Last night in Grenada

Well the first term has finally come to its conclusion. I made it! And they're going to let me come back again for a second term, so I've got that going for me. Over the last few days I've spent a few hours at the beach, and I've also had a handful of errands to finish before I head home. It's been sad to see all my friends leave, one after another, until only I remain. I've been pretty bored the last 2 days, so I had to come up with my own devices to pass the time. The included picture is of a box of some of my laundry and bathroom stuff that I'm leaving here in storage. Making that sign took about a half an hour, so it was a successful waste of time. The abrupt transition from the previous 2 weeks of studying non-stop for finals to having absolutely nothing to do really caught me off guard. But now I get to look forward to a day and a half of traveling and a mini visit with Maria and Kamau, yippy! On my way back from storage, Mama one of the campus dogs followed me back to spend a little time with me before I have to leave in the morning. The forecast says I'm to expect 10 degree weather when I get home. Mom, the car better be warm when you get to the airport. I'll see most of you in the coming weeks. It'll be nice being back.

1 week left.

1 week from now I'll probably be lounging around drinking a cold beer or living it up at a post finals party. My last final ends around 2 pm on Friday Dec. 12. I don't leave for home until Tuesday the 16th so I have 3 days to relax on the beach. In retrospect I would have liked to come home right away on Saturday, but I went for the cheaper flight. I'll have to work on my tan during this time so I can make all of you jealous when I get back. I included a pic of where I will be unwinding to make you jealous preemptively since I know most of you have snow. Although I'm looking forward to getting home, I'm not looking forward to flying. Apparently it's hard to get from Grenada to La Crosse, WI, so I have a lot of layovers both home and back. I get the opportunity to get acquainted with the Miami airport for about 5 hours. I also get to spend the night in Chicago. Now all I have to do is make it through these god forsaken tests. If you read my last post, I've made it to the stage where I'm not stressing about the tests anymore. I just want to get them over with. I won't be stressed again until I wake up the morning of each of the tests. I want some Culver's now.

Almost there...

Sorry for the long hiatus since my last post. It's been a combination of the hectic windup to finals and a little homesickness that's given me little ambition to put together a blog post. But now I need a break from biochem (mnemonics are frying my brain,) so I'll catch you all up on the happenings down here. Although Grenadian Thanksgiving was about a month ago, most of the American students attended a few private little home brewed Thanksgiving dinners with fellow classmates and the various academic clubs. Mine was an exclusive invite as I dined with my girlfriend Kristen, and 2 other girls who are a couple of her vet student friends. We had a fairly comprehensive Thanksgiving dinner menu prepared. Fried honey glazed ham was the only substitute we had to make since there are no ovens in the dorms for turkey. Other than that, we had mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, yams, pasta salad, deviled eggs, and even a stove top pumpkin pie. Other than that, all weekend has been spent studying with a small break on Friday at the beach. Now is when my final study preparations are being made. I find this to be the scariest and most discouraging point, in going over all the material it seems entirely overwhelming in the sense that I know I can never master it all. In a few days this will inevitably proceed into the phase where I'm sick of studying and just want to get the tests over with and go home, but my stomach will be in knots until then.
Since I've been studying biochem for the last 6 hours you are all treated to this fun factoid which will be especially appreciated by all my readers in pharmaceuticals. Cytochrome P450 is a liver enzyme that is responsible for the processing of many toxins and drugs that pass through the system. This enzyme is inhibited by grapefruit juice, thus if you drink grapefruit juice while taking medication you inhibit your livers ability to get the drug out of your system and it'll start building up when you take more doses and may reach a toxic level. So that's the explanation of why you might see this on prescription bottles and you ever wondered why grapefruit juice was a no-no. Sorry for that, I'm sick of studying and needed to vent.

Number 50!

Yaay it's my 50th post. Sorry, I realize nobody cares about stuff like that besides the one writing it, but I had to celebrate anyway. I found an apartment today. It's sort of an efficiency, so it's almost identical to my current dorm, just a little bigger. But it's all mine and I get my own washer and dryer, an oven, tv, and free internet, so I'm pretty excited and it's all for a mere $700. With moderate A/C use I should be paying about the same as what I am now. It's close to campus though so I'll still be able to walk and not have to deal with a car. Wow, Grenada has really lowered my expectations. I also signed up for another dive on the 22nd, and since I've had time to recuperate from the previous dives, I'm excited to get back in the water again. Maybe I'll post some pics of the apartment or diving when I get them, but since it's my 50th post I can't leave without a picture. Enjoy.

Congrats Mr. Obama

Last night was pretty exciting around these parts. The cheering in the halls at midnight when the election was called was reminiscent of new years revelry. I'm pretty excited to see the country came through and realized we needed a change in direction. Here is a funny article from the Onion which I think summarizes my view of the election pretty well. I was able to watch the CNN coverage of the election on the big screen at the student center with about 50 other students. Due to the demographics, the audience was largely Obama supporters, so it was fun to hear everyone cheer when California, Oregon, and Washington were instantly called. I also stuck around for the concession and acceptance speeches. I'd have to say that Hillary was right, Obama is a pretty damn good orator. His speech was very inspirational and I feel the country made the right decision. Now all we have to do is weather the last 75 days of W. We're in the home stretch now. Check out the new election inspired poll.

Looking forward...

At the completion of a week that seemed to drag on forever, I'm already looking ahead to the next. I should have a crazy Halloween story for all of you along with a silly photo of myself in a hastily thrown together costume, but I stayed in Friday night. The plan was to do some catching up on my anatomy, but that only lasted for about two hours. I did get plenty of sleep though and watched a movie. Today has been much of the same, sleeping in and studying more anatomy. So, the coming week looks to be a little more exciting.
The upcoming election will be interesting to watch, or for those of us without cable on remote islands, exciting to follow between browser refreshings. I have $50 down on Obama, so if any of you are still undecideds, you could help a brother out.
Secondly, I wasn't picked in the housing lottery to live on campus next term, so this week will be a fun filled venture into the Grenadian real estate market. Although it's convenient to live a three minute walk from lecture, it will also be nice to have my own single apartment with options like cable and unrestricted internet access. I'm getting fairly sick of my little cell block.
The included picture is of me on Halloween at a lookout atop black sand beach which borders campus. It was my first trip to this beach, so it was a nice relaxing start to the weekend.

A bona fide diver

This weekend is a four day weekend for the medical students because of Grenadian Thanksgiving. I have no idea why the poor vet students didn't get any time off. But I took advantage of the time off and scheduled my final scuba dive for Friday afternoon. It was a wreck dive, so I got to swim in and out of the ship which was very cool. There were also several large schools of fish hovering around the wreck so it was a cool feeling to drop down into the middle of them. Since it was my last dive, I'm now certified for open water diving, and I can technically do it by myself if I wanted. Although diving with the dive center is probably my preferred method because they take care of everything for us. Our instructor brought an underwater camera this time, so included is a picture of yours truly doing my best scuba pose for the camera while we were hovering under the surface doing a safety stop to let some nitrogen work its way out of our systems. I'll probably do another dive this semester with some of the vet students, and possibly get my deep water certification next semester. But, it's been tiring cramming all the lessons into 2 weeks, so I'm glad to have a little break. This weekend was originally supposed to be a trip to a nearby island for a little relaxing, but the plans fell apart. I'm actually relieved because I'd rather just spend the weekend either studying or laying in bed. Neither of these things cost any money either. I hope to see you all soon, and check out the new holiday poll.

What a week.

It seems like the end of midterms was just yesterday, but an entire week has passed. Sandblast has come and gone, and the Grenadian Thanksgiving is right around the corner. This past weekend was kicked off with a birthday party for a pair of friends at a local french cafe. I had recently eaten, so I just sampled some deserts and had a cappuccino. After we returned home, I retreated to bed in order to have all the strength necessary for Saturday's party on the beach. Sandblast was nice, but my group only stayed for about three hours. The weather was perfect, the surf had calmed from the effects of a distant hurricane which had kicked up impressive waves and reshaped the beach during the preceding few days. After a nap I rejoined the group for the after party at the aquarium club. Everybody returned home relatively early due to the rainy weather and the fact we mostly had our fill of partying. Sunday for me was spent catching up on a little anatomy and enjoying the Packers put up a dominating performance against the colts. The picture I've posted just shows a portion of the beach during sandblast. Normally the beach only has a few dozen people on it, so this was pretty well attended. It's nice to have this to look forward to next term as well. But now it's back to the grindstone until I come back for a visit in December.

An enjoyable experience...

This weekend was a much needed break from the grueling week of midterms that the school completed last week. Since the finals are not cumulative, we had our first free weekend without any studying. We start in on new material on Monday. I actually didn't do much at all this weekend. I took a long "nap" on Friday and just read a book that wasn't related to medicine on Saturday and watched Badgers get thoroughly dominated by Penn State. This morning was my first scuba session. It took up most of the day, and despite the overcast sky it was everything I expected it to be. After a boring video on using the equipment we got to get into a pool to practice a few techniques under the water. It's a very strange feeling the first time you breath under water. It takes a while to overcome all the instincts you've built over the years. After another boring hour in the classroom we took a trip out to a reef frequented by many snorkelers and divers on the island, flamingo bay. Apparently they describe it as the closest thing to diving in an aquarium due to the wide variety of fish species one can see. During the past few days the island has received a lot of rain, so the runoff from the island was diminishing the visibility while we were diving, but it was still very easy to see fish 20 feet away, so I can't wait to see what perfectly clear water looks like. I saw a few eels, a shrimp, and tons of different kinds of fish, many of which I have no idea what they are. The ones I could identify were parrot fish, angel fish, and trumpet fish. My next dive is Tuesday morning. Hopefully I'll have some pictures for you then. Our group was typically male and we all forgot to bring a camera.

1 down...

I had my first midterm in anatomy today, well technically yesterday. It was a fairly long test because it had two practical portions to it, both a dry lab (looking at x-rays and dissection slides) and wet lab portion (tags tied to structures on the cadavers.) I felt pretty good about it, and I should easily have a B on it which is good since it's 8 of my 19 credits. Wednesday brings Histology which will also be accompanied by slides for us to identify the tissues and cells. It was a nice feeling walking out of the lab after finishing the anatomy final, but then we came back to our rooms and continued studying for histology. Noon on Friday will be the sweet release we're all looking forward to. I also start my diving course on Sunday morning. Apparently after a few hours in the classroom we head out the the pool and practice underwater and by the end of the day we're able to go 40 feet under. It will be the first of 3 five hour learning sessions which will be followed by a full dive which means we get to dive until we run out of air. This should last 45-60 minutes depending on how out of shape I am and how nervously I'm sucking in the air. After that I'll be certified for open water diving and I can return anytime to visit any of the several dozen dive sites that don't exceed 18m (60 feet.) Then the weekend after that will be Sandblast. Every term and school will be done with midterms at that time, so there is a huge party on the beach filled with all the mischief and debauchery which all you can drink mugs bring. It will be the spring break I never had. Since I'll be here for 4 semesters, that means 4 spring breaks. It makes up for all the ones I missed in undergrad. I apologize for the tardiness of this post, but I've been busy studying. I'll definitely be posting this weekend to express my relief that we've met the post midterm calm, and maybe you'll get a peek at a wetsuit adorned marvel.

New experiences

This past week I've tried to broaden my horizons a little. Considering the extreme change in my environment, there is a lot of new things to try. I went up to the small farmers' market that they have on campus every morning and bought some interesting fruits that I've never tried before. First I bought a bag of guineps which are pretty much like grapes covered in a thin lime skin and they also contain a large seed. The things taste similar to grapes, but they have a horrible fruit to seed ratio, so they're hardly worth the effort or money. I also tried a guava for the first time. Although I had heard of them before, I had no idea what they looked like. They are shaped similarly to pomegranates, but they're about the size of a golf ball and have a yellow citrus type skin. They taste pretty good, but they have tons of really hard seeds in them which are impossible to avoid and difficult to deal with while trying to chew. The picture I included is of the guineps on the stem they came on and also an enormous 6 lb pineapple I bought. The pineapple was per pound priced, so it still cost a small fortune even though it grew up around here. I also had to carve it with a paring knife since it was all we had.
Also classmate of mine set up a group to go scuba diving the week after midterms, and I figure I've got to try it at least once while I'm down here. So I'll be going down with them tonight to check out the program. I'm not that fond of snorkeling in Wisconsin lakes so this should be interesting. At least I'll have more than 6 feet of visibility though.
Also speaking of Pineapples, it won a landslide victory in the poll, but I suspect there may have been some jerrymandering. Check out the new one.

A birthday meal

Since Monday is my 25th birthday, a group of friends and I made a trip downtown to a nicer restaurant. I had the dish you see here. It was a catch of the day sort of thing with a lime garlic sauce. I have no idea what gave it such a bright yellow color though. It tasted great. We also shared a couple of Crabbacks. No, that's not supposed to be crabshack or crab-bake like we also thought. It's an hors d'œuvre made by mixing crab meat with some herbs and spices and then restuffing the crab shell (sans beady eyes) with the mixture. Obviously it was a welcome change from the usual ham and cheese sandwiches. Many of my friends' birthdays are also coming up in late October after our midterm, so we're going to find a few more of the nicer eateries in the area. Other than that, not much is happening on the spice island. The service union affiliated with the school went on strike last week, so we got an email that our housekeeping and transportation services might be disrupted, but I haven't seen any difference. We're also starting to get a little precipitation. I was beginning to think the rainy season was a misnomer. I want to experience at least one tropical storm while I'm down here too.
Well I'll get some productive stuff done now that I'm back on campus. But, I'm definitely having a drink on Monday to mark my quarter century.

Short lived relief

I finished my unified quiz after only an hour and a half of the three hour allotted time. I promptly headed back to my dorm room with a classmate where we enjoyed a beer to celebrate our completion. After grabbing a bite to eat, a group of about 50 students headed to the beach to enjoy the last few hours of sunshine. Because Grenada is in the eastern time zone yet it lies several hundred miles east of the east coast of the US, the sun sets at about 6 o'clock. The picture included is of the coastline and setting sun. A group of 4 of us invested in a bottle of rum, some soda, and some ice to replenish our electrolytes that we lost in the quiz. Some of us exclaimed that we need to have tests more often because it gives us a reason to visit the beach. Most of us only see the Grenadian weather on the way between our dorms and the lecture hall. So it was a good change of pace.
We continued the celebration at Bananas, but we all went home relatively early because everyone had early labs in the morning. This morning reminded us all why we don't go out to the bars on school nights. Waking up to attend an 8 0'clock histology lab after spending the night at the beach and a bar and not having showered since, I must admit I've probably looked better than I did at lab this morning. The funny thing about all the celebrating was that it was an insignificant part of our grade, and we're going to be retested on the same material in 3 weeks on the midterm, so we're going to have to review the material again anyway. But I feel I did very well on the anatomy and bioethics portion, and I held my own on the other two sections. We have an idea of what to expect now and I hope to improve my approach in the coming weeks. Our histology professor commented today in class that this is just the first step on the road, and when we signed our name on the line we actually signed away the next 4 and more realistically 7 years of our lives until we get out of residency. So we're in it for the long haul, but time's already flying. I'm sure I'll get there in no time.
On another note, Mojito won with 57% of the vote. That was also my favorite. There is a new poll now, so check it out.

Anatomical Model

Thursday like usual was my anatomy lab. We are learning about the thorax at the moment, and during this particular lab we were mapping out the contents of the thoracic cavity. It seems like a rite of passage in most medical schools to draw out the locations of these internal structures on fellow students. In the future when we may need to perform procedures like a pleural centesis to remove liquid buildup from around the lung, so we use these exercises to get our bearings on the exterior surface. I was volunteered by my fellow group members for today's activities because my torso is devoid of most of the stuff (muscle and fat) which would obscure the underlying structures that the group was trying to palpate, like counting ribs for instance. So scrawny boy got marked up like a connect the dots puzzle. Unfortunatly I was volunteered before I was told the markers were Sharpie™. Jenny did give me the helpful advice that alcohol helps remove it. So last night I rubbed some cheap rum on myself to get it off. The above picture is of the DiVincis working on their perfectly sculpted canvas.
After this lab I came home with a hungry stomach, and the 2 bags of fully ripe mangoes were still sitting on the refrigerator since I'd shied away from them the week before. Because all my allergy symptoms were gone, I decided not to let the mangoes go to waste. I threw some of my anatomy gloves on and gave the mangoes a shot. I washed the exterior of the mangoes with dish soap to get rid of any sap residue left on them. Since I was still wearing my scrubs from lab this whole process was probably pretty comical to watch. I proceeded with my paring knife making a complete rostral to caudal sagittal incision and removed the flesh with a spoon. I also played it safe by washing my mouth afterward to prevent and more swollen lips. It's been 2 days since then and I don't feel any effects, so the mango surgery was a complete success. Although I think it may be a little too much work to justify buying anymore.
Monday is the unified quiz that I mentioned before. I overshot the estimate on the weight of the quiz for each class. Apparently it's only worth like 7% of each classes grade. Nonetheless, I still feel pretty anxious about it since all the work is finally starting to pile up. I talked with a friend of mine tonight from undergrad that worked in the same research lab as me. He's currently in a DO school (also a med school but grants a DO and not an MD) in NYC and he's in the middle of midterms right now, but he's also feeling the strain. So, it's comforting that there are also people out there suffering like the rest of us book worms here in Grenada. I'll write an elated post on Monday night after I've finished the dreaded thing. But, until then I'll be stuck studying all I can this weekend.

Gastronomical cross-training

On a different note, I recently found this list hitting the internet meme circuit called the Omnivore's 100. It's essentially a list of 100 foods to try before you die. I've always had the philosophy that the best item on any menu is the one you haven't tried. So, I'd like to give the entire thing a go. I'm actually pretty pleased at my personal progress in my relatively sheltered culinary environment. I believe this one would be much easier to obtain than the top 100 books to read. Hurray for hedonism.
Also, sorry about all the typing today. I bought some instant coffee on Thursday and I've been drinking a lot of it today. I rarely drink caffeine, so I'm really feeling the effects.

The Lazy Weekend & Blog Improvements

First of all I'd just make sure that everybody notices the changes and additions that I've made to the blog. Obviously the color scheme has changed to a mellower tone. And I've limited the main page to the latest 5 posts in order to limit the clutter and load time. One can access older posts from the archives to the lower left. 2 new additions have been added to the left tool bar. First of which is a poll for you all to participate, and I will try to remember to change it periodically. I believe anyone can take this poll even though only blogspot members can comment on my blog articles (so far Jenny is the only one doing this.) Beneath that is a list of some of the blogs I've been subscribed to (dad you made it into an elite list and better update yours.)
Now that that's all taken care of, last night ended up being pretty low key around here. I hung around campus with friends for the majority of the night, but did end up going to one of the two bars within walking distance for about an hour and a half. This morning I tried my hardest to watch the Badgers' game somehow online, but I ended up having to listen to a online radio broadcast of it (which was nice because I could review lecture slides at the same time.) They improved to 2-0 on the season with a 51-14 win over Marshall. Hopefully I'll get to see the Packers on Monday against the Vikings for not only the beginning of Aaron Rodgers' era, but also a game which might have great importance for the NFC north race.
The above picture is from the corner of my dorm building. If I press my head up against the window frame of my dorm and look through the window diagonally, I can see this sliver of ocean which is centered in the picture. So, I guess I could technically advertise an "ocean view." If one were able to see that far, peering off into the southern horizon you'd see a straight passing between the Island of Trinidad and the northeastern coast of Venezuela. This I estimate to be about 90 miles away, and I believe that the curve of the earth limits someone standing on shore to only a 3 mile line of sight.
This second picture is a view of a portion of the campus which can be seen from the front of my dorm. The building in the foreground on the left is the student center (restaurant, cafeteria, bank, gym, general store.) On the right is the newly built lecture hall which my entire class of about 350 has our lectures together in. All the buildings behind them are apartment style dorms. The big field in front is used for recreation. All the intramural football/soccer teams are out there pretty regularly.
So far all of today has been spent inside with the Badger game and biochem studying. A week from Monday we all have the Unified Quiz. It's a 3 hour quiz and each course has 25 multiple choice questions on it. Each of these sections account for about 10-12% of each respective course's grade. So, it's not make or break for us, but it gives us an idea where we stand and how effective our studying strategies have been. It'll be nice to get something under my belt. It feels weird already being done with the white coat ceremony and knowing that there is a 5% attrition rate (half for academic reasons, and the other half for personal.) I'd just like to pass the thing comfortably and know I can handle this whole thing.

Bingo!

I think I've cracked the allergy mystery. I did a little bit of research on some of the stuff that I've been using lately down here, and some stuff I was using at home before I came. About 2 weeks before I came down to Grenada my dad and I went hiking in Perrot State Park. I tried as hard as I could, but somehow I still came out with a fairly decent poison ivy rash down my right forearm. It was irritating and regretful, but all of these symptoms were gone within a week. As I was preparing to leave my lips started tingling and chapping like they have been this past week. I was sure this was a re-exposure to some of the oils from the poison ivy that was still on my shoes or under my fingernail from that day. But now they mirrored the reaction I had down here, so I started to rethink. What did I start using just before I left and continued doing so down here? I narrowed it down to either my shampoo/body wash, or mangoes (the food co-op in La Crosse had a sale.) I looked into it and apparently poison ivy and mangoes are in the same family, anacardiaceae. Which is equivalent to our link with gorillas.
I guess the mangos have the same oil, urushiol, that poison ivy also has. The oil in mangoes is mainly in the sap of the mango tree and traces can be found in the skin of the fruit. This explains why my lips are always getting affected. I must also be rubbing my eyes after peeling them. There isn't more than a small trace amount in the actual flesh of the mango, so if I treat them like a bio hazard or I get someone else to prepare them I guess I can continue to eat them. I've eaten like 10 since I've been down here ($0.50 a piece), so it explains the persistent and delayed nature of my reactions. And since my latest exposure to poison ivy was so recent, my immune system was probably primed for the attack more than it usually would have been.
Anyway, after all that amazing deduction which surely would put Sherlock Holmes to shame, there is a 45% chance I'll be going out to enjoy this Friday and a 60% chance of me returning to the beach sometime this weekend. Although last weekend was a pretty hard one to top. We had a 90's theme party at a club right next to the marina. $2 beers and $6 cuban cigars made for an enjoyable night not to mention jumping around to House of Pain (Go Badgers!) I'll hopefully have a picture for my next post this weekend.

Clean Caribbean air?

I've been felling much better lately. Even though I'm waiting on the lingering effects of my allergy to subside, I only had to take the steroids for 1 day. Today was my marathon day. On Thursdays I have 4 hours of anatomy lab and another 4 hours of lecture with only an hour break for lunch. To up the ante, we had a few power disturbances in the morning for only a few seconds at a time, but this seems to inactivate the ventilation fans in the anatomy lab (I never understood why they simply didn't restart.) For the "wet lab" portion where we get to view the structures on the cadavers, there was no air circulation thus resulting in a room filled with formalin fumes. You'll be surprised to know that it not only has an unpleasant effect on your eyes and nose, but it's also a carcinogen. Luckily I only have to hang out in that place once a week for the duration of this term. I feel sorry for the professors though. Tomorrow is a pretty easy day since we have bioethics for half of our lectures. All you have to do for that class is think like a good doctor, so it's a small respite from the unending memorization of my other classes. My other 2 classes besides Anatomy and Bioethics are Biochem and Histology. So far I'm very pleased with the curriculum. It's all keeping me interested and it seems clinically relevant. They don't make us learn something just for the sake of learning it which was what I found disenchanting about undergrad. I'm looking forward to pathology (even though it's 13 credits) next year so I can finally find out about all the things that can go wrong with us. So far we just get to hear about diseases if they're peculiar examples related to our current topic. For now I'll just have to be satisfied with knowing how everything looks when it's running smoothly.

On the other side of a diagnosis...

Sorry for the longer than usual hiatus. I've been a little under the weather lately. I had an allergic reaction to something on Saturday or Sunday. This happened the week before I left for Grenada too, but the symptoms were much milder, so that must have been my first exposure. This presumptive second exposure was much more unpleasant. I've had very red puffy rings around my eyes and tingly puffy lips that sting and crack when the swelling goes down. I went to the health center today. Unfortunately I had to pick the day that the campus set up immunization titers for those who didn't get them already. So, after an hour and a half in the waiting room, my case was clear cut and the consult only took 5 minutes. Then I headed out to get a nice little gift basket from the pharmacy stuffed with benadryl and prednisone. I was pleasantly surprised when the prescription only cost $2. I'm trying to figure out what's triggering these reactions, but can't come up with anything unusual in my routines. It'll be another miserable week if I don't guess correctly. I did go to the beach on Sunday even though I was already starting to feel the allergy coming back. It was a good time, and I got to see my first sea star in person. Plus my tan erases any trace evidence of my Wisconsin roots.

White Coat Ceremony

This afternoon was the school of medicine's white coat ceremony. As I have learned from Wikipedia, it is supposed to mark our transition from the academic science portion of med school (first 2 years) to the clinical portion (second 2 years), but many universities like ours have early forays into the clinical world so they hold them earlier. Thus, I think the primary purpose of our little game of doctor dress up today was to be a carrot on a stick for our next four years. A little whiff of what we hope to eventually reach. Some of the speeches were good, others were unremarkable. And the graduation like parade of the entire class across the stage was grueling. The Prime Minister was there with his two impressive looking body guards though, so that did provide me with a brief bit of entertainment. A nice reception followed, so I was able to avoid another night of cooking. And a small group of us were invited over for dinner by a few of the vet students. All in all it was a nice night, but now it's almost Monday and there will be no relenting until midterms. The included picture is of me and a few of my fellow classmates and friends. Right - Pat my roommate from Jersey, Lower - James from NY, Left - Genc from Philly/Kosovo. Hopefully I'll have more official looking photos when friends get done sharing, and the professional hired by the school makes his available. (Disclaimer - This picture was taken before the ceremony. We've matured vastly since then. Now we always act like professionals :)

And it begins...

Today is my first day of classes. They're just the typical first days, nothing too important, but I'm sure I'll receive tons of reading nonetheless. I'm just glad we're actually starting. All the orientations have tried to intimidate us so we're ready for the workload. So it was a little uneasy just waiting in the calm before the storm.
Since nothing of note has happened in school so far I'll just tell you what I did on my last few days of freedom. Friday, like I said, was a student government sponsored party at a local bar/club that opened to the beach. It was very well attended and lots of fun. Saturday morning I went on a boat ride from the capital's central port to a swimming island closer to our school. We saw some yellow fin tuna on the way. And the posted picture is on the return trip as we enter the bay. Other than that we only had a few get togethers with free food and drinks, these are always packed with students for obvious reasons, so I had a good opportunity to meet a lot of my fellow classmates. Hopefully we'll still have some time during the weekends to have some sort of social gatherings. I'll let you know how my classes are once we get into a normal schedule.

Tourist Day

There were much more exciting happenings last night and today. Yesterday evening a few of us 1st year students went to a local resort's bar. It was an open-air bar under a canopy type thing and was situated right on the water. We enjoyed several beers from a local brewery. I actually saw the brewery while riding the bus into town. There is also obviously rum produced here, but I haven't tried any of that. This morning I got up and headed to the beach right away. Here are a few pics from there. The water is turquoise and crystal clear, plus super warm. I was surprised to see the beach was virtually empty of swimmers. Maybe everybody was at work. After returning from the beach, my roommate and I went on a school tour of a nutmeg factory and a waterfall in the mountains. The first picture is of the drying racks of the nutmeg factory. This is before they are crushed and sorted by grade. I took a little souvenir from the drying racks, but we need to find some nutmeg recipes so I can use it. The second pic is of the waterfall. It fell into a pool where several other students jumped into from the rocks. Tomorrow's agenda includes a student council sponsored outing at another local restaurant/bar called the aquarium. In addition I'll also be attending boring orientation meetings. I'll keep you posted.

I made it!

Just writing a little post to let you all know that I made it safe and sound to Grenada. I did have some delays which added 12 hours to my journey and a lot of grief. But, now I'm settled in here complete with all my luggage. I got in late last night at around 11. I've not done much today except for going through the short registration process, and going into St. George the capital for a little stop at the supermarket. Here is a picture I took from the supermarket parking lot. I thought the foliage and the cool hills in the mist in the background were cool. Plus the KFC at the end of the parking lot shows that I'm not too far from home. I'll be going on a nutmeg factory tour in the morning and probably heading to the beach. Grand Anse Beach is only a few miles away and is usually rated among the prettiest around the world. So i'll have more pictures to post tomorrow which will hopefully trump KFC. Thanks for keeping up with my going ons. And I hope to see you down here for vacation at some point.