Fishies and Phones

Well the second half of the week was certainly busier than the first half! Some club meetings and lectures in the evening that ran late. Sadly this will probably be a trend for the next few weeks as midterm exams begin. Pharmacology Wednesday, parasitology Friday, then pathology/virology/clinical pathology the following week. Yuck. I made it out for one last swim before the craziness begins this afternoon though, so enjoy the lovely pictures! (p.s. a couple of these pictures looks like there's nothing there, but bonus points if you find what's actually in them!)

Oh! I almost forgot! I lost my Grenadian phone yesterday. Bah. I was on my way out the door to the bank and grocery store yesterday when I randomly decided to pocket it. My phone basically serves as a glorified alarm clock. I never use it for anything else basically. Well okay, I do love to play the little "jewel quest" game that came with it, but other than that I barely text or call people with it. Too much effort to text and call quality isn't very good, and there are computers! Anyhow, I pocketed it, got on the bus, and went to the bank. While I was at the ATM, someone asked if I had a phone on me. Remembering that I had indeed snatched it off my desk for whatever reason that afternoon, I said yes and promptly began hunting for it. It was no longer in my pocket, so I figured I must have dropped it into a backpack pouch. The person ended up just needing a calculation (and I had a calculator more handy) so that was that and I thought nothing more about it until I got home.

At this point I decided I needed to track it down and dumped the contents of my backpack onto my bed. Uh oh. No phone anywhere. So what happened to it?? I began to figure it probably slid out of my pocket on the bus while we were flying over bumps and pot holes, as the suspension in this bus was pretty poor. Drat. I borrowed my roommate's phone to see if someone has dropped it off at the security booth, but no luck. It has my last name and dorm number/room number on it in sharpie (after I lost it once before!) so I figured it was just going to have to turn up. We also tired calling the phone in the off chance that someone picked it up, but again no luck. It was too bad I was just then realizing this too because I took the exact same bus home from the store! I decided to take a peek at the evening bus schedule in the off chance that I could catch and quickly search the same bus. No luck with the 7:00p bus. I figured it was a lost cause and was just going to head back home, but then I remembered I needed to print things for class. And then I got caught up talking to a couple of students near the bus stop  for 35 minutes, and then next thing I knew I could check the 7:40p bus! This happened to be the bus I took earlier! The phone was indeed on the bus and wedged deep between the seat and the wall of the bus. If I hadn't been looking for it then (with a flashlight even), there's no way anyone would have found it without hearing it ring next to them and wondering what it was. It was probably a good thing I decided to be a bit patient and persistent, because I'm pretty sure I would never have gotten it back otherwise! And then how would I know when to wake up in the morning?!?!

Sometimes I Forget

Sometimes I forget that I am in veterinary school. The days of endless classes and studying all blur together and the time just seems to slide by. Our labs this semester involve microscopes for the most part, and obviously just a large volume of information in class.

It's nearly the end of September already, how did that happen? Midterms begin in just over a week, marking the halfway point in the semester - what?? What I'm trying to say, is that the few times we make it out the farm this semester are refreshing reality checks and reminders that we are not student zombies, mindlessly making our way through each week and regurgitating material back as we go along. Some people call this semester very boring. The fact that we are stuck with all of this material is certainly a bummer, but I at least have a sense of urgency when it comes to clinical pathology, pathology, pharmacology, and to a lesser extent pathology (and then virology just gets to go sit on its own island!). As I go through all of the material, I wonder how the heck I am going to remember even a fraction of this. I worry that I will be super incompetent, that my patients will suffer because of my short comings, and that I will not live up the standards and expectations I have for myself. While the first two most certainly will not be true, standards and expectations are certainly hard to get away from!

Anyhow, today was a farm day. When we are hot and sweating like crazy, we must remember that we are in a nice beautiful climate and not freezing to death on some farm in the dead of winter! That can be hard to keep in perspective! Today's lab topic was Bovine GI Exams. This included a conversation and thorough examination of cow mouths. For those of you who don't know, cows produce A LOT of saliva day. Way more than you and I, and way more than a horse. This means there is plenty of sliminess to go around when sticking your hands in a cow's mouth! How the heck do you do that?? Well, as it turns out, cows don't like their front area being examined. They'd much prefer you stick your arm in for a cozy rectal exam than touch their faces and mouths. As cows go, our VTH cows are a lovely and fairly cooperative bunch. They're used to being poked and prodded by students, and while they'd much rather eat their hearts out, they'll fairly patiently put up with being in stocks for a couple hours.

We started off our oral exams by looking at their teeth and aging our small group. Grab the nostrils and roll the bottom lip down! Some were more cooperative than others. #92 is a very sweet cow, and as soon as you stick your fingers in her nose, she very compliantly lifts her head and shows her lower incisors (no top front teeth for cows!). She also very patiently and easily lets you open her mouth. Cows have an empty space (the diastema) on either side of their mouths that contains no teeth. Just tickle the hard palate and open wide she will! You can even reach in and grab the tongue if you feel so inclined. So what on earth are we looking for? Ulcers, vesicles, petichiae, foreign bodies, loose teeth, etc. You can insert a speculum if you desire a better glimpse at the oral cavity. A few of my classmates practiced "pilling" a cow. To anyone who has ever tried to do this with their pet and struggled, now imagine doing it with a 1000lb animal ;). Just like we have little "pill poppers" for dogs and cats, we have a "balling gun" for cows. Its a large plastic tube with a cup on the end for the pill and a plunger to shoot the pill out when you've successfully inserted the balling gun all the way back in the cow's mouth. Easier said than done for sure! It took 3 tries, but our cow finally got her "bolus," a probiotic tablet.

Next stop for us was inserting a tube down a cow's throat to retrieve a rumen sample/give fluids or medications/relieve choke or bloat. This was actually fairly easy, even with some of the cows tossing us around a bit! You start by taking a Frick's speculum and inserting this huge, long, hollow tube all the way to the back of the cow's mouth, so that your hand holding the end is right at the entrance to the mouth. Next you hastily shove a plastic hose through the speculum until it is within the rumen, and then you can proceed to whatever procedure it was you had hoped to achieve. The use of the speculum is to make it easier to insert the tube and to keep the cow from chewing and eating the tube! That would be no good! The cows tolerated this procedure quite well, even with 40 students doing it to them multiple times. Such good cows we have here at SGU! Remember earlier when I said that cows produce A LOT of saliva? Well this process is no exception - sliminess to the maximum! And don't forget esophageal and rumen slime. It just smells awesome! Kidding, kidding, it smells quite terrible! When you have the tube in, you're actually supposed to put your mouth on the end and blow bubbles while someone listens to the rumen to make sure you're actually in the rumen and not the lungs/trachea! I really cannot think of anything more disgusting. UGH. No thank you! Thankfully they didn't make us do that, but ewww!!! You also have to suck on the tube a little to get some rumen juice back for sampling. GROSS. And in case you were wondering, both of our professors had gotten rumen juice in their mouths before.

Last stop today was looking at rumen juice. Measuring pH, looking at the protozoa under a microscope, and doing a methylene blue test to asses rumen health are all part of the process. The protozoa were pretty cool under the microscope, they were swimming around!

The Grenada Goat Dairy's School Project

Hello readers! I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to a local operation here in Grenada called The Grenada Goat Dairy Project. Who are they?

TGGDP is a non-profit organization in 2008 a few years after hurricane Ivan to introduce a sustainability business model for Grenadian farmers. Grenada is a heavy agriculture nation, and TGGDP helps to support local farmers. TGGDP has played a unique role with the rebuilding of Grenada after 95% of the island was wiped out by hurricane Ivan in 2004.

So why am I telling you about TGGDP? Well, they are working very hard to fundraise $55,00 to build another facility at one of the local schools here. The goals of this facility include educating children about the concepts of sustainable farming via hands-on opportunities, youth development and furthered community development.

I really encourage you to at least check out this new project and donate if you can! At the very least, take a few minutes to watch the video - it'll give you a little insight on what it's like here on this beautiful island. :) Thanks!

The Grenada Goat Dairy's School Project
The Grenada Dairy Goat Project

Thunderstorms

Thunderstorms in Grenada are extremely rare. As much as it rains here, it is an extreme rarity to hear thunder or see lightening. In the time I've been here (until today) I've seen/heard 2 thunderstorms and both of them were last fall.

Today Grenada seemed to want to put on a show. Supposedly it started early this morning (while I was sleeping and dead to the world) and has continued on and off all day. If it continues to rain this hard as it has all day, we're going to need canoes to get to class in the morning! The thunder and lightning have been a relentless cacophony of sounds in the background today. Here's the kicker - there's not even a hurricane or tropical storm in the making near by! Simply just a rain storm!

Even though I was planning on going snorkeling today, I suppose this is a nice change of pace!

When In Grenada...

You can expect the service at any restaurant to be pretty darn terrible. Something about meals being an affair and relaxing, though I'm starting to believe that was a blatant lie told to all incoming students to prevent too many arguments at restaurants.

I've said it before, when you go out to eat here, you can pretty much expect it to be a 1.5-2+ hour affair every time. Thus we don't go out to eat unless we have lots of time to spare. Tonight was no exception. We were going out to celebrate one of my roommate's birthdays. We even went by about 5:30p in hopes of the place not being crowded and things being quicker. Wrong! We were seated quickly and handed menus momentarily after sitting, but then it took at least 15-20 minutes before anyone mosied over to our table to even get drink orders. Thankfully at that point, everyone was more than ready to order food so at least it was 2 birds, 1 stone!

Another friend showed up considerably late (we didn't actually know he was coming until he arrived) and it took several minutes to get him a menu. Another 15-20 minutes passed before we finally signaled the waitress over to get his order (we kind of forgot he hadn't order while lost on conversation). Shortly after he ordered, our food arrives. Luckily for him, so did his soon after that. I guess it was easy to make just one dish?

Anyhow, we finish eating and are just twiddling our thumbs. We had asked them to store a cake for us, so we were waiting very patiently to be approached again. We waited a long time. In the mean time, the table gets cleared and we continue chatting. Finally she brings the cake and walks away. Now we need matches. She wanders back over several minutes later and we request a fire-making object. She returns and we get the candles lit. She leaves. Well that's great, but now we have a cake but no knife, forks, or plates. So we sit and wait again. Finally she walks over and asks "well is everything okay?" so we politely request the needed items. "Oh," she says. Yeah sorry, we aren't pigs. It takes her quite a long time to gather the supplies and when she finally returns and distributes all the forks, she turns to eye the cake and says "Hmm I guess you need a knife too?" Well yes, that would be helpful.

The good news is the food and the cake were both delicious. So even though the service was the worst I've ever had, the company and the eating was amazing. The cake turned out great for being another toaster oven creation. Chocolate cake (2 layer in a rectangle pan) with chocolate frosting and broken chocolate oreos covering the surface. Yummmm :).

The Difference Between Grenada and the US

Okay, so there are countless differences between these two countries. And some of them are more apparent than others. Sometimes I simply stumble upon a little tidbit that reminds me that this beautiful tropical island is nothing like the country I've called home for over 20 years!

As is pretty customary and routine, I went to the grocery store this afternoon. I was pretty anxious to go today as I am all out of lunch foods and the reheated baked potato I suffered through for lunch just wasn't as good as my normal sandwich or pizza. I'm doing well with dinner foods these days, mostly eating chicken based dishes which works out quite well because it's relatively inexpensive.

Anyhow, with my sandwiches I usually eat chips (who wouldn't want potato chips with their peanut butter and jelly?!). I've been buying the IGA brand chips this term as I have found them to be a bit cheaper than Lays or Ruffles (although admittedly they're not quite as good). A large bag usually costs $8.80 EC (~$3.30 US). Today, much to my delight, the bags of chips had bright orange stickers on them that said "SPECIAL! $1.99." That's a whopping $0.75 US for all the Americans ;). I was ready to buy out the store at that price!

As it turns out, that sale had ended. Several days ago, actually. And this being Grenada and not a US grocery store, I was told "Oh that sale is over and the price is back to normal. It shouldn't still be on the shelf with that sticker." Gee thanks. Sale over or not, it would have been polite to apologize for the mistake and honor the sale price, sheesh!

"Temporarily Out Of Service"

Tomorrow morning we have another parasitology quiz. Although I finished this a couple of days ago, I forgot to print it off until tonight. How does one print things on a tropical island? Surely I didn't drag a printer and accompanying ink down here, right? For sure. I was not wasting money dragging all that extra weight down here, and the university allots us a certain printing quota for each semester. There are two main places to print on campus, Taylor Hall on lower campus and the library up here on the hill. Usually I go to the library, unless I think to run to Taylor before/after class.

So tonight I decide to run over to the library to print my little study guide. The library has 2 printers on the main floor. As I walk by, I notice that one of the printers has a "Temporarily Out Of Service" paper taped to it. Great, but no problem there are 2, right? So foolishly I try to print on the other printer, just to find out a similar sign is taped to it. Excellent.

Now I'm hoping that Taylor printing is still open, because I know it closes earlier than the library. I am really hoping its 12am and not 11pm! Luckily for me, it was indeed 12am, so I was able to print there. While I was there though, I did happen to notice that one of the printer (of 5) also had that lovely sign taped to it. What are the odds?? After all, I was printing things through the end of last week for exams. TIG!

A Grenadian "Snow Day"

A snow day in Grenada? What's that?! Well...

This morning was my "early" morning, in which I have to get up at 8am because I have a full morning of labs, unlike the other mornings when I get to sleep in until at least 10am should I choose. I stumbled out of bed (definitely not a morning person), and set about my routine. In the background, I could hear my roommate drying her hair. All of the sudden, I hear "beep!" You know, that all too familiar beep when the power flips off and makes you groan. It stayed off for a few seconds then magically reappeared. Sleepy me was confused, figured perhaps my roommate had tripped it with her hair dryer, but it had come back awfully fast...Either way, didn't devote more than a couple of neurons to the though as I still had to make it pathology lab.

On our way out the door, we reset our AC unit and went our separate ways. Charter Hall where our lab is held, has been both hot and freezing for labs before. Today it chose to be the former. It was toasty with 40 of us peering at microscopes trying very hard not to fall back asleep against the eye pieces, but when we added the other half for the 2nd lab class, it just got plain stuffy and steamy. Why? Well it appears that it was not just our little suite that had a power glitch this morning. And in addition to that one, it beeped again during lab number 2 and we briefly lost our projector.

Anyhow, we quickly discovered that this power glitching was resetting all of the AC units on campus. Wonderful. That means that every building had to be inspected and fixed. With our not always so efficient maintenance staff, we didn't get to experience the joys of AC in lab - or in class!

By the time class rolled around in our building (VSL), 4 hours of morning classes had come and went, and quite a few students had sweated in the classrooms. And of course since most people skipped classes last week, most people are feeling obligated to be in class this week. Wonderful, good for them, whatever, but not when we have no AC! It was easily 85-90 degrees and melt-the-ice-cream-in-10-seconds-flat humid (now if we had actually had ice cream, we would have been pretty content!) in our classroom with 65-78 of us, 2 projectors, a lecturing professor, computers, and oh yeah, the beating Caribbean sun blazing down on our second story classroom.

After much moaning and groaning, our professors were persuaded to let us out early. We sat through pharmacology and a few minutes of clinical pathology before being released to freedom. Thank you generous professors!

To celebrate our freedom, several of us went to one of my classmate's homes to swim in his tiny pool and snorkel on the reef out back. It was lovely! An absolutely gorgeous day. And the sun felt quite good from within the water! The only hiccup occurred when I dropped my camera climbing out of the ocean and didn't realize it for about 20 minutes. Thankfully it was very easily retrieved, but it was quite full of sand and I'm a bit worried that the sand is going to work its way into the waterproofing features and break the seals :(.