Okay I'll give you a second to get over the fact that tiny Grenada has Texacos. I actually don't think I've seen any other type of gas station here (not that I get out much but still).
Anyhow, this is a story about how myself and 7 other friends were misled to believe that instead of waiting in front of the restaurant for a bus we should walk down the road and try to catch one in a more central, main location. This would be all fine and well if a couple of things were true in Grenada: abundance of side walks, reasonable traffic laws, and reasonable drivers. But, alas, we are in Grenada where the sidewalks are sketchy at best (and mostly just near campus), there are no traffic laws around here that I can figure out, and the drivers scare me!
So the evening started out by a group of us going out to a restaurant to celebrate a friend's birthday. The restaurant, called The Red Crab, was absolutely delicious and we celebrated with Baked Alaska at the end :). Although a bit more pricy, the restaurant was excellent and worth every penny. Come visit me and we can go there if you're curious.
So at the end of the evening, two of our friends that live near by told us that we could either wait for the bus in front of the restaurant or try to walk up the road a little ways to a more central location where buses pass by more frequently. The bus system here is not at all what you would expect in the US. It's reliability can be sketchy at best and stops running "frequently" after dark. Our friends told us that the buses tend to come by every 30-60 minutes but it all depends. No one had seen a bus pass by any time soon, but we decided not to test our luck. Instead we chose the quick 15 minute walk up the road to Texaco idea.
The group of us walked along the edge of the road for a good 8-10 minutes before being "rescued" by a bus. I assure you that we were in no danger other than perhaps of being run over by a reckless driver. However, the road, while well lit, was full of crazy drivers and no place to jump out of the way. We were also no where near civilization (or so it felt-it's probably not actually true). Lesson learned. Next time we will just wait for the bus haha. Lots of crazy speeding cars drove past us (and as each one drove by, it seemed less and less intelligent to be walking on the side of the road).
Thankfully the bus stumbled upon us before we completed our journey! We thought at the time that it was just up ahead and around the bend, but that actually turned out to look like more of a 5-10 minute walk from where we were picked up at and along a bit more sketchy path. Oops!
I love Grenada for all of these wonderful and amusing experiences that I continue to have. :)
Friday, October 7, 2011
DONE!!!
Well okay, more like halfway there, but midterms week is officially over! And I survived anatomy : D
I have never worked so hard in my life! It's kind of a let down that we have class on Monday haha-usually a week like this leads to a long break from school. At least we now know exactly what finals week is going to feel like. Just have to factor in a little more stress and burnt out feelings since it'll be week 17 instead of week 8.
We have no exams for three weeks and I plan on using that time to stay plenty on top of my classes, start and finish a few trivial assignments, and get some much needed sleep! On top of that, I think I will finally work on getting some sort of tan. I *really* don't want to have to explain how I managed to live on a Caribbean island for 4 months but came home looking like I really went to Alaska for 4 months in December. Plus this means I get to spend lots of time with the fishies! Maybe I'll see more sea urchins and crabs too. I also plan on seeing some of the island on the weekends. But first, I am going to eat a delicious dinner and getting an excellent night's sleep!
I have never worked so hard in my life! It's kind of a let down that we have class on Monday haha-usually a week like this leads to a long break from school. At least we now know exactly what finals week is going to feel like. Just have to factor in a little more stress and burnt out feelings since it'll be week 17 instead of week 8.
We have no exams for three weeks and I plan on using that time to stay plenty on top of my classes, start and finish a few trivial assignments, and get some much needed sleep! On top of that, I think I will finally work on getting some sort of tan. I *really* don't want to have to explain how I managed to live on a Caribbean island for 4 months but came home looking like I really went to Alaska for 4 months in December. Plus this means I get to spend lots of time with the fishies! Maybe I'll see more sea urchins and crabs too. I also plan on seeing some of the island on the weekends. But first, I am going to eat a delicious dinner and getting an excellent night's sleep!
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Anatomy...AHHHH!
In case you're wondering what I've been up to lately, here's a list of all of the things I'm supposed to know for my exams tomorrow:
-Question and Answers 50 pages covering: General Body, Thoracic Limb, Thorax, and Abdomen
(there are approximately 30 questions per page)
-Objectives: 25 pages
-National Board Questions
(he doesn't actually give us a packet to study from, we're supposed to stumble across study questions from previous terms)
-Drawings: 33 schematic drawings of various areas of the body
-Potentially other things? we're never quite sure
The lab practical covers everything we've dissected in lab up until now and then some. So the thoracic limb, thorax, a lot of muscles, and some other stuff he likes. And radiographs.
So that's what I've been up to. Busy days, whew.
-Question and Answers 50 pages covering: General Body, Thoracic Limb, Thorax, and Abdomen
(there are approximately 30 questions per page)
-Objectives: 25 pages
-National Board Questions
(he doesn't actually give us a packet to study from, we're supposed to stumble across study questions from previous terms)
-Drawings: 33 schematic drawings of various areas of the body
-Potentially other things? we're never quite sure
The lab practical covers everything we've dissected in lab up until now and then some. So the thoracic limb, thorax, a lot of muscles, and some other stuff he likes. And radiographs.
So that's what I've been up to. Busy days, whew.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Two Classes Finished!
I am officially done with two of my nine first term classes as of today!! Yay! Seven more to go! We had our clinical orientation final exam today. Not too bad-I calculated how many questions I could miss and still get an A in the class so I felt pretty confident I would do well. No more cows or horses for me this semester (this is probably not true, there will probably a club event or two that I attend that has these animals present). We also finished professionalism a few weeks ago (that didn't feel like as much of an accomplishment because we basically just needed to be present to pass the pass/fail class haha).
Physiology exam tomorrow! It had better go well-it covers our heart unit.
And purely for entertainment, my family's puppy at 10 weeks and 1 year (he's now just over a year old):
Physiology exam tomorrow! It had better go well-it covers our heart unit.
And purely for entertainment, my family's puppy at 10 weeks and 1 year (he's now just over a year old):
Monday, October 3, 2011
Orgle
Fun fact of the day: orgle is the sound that camelid's make at breeding. This is what I learned in clinical orientation in the food animal section. Apparently they make this noise the entire time they are creating a cria (their baby) and it lasts a solid 45 minutes. Orgle is now my new favorite word-it just sounds so awesome and is way too much fun to say! For your viewing pleasure, I am also including a video of orgling occurring. It's pretty PG-13/R rated though...
Side note-2 midterms down, 3 to go! Clinical orientation is tomorrow :)
p.s. this post is dedicated to one of my friends in the US-you know who you are :-p
Side note-2 midterms down, 3 to go! Clinical orientation is tomorrow :)
p.s. this post is dedicated to one of my friends in the US-you know who you are :-p
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Kittens
Well I apologize in advance because this week is going to pretty dull in the blog world since the ONLY thing happening in my life is studying and exams. For instance, today I woke up and studied histology/embryology for 10 hours. Very exciting. Then I studied horses and food animals (slightly more interesting), and now I am going to study physiology. I didn't leave my room at all today (not even to go into the hallway!) but it rained all day so I don't think I missed much haha. Anyhow, I don't think I mentioned this little story before so here it is!
Over the last month or so, there have been occasional sightings of cute black and white kittens in front of and around my dorm. There are several other adults that hang out regularly over here too (you can't approach them though, they're feral and know better). They're getting to be about teenage sized now-I hadn't seen them in a couple of weeks and they're getting big! Last weekend, I passed by my window (I have the loveliest view-a 10 foot tall stone wall and sketchy little ally) and happened to catch a glimpse of the kittens playing out back! All 5 of them together (usually I only catch them singly or in pairs)! Two were sitting off to the side while the others were batting around an object. I of course stopped to watch, because which sounds better-kittens or nutrition studying? Clearly the kittens win that debate.
So this black and white kitten is batting a long and thing object around while the other two watch totally fascinated and occasionally taking a swing too. It took me a moment to recognize that it was actually a lizard that they were kicking around, but from its completely limp form and lack of movement, I assumed it was dead. Then after one swat, I saw it twitch its head! A bit horrified that the kittens were beating up a live lizard, I emptied out one of my supply boxes and ran out to shoo the kittens away. I figured that if it was badly injured, I could take it to the clinic with me since my shift was starting in an hour or so.
When I got within 20 feet of the kittens, they all went scrambling off back up the wall to watch me from a safe distance. I searched for the lizard for a good 5 minutes or so but found no trace of him! Hopefully that means he escaped relatively unharmed, poor guy! Silly kittens beating up another critter :-p.
Hopefully that was redemption for probably killing the gecko (unless he managed to get back outside). As a brief update on that, my friend told me in the middle of the week that there had been a gecko sighting. Apparently she was napping one day and her roommate saw it about a foot from her (my friend's face). Her roommate was going to wake her and let her know that the gecko was there, but my friend looked so peaceful and restful that her roommate decided that the sleep was more important. Haha! Now there is a good medical student! Not only did she not freak out about a gecko being loose in her room, but she also let it be when she knew that her roommate needed the sleep badly!
Over the last month or so, there have been occasional sightings of cute black and white kittens in front of and around my dorm. There are several other adults that hang out regularly over here too (you can't approach them though, they're feral and know better). They're getting to be about teenage sized now-I hadn't seen them in a couple of weeks and they're getting big! Last weekend, I passed by my window (I have the loveliest view-a 10 foot tall stone wall and sketchy little ally) and happened to catch a glimpse of the kittens playing out back! All 5 of them together (usually I only catch them singly or in pairs)! Two were sitting off to the side while the others were batting around an object. I of course stopped to watch, because which sounds better-kittens or nutrition studying? Clearly the kittens win that debate.
So this black and white kitten is batting a long and thing object around while the other two watch totally fascinated and occasionally taking a swing too. It took me a moment to recognize that it was actually a lizard that they were kicking around, but from its completely limp form and lack of movement, I assumed it was dead. Then after one swat, I saw it twitch its head! A bit horrified that the kittens were beating up a live lizard, I emptied out one of my supply boxes and ran out to shoo the kittens away. I figured that if it was badly injured, I could take it to the clinic with me since my shift was starting in an hour or so.
When I got within 20 feet of the kittens, they all went scrambling off back up the wall to watch me from a safe distance. I searched for the lizard for a good 5 minutes or so but found no trace of him! Hopefully that means he escaped relatively unharmed, poor guy! Silly kittens beating up another critter :-p.
Hopefully that was redemption for probably killing the gecko (unless he managed to get back outside). As a brief update on that, my friend told me in the middle of the week that there had been a gecko sighting. Apparently she was napping one day and her roommate saw it about a foot from her (my friend's face). Her roommate was going to wake her and let her know that the gecko was there, but my friend looked so peaceful and restful that her roommate decided that the sleep was more important. Haha! Now there is a good medical student! Not only did she not freak out about a gecko being loose in her room, but she also let it be when she knew that her roommate needed the sleep badly!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Today I...
Studied. The whole day. Still a bunch to do before I go to sleep too. Gotta love midterms week. At least at SGU, we get the whole week off except for the exams. Apparently that's not common at other schools. It's not like these are our only exams during the semester either, they're just weighted more. But yeah, I am looking forward to sleeping in 3 of the 5 days (2 of my days have exams at 9a). Anyhow, back to studying! Vet school sounds like so much fun, doesn't it?
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