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.