runners high

Grenada is amazing!! I just had the best run of my life! I've been working hard to take regular study breaks so that my studying stays effective and to do that I've been running quite a bit. Today I found a new route and it was unbelievable. You go up this hill, it's really steep and takes a good while to get to the top but when I finally did, the sun was setting and I could see the whole bay right out into the open ocean -it was breathtaking!! I'm finding that the more you run, the better you feel while you're doing it, it isn't as torturous as at the beginning of the week even though I've started varying the distances and terrain to be a bit more challenging. It's also a great excuse to crank up some music and get rid of pent up stress!
On the way back, I ran into one of the street parties. It's really neat, in Grenada, they seem to have all sorts of festivals. They're not planned and not advertised, they simply appear in a matter of hours in the fields across from the dorm. Pick up trucks arrive with steel drums and ENORMOUS speakers, the music starts and throngs of people migrate to the spot. There was a really big party going on and it was really fun to run past them and see the whole thing. People here definitely know how to have a good time!
I've made a couple really great friendships the last couple of days. The girl across the hall has been super sweet lately and we've been talking a lot, there is a girl in the next building over that is from Edmonton (and she has a cabin at Pigeon lake right across from us! -very exciting to talk to her more) and the rest of my friends here in the dorm, or as I call them my "Grand Anse family" have been really fun.
At the end of last week I went to an anatomy practice lab exam. It was being put on for the first term vet students but because my pre vet anatomy class is covering all the same topics (in a different order) we were invited to come and try it out in preparation for out midterm later this week. I was really happy with the whole experience and did pretty well on the material that we've covered in class. The whole thing was really neat, you walk in with the whole class, you number a sheet of paper from 1-72 and all the dogs that we've been dissecting this term are laid out on the tables with pins marking different structures. You have to go around to each station, read the question card and answer the question on your sheet of paper. The really awesome thing was it was very practical and you not only had to use the dogs but they had some x-rays posted where you had to identify structures as well. The whole thing took a little over an hour and you have to run home to shower because you smell so stronly of formaldehyde. Fun times!!