these are third world countries with infrastructure that doesn't hold a candle to what we have in the US. It scared me to realize that what I was seeing on other islands would have been us if the storm had come here. Hurricane Ivan was a category 3 back in 2004 and destroyed nearly 95% of the island. I can just imagine the damage a tropical storm could do to this little island.

Oops, this was supposed to be a light hearted post! It's nearly 78 degrees in here, and while that's not really unusual in my room (as the AC unit doesn't do much besides circulate air), it makes a big difference to have circulating air versus stagnancy! I will be sure to keep you apprised of how it all plays out!

 Some of the water and a few of our "tools"

"No Tropical Cyclones At This Time"

I got up this morning nice and late (I love super sleep in mornings!) and decided that before I did anything else for the day, I was going to go run my errand to an office on campus to pick up some papers. Get the sweating and grossness out of the way first basically. Because it's pretty much a guarantee here that walking around outside will leave you feeling like you are melting and in desperate need of a shower.

On my walk over, I noticed that it almost felt "cool" out, there was a pleasant breeze, and that it felt quite nice out. I figured I just hadn't had enough time outside yet, but I came back with the same feelings! It was beautiful out, and looking out at the ocean, I really wished I had my camera with me so that I could share the beauty of the day.

As I was heading back into my dorm, I happened to glance off into the distant skies to note they looked rather dark. The source of the lovely weather no doubt (previously blocked by buildings on my route). Yup, within minutes it was sprinkling, and the weather simply deteriorated from there.

I had looked at the NOAA hurricane page this morning to see the statement "no tropical cyclones at this time" pasted across the Atlantic ocean. "Where did Rafael go?" I wondered. Either way, I smiled thinking this meant that it would no doubt be beautiful for a while without the threat of a tropical storm! WRONG!!! But not to worry, I just love being wet in class and in reviews.

When In Vet School...

So it's no secret that I have been hacking for a week and a half, thank you bronchitis. Certainly can't ply hide and seek! Over the weekend it seemed to get better, but now I'm not so sure. Having ample access to a stethoscope, I took a listen. The result is markedly different sounds between the left and right lung fields. The left field is markedly noisier than the right, but one of my roommates swears there are crackles on both sides, just worse on the right.

Yes, this is what we do in our spare time. If you're in the health or pre-health field, you've probably been curious to listen to wacky lung and heart sounds!

1st Day Back

Well I certainly didn't want to go to class today, but all in all it wasn't too bad. Lucky for me, I don't have to start Mondays off with morning labs. My day is Tuesdays.

Four classes this afternoon - parasitology, pathology, clinical pathology, and virology. Our parasitology professor is an all-around fun and lovely lady so I definitely like that class. The last 3 classes had new professors (all visiting) so that kept things interesting. The first is a very southern DVM/PhD for GI pathology. Love him! It is so refreshing to have someone with an American accent, nevermind a southern accent!! He's also very laid back and fun to listen to, so I have a feeling I will learn a lot in GI path! Next up is another American from UC Davis. He is also super awesome and easy to understand. He is also rather passionate about teaching clinical pathology. Combine that with a topic I'm really interested in (immune mediated cell destruction, transfusion medicine, etc.) and that class is also super interesting at the moment. Our last new professor is for virology, and while he's American without an accent, I definitely found myself yawning and daydreaming a bit during class. Let's face it - virology is not a thriller. There are a few interesting points here and there, but as a whole the subject doesn't have you on the edge of your seating dying to find out what else is out there. Or at least not for me haha. He's also not very good at getting to the point. I just want to beg him to spit out what he wants to say, it's driving me crazy!

Weekend Recap

What a weekend! We got so incredibly lucky that tropical storm Rafael magically skipped over us! It could have been a total wash out otherwise! Also, after seeing some pictures of the Virgin Islands post-storm, it makes me grateful that it wasn't us, because the flooding and damage would look exactly the same.

Picture recap:

Friday Snorkling

 Friday Dinner/Cake

 Saturday Hashing

 Sunday Snorkling