Kat's SGU adventure

weekend :)

2009-03-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

Babysittin the kitten

Great weekend... Friday night went out for a friends birthday to karma, a club in town. It was so much fun -all of my friends turned up and the music was great. Saturday I babysat Megan's kitten.. more pics! Sunday I went to an embryo DES session and volunteered for PAP (pothounds against pregnancy) taking the dogs that are waiting to get spayed or neutered out of the kennels for a break outside. It was pretty amazing working with dogs that aern't used to human contact. Definitely have to be careful taking them out of the kennels because they're so nervous you can't be sure how they'll react -the muzzle is your friend! I took advantage of their outside play time to practice some photography :) Big push this week to get caught up because it's round three of exams starting thursday for a week and then Easter weekend and Barbados -Let's get the show on the road!!!
XO~

PAP pics

Heeere Leezard Leezard Leezard...

2009-03-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

Had a great day today.. It was our last full day of classes for the week and definitely looking forward to cutting down on the class hours and upping the study time to catch up :) In anatomy we started learning about muscles of the back all the way from the top of the head down through the different vertebrae and into the tail. Pretty interesting stuff and it was my turn to dissect so I felt very surgeon ish. At lunch I was really productive and got a start on the Question and Answers for tomorrow's quiz -one less thing to do tonight and then in the afternoon we had Histology, two hours of Physiology and one hour of anatomy. Anatomy was pretty cool, one of the upper term students gave a talk on reptiles and amphibians. Really interesting stuff, I definitely need to learn more about those guys, they're so different from mammals they're almost like aliens :P Tonight I have a date with the study hall and hopefully will get a chance to catch up with mom and dad for a bit. Tomorrow is a lighter day of classes and Thursday I have a day off :) Cannot wait to get going.. If I get my studying outta the way I'll get a chance to get caught up on reading my camera manual...

Project Kitten :)

2009-03-23T16:05:00.003-07:00

My friend Megan is fostering a kitten at nights for the next couple of weeks. We went to pick it up from the small animal hospital after class today and here are some pics :) TOO CUTE!

Little one

Tour of School

2009-03-23T15:44:00.001-07:00

Just got a new camera to play with and thought I would show you around campus a bit...

Welcome to St Georges University

Up the road to the guard booth

Charter Hall -Med Lecture Hall

Taylor Study Hall -My Second Home :)

Anatomy Lab

My dorm

My window is the one with the blue curtain, Elise lives next door

My Room

midterms!

2009-03-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

Midterms are done and out of the way and now on to bigger and better things. They all turned out really well which is awesome and the best thing about this midterm round was that my studying has really improved. It's gotten to the point where I can notice the difference that keeping up in class and everyday studying can make when it comes to trying to put it all together in the end. Sadly, I've been on a strict junk food no time diet so looking forward to putting in some yoga tomorrow and lots of veggies in the next week! This week has lots of promise too.. tonight I am going to watch a movie and go to bed early! I cannot say how excited I am to watch something other then lab movies. Then Tuesday is St Patricks day and the build up begins for Sandblast which happens this weekend. Beach Party here I come!! Miss you all...
XOX

academic day

2009-03-03T11:09:00.000-08:00

Today and the rest of the week will be filled with "academic days". Going on an epic grocery shopping trip with my friend Alex tonight to stock up for the upcoming onslaught of my first official vet midterms. I'm looking forward to studying!! - sitting and trying to absorb all this material (is that sick?). Maybe after the tests are over I'll feel like I am starting to know something because right now it seems like every class we just find out how much more we have to learn ;) Also exciting news, my roommate Amanda has invited me to go and visit her family where they live in Barbados over Easter break! My tickets are booked and i'm so excited to go and see how another part of the caribbean is about. I'm also trying to line up a camera of sorts so that I'll have pictures to post -Manda says Barbados is famous for caves and her mom has booked us for a caving expedition already. I absolutely CANNOT WAIT!!
Yesterday I also tried something new. One of the visiting professors on his trip down here a couple years ago set up a bouldering wall on one of the hidden retaining walls by the human anatomy lab. Not many people know about it but it is the perfect climbing location. Thanks to Jess for bringing my shoes down here (and Keith for sending them with her). Not only do you get to climb (don't worry mom, it's not that high) but there's amazing views on all sides, an ocean breeze and these crazy little geckos that pop out from behind the holds while you're going along. Definitely excited to slip climbing in instead of the horrible weight room at the gym.
Last night I spent some time on my application forms to try and be an RA or resident assistant in one of the dorms next year. Fingers crossed that I get the position because I think it would be a great way to meet some more people and practice some leadership skills. Alright.. time for class!! Talk to y'all soon :)

Island love

2009-02-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

I love my friends!! Some of my closest girl friends took me out for a surprise post birthday dinner. I feel so spoiled -my birthday this year was kind of lost amongst a million exams so it was a pretty unexpected fun surprise. We went to the beach house which is my absolute favorite restaurant here (I also got to go there for whitecoat with Grandma and Grandpa -too much fun :) ).

In other news.. I was shocked today to see that lines had been painted on the road outside of campus. They literally paint every single one by hand using a string -WOW!! you don't see that everyday. :P

Figaro

2009-02-28T18:40:00.000-08:00

I had kinda a topsy turvy day today. If you hadn't heard, we recently lost Figaro to some chronic medical concerns. We were absolutely so fortunate to have such a great veterinarian to help us with him. Dr. Schlingman from Uncas Vet Clinic is an amazing lady and I hope that I can be just like her when I'm practicing. She made an impossible decision one that we could make and feel like we were doing the right thing. I know that he was in the best hands all the way through. We had a visiting professor offer a workshop on helping clients through grief of losing a pet. I decided to attend with the hope that I could figure out how to help my future clients with something so difficult. Surprisingly, the workshop really helped me to. The clinician outlined the psychology behind euthanasia, and presented some different perspectives on not only determining when it is an appropriate option but also post euthanasia support for patients and although I will always miss my little buddy, I can move past the fact that he has been lost and appreciate what an asset he has been to my life. He was my support, best friend and little buddy all the way up through grade 4 to moving out on my own across the globe to SGU at the initiation of this blog. I will always be thankful to have had a kitty cat that was so amazing.

supercharged term

2009-02-25T12:07:00.000-08:00

So looking back, it seems the last couple updates start with apologies as to why I'm not updating and a quick catch up on past events. New approach starting now!! Shorter updates more regularly on cool stuff that happened that day or the past couple of days. Hopefully that will make it easier to keep up on posts with my crazy crazy study schedule. That being said, I'm really sorry I haven't been updating more, It's been crazy trying to keep up with the rigors of school :)
I need to talk about a couple of things that have been going on since the last post. First and foremost Mom, Dad, Tom and Grandma and Grandpa made the long trek down to the island for my whitecoat ceremony. I get all misty even thinking about it because having them here for a ceremony that meant so much to me means the world. I had a great time with them, they rented a house down the street from school and it was so cool to have my family here while I started my first couple of weeks in vet school. First and foremost the support I've been getting from my family has been absolutely unbelievable. I'm still floored whenever I have a tough day at school and talking with family on the phone or friends on the net will just pick up my day. Jess and Colleen thank you so much for the little cards you have been sending they are such an awesome surprise when I open up my mailbox. Mom and Dad have been fantastic -Love you guys so much!! And aunty Chuck and uncle Perry, uncle Jack, aunty Joy and cousins your emails always make me smile! Some pics from whitecoat :) :

Next was an awesome visit from Jess, she came down on her way to a wedding in Cuba and a backpacking trip to Argentina. It was an absolute blast showing her around campus, and the normal routine as well as St Georges. She's also responsable for getting me out to the beach! It was a sad day when I had to take her back to the airport!

Since then, life has been a whirlwind of trips to and from class, the grocery store and the gym all blurring into one. The term is speeding by so fast and it's pretty much supercharged. Hope everyone is enjoying their week -HUGS!

Vet Orientation

2009-01-20T18:53:00.001-08:00

This past week has been an absolute blur filled with school functions, registration and orientation workshops. It's a relief I'm finally all settled in, unpacked, registered and ready to start. It's official -I'm in vet school! WOO HOO!!!
I'm extra lucky because I have the two best roommates in the world. My two friends from the medicine program Amanda and Elise have been amazing the past couple of days. We've got our small apartment all hooked up and unpacked it actually feels like a sort of home for the first time since I arrived on the island. Our place is set up really well, we each have our own bedroom, there's a really large kitchen and the bathroom and shower are separate which prevents blocks in the morning. The last two days have been particularly busy because of the Professional Academic Workshop or PAWS put on by the vet school. The purpose of the workshop is to allow us to get to know the faculty and other students in our class in a less formal environment while giving us an indication as to what we are expected to do at SGU and eventually in the profession. I'm extra excited because tomorrow is our first day of real classes. Anatomy is first on the agenda so I'll let you know how it goes.
Night!

Term 3 –The Beginning…

2009-01-20T18:46:00.000-08:00

And so I finally made it. I’m officially a veterinary student in first term vet at SGU! And if that weren’t enough my parents, Tom and Grandma Joyce and Grandpa Bruce are all coming down to my white coat ceremony. I cannot wait to show them all around campus and the island. And so now to recap since last term: Christmas break and all the prep to come back down.

I was SO excited to go home for Christmas, it had been a long and CRAZY term. On top of my normal pre veterinary courses I had three extras, public speaking, introduction to psychology and computers. To top it off, to matriculate into the vet program or med program all school of arts and science students must write a cumulative exam on all material covered in the final year of the preparatory program. To sum it up there was no spare time and lots on the go. The flights home were long but pretty uneventful and Tom came to pick me up from the airport. I’m always amazed at how much has changed when I go away each term and come back. This time, I had trouble phoning home because you have to dial a mandatory area code in front of all local numbers –weird! Also, Tom not only came to pick me up but in his own car which was too cool. We went straight from the airport to Millhurst to fix a plumbing emergency. It was really awesome to see how much my little brother knows about plumbing now. He’s so professional and grown up!

On the way home finally I was devastated to learn that my really close friend and neighbour Pat Crowley had passed away the week before. I hadn’t even known she was sick so I felt badly that I hadn’t been able to say goodbye.. I missed her terribly all week and it was pretty heart breaking to see her family try and compensate for her loss and take care of the animals she’s left behind.

The next couple of days at home were busy helping mom get ready for dad’s 50th birthday party. We were in a major cleaning mood trying to get the house back into shape and running errands. The party was amazing. It was really fun to see all of my parent’s friends and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Next was a trip down to Houston. My grandpa Bruce and grandma Joyce organized a family cruise for my family on my dad’s side from Galveston to Mexico and back across the Gulf. Not only was it absolutely fantastic to get to spend time with my cousins, but we had a chance to stay with my aunty Joy, uncle Jack, and cousins Amy and Eric. It was so kind of them to let all 19 of us stay in their House, we had too much fun!

Cousins on the cruise boat..

The family at a park in Houston

Part of the family at dinner
Arriving back in Edmonton was a bit of a shock after Houston’s warm weather. We were dropped off at the tarmac in -29 weather. –BRrrr! The last couple of weeks were spent madly trying to finish up my correspondance classes and write the last of my final exams. I also got to see Colleen, Jessica and Vanessa on a regular basis which was amazing. I’m so lucky to have such great friends, Jess is coming down to visit me for my birthday and I absolute cannot wait.

Packing to come back down to school was insane. I am always surprised how quickly I can fill up a suitcase and still be over the weight requirement. It always takes twice as long to decide what I can live without and repack the suitcase then to pack it in the first place.
On the way back this time I took Air Canada from Edmonton to Calgary and then on to JFK New York where I spent the night in the airport. I almost had a bit of a heart attack. They had forgotten to put my bags on the plane from Edmonton so I almost missed my NY connection waiting for them to come in on the next plane. Currently I’m flying the last leg of the trip on Air Jamaica direct to Grenada. I didn’t sleep at all last night so time for a couple of ZZZzzz’s!

Late night episode

2008-10-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I was attacked by an island moth.. Lol.. indeed.. I am now scarred for life! So to also scar you (or provide some entertainment I will recount said event). So I was headed home from the library after a dutiful evening of studying. It was about 2 a.m. and I was accompanied by my friend Jed -for those who have seen my facebook pictures, he is in many of them and is sort of my little substantially sized island brother/ party buddy. He was carrying his backpack in front of him. We were almost back to our dorm and were headed down the final long flight of stairs when I noticed a flicker out of the corner of my eye. Thinking it was one of the normal grenadian bugs I didn't really pay attention until I felt a huge furry thing flap around my legs...
I jumped sky high and made a gasping noise. Jed turned to laugh at me and it was at this point that the bird sized (no joke) moth thwapped him straight in the middle of his forehead. Jed promptly screamed like a little girl, the most feminine I've heard in a LONG time. He seriously launched his backback five feet in front of us and when it hit the ground the zipper exploded and coins flew in every direction.
Meanwhile the furry beasty decided to promote panic and confusion by hitting me squarely in the shoulder and circled madly around the both of us for a solid minute. Jed and I were flailing and screaming high pitched yips while dislocating limbs while beating the air with our hands. Eventually panic subsided (I'm sure the moth had been long gone for quite awhile) and we hurriedly picked up like 150$ worth of coins and resumed the trek home. I couldn't sleep for hrs... LOL wish you'd seen it, actually wish i'd seen the whole thing happen too.. pretty intense stuff.
Hope you both are well, missin you tons and excited for yet another long day of studying. MWAH!!
Katie

i love my island

2008-10-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

What a great day. Woke up thinking it wasn't going to be that fantastic. Almost overslept and missed a class and met with my advisor to make sure I was on track to get into vet school. As it stands right now, things are ok but of course always room for improvement. What a relief! Spent a couple of hours this afternoon at the beach with Megan trying to destress and refocus (or have fun?). I was shocked when I first pulled up. The waves were HUGE!!! There's a hurricane by San Juan at the moment and we're feeling the effects, I've never seen the waves so big and literally there was no beach. The parking lot was even flooding in places. Went wave surfing for a good half hr -LOVE IT!!! Hope they're the same tomorrow so I can go and play some more. Then back to campus and a quick change before class and micro lab. Things went smoothly and then my favorite thing ever -YOGA CLASS!! I LOVE YOGA!! I've been doing it regularly twice a week and am already seeing improvements in my flexibility. I'm starting to see why mom is so in love with it. I have also found a fantastic new website with online radio stations. I am LOVING the Amy Winehouse channel if y'all want to look it up -good stuff! http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Amy%2BWinehouse/similarartists . I intend to study micro for a bit in my room with good music, some coffee and a candle going. Should be lovely, and bed early.. G'night :)

just for fun...

2008-10-15T13:29:00.001-07:00

Here's some incentive to come down here and visit me!

Exams are finito!

2008-10-15T13:26:00.000-07:00

Midterm exams are over! So glad to have them done and out of the way, most of all, it's a good indication or rather wake up call before finals at the end of term. To matriculate into the full veterinary program I need a 3.4 in all the classes i've taken at SGU combined. All the subjects went fairly well, physiology is going to need some work but luckily I have time to bring that mark up. I have a new boyfriend. His name is the library. I intend to spend a lot of time with him in the near future...

My new boyfriend -the library!

Carriacou Trip

2008-10-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

At the end of september, I took a trip to one of the neighboring islands with my friend Liz, it was tons of fun! I actually liked the island a bit better then Grenada. It's a lot more rural feeling, people are friendly, everything is well maintained and all the stray dogs are fat and happy. We took a ferry called the Osprey and arrived after about an hour and a half. This was one of the highlights of the trip. Being able to see Grenada's coast from the water was pretty cool. Once arriving on the island, we got settled into our hotel room and got ready for the Hash -the primary reason we were visiting the island in the first place. The Hashes here are really fun. It's basically a gigantic day long adventure race through the bush. Someone will head out in the morning and lay a trail of paper piles and then in the afternoon, we all take off in a pack of people and run from pile to pile along the route. There are code words for finding the trail "on, on" and losing the trail and turning back "on back".

Grenada from the water

Liz and I on the ferry

Carriacou

Tortoise at our hotel

Yeah! Time for a breather and a bit of a life ;)

2008-10-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

and so.. it has been a month and a bit since I last sat down and wrote about my life. Lots has happened :) First of all, I had an addition to my small grenadian family of one. My friend Pearl and I bought fish (hers has since passed away :( ) but I now have a little friend to keep me company. Her name is newt and she's a female siamese fighter fish. Pretty cute... I think it's pretty funny that since I am not allowed to have any other sort of pets on campus, I am so excited about a little fish. Pics included:
Newt (my fish)

Pearl and her former fish, Emo Nemo (he was a bit depressed when we bought him..)

Me with Newt

Tuesday -exam day!

2008-09-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

Two exams later and I'm completely exhausted but feel completely satisfied that I put in my best effort. As my mom said, Uncle Brett would be proud of my efforts in Molecular Biology and attempting to understand all the nitty picky details that Dr Martin keeps throwing our way. I have to admit, parts of what we are learning are very interesting and the course should be a good one if I keep up on the notes. Yesterday I went to class in the morning after dashing off a reading reaction to Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream". What a beautiful speech! I wish we'd been given more space, it is impossible to fit all my ideas into a single page. The afternoon, evening and most of the early night I spent studying and as much of a shock to the system as my first set of exams were, it was nice to get back into the regular rhythm of school. Early to bed tonight and then tomorrow night is the Ladybugs first soccer game!! Hope to conscript a friend to take pictures so that I can post them :)

Friday

2008-09-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

Today was highly successful! I went to my classes and because it's glorious friday I was done at 11a.m. Came back to my room, made some food and had a nap. All my friends continue to succumb to the nasty disease floating around campus and I refuse to let that happen so I've been sleeping a lot and popping cold fx to ward it off. Studied some molecular biology, there is going to be a lot of studying this week because my first quiz is on Tuesday -bring on the red bull! Last night I went out with Linnea and Jed to bananas. It was really fun, everyone was out and my RA (dorm leader) from last term is back visiting for the week. Too fun! Tomorrow night there is an artist from Trinidad mixing so that might be fun.. have to see how much I get done. Also went for a surprise visit to Christina and Yensin's place. It was really nice to have a visit, I really miss having Christina in my classes. Lastly, my friend Mike had a bunch of us over for a dinner party. He cooked the most amazing Chinese food that I've ever had in my life.. it was fantastic!!! Now back to studying...

Thursday

2008-09-05T09:01:00.001-07:00

Lighter day of classes and spent some time trying to get caught up with projects etc. I have two molecular biology tests next week so it's going to be a packed weekend of studying. Spent the evening with Cece and LIz, we went and got groceries and then I studied -exciting life of a student... you know it's bad when going to the grocery store is exciting. It's been particularly bad there lately, seems like the store is out of most things all the time. There have not been any tomatoes since I got here, I MISS TOMATOES! I also had a bit of a heart attack last night because then it appeared that my fridge had stopped working. I had just put everything into my freezer and attempted to find a friend still awake who had fridge space I could borrow when it decided to kick in.. weird! Oh last thing.. had my first soccer practice tonight! It was fantastic -great exercise and boy am I going to be sore tomorrow. It felt weird to be kicking a ball again after like 8 years off but things were definitely coming back to me by the end of practice. Might be playing again Friday evening so looking forward to that.

Wednesday

2008-09-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

Had a bit of a difficult day today supporting some really good friends. My friend Christina found out today that her chocolate lab that she's had for 8 years (since he was a puppy) had to be euthanized. My friend Pearl also found out that her cat had passed away yesterday. It's so hard being this far away from home in the first place and it's everyone's worst fear that something will happen to a loved one while we're gone. I am having trouble knowing what to say to them. Hugs to both of them and i'm hoping they will feel better with some time. Spent the entire day in class from 9-5 straight, ick! I'm exhausted and still have homework to tackle so off I go..

Tuesday

2008-09-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

Events of the day... had one class this morning and the rest of the day off. Got groceries for the week and spent some time with my friend Christina at her place off campus. She has her black labrador with her this term and it is so good to get my dog snuggle in. I also bought some cat food at the grocery for the stray cats around the dorm. Students have been feeding them for years so they're dependent on us.. and I'm really loving the chance to have "pet cats" again. Full day of classes tomorrow and gotta get stuff done so that I can hang out with Liz and Pearl at Stuarts tomorrow night. G'night everyone!

Sunday -Weekend Recap

2008-09-02T20:28:00.000-07:00

A pretty good weekend all in all. Went out Friday night with friends to Bananas. Things were uneventful but everyone was out so i got a chance to visit with all my med friends who don't usually have time to get groceries let alone socialize. Saturday I went grocery shopping and to the beach. My car died again.. but it was my fault this time -I left the lights on.. whoops! Got a boost from Louise's car and went out for dinner for DJ's birthday (will post pics of that when I get them off Pearls camera). Dinner was at aquarium which is a restaurant on the beach, it was really fun and a lot of people showed up to celebrate! We had chocolate cake and everything, what a treat. Sunday was very low key, I just hung around the dorm at Pearls place and studied. I was pretty proud of myself for resisting the temptation of the beach and starting to get a handle on school. I just need to get a new planner so that I can get a better idea of what is coming up. Hope everyone enjoyed a fantastic weekend!
HUGS!

Some pics at the beach with Pearl and her boyfriend Shaun...

Friday

2008-09-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

Oh dear.. the day started out well, went into St Georges with Pearl this morning to attempt to find some soccer or rather football shoes. I'm officially a member of the ladies Ladybug football team and our first practice will be next week sometime. We had just pulled into down town and I was attempting to park at the side of the busiest main road when my car dies -and to top it off I was blocking a main throughway to a store. Thank goodness for amazing friends! My friend DJ drove all the way into town to rescue us, we tried boosting the car but my battery was DEAD. Luckily the town is small enough that Pearl and I could hoof it accross the street to buy a new battery which DJ installed. The only difficulty was finding a place that took credit card payments -lesson to self, carry lots of cash to buy the car candy! I'm hoping that it was only the battery and not the alternator but only time will tell.. Pearl was so sweet, she was such a good sport about being marooned and bought us smoothies while we waited for DJ. I am starting to get some amazing friends down here...
Highlight of tonight was definitely going up north of the island to Gouyave's Fish Friday. I went up there with Jed, Elise and Amanda, all dorm mates. It was very tasty food and a fun taxi ride there and back.. here are a couple of pics of the occasion.

Our group...
Welcome!
Cheers!

Thursday

2008-09-02T20:21:00.001-07:00

Laundry in dorms is in one word FRUSTERATING. I was working out today and noticed that in the full length mirror of the gym my black t-shirt had some pretty impressive white spots where my sportsbra was showing through. Great.. the dryer is putting holes in my clothes because it is off center and clothes are getting stuck in the door while it is spinning. This is after you have to wring the water out of your clothes because the washers don't have a spin cycle. LOL! Guess i'm getting to know the laundry room pretty well, there are 2 out of the 7 washers that work reliably and 4 out of 9 dryers that are functioning and safe. Gotta love dorm life.. On a brighter note, made it to the beach today for a swim. It was amazing as usual, but I am going to try and find a swim cap so that i'm a little bit more visible to people and boats out there :)

Tueday

2008-08-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

Classes went really well today. I'm feeling pretty confident with the material. Had my first Molecular lab today and it was pretty cool. We did a lot of things I was familiar with through labs at U of A so it was nice to know what I was doing for once! Need to start buckling down and getting some homework out of the way. Things (including my laundry) seem to be piling up. I'm so excited. First Ladybug practice is going to be on Thursday so I will get to know everyone on the team. I'm hoping to meet some cool people and to play as well as Aunty Chuck. If I do that, maybe we'll actually win some of these soccer games. We're the only female team and we play guys. Should be fun!

Monday

2008-08-27T17:59:00.001-07:00

What a LONG day.. non stop classes for 7 hrs.. I'm exhausted.. better post tomorrow I promise!!!

Sunday

2008-08-26T10:21:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was my friend Ivonne's birthday, she is officially 30 years old now and as of today, officially in the med school program -CONGRATULATIONS IVONNE! We all went out for supper last night to celebrate and afterward briefly attended the ninja's vs pirates party at Bananas. It was fun to dress up but not many people came out so that was a bit disappointing. Tomorrow being sunday will most likely be quiet.. I could get caught up on some homework I suppose...

At the pirate party

Friday

2008-08-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

>
Busy day of classes yesterday and today is errand day. I lucked out being in prevet in that I have the whole afternoon off to get things done. Kidnapped my friend Rodney and we went in to town to run some errands. He had to pick up a package from the port which takes hours so I ended up visiting Klint. He was so much brighter today and pretty cuddly. I think he's really enjoying all the attention he's been getting lately. His leg is all bandaged up and he seems to be putting some weight on it. Peggy, the lady that owns the GSPCA, is really pleased with his progress and is saying that he may be in shape for a bath soon. Also toured around to look at some places for mom and dad and grandma and grandpa to stay in in January. I SO CANNOT WAIT!! The med/vet schools just had their white coat ceremonies and it's going to be amazing to be initiated into the profession. Bought lots of groceries on the way back and linnea is supposed to be throwing a party tonight so that should be fun.

Aug 20/08 (Wednesday)

2008-08-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

Interesting day today... Started out at 9 a.m. with a physiology class, then English. On the way out from the lecture hall I noticed a new dog on campus, he was limping and had a pretty decent sized wound on his left hind leg. After being here for a term, you see local dogs or "pothounds" running around most places and most of them are not in the best shape with ravaging mange or super skinny. Something about this one though.. I couldn't just leave him.. could be because he started doing the cute puppy crying noise. Hits you right in the heart! So I skipped out on my micro class and social science and medicine to take him with my friend Beth to the GSPCA in town (equivalent to the humane society.) The system here is weird though.. the GSPCA is run by a lady who devotes all her time to the cause. She runs the clinic and personally decides which cases to take in.. I had to work pretty hard to sell her on my new furry friend and convince her that he was a worthy cause. Klint as we call him did his part though and was super friendly and well behaved even though he's probably never been in a car in his life and his leg was in bad enough shape it was probably pretty painful. In the end he was safely admitted and in return Beth (who is a really talented vet tech before coming down here to vet school) changed the fluids in the x-ray developer so that if Klint required an x-ray later on it was available. Extra bonus is that I got to learn how to clean the developer at the same time. Feeling pretty pleased with myself that Clint gets to sleep inside with a/c tonight and is getting some food and water!

Klint

Aug 19/08 (Tuesday)

2008-08-19T22:57:00.002-07:00

Wow.. i'm getting pretty regular with the updating.. going to keep it coming, it's actually pretty relaxing to sit here and think about what happened today. Today was a weird day actually. As the second day of official classes I've now attended almost all the classes I'll take this term. We started off with a class at 8 o'clock which meant waking up way earlier. I haven't actually been up this early since I was working earlier this summer so it was really tough to pry my eyes open. I guess I was helped out by the girl accross the hall who beat my alarm with a rousing rendition of "Hallelujah, Hallelujah..e tc..." playing a very loud gospel choir on her laptop. Not a nice way to wake up... Better than last night when the girl down the hall was singing loudly in the wrong key to Britney Spears :) I am liking living in the dorm so far though.. lots of nice girls and so nice to have people around to keep me company.
So molecular biology was the first class this morning. It's going to be complex and boring. I got to purchase a scintillating book on genomes! Yeah.. ;) Luckily it's taught by one of my favorite profs so far, he is a really excellent public speaker and tries to make the class interesting with jokes and stories. I had a molec lab intro after that which was uneventful and short.

I woke up feeling really bad, thinking it was just an early morning but it got worst during classes so I went back to my room for a really long nap. That helped a bit but i'm definitely fighting something off -I think everyone I know is, the guy behind me in class this morning was coughing a lung up which was quite gross.

Tonight I went to my friend Meg (second term vet)'s new apartment to check things out and she cooked me a delicious supper. So nice to have some home cooked food after nothing but junk and travelling stuff since arriving a week ago. Porkchops, veggies and rice.. mmm! Spent the rest of the evening with Amanda and Elise, my neighbors and classmates from this term and last term. They're both from Trinidad and are so much fun. But now it's time for bed.. gotta be paying attention in class tomorrow...

Aug 19/08 (Tuesday)

2008-08-19T22:57:00.001-07:00

First Day of Classes

2008-08-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

Had a really awesome day today. Started the day bright and early with a nine o'clock Physiology class. I think i'm really going to enjoy it, the topics all seem really interesting and I'm hoping that my Physiology class from U of A will come in handy. The class which was created and is still taught by the Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University, focuses on systems in the body rather then just what happens at a cellular level -awesome. The prof is a very opinionated older American gentleman with a lot of personality and it seems like he knows what he's doing.

Next on the schedule was Microbiology, this class is going to be a ton of work but again sounds similar to the class I took at U of A so hopefully shouldn't be unmanageable. There is a lengthy lab involved but sounds like it will be interesting and somewhat fun.

English -Reading Comprehension? Why do I have to take this? Spent the first class doing a diagnostic read a story and answer questions. I'm hoping for easy marks but you never know.. if I don't do well on the diagnostic I'll know why I'm taking it ;)

Social Science and Medicine -a course on sociology. What is sociology? Hmm.. i'll answer that after wednesdays class I suppose. Sounds interesting but involved a ton of paper writing. I guess its kind of a blessing in disguise because if it weren't for this class I would not be writing anything this term and all my creative word work from last term would be lost.

Took some time off in the evening and drove over to the beach for a swim. I got to try out my amazing new ipod adapter which allows me to swim laps while listening to music. I'm not going to lie... best invention EVER!! It was pretty fun to swim, listen to music and watch the starfish on the bottom while I swim past.. A quick trip to the grocery store all covered in sand and water was next, where I couldn't find lettuce, tomatoes, eggs or chicken which is what I had on my grocery list. I'll have to check back tomorrow -gotta love first week of classes, when all the students clean out the grocery and do nothing but eat and socialize/study.

Sunday

2008-08-17T18:44:00.000-07:00

Classes start tomorrow -I can't believe summer is over... Went out with friends last night and had a school barbeque this evening. I am so excited to see all my classmates tomorrow and see how everyone's summer went and where they travelled to. Early start tomorrow so I am off to bed. Nine o'clock Physiology...

Saturday -Cruise day!

2008-08-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

So now that all the heavy lifting and unpacking is out of the way, I had a chance to explore the island a bit and visit with friends. Met a new friend through my friend Linnea who I met last term. Both are from Sweden, both are named Linnea and both are super fun. So went with Linnea on the Rum Runner Orientation Cruise. Here are some pictures of the tour...
Walking the plank off the boat..
Steel drum band -amazing!
Really neat boat
Really cool boat
pretty flowers
Linnea and I on the bus
Friends from class
the Rum Runner
sailboats in the bay
the water is SO CLEAR!

Friday

2008-08-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

OOOoo.. I have my room all set up. Here's a tour:

Thursday

2008-08-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

Wow.. it has been a whirlwind of activity since arriving. First of all I cannot believe how hot it is here -so much warmer than last term, you can't do anything without dripping in sweat. Spent the majority of last night moving into the room and transporting all my boxes of debris from friend Melanie's apt to campus. Luckily the car works still -I was really concerned the last couple of weeks that it would. Thanks to Dad and Grandpa for all the advice on what fluid levels to check and where before starting it! So now I have to unpack and find some groceries and find out who else is here already! Miss you guys tons!

Wednesday, Aug 14/08 AM

2008-08-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

MMM breakfast was delicious.. eggs and sausage, a muffin and orange juice. I took the shuttle back to the airport with no difficulty and the driver took me straight to the terminal which was a treat. I'd booked this leg of the trip with Air Jamaica and was worried it might be pretty sketchy when I first arrived. The terminal was a madhouse and in true carribean style very slow with EVERYTHING.. checkin, security and loading took forever. The plane left an hour late but I think that was probably due to huge airport traffic. That is where things got really good though, I got to take both pieces of luggage without having to pay extra and apparently if you have a first class ticket you are allowed unlimited luggage. One of the kids had 9 bags to himself -WOW! Best part was that I recognized some of the kids at the airport and ran into my friend Josh. Made some new aquaintances too.. the plane from NY to Grenada

new friends...

Tuesday August 12/2008 -PM

2008-08-16T17:07:00.000-07:00

Just arrived in New York and have settled into a hotel for the night. Pretty excited to be in the big city even though I won't have much time to check out the sights. All my luggage has made it so far and I found the hotel shuttle after taking the sky train around the massive airport -I cannot believe how huge it is!! So I'm feeling uber spoiled having my own room, a comfy bed, shower and my last dose of american tv shows before the island tomorrow. Everyone I've met so far have really obvious accents, very long and drawn out words FUN! I also met a really cool girl on the plane, she's a makeup artist for MAC cosmetics (my favorite!) and is on her way to New York for a course. This hotel even has breakfast in the morning and I'm getting excited to reconnect with friends. G'night and sleep tight!

Tuesday August 12/2008

2008-08-16T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone… and so here we go again. Round two or SGU adventures. Surprisingly, it was a lot harder to leave this time. I had such a great summer and really tried to take advantage of the chance to reconnect with family and some really good friends. For those of you who remember my summer list, I got through most of it, with a couple that I hope to finish at Christmas –Cheryl and Anna I really hope we can go riding together and to all my camping buddies, I am booking at least two solid weekends for that next year, looks like you guys had such a great time. I know those memories are going to get me through any down times this term so thanks to all of you again for spending time.
So I’m feeling a little emotionally fragile at the moment –weird!! I suppose the first time, I was so excited about challenging the unknown and proving that I could move half way across the world. Most of all, I wanted to prove Saskatoon that they were wrong in telling me to pursue a different career. This time, as I just mentioned is different. I know roughly what to expect, I have made some good friends that it will be awesome to see and the beach is calling. However, I have barely left and I am getting homesick and missing Mom, Dad, Brett and Tom, Gromit, Fig and Chester.
Quick recap of the day so far.. Woke up early after a fantastic night last night. All my friends in Sherwood Park came over for a marshmallow roast and it meant a lot to me to see them all. Spent a couple of minutes around seen to see Melissa’s precious babies, 14 Great Dane puppies that are less then a week old! Next a few frantic last minute bag changes (How am I supposed to fit 4 months of stuff in two 50 lb bags? Ack!) A quick and difficult good bye to pets and Dad and a visit to Mrs Crowley and I was on my way. Luckily I had time for a cup of coffee with mom before having to go to the gate. The flights have been uneventful, had a bit of a runaround in the Vancouver airport trying to find my luggage to take it through customs but hopefully the rest of the trip will go smoothly. Right now, Saskatchewan is looking pretty good… and I’m looking forward to Christmas. Cant wait to get to New York so that I can get internet and get a little communication home.

Congratulations Mom and Dad on your 25th Wedding Anniversary

2008-07-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

Pictures from dinner at the Hotel MacDonald with Mom, Dad, Brett, Tom and Lauren.

So I guess that sums it up

2008-07-14T23:00:00.001-07:00

So sorry about the long string of new posts all at once.. I will try and be better at updating this term (it's a goal!) As for the present, I've been doing the waitress thing at Montana's Restaurant. I decided the summer was too short to work at the clinic and expect to make the money I need to afford school next term. I'm hoping that next year I may be able to do both clinic work and serving. I'll be done my job on wednesday which will give me a chance to catch up on the four online classes I've been working on this summer and hopefully get a chance to spend some time with family and friends before jetting off again. Hope y'all are enjoying your summer break!

Little Brother all grown up..

2008-07-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

Tom graduated this year -hard to believe that my little baby bro is all grown up. Here are some photo ops from the big event..

2008-07-14T22:43:00.000-07:00

Jessica was in town for a whole month and we took advantage of that fact and started our own little running group. We'd join up in the evenings and pick a destination, run for a bit and catch up. I LOVED it! I'm definitely going to have to find some running friends at school.. it is so much fun going with other people rather then just by yourself. Jess is unbelievably motivated and having her company kept me honest (no slacking off and walking!) Gromit came on the runs too and did a great job of pulling me up all the hills as well as over to any interesting smells...

At the start of a run at the Science Park

Jess grooving it up on the trail

Gromit, my running buddy on our way home

Horses

2008-07-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

Started the summer break out right with a trip out to Hollyhock Meadows. It was really nice to see Peter and Terry and all the new farm additions. Couldn' t believe how much i've missed the horses, hopefully I will get more chances to hang with the few horses on the island because they've been sorely missed.
Me and the newest Hollyhock addition

Also very exciting news... I got to attend my first foaling at friend Steph's house. She had been expecting the new little one and invited me out for a foal watch. I didn't think we'd be lucky enough to see the whole thing but we did -too cool! Still waiting to find out what his name is going to be but he did an amazing job learning to stand up and eat all within just a couple of hours.

brand new baby

Just learning to stand up..

Trip home..

2008-07-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

So I'm halfway through my summer break and with some spare time.. it's time to update :)
The trip back home did not seem nearly as arduous as the trip down. It was the same length of time but the excitement of getting back home to see friends and family made it fly by. It was also pretty fun because the first leg (Grenada to San Juan) I was accompanied by two school friends, Amar and Jodi. Amar also joined me from San Juan to Chicago and I journeyed the final bit Chicago to Toronto. It's so funny the things that you miss from home when you're away in a different country. Even familiar fast food chains and department stores become exciting. In the San Juan airport, we had our first American fast food... delicious and it was so surprising that we could buy food and have it prepared for us in less then 20 minutes.

Yumm...

I was lucky enough to have a longer layover in Toronto so I stayed with Colleen overnight. She has an adorable place with a perfect location right downtown. It was amazing to see her and what her new life in the big city is like. I'm hoping that I will be able to see her once more on the way back down so we can catch up on summer news..

Bestest Friends..

I was met at the airport by Brett, Tom, Lauren, Mom and Dad, it was amazing to see them and SO NICE to be home.

the life

2008-05-06T23:27:00.001-07:00

You haven't lived until you're sitting in a packed lecture hall at 2:30 a.m. studying anatomy and listening to heavy metal :) GO FINALS!!

Sunset in Grenada

2008-05-06T06:18:00.000-07:00

Since I've been saving up some more pictures, here you go :)
Crab on the road at school
Me on route to levera beach
One of my best friends Megan on route to sea turtle watching at levera beach
boy on levera beach
Sea Turtle eggs before we relocated them to a new site -lots of them, they're heavy and look like pingpong balls

Sunsets in Grenada on Levera Beach... (taken by some friends)

Pic of the day

2008-05-06T06:17:00.001-07:00

Just thought I'd share a cute picture :)

Quick update

2008-05-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hey! It's Final exam time here at SGU and the stress is HIGH. LOL... Make or break time here in the next week as most of my finals are worth 40-50 percent of the class. I have found the best study spot so I'm not too upset that I won't be seeing much daylight :) There is a building called the Histology/Pathology lab that is supposed to be for med students, it's subarctic so I can get cozy in my sweatshirt from home, put on headphones and enjoy the amazingly comfy chairs (not lecture hall chairs!). I have to laugh, my friend alyssa had the cutest post it note in her room. I can vouch for the fact that the freshman 15 happens during exam time because we all eat constantly -stress and boredom, not hunger!

Also, in a moment of self discovery I have morphed... i think i may like it better?

Turtles in Levera

2008-04-27T14:28:00.000-07:00

catching some shut eye before the fun begins
In front of the ocean spirits sign with Haley
Amazingly large turtle!
Posing with a new friend
Levera beach, walking back to the car..
Unfortunately I've had an insanely sore throat the past week that has just started clearing up. Luckily, last sunday I had an excursion of a lifetime to make up for it. Went with friends Megan and Haley to Levera to see the Sea Turtles:) It was an amazing road trip accross the island to levera beach. The turtles were absolutely amazing, we saw 12 come up and lay eggs. They are so much bigger then I had anticipated! They are about five feet long with front flippers that are almost a meter! As part of a conservation effort, ocean spirits, the organization we went with, helps turtles by counting the eggs that were layed and moving them if the nest that has been dug is not in an appropriate spot and covering nesting sites with sand to prevent poachers and other animals from finding the eggs. It was an all nighter adventure and hopefully I will have the opportunity to go again next year:) Here are some picts of the event!

Update

2008-04-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

So sorry about the lack of updates. School has been super busy with extra projects which I have just finished. All that remains between me and going home for the summer is final exams which are at the beginning of May. I have really been enjoying having the car and have been taking advantage of the extra freedom by cruising around the island and exploring when time permits. I will be attempting to post lots of pictures in the next week to make up for my blog laziness:) Hope everyone is doing well and talk to all y'all soon!

New Wheels!

2008-03-30T16:05:00.001-07:00

ROLLIN Gangsta’ Style
Very exciting news!!! I have a new member of my Grenadian family –a Suzuki escudo!!! My friend DJ from class knows a little something about cars and how you fix/maintain them so he helped me narrow down quite a few choices to “betsy”. This jeep is like no other!! It’s as local as they get, right down to the decals all over. Pictures are worth a thousand words… but here is betsy….
Her official name is “Empress” and on the back we have her slogan “local beauty”. At first I was a tad horrified at all the bling but after thinking it over, I think I am going to keep her that way. Not only is it kind of cool to have a vehicle like this (I can’t foresee having a gansta vehicle at any other point in my life) but looking more local should prevent a lot of hassle from other locals! With my tinted windows up no one will no the difference… Mom was saying that of course I will have to take care and drive carefully (everything here is backwards, left side of the road, signal on the wrong side of the steering wheel, merging and yielding are all backwards) but frankly I think it will be safer then the school buses. They just installed speed bumps at school to prevent busdrivers from speeding through the campus. As fun as it is to roll full speed ahead on grenada’s awesomely rolling hills in a bus, it gives the illusion of safety when you are in control of the steering wheel and the gas!

Happy Easter

2008-03-24T19:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter everyone!! I miss all of you so much and can't wait to see you in less than 2 months!! Hope you are all eating chocolate easter bunnies and easter dinner!
Hard to believe summer is almost here.. can't wait - I've already got a list of musts for the summer...

Summer to do list:
-camping with jess/colleen/keith/mike and whomever else is feeling adventurous!!
-ride with cheryl, anna, melissa
-go sailing with dad on the new boat
-hang at the lake with family
-run everyday with gromit
-vancouver/seattle trip to visit the cousins?
-mini horses!
-bowling!
-spend more time with my grandparents
-make it to the summit of at least three rocky mountains
-whitewater rafting!!
-take it out of the indoor gym and rock climb outside with colleen/mike/keith
-campfires and bbq with friends
-visit colleen and jess
-trip to new york?
-trip to visit beth in oregon.. friends in florida?

River Tubing!

2008-03-24T17:29:00.001-07:00

Got up early and met friends at the campus early to go river tubing. Now granted it is Grenada, so the rivers here are not quite like they are in the Rockies but it was a good time, a good way to cool off and meet some new people. The float itself was about an hour with a couple of stops where people could do some cliff jumping if they wanted. I was the designated photographer so here are a few picts of the whole day.

On the way back from the river, annandale falls

Floating and ready to hit the rapids!

The river

Group shot!

Sandblast 2008

2008-03-23T17:10:00.000-07:00

Since SGU doesn't have an Easter weekend -this weekend was it. The student association puts on a big beach party every term -Sandblast!! It's an all day affair -the whole school turns out for the event and lots of fun is had by all. Here are picts from this years escapades...

Fig eating one of the sandblast hats

tthe coastguard boat making sure no one drowns

beach shot

the view -busy day at sea with two cruise ships

Alex and I ready for the party to begin

Heath and his awesome 'stach!

me and the girls...

Friday

2008-03-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

All the stores are shut for Easter weekend and there wasn't a whole lot to do... Went with Beth and Jodi to Louise's apartment to feed the turtles and watch tv (Louise has cable -it has been soooo long since I watched american tv!!).

turtle attacking the water conditioner tablet that was shaped like a turtle -it was pretty funny!!
turtle up close
Holding one of the two tiny turtles..

Took a break a couple of hours in to hit the beach with some of my friends. It's amazing how much damage the larger waves have done, half the sand is gone and sharp things are poking out all over the place. The sun bathing was still good and playing in the waves reminded me a lot of west edmonton mall waterpark!!

Fun with SGA

2008-03-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

SGA, SGU's student government kids were responsible for all the noise.. turns out they were making jello shots for tomorrow's party -Sandblast. I gave them a hand and I have never seen so much jello in one place at one time. It was a good time for all, we sampled all the leaky product and decorated hats -sombrero's to keep kids from getting too burned during the festivities.All the jello...
WIth one of the hats we decorated out front of the dorm.

3-1 part 2!!

2008-03-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

Midterms are finished and so begins the second half of my first term of third year prevet. The majority of this weekend was spent recuperating from a really hectic week, finally getting enough sleep and cutting out caffeine completely. Friday night, I went with Megan and Pearl to a fancy restaurant called the boathouse. We thought we would treat ourselves to a “real” meal to makeup for last weeks typical diet –pasta and coffee. The food was the AMAZING –honestly probably the best food ever. We had steak with a creamy peppercorn sauce, fried plantains, cooked pumpkin and cheesy potatoes with a greek salad to start. Desert was the best part and we ordered a “Grand Etang” (coffee ice cream cake with an oreo crust), Chocolate Mousse and the Crème Brulee. DELICIOUS!! I met one of Pearl’s roomies from Y dorm, After supper we rushed back to get ready to go out with the rest of the prevet/med people. Slept in on Saturday –fig didn’t like that much, and lounged around on the beach with some of the kids from the first term vet class/med classes. It was straight out of the movies, music cranked, people sunbathing everywhere, swimming and throwing Frisbees, good food and and the end of the day lots of impressive tan lines/burns. Saturday Night I went into town with Megan to Victory Bar, it’s a large night club right on the Bay where they are building the new port –Port Louis. We stayed there for a bit and Megan’s car broke down so we caught a ride with Megan’s friends from Scotland back to Bananas. Sunday I went with Megan to get her car fixed –turns out it started just fine which was a bit weird and got a start on some notes for this week. Monday there were not classes, back to the beach, laundry out of the way and everything back in order for classes today. Hope I can stay a bit more on top of classes so finals are not as ugly as midterms were!

The week went by fast!!! Spent the majority of it in class or studying –boring!! But now it is time for the weekend and a bit of a party time☺ Friday after class it took almost 3 hours to get home because I kept seeing people I knew that wanted to talk. It was nice –made me realize I have more friends then I thought. Went out to a new bar last night too –Aquarium. It’s gorgeous!! A little beach house right on the ocean and actually backing out onto the beach! Everyone went out to bananas afterward but I caught a taxi home. I think this weekend will be a marathon not a sprint and I do want to get some things accomplished this weekend! I had cottage cheese and fruit for breakfast –never tried that before. It was pretty tasty but the best part was that I found the only bag of frozen raspberries in the whole of IGA on Wednesday –SO EXCITED!!! I have missed raspberries so much!! Later on I’m going to meet some friends and hang out on the beach –provided the waves settle down a bit –they’re predicting a storm somewhere nearby so as a result the waves are HUGE. I think everyone is a bit worried that the drunk people at sandblast might get swept away if this keeps up so we are crossing our fingers for more sunshine and less wave. Fig and I are chillin or “limin” in the room for a bit and I hear noise down the hall so I might investigate….

Babysitting!!

2008-03-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

A quick post, a bit behind the times, for those who were having supper at aunty jane's you would have seen Kirby in action. Fig and I were lucky enough to babysit a little lovebird named kirby for a couple of hours while Megan's room was sprayed for roaches (joys of the carribean!!). He was a noisy little critter but fig sure liked him...

2008-03-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

And so the week goes on and I finally have a chance to stop and breathe. The enlish midterm on Monday went well I think, Genetics on Tuesday was a bit tougher then anticipated but I did not well above class average which is a relief. I just wrote Biochemistry and am reserving judgement -lots of questions where I could narrow it down to 2 questions but wasn't a hundred percent. Nutrition is tonight and Anatomy is tomorrow then I am FINITO!! Can't wait. Last night was intense. A group of us had a last ditch study session on campus and I ended up staying well past the last bus at 2 a.m. Christina was generous enough to lend me her car so I could drive me and some of the other kids home only to pick us all up again in the morning. Driving here is an ultimate experience. Not only is everything on the left hand side (which makes right hand turns really interesting) but the indicator lights control is on the right hand side of the steering wheel and the manual stick shift is all on the left side (backwards!!). Fun times -oh and the best part, I went to hop in the car this morning and there was a cockroach that skuttled out from under the seat ;) I had no idea they could get into cars -GROSS!! So now I have phobias of things touching my feet lol.

I had the worlds best run yesterday. I went at about 1 and it was SO HOT, it is impossible not to get dehydrated in that kind of weather. I found this amazing trail, it takes me all the way to the top of the ridge looking over the whole peninsula. You can see Grand Anse beach, Morne Rouge Bay, School and the Highway all at once -it was spectacular. Just as I was getting to the top there were two little boys flying a kite. It was really neat -they made it themselves out of some tarp and bamboo -it was really flying!! Excursions like yesterday make me realize just how lucky I am to be here and I can't wait to take pictures to show you all what the view is like!!

In other news, Figaro has decided that he must sleep on my bed and this is what every morning is starting to look like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMXCuW9LDps

That being said, I am looking forward to seeing all of you in less then 2 months!! Time is sure going fast but it will be nice to be home for a bit...

Sunday

2008-03-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

Had a really productive day today. Not only did I get organized for the week and laundry out of the way, I managed to get a really early start on studying. I met my friends Christina and Beth at the Anatomy lab and our anatomy prof came in to help us review for the test on Friday. I can't believe this school, the profs are so nice they will actually come in on a weekend to help us out -we are so fortunate! With his help, we got through all the material about four times faster then if we'd been by ourselves and I feel so much more confident about the class. Afterwards Christina and I went for lunch at a little cafe at the Prickly Bay Marina. It was beautiful and sunny and I had the best Greek salad ever!! We also saw one of the cutest puppies I've seen in awhile, he must have had some corgie in their somewhere because he was tiny, low to the ground and had really short legs with a small teddy bear face. Got some Biochem under our belt and then I went back to Grand Anse to study with some of the other kids in my class in one of the study rooms. Definitely ready for a bit of a break and then off to bed. I've got an English Midterm bright and early in the morning. Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

runners high

2008-03-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

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!!

and one by one our heads fall off...

2008-03-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

It is officially the week before midterm week -which is why i haven't been posting much I'm afraid... and everyone has hit a wall. When I heard that the students here party together and study together I had no idea it was this extreme. From last week going out on wednesday, thursday and friday night to Saturday morning... it was like a bomb went off and now there are only the walking dead -or headless zombies left. Everyone is super concentrated and focused. There are ZERO extra curricular activities and everyone is locked in their dorm rooms or the library from 8 in the morning to the small hours of the morning. I cannot wait until after midterms just so it feels like there is a little life here. It is a bit frusterating for those of us who have been trying to keep up with the material as we go along because now, there really is nothing to do but study even if you think you deserve a break:) I've been running every day... I've been thinking that maybe I'll get in shape and try out a triathlon... we really have everything necessary to do it and rumor is that there will be a beginner sprint in may. So I'll see how it goes I guess:) Now back to the books!!

prospective apartment

2008-02-28T04:19:00.001-08:00

ack, it is already time to try and find housing for next term. Only undergrad first termers live on campus and everyone else is put into a lottery. Most have to find off campus housing so it is advised that we find it before the big rush after midterms in (in a week). I have found an apartment but it is off the beaten path. I'm wondering if it would be social enough to have my own apartment off on my own. Mom, here are some picts? What do y'all think?
the view from the unit balcony

the bathroom

desk and dresser

view from patio

patio

view of the room, you can request one bed get taken out if you want..

fridge/stove

kitchen

back entrance way w. security lights

view of the front of the unit

pool

at last

2008-02-26T08:22:00.001-08:00

last quiz is done and now i have a normal schedule until midterms start on March 10. I think it went alright, there were a couple of questions that i had it narrowed down to one option or the other. I got my anatomy quiz back yesterday and was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I think I got one of the highest marks in the class:) . and now I am going to take a nap to reclaim all that sleep I've been missing... Maybe I can finally get some beach time in before genetics class this afternoon...

zzzzzz..........

2008-02-24T19:15:00.000-08:00

Another day of studying... it's amazing how much effort it takes to get started but how much better you feel once you've got it done. Biochemistry and I may become friends after all;) Spent the day in my room with fig. Took a couple of breaks to venture outside and get some fresh air/ get some contact with others. So far I've been able to avoid a coffee addiction but many more weeks like the past one and this may change. Sundays in Grenada are so unbelievable quiet. Pretty much all of the shops are closed except for the grocery store and everyone goes to church in the morning so there is no traffic on the roads and the stores are all closed up. The week looks like it'll be a little bit more under control then the last. I only have the one quiz for biochem on tuesday and an english paper due for friday. At least this way I should be able to manage some time to catch up on notes/readings i've been missing due to all this extra studying and get some more fun in! I'm going with a bunch of friends to fish friday this week. It's supposed to be a great time with a street full of vendors selling fresh fish for less expensive and lots of music. Essentially a big party in the street. Looking forward to that and some time at the beach this week!!

A fantastic relaxing day at Paradise Bay

2008-02-24T07:05:00.001-08:00

Just got back from one of the best days yet. Went with some of my friends from class, christina, jody, and louise with a big group of vet and med kids to the paradise bay resort for the day. We were spoiled rotten with amazing food and lots of fun activities. The day started off bright and early with a reggae bus ride from campus at 8:00 to the resort. The bus took us about 45 minutes away to the parish of St. David and the roads were some of the steepest I've seen yet. Once we arrived, we met our host, a Mr. James Post who runs the entire resort after coming here from Holland. We had a yummy midmorning snack and then decided to go to the beach. There are several beaches around the resort with about a 15 min walk in between each of them. The view was breathtaking and being on the more exposed side of the island the waves were HUGE.

View of the beach from the resort

Looking up a set of stairs at the resort -reminded me of those pictures you see of Greece..

Christina, Louise and I

enjoying the sun!

We spent a couple of hours on the beach playing in the waves (they must have been at least 7 feet tall) and got thoroughly drenched and full of sand. I've never been in waves this big and it's surprising how strong they are. If you are in the breaking zone they will drag you under and spin you around like you're in a huge washing machine! I also found it was hard to judge once you were further out if you could clear the wave and go over the swell or if it was going to break and you should go under it -lots of fun!!
The beach we spent the morning on

MIke faces the wave head on, he's about 5'7 so it was a big wave!

Louise and I

Limin at the tiki bar

Right before lunch, we were given full body massages. I've never had a professional massage before but it was really nice -very relaxing. The massage house is a little bamboo hut right overtop of the surge line so you have a whole view of the ocean and through the bamboo floor you can see the waves underneath -very cool! The funniest thing happened at the start. The table had a loose string so when I was told to hop on the massage bed, the whole thing collapsed. It's a good thing those beds are so padded or I might have been a bit sore today:) The table was quickly replaced and luckily the second one was a bit sturdier.
Lunch was delicious -pumpkin soup followed by chicken curry with rice. Desert was a nutmeg flam (nutmeg jello like thing that looked like an upside down cupcake. It tasted good but had a very bizarre texture -of course being with a bunch of med students we decided that it felt like dissecting certain tissues to cut into it and it quickly became unappetizing.
yummy pumpkin soup appetizer for lunch

In the afternoon, James took us out in groups of four to the Mt Caramel falls. The only reason I felt relatively safe riding in his car was that I knew he was from Holland and they know how to drive over there.**whenever I meet someone from Holland I think of Dr. Denooy and how he drives -efficient but darn quick! We got to the falls in record time and met a very odd little old man. Mom and Dad went to these falls when they were here and I remember them talking about this odd little old guy. But this little old man sits at the head of the trail and asks for "donations" of rum which he drinks like water -very interesting.
Mt Caramel falls

The whole group shot:

one more to go

2008-02-23T21:23:00.001-08:00

And so the week is done and I have had exams in all of my classes but in biochemistry. I haven't gotten the marks back yet but I am pretty sure that I did well on both nutrition and anatomy. Midterms are coming up on March 10, so if I stay on top of things we do in class, it shouldn't be too hard to study for them. Now if only I can get biochemistry understood, I would feel a lot more optimistic...
On another note, i've started checking into some summer plans... The small animal clinic here hires students over the summer to work in the clinic. They don't pay very much but the advantage is that you can get to know the clinic and everyone that works there ahead of having to be involved in it with classes etc. As well, there is no requirement to be a Technician down here so they can teach all of the students how to be a tech -they even have a library and let us study on the job. I met with a Mrs. Jessianne Fullerton to discuss it and she was saying that I can just let her know when and how long I would like to work and that should be possible. It might be nice to work here for the experience and then go home for a bit to make a bit more money. We'll have to see...

I am small, the world is big but I am not afraid of anything

2008-02-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

I am feeling a little valedictorious. Wrote my first exam in 6 months in genetics (one of my weakest subjects) and did really well. I won't know the exact mark until this afternoon but the way the testing works here is if you stay until the very end of the exam, the prof will distribute the answer key, you can check your answers and challenge any questions you think were unfair. She'll go through all the challenged questions and pull any that everyone had a lot of trouble with and everyone's overall mark should improve. :) Now on to round two -studying nutrition and anatomy.
Last night was kind of fun, I went down the street to a friends ( Louise from Ireland). She lives in what we call the round houses (small shops on the bottom with apartments overhead.) Her place is really cute and excitingly, she not only has cable but just bought to lazy boy type reclining chairs -score!! We did a bit of studying and then decided we were bored and in need of an adventure. We hopped the school bus over to Jody's house near campus and walked the entire way back to my dorm with a big group of people. Then we took a reggae bus into St. Georges and back. It was fun to see everything at night and definitely an experience to see all the locals on the street corners without all the cruise ship tourists around. One of the most limiting things about this country I am finding is the fact that I can't just go out on my own at night. As much fun as it is to go with a big group everywhere it takes a bit of getting used to not to just run out the door to go somewhere whenever you want. Everything must be planned ahead of time...
Plan for the rest of the day: some studying, anatomy lab -more dissection tonight and not sure what after that?!

good luck to me:)

2008-02-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

Got up early this morning to get a start on my school work. School just kicked up a notch this week and I have exams in genetics (tuesday) nutrition (thursday) and anatomy (friday) with a paper due in english on friday and an exam in biochem next tuesday. So much studying to do! Luckily I wrote most of my english paper this weekend and with moms superior editing I think that is mostly under control. Spent the evening studying with Christina and her friend Noah. It was a really nice time, we had cake and coffee at christina's dorm -different setup with each kid having their own bedroom and communal cooking/bathrooms. Noah is really interesting because he is from Africa and has 53 siblings (1 dad and several moms) and it was interesting talking with him about that kind of family dynamic. I am super excited for this weekend because Christina has organized a spa day for saturday and a couple of my girlfriends from school and I will get a shuttle bus to a resort nearby where we will get three scrumptious meals and a full body massage. There is also and option of sea kyaking? Can't wait!! Now I just need to rock my genetics exam tomorrow...

lol

2008-02-17T23:09:00.000-08:00

while doing research for this paper.. the best email addy ever:
for the canadian council on animal care
ccac@ccac.ca

and now it is late so goodnight...

Sunday February 17/08

2008-02-17T21:02:00.000-08:00

I'm always amazed at sundays on the island. A lot of people are quite religious here and so pretty much everything is closed today. It's a pretty big change going from home where you have things like walmart open 24 hrs a day. Not that I am complaining... pretty much there is nothing to do except study or hit the beach and when everyone else is studying you do too. As a result today was not that exciting... it was actually kind of a long day. Spent the majority of it studying for my first exam in genetics and tried to get a head start on my english paper -argumentative essay on whether animal testing is relevant today ethically. It's been a surprisingly difficult paper to write. I got the topic on thursday and thought for sure I could just write that of course we need it, but it's ripping at my soul to see some of these pictures... and that's without looking at the PETA website. Tomorrow is a really light day class wise so I should have lots of time to get more studying done but definitely I will need to get out of this room because spending a weekend holed up in one room is not healthy:) I did take a couple of good study breaks today... the mph kids (or masters of public health program) started to move in today which has caused a bit of drama because some kids who thought they were getting a single room now have room mates. Anthony and Cory are the first two that I've met. I'm excited because it means there is an influx of new people to get to know and assimilate into the Grand Anse family. The whole campus has been eerily quiet today.. I think every single program has exams early this week so everyone is keeping to themselves... I can only imagine what this Friday night is going to be like with everyone trying to unwind. In other news, Figaro has acquired a girlfriend. She appeared last week and woke me up in the middle of the night with her calling. So the routine now is that she'll show up several times in the evening, gives a couple quick chirps, Fig runs out the door to meet her and they sit and stare at one another for five or more minutes. Then she leaves and the whole thing is repeated later -it's pretty funny and kind of cute. I've made a really good friend today too -Melanie is a first term vet student who believe it or not is from Edmonton! It is so exciting to meet a girl from home that shares so much in common. Also exciting is the fact that she just got a puppy on valentines (the local dogs are called pothounds and there were four or so puppies needing immediate placement in homes). I'll have to try and get a picture to post but Tobra is the cutest puppy I've seen a long time at five weeks:) Definitely the best study break ever to run over there and get my puppy fix. I really miss Gromit so this helps a bit.

weekend recap...

2008-02-17T12:31:00.000-08:00

So this weekend has been pretty quiet compared to the last couple. On thursday (start of the caribbean weekend:) ) I went to a Bollywood movie with some friends from the dorm. The movie was put on by the Indian student association at school. It was pretty cool to go to something like that with people who knew all the behind the scene cultural info on what was going on. The movie itself was really long (almost 3 hrs) with a short 2 min scenery break in the middle. I thought it was over when that came on but was quickly informed that we were only halfway.
Friday was a pretty long day school wise with classes solid until 4 and a genetics review session. I went home and got a start on some studying -I have a genetics quiz on tuesday so it was time to try and get some serious revision in. I had dinner at "the ladies" next door with friends Josh and Joel. The ladies are three local women that cook homestyle caribbean meals for us starving students. For about 20 ec (8 dollars Can roughly) I got the biggest chicken burrito, salad, green beans, macaroni pie and rice. Essentially it was enough food to last for three meals so it was pretty good value and it tasted pretty good. I was planning on studying the rest of the evening but Jed and a couple other friends from upstairs were going out and insisted that I couldn't possibly stay in on the weekend of my birthday. We went to bananas (the local bar, close to school and because it is the place where everyone goes, you're bound to see someone you know.) Saturday I studied the entire day with only a short break to go to campus and meet with a study group. Today has been equally exciting with lots of studying and only a short walk across the street to get some more phone minutes. Hopefully I'll hit the beach later... see how things are coming along. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

The week in review...

2008-02-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts guys, It was a busy but most excellent week having my parents in town but it wasn't nearly long enough. After they arrived wednesday it was a mad dash to balance going to class, doing homework and trying to explore the island. Mom and Dad rented a white Suzuki Jeep from Rodney's Rentals and we took full advantage of access to wheels. The day after they arrived was conveniently the national Grenadian Independance day. This meant I got the day off of school and was free to take a hike into St. Georges with Mom and Dad. We took lots of great pictures of all the historic buildings and even made it up to the fort. It was a bit eery because there was absolutely no one in the streets.
Town of St Georges

We had the entire town to ourselves it seemed! Friday I had a few classes and mom tagged along. She was really cute, listening super attentively and asking amazing questions that no one else had even thought of. She's good at the whole classroom thing and you can definitely tell she knows how education is supposed to work. It was really fun showing my parents off to my classmates though. They all thought they were pretty cool. The students in my class are as a whole quite a bit older then me so I guess my parents must also seem really young to them. In fact, some of them are 32! Kinda neat to have such a diverse class...
On saturday, we set out across the island to check out one of the other main towns -Grenville as well as the chocolate factory and the old airport. The airport was really neat. That whole side of the island is right on the atlantic so the waves were pretty impressive and there were a couple of old planes by the runway that dad had a lot of fun jumping in and out of. We took a look at the market in Grenville and there was definitely a lot to see in the way of spices, clothes and crafts. Unfortunately the chocolate factory was shut so mom and dad had to drive back today to take a look. They said it was pretty cool so I'll definitely have to look at renting a car and getting up there one of these days.
Sunday mom and dad hit the beach while I studied it up at home.
Mom and Dad at one of the waterfalls...

School has been getting quite a bit more intense and there have actually been a couple of pretty ugly days. Luckily I've made a couple of friends in my program, Christina, Louise and Beth so now we're all a big study group starting tomorrow. I'm really excited and think it'll be a lot of fun to have some girly friends around here. It seems like the campus is predominantly male so it's nice to get some girl time in. I have two quizzes to work towards in the next couple of weeks but more immediately I get to write a paper on animal testing. Should definitely be interesting to do some research on that subject.
Today was my Birthday which was awesome. Thanks to all of you for your phone calls, emails and messages -you honestly made my day!! I was in class most of the day and didn't finish until 8 but mom and dad had a birthday party for me over at Candleglow and it was amazing to see everyone and eat a delicious ice cream pie -yumm!! It definitely feels weird being 22, that sure seems old somehow...

carbs anyone?

2008-02-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

woke up this morning to go to biochem SI (or student instruction) session. Those are the best thing I've come accross in this school -honestly I learn way more from these sessions then in class! Got a lot accomplished last night so I'm feeling better. Finally got my room all cleaned out (in time for mom and dad to see it when they get in tonight) and got rid of the weird smell that's been bugging me for a couple of days. It turns out that Fig had shoved a couple more of those horrible moth balls underneath my book case -ick! My genetics paper is almost done. I just need to have one of my friend edit it and I can dump it in the drop box which is very exciting. I am going to take a mini study break this afternoon to regroup before the big push to get stuff done prior to mom and dad arriving at 8. I'm excited to see them and everyone back at candleglow (that's where they are staying while they're here). Better yet, no school tomorrow due to the Grenadian independence day. I'm hoping I'll be able to catch the parade...

blah..

2008-02-05T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today has been a very blah day. Non stop classes from 8:00 until 11:00 and again from 3:00 until 7:00 with all the time in between spent on an essay for genetics. Hope that will be done by tonight... trying to get everything done before mom and dad come in tomorrow night. Good thing tomorrow is light with classes so I can get caught up on some studying -it's a lot easier to enjoy school when you're on top of things. Thursday is Grenadian independence day and I was speaking with some of the locals today -there are parades and things going on at their stadium so I'm hoping to take some of that in. Now.. off to buy some caffeine to get a start on tonight! Gotta love the red bull.

Out on the town

2008-02-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

Hey guys...

Today's projects were to: find a reputable hair salon to fix some pretty bad roots, and explore the local town of St. Georges. Both were highly successful. After touring several rather sketch hole in the wall salons I actually found one that a)does some streaking, b)knows what streaking is and c) uses foils instead of the dreaded cap. I have an appointment for monday morning and hopefully i'm not going to come back with a patinum fro **crosses fingers.

View from the bus...

Town of St. Georges

Went with friend Micah on the local reggae bus to see what the local town has to offer.

Hot Chica on the town

It was a really great day, we toured all the local shops, found the local market and did a little souvenir shopping (got cool stuff for the family!). Had subway for lunch -definitely nice to have some normal food;)

Micah enjoys his sandwich

Then went with friends to watch Blades of Glory for the second time. Definitely a dumb but funny movie. Hoping to hit up the local club tonight -Bananas, and work off some weekly stress.

My new rasterfarian look..

Relationships

2008-02-02T06:04:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days have been kind of difficult. Keith and I decided on Thursday that after six years of great memories it was time to take a break and see other people. I didn't think it was fair for me to decide to move halfway accross the world for four years and expect him to sit at home by himself. He was a gentleman about the whole thing and we're going to try our best to stay friends and see what happens. He's such a great guy I hope he makes lots of friends while I'm gone:)

Friday

2008-02-02T05:43:00.000-08:00

Friday's are always an excellent day. So many bad things can happen to you and it won't phase you nearly so much as it would on any other day. The promise of good weekend plans and no classes puts a smile on everyone's face and everyone is in good spirits. Friday's are great for me because I don't start classes until late morning. It's also a good opportunity to get some work out of the way so that you have more time later on that day to do fun stuff. In my case I got up early and did some genetics work. I had English at ten with Dr. Adams. This English class is hugely different then the one I took at home. We're not studying any literature and are focusing heavily on practical writing applications ie: research papers, resumes... Right now we're working on summarizing and it's a bit dull. Next was anatomy -which is a wicked awesome class. I've never had my brain worked over like that. Two solid hours of learning the name of every crack and crevice of the dogs foreleg-scapula, humerus, ulna, radius and parts of the manus (foot). I've never taken any anatomy class before so raw memorization like this is a bit more difficult but at the same time I love it because it's a bit of a brain teaser. It was a really fun class, the first half, one of the profs went through the different parts on powerpoint and the second half we moved to the lab where each prof took 2-3 kids and we went through tons of different models and bones pointing out the different things. I can't believe how lucky I am to have such small classes and individual attention from the instructors. I think we get to start dissecting on Monday which means I'll be able to see all of the real structures.
Last class of the day was introduction to vet sciences. It was really interesting we talked a bit about what vets need to be thinking of when opening their own practice (what the clinic looks,smells like as well as how the staff are dressed and act.) We also talked about ferrets:)
In the middle of the day, I took a study break and hit the black sand beach. It was ridiculous to be able to drop off all my books at a friends, hit the beach, go for a swim and then get back in class all within 45 minutes. It's definitely easier to refocus in a new class after a swim!
Last night I watched Hostel -bad movie, don't rent it!! It was so gruesome and lame... we followed it up with some blades of glory which was a bit better and got rid of some of the gorry images in my head.
Officially less then five days until mom and dad are here:)

Today

2008-02-01T04:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a long day. Thursdays are my busiest days with classes I start at 8, finish at 6:45 with a break from 9:30 until 11:00. Luckily, our biochemistry lab has the class split into two groups and we alternate lab weeks. It was nice to have a longer break. I'm trying to get all of my main homework out of the way so that I have some time to review this weekend and get a very large genetics project out of the way. If all goes as planned I will hopefully have lots of free time when mom and dad come. One of the best things of the day was my intro to veterinary science class. We had the class down at the small animal clinic just off campus and right by the farm. My prof is awesome -she and her vet husband have written most of the main anatomy and behavior books used by most of the major vet schools so she is a wealth of information. She also doesn't believe in testing, she said that her years at Cornell taught her that if a student wants to learn something they will so she only expects that we show up on time, listen intently and have some pretty decent conversations on what we talk about. We also lucked out and got a tour of the farm after class. They have horses -ex race horses from Trinidad that are lucky to retire with unlimited attention and loving, pigs, chickens, goats (big and small) and sheep that look nothing like ours (they look like goats!) I was told you can tell the difference between sheep and goats down here by looking at the tail, if it is up it's a goat, if it's down -its a sheep!
I also had my very first nutrition class. It's in the brand new vet lecture hall which is funny because we are fortunate enough to have 4 people in the class. I still can't believe this school, they can run a class with four people in it! It's the best thing ever, you don't get lectured at because you can discuss everything that is presented. The lecturer is really nice, her husband is in the vet program here, she's from columbia with a masters in feeding dairy cows from the University of Pennsylvania.
Last night I went with a couple of friends to look at the beach, for some reason we've been having a lot of surf/waves the past few days. Some of the waves were pretty large (3-4 ft) for what I've seen so far so that was kind of neat.

Good morning

2008-01-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning excited to start the day. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere in my classes. I have a bit of a break this morning so I am going to take a much needed break and hit the beach. Hopefully some of my dorm friends will be doing the same. Sunny and 28 degrees celcius -beautiful! I had to buy a new pillow yesterday because Figaro has been insistent on taking it over in the middle of the night and I find that I have a crick in my neck in the morning trying to share. I have anatomy this evening and I'm really enjoying that class. Some people have had time constrictions and as a result have dropped the class so as a final tally there are only 6 of us which means two groups of three per dog to dissect. What an amazing learning opportunity. The course is taught by several different profs and we've only had the one so far, it will be interesting to see what the other two are like. I'm getting really excited for mom and dad to come visit. I've already started researching and asking around to find possible touristy excursions. I had the best conversation with one of the cleaning ladies this morning, Genevieve. She has lived in Grenada all her life but spent a couple of years up in Edmonton. She gave me a list of all sorts of neat places to research with mountain biking trips, city historical tours etc. Exciting!!

update

2008-01-29T19:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry everyone for the lack of updating. The past couple of days have been really busy and jam packed with activities. Luckily I've been making some friends and so on Friday we went to bananas - a local cave themed club. Very fun evening with lots of music from home mixed with a bit of reggae and soca (local) music. Saturday was one of the best days I've had here so far. A new friend, Micah, has a prof whose friend owns a sailboat and he arranged for us to go on the sailboat in the pt louis regatta. The regatta is this really large sailing race and we got to race a cruise class in a 54 ft sail boat -very very cool!!

The whole thing was very exciting. It was a mostly female crew all students from SGU and even though we didn't come in first we saw some bottle nosed dolphins. I've never been on a formal whale/dolphin watching expedition so it was really neat to see those little guys jumping by the boat.

Sunday was a little more low key with some chore catch up (grocery shopping and laundry) and I managed to watch a couple of episodes of Blue planet (for those who haven't watched these BBC documentaries they are highly recommended -some of the sea critters are really something). For now it's off to bed so I can stay awake in class tomorrow. Happy Birthday Brett -hope it's the best one yet!
cheers!

eww..

2008-01-24T18:25:00.001-08:00

Had my first vet related club meeting and it was really good. It was for the wildlife/exotic club:) We also got free pizza and pop which never hurts. Making a couple new friends each day. Got to know a couple of the kids in first year vet this year so that's exciting -I'll actually know some people next year!! Sounds like they're going to have lots of events and I can't wait till i'm a real vet. Trying hard to get caught up on all this homework... It's been a bit hard to concentrated because Yuck, I keep finding cockroaches (almost had a heart attack when I found one in the bathroom this morning.) It's not that they're scary it's the element of surprise when you sneak up on one. Luckily I have fig, he flips the over and tries to eat them so they're pretty mangled and almost dead when I find them. It would be horrible if they could still scurry along. I LOVE my cat. So today I spent a couple of hours tracking down things to kill roaches. Got a tupperware to put all my dry food in and some moth balls (which I had to throw out cause they smelled too bad and i read they cause cancer after the fact). My friend Yvonne told me about some kind of trap where they eat the stuff in it and take it back to their nest to die so I think I'll buy some tomorrow. I also need to get some bleach to put down the drains too according to the site -yeah for living in the tropics!! The cleaning lady here is really sweet and had a cold so I gave her what was left of my vit c. She left me a whole bunch of fresh fruit on my doorstep this morning!! Some of the kids I know are thinking of going to fish friday -some kind of fish market in the next week or so. That should be fun. Very sore today from hitting the gym the last two days. Tomorrow is a hip hop class so I am excited to get back into dancing. The instructor teaching it tomorrow is the one I was working with yesterday -bambi. Can't believe how fast time gets eaten up when you're trying to be a real student and do ALL the readings and questions etc... Love you guys talk to you tomorrow

and one and two and three

2008-01-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

I am getting into the swing of things I think... finally! I got up at a decent hour this morning and had my telephone line installed. I'd have my own internet too but they gave me the wrong cd to install -such is island life. I'll have to wait until tomorrow. Yesterday was a bit of a bummer, my friend Jared (the pastry chef) went home and everyone here misses him. Good thing I have tons of homework to keep me super busy. I read two solid chapters this morning of Genetics -kinda interesting but the experiments get pretty complicated. I also took notes while reading and read ahead in the notes we're going to cover on Friday. Trying really hard to be a great student and it sure takes work. Now maybe if I can get a handle on Biochem I'll be ready for tomorrow's hectic schedule -4 classes (each 2 hrs) so it's like 8 until 7pm including small breaks. There is also a vet club meeting tomorrow night that I'm going to try and make -they promise free food -yumm!!
I also went to the gym today -second time in a row. I LOVE MY GYM. I'm not used to being treated this well. You go in, sign in, get a towel that they've laundered for you, head upstairs to the cardio equip, do about 25 minutes while watching american tv (Feels just like home!!) then it's down to the main floor again where one of the many instructors, takes you to the individual equipment, explains what to do and counts sets and reps for you. Essentially it's personal training for free!! There are also lots of classes available and I plan to try the Hip Hop class on Friday. Today my instructor was "bambi" I'm probably spelling it wrong but tha's what it sounded like. I learned a lot about lifting weights and he assured me that if you do it properly you don't get too "big" nothing worse then getting tree trunk arms if you're a girl. One of the other instructors offered to burn me a cd of local "soca" or local music. Can't wait to see what that will be like.
Fig is feeling really good today. He was really interested in something in the corner this morning. So I saw my first cockroach -gross!! Good thing I have a cat, the thing was dead and was easily disposed of. The cleaning lady I spoke to said I can get some kind of -sounded like "Camfur" balls to keep them away. For sure I will pick some of those up tomorrow. Joys of warm countries but I still thing this is all worth it. I'm getting to know all my dorm room mates and am making friends slowly already tonight i've had three knocks on my door to chat -it's really fun to have all your friends living right next door.
Hope everyone had a good day, talk to you all soon!!
katie

Slow down please...

2008-01-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

Today was the busiest day of my life. Between trying to find all of my classes while they continually changed the lecture halls they're supposed to be held in and trying to purchase the necessary textbooks etc... all while trying to get the homework and reading done for classes I haven't even had yet, there wasn't a spare minute in the day. I also went to my new gym (I joined a really nice gym across the street from the dorm), cooked a "real" supper of pasta and salad and picked up the modem for my internet connection that is supposed to be installed tomorrow -can't wait!! I promise a longer update tomorrow but for now I've gotta hit the books and get caught up!

Start your engines...

2008-01-21T06:01:00.000-08:00

And so the first day of classes is finally here. Everyone was gone early this morning to get a start on our new professional careers while I luckily get the day off until my anatomy class this evening. Until things really get going and I have readings and homework etc. Mon and Wed will be nice mental health breaks with only one evening class while Tues/Thurs will be long (8a.m. to 8 p.m.) Luckily school has a beach so I can take a quick break at somepoint on those days. Friday leads nicely into the weekend with two classes (one being intro to vet sciences which I think will be fun!) I've also decided to enroll at the gym right accross from the dorms. It gets dark really early here which makes running outside impractical/not the safest and the school gym is PACKED. So that is on the list of things to do. I'm going for a smoothie later with a new dorm resident. Josh and his brother moved in a few days ago with their St. Bernard (-so cool!!) named Oliver. Josh's brother (22 y/o) is a pastry chef from New York and Josh (28 y/o 2nd year pre med) is from Texas. Lastly, there is some grocery shopping to do (need to get some lined paper for school and maybe a pot).

Ruhm Runner

2008-01-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

SGU is awesome!! Today they arranged for all of the orientation kids to take some free tours. Some kids toured the Nutmeg factory and had a walking tour of the Capital city -St. Georges, I went on the boat cruise and waterfall/lake tour. We started out early and the buses left for the boat cruise at 9:15. We drove to St. Georges (about 20 minutes) and boarded the Rhum Runner. There was a carribean steel drum band, dancing and rum punch. We stopped at Morne Rouge beach and they let us off for an hour and a half while locals pulled kids who wanted to go on the bananna tubes. We also tossed crackers off the boat to feed the fish -they were huge! The weather was a bit funny, raining for a few minutes and then sunny for an hour, rinse and repeat!

The Ruhm Runner

As soon as we got back to campus, the second tour left for Annandale falls and Grand Etang lake. The falls were first. I'm amazed at the roads here -they are super steep and narrow and windy. It's lucky that the school has reliable buses because anything with questionable breaks could kill you. I also think I'd have to work up my nerves prior to driving anything out of town. The falls were really pretty, there was a cliff that some people were jumping off of into the deep pool below. I didn't jump but conveniently I had my swimsuit on from the cruise in the morning so I hopped in the pool to cool down -delicious!

Annandale falls

All of these school outings are definitely helping to meet some people. Already I am starting to notice some people around campus and know their names. Grand Etang lake was highly disappointing, it's a crater lake formed from an old volcano but really it looked like a small marsh. It probably was destined to be disappointing though because it was super cold there (higher altitude with lots of cloud cover plus I was soaking wet from the falls.)
Grand Etang Lake
Later that night we had a welcome bbq for all the SGU students with free food and beer. It was really fun, everyone had a nice time and later we went to one of the local nightclubs (bananas) until about 2a.m. Long day but lots going on and lots of fun.

My backyard

2008-01-18T16:13:00.003-08:00

Here is what my backyard looks like... Finally got out there to take some pictures for you. Our dorm meeting was cancelled because not all of the students are here yet (talk about arriving at the last minute..) I'm super excited, we get to go on a boat cruise in the morning and are hiking to some water falls in the afternoon. I think a little bit of relaxing and tanning is in order...

Looking down the beach to the right...

The beach

My scuba shop hangout

My dorm from the outside...

drugs drugs drugs... which are good, which are bad...

2008-01-18T09:37:00.001-08:00

So today started early with a run on the beach at 8:00 a.m. with Garo (guy from france I met during orientation yesterday). I asked others to come, some said they would another time and others wouldn't commit -haha.. I am bound and destined to create a running group so we can all have motivation to stay in shape. Running on the beach is honestly running the way it should be! I suspected it would be good, but it was even better then anticipated. There's beautiful scenery to look at, it's a bit harder because you have extra resistance from the sand and best of all, when you get tooo hot you just bail into the water! Hopefully I can make this a routine. Last night I figured out my class schedule for this term and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I was shocked how much time off I have to study, unlike U of A, there isn't a lab for every course I take so there are way less time commitments. I guess everyone will have time off like I do though so the difference will be in how we use our time. My goal is definitely to use my time as effectively as possible with lots of balance work and play. A couple of the orientation sessions yesterday were really useful, not only did I know some people's names on campus (the team building workshop) I also knew my way around campus a bit and got some better ideas for studying. It looks like I only have one evening class on Monday and Wedesday, Tuesday and Thursdays are a bit heavier but still have a three hour break in the middle of the day and Friday I only have two classes in the afternoon. I think tonight I'll try and make a meal plan, I didn't foresee how hard it was going to be to try and figure out what to cook for supper every singe night. One of the girls living on campus is asking the dean if there is some way we can get a freezer for our rooms. That would be amazing -then I could cook for the week on Sundays and freeze everything!! After this mornings run, I signed up to get internet and went to school for my only orientation event of the day, an information session on how drugs should not be consumed on campus and how it can affect your professionalism. It was interesting but kind of long and drawn out. I think I'll take a nap soon, still trying to kick this stubborn cold (I think I almost have it) and then I'm going to take some pictures of the beach (it is SO AMAZING). Tonight there is a meeting with the RA about living on campus.. it will be interesting to see what kinds of things they want to bring up. I"m so happy, Fig's been feeling really good yesterday and today (dont' want to jinx it..) but I've been feeding him only canned food lately and he seems to be having way less problems with sensitive stomach. He's also been super frisky, we actually played fetch last night for 15 minutes where I would be reading my student manual, and he'd jump up on my bed with the ball for me to throw it again. Hope this trend continues! He enjoys the "fancy feast" I'm not sure how good a quality the food is but at this point, anything he wants to eat that will make him feel good... I bought quite a few of those cans last night but offered one up to the stray dog sitting just outside the store. Broke my heart, he was sitting there chewing at his tail (he has some kind of mange/skin condition) and was nothing but a wrack of bones so I gave him the can of food, he inhaled it and tried to follow me home. Super friendly dogs... I'm going to have to think of something to fix this dog issue. There are so many strays here that people just don't take care of... Anyone want a dog? :)

Orientation 11 Jan 17/08

2008-01-17T20:36:00.001-08:00

Still have a cold –sigh** bought vit C and cold meds I am bound and determined to get rid of it as soon as possible. The more time I am spending at school the more excited I am getting about starting classes. The faculty all seem really enthusiastic and friendly. We spent the whole morning getting to know some of our classmates and playing team building exercises. I really wish U of A had made some sort of effort to do the same kind of thing.. SGU is starting to have more of a high school feeling just because the classes aren’t as big, it’s definitely not as intimidating and you don’t feel like just a number. Making acquaintances isn’t too hard, I know I’ll have to work at making real friends though because I’ve always had the same core group of friends at home (who I miss☺ ). I guess it’s always good to extend yourself a bit and get out of your comfort zone. Tonight the plan is to figure out my class schedule, read my student manual, make some supper (or rather eat last nights leftovers) go grocery shopping and of course update my blog. I was recapping the week and I’m pretty overwhelmed at how much I’ve accomplished. In summary: I moved halfway across the world on my own, navigated around a foreign city learning how to use reggae bus public transit as well as school buses, I learned how to get around on campus, about using a foreign currency and conversion, figured out how to use transformers/adaptors for various electrical appliances, figured out where to buy groceries for cheaper, moved to a dorm, had repairs organized, figured out how to call internationally for cheap as well as about vonage and acquiring internet and lastly I learned how to scuba dive. I wonder what the next couple of weeks will bring. Miss you all and hope to talk to you soon!

orientation day

2008-01-17T20:34:00.002-08:00

Today was my first unofficial day of school also known as orientation. So far I’m really impressed with the school. Everything was really organized, we started right at 8:00 were given a package of relevant info and got to sign up for various tours and even a boat cruise! There are a few mandatory events that we have to attend (luckily because I’m 3rd yr prevet not 1st or 2nd, I got to miss all the placement exams) and lots of optional ones. I was done fairly early today and went home to buy myself a printer. I found a really good one at a small store just around the corner. It’s really awesome, a color all in one that can fax, scan, copy and print *thumbs up for being able to print of notes when necessary… I had a bit of trouble installing my printer software and enlisted the help of some friends I’ve met in my dorm, Hussein (40 ish y/o med student) and Harish (24 y/o med student). It ended up that we were all planning on making stir fry for supper so we decided to cook supper together (sure beats eating and cooking alone!) It was an excellent academic dinner, we had a pretty thorough discussion about international economics. I really surprised myself with that.. didn’t think I had an interest or knew anything about it until the subject was brought up. All in all, today was really good, the only thing that could have been better was that I woke up with a cold (I think I got it on the plane) hope it doesn’t last long.

Diving anyone? Jan 15/08

2008-01-17T20:34:00.001-08:00

Overcast morning, took off early to do my first dive off the beach. Had a bit of trouble finding the place so I was a couple of minutes late. The dive was actually really helpful because we took off from the beach just next to my dorms. It was primarily a skills dive where we practiced all of our exercises for becoming certified. The toughest for me is definitely the mask clearing –not because I am claustrophobic but mostly because the salty water burns your eyes a bit when you try to open them again. I am glad they make you practice these things though.. it would be scary to be on a deeper dive and not be able to get along without your mask until it can be replaced. Although there wasn’t a whole lot to see except for sand it was neat to see what the beach front looks like. It’s actually a very gradual slope as opposed to a big drop off as I had been suspecting. Now I know what to expect when I go swimming in the morning! After a quick lunch break, Alexandria and a new diving friend Tanya met me at the scuba shop and we got to do two boat dives. The first was the best diving I’ve done so far. We went to a small cove about 10 minutes away from Grand Anse beach where a local artist has sunk a museum of sculptures about 35 feet below the surface. We swam for a good 35 minutes taking pictures and enjoying all the neat figures –will try to post picts when I get them back from Alexandria. After diving had supper and went back to the church I had attended on Sunday to watch David preach (he’s an ordained minister). He is an awesome public speaker and had some good points. Still not sure that organized religion is for me but some of it (the contributing to the community aspects) have relevance I think… Also, it seems like people in the church community are very generous and giving as a whole –I even got a free ride home by some of the local ladies. Off to bed, I’m now a certified diver –yeehaw!

My very first place

2008-01-17T19:46:00.001-08:00

Here is a picture tour of my very first dorm room:)

My sink area

Posters:

Bathroom

My "Pantry"

My enormous desk err. study partner

A view of the corner of the room, aka my exercise space:)

First Dorm night… Jan 14/08

2008-01-17T19:45:00.001-08:00

In keeping with my nightly routine of writing my blog before bed, here is a summary of today’s events. Had a horrible sleep last night. After I moved in yesterday night, my A/C was still not working. I thought that with it blowing hot air and having the doors flung open I’d have enough air to make it through the night but that was not so. I ended up having to move me and Fig next door to a vacant room just for the night and because of my inexperience with A/C set it way too cold. I woke up in the middle of the night freezing and then woke again later to try and skuttle fig off to the bathroom (he wasn’t feeling well.) So I preceeded to have alternating nightmares of freezing to death and dealing with a sick cat on a foreign island. In the morning, I had no choice but to move fig back to my oven room because our cooler room was about to be occupied by the lucky student who has working air conditioning. I was beginning to worry how I would keep him cool enough while I went for my scuba class this morning when I got a call that I wouldn’t have a class until the afternoon –thank goodness! I purchased a small fan for fig which made the room somewhat decent and while I was “scuba-ing” some wonderful technician made the room livable again. Unlike candleglow, there is no airflow between the concrete apartments so although it was quite doable before to use no a/c or little a/c on a regular basis, here it is not an option.
Scuba diving was fantastic. I was a little apprehensive the first moment I stepped into the water just because I’d never dove in the ocean before but it was a fantastic experience. I think Mike and I definitely lucked out with the instruction we received in Edmonton because I felt fairly confident with all of the material, putting the equipment together and maintaining proper buoyancy. The water here is just incredible, it’s this beautiful teal color and the fish are spectacular. Within the first 10 minutes of getting in the water, I saw a ray go gliding past, a 8 inch long puffer fish and coolest of all, an octopus!
Because I only got one dive in today, I’ll get to do three tomorrow. I’m extra excited because Alexandria is going to come dive for one of the afternoon dives!!
In the evening I finished up all of my laundry for the past week, unpacked all of my bags, bought groceries and utensils etc. The hope is that I’ll be able to eat real food tomorrow a.m.:) Officially “settled in” to my place, complete with functioning A/C. Now if only I can get my internet installed I will have the perfect accommodation.

New digs

2008-01-13T18:00:00.000-08:00

So today was the big moving day into my new dorm. Woke up early to experience church Grenadian style with Alexandria and David. It was a really interesting experience. We were the only caucasians in the pews and the service was at least 3 hrs long (we left at that point, not sure how much longer it lasted). The first solid hour resembled an aerobic workout, there was a band up front playing techno music to backup the hymns and all of the Grenadians in really beautiful colored outfits lept up and down or side to side in time for the music. The thing that surprised me most was how emotional some of them get during the service. There was a time where the minister asked that we all join hands and sing. The lady next to me sobbed the entire time, flailing madly (resulting in me being flailed around like a ragdoll) until some other members of the congregation calmed her down.
Rita and Neville had me up to the house for a parting dinner -delicious homemade pizza, split pea soup and homemade icecream-yumm!! Their friend Roger drove me to campus in his little Geo (all my stuff barely squished into the back) and I am just about to start unpacking. The room is great, the only thing is my A/C is broken and so I will have to put a work order in to get it fixed and I'm allowed to sleep in another room until it is fixed. I'll try and post some pictures soon...

pictures of the trip down

2008-01-13T17:44:00.000-08:00

well this post is behind the times... but since my computer and the internet are both cooperating here are some pictures from the journey down to Grenada.

My handsome boyfriend and I

Mom and Dad during supper before I left

Tom and I at the Edmonton airport before leaving

Tired traveller -first stop in Toronto Airport

All of my junk in Toronto airport

The view from my sleeping sport in Toronto airport

view from plane over San Juan

My first view of SGU campus

View from campus

First trip on a reggae bus with friends Alexandria, baby Annabella and David

Fig on his bed at Candleglow

Goats or the "Grenadian lawnmowers"

Candleglow apartment

2008-01-13T17:38:00.001-08:00

Here's a quick pictorial tour of my lovely Candleglow apartment...
The livingroom
My Kitchen
My Bedroom
My Bathroom
front of the apartment
the view out of my candleglow apartment

Kayyteee

2008-01-13T16:34:00.000-08:00

Got up late today. Last night we had Grenadas first thunder storm. I didn’t check the clock but it was early this morning (2-3 a.m.?) and I woke up to rain on the tin roof and howling winds. I had to get up quickly and shut all the windows (Neville has warned me that when it rains, the rain goes sideways and after looking out the window last night he is right!! The trees were bent at 45 degree angles and were whipping around violently. I’m kind of looking forward to moving into my dorm, I think I will feel a bit safer in an apartment on the bottom floor with cement apartments all around me rather then up in the hills in a small cottage with a tin roof. The whole thing was kind of scary, hope we don’t have too many thunder storms like that. As a result it was hard to sleep and even though I had every intention to get up early, it didn’t happen. I finally got around to leaving the apartment by about 8:45. I headed straight to the CK grocery store to pick up cleaning supplies and a mop to clean my new dorm room and was just rounding the corner when I heard “Kaytteeeee” little Annabella and Alexandria were already there! Annabella has just learned my name the last couple of names and she uses it frequently not only to refer to me but kitties and doggies too lol. It was super nice of Alexandria, she tagged along and helped me scrub the mold out of my dorm room top to bottom. It doesn’t even look like the same room anymore and it smells completely different. We did notice that the A/C is not working dependably, might have to get it repaired… Lucky we got it all cleaned –moving day is tomorrow and I am excited. We had a short break after all the cleaning and went to the little spiceland mall across the street to get smoothies. These are honestly the best smoothies I think I’ve had in my life! So far I’ve been there 3 times. The first two I had bananna but today I tried bananna with chocolate –It was heavenly and good value for only 3$ Can!! We took one of the school buses back to the apartment, and headed straight back to the beach after I got my diving referral. I’m officially signed up now to take SCUBA on Monday morning at 8:30 and Tuesday morning at 8:30 for two dives per day. I’m a bit nervous to dive for the first time but it is definitely outweighed by excitement to see all the cool fish!! I’ve got this apprehension sometimes with the ocean but I’m figuring out its more to do with not being able to see the bottom. I noticed with the dive course that I’m much more confident and have a blast when it comes to actually being in the water, able to see what is going on as opposed to water sports where I’m on top of the water. After a quick dip and a tour up and down the entire beach I’m so excited to be living so close to it.
Tomorrow is looking like it will be a really interesting day. One of the men working on candleglows expansion invited the four of us to go to church with him. I’m going to go and see what a carribean church is like and we’ll be back sometime around 1pm. Then Rita and Neville have invited me over for lunch tomorrow afternoon and have graciously offered their gardners assistance in transporting all of my junk to the dorm rooms for tomorrow afternoon. It seems like my bags have multiplied since I arrived so I hope all of it fits in whichever car we end up taking!! The dorms are supposed to have wireless internet in the study rooms so I am super psyched that I will soon be in touch with everyone again. By Friday I will have all the paperwork to order my own internet and I’ll be able to get the vonage set up as well –can’t wait!!

Knock, Knock, who’s there

2008-01-13T16:33:00.000-08:00

So I woke up to knocking again this morning, surprise it was Alexandria with two steaming hot whole grain pancakes with fruit on top –delicious. I’m being so spoiled here, I hope I can repay all of this kindness somehow… After feeding Fig and playing fetch for eons… I returned the plate next door and went to see the phone company. They were so helpful, I explained that my minutes had not been added and they promptly gave me the full 199$ ec credit (on top of the bonus $10 they gave me last night!). Having a phone has definitely helped me to feel more connected to home, hope that once the phone deal runs out at the end of the month I’ll have internet etc…
Next I went back to the apartments, changed into a swimsuit and walked down to the beach with David’s family or as Neville has started saying “my candleglow family” (candleglow is the name of the apartments.) The beach is even better then the last –absolutely spectacular. It looks just like all the beaches on the cover of travel magazines, white sand with turquoise/lighter blue water. The water is surprisingly warm to, it’s a bit chilly when you first step in (only because the air is so warm) but after less then a minute you don’t ever want to get out again. The only thing I would have done differently is I stepped on a crap –it didn’t grab me but is squirmed ick! Definitely recommend a mask of some sort to watch where you’re going, or snorkeling preferably. I also checked out two dive shops. I thought for sure I would go with the first one –ecotours, the owner was nice and seemed knoweledgeable but as soon as I entered the second shop –aquanauts I new it was the one. It’s a brand new little dive shop, state of the art boats and equipment with really helpful staff. Better yet, both shops have SGU student discounts. Unbelievably I found out that my dorm room is right next door to the aquanauts dive shop (the dorm building is not even 15 feet away!!) –more on the dorms in a minute. I foresee lots of diving, with it being so close, hopefully every week. I’m going tomorrow morning to book my open water dives on Monday and Tuesday so that I will be certified and then we’ll just have to see.
While we were so close, I went to the security guard at the entrance to the dorm (it’s very secure there with a guard at every entrance) and asked him who I would talk to about seeing my room. I was told that some people were moving in today and after going to the main security booth was connected with one of the SGU Housing reps. I got all outfitted with keys to the building and my room –my very first apartment of my own I am SOOOO EXCITED!! It took awhile to find the room #49 because they had told me it was in the wrong building but it turns out that it is on the ground floor in one of the two three floor buildings they have (poorly written sentence –sorry!). The room is really cool. When you first walk in, on the right hand side there is a bathroom. It has a normal tub surrounded by pale blue tiles and the toilet (which is right in front of you when you stand in the doorway) is on a pedestal –to account for the trap in the back of the toilet I am told. If you continue walking past the bathroom on the right hand side there is a sink with a really retro framed mirror over top. Then there is a wicket wall separator thing… only a picture can describe it and then there are two twin beds and a fridge. Once you enter the apartment on the left hand side there are massive cubby holes for clothes and storage followed by two full sized desks. At the far end of the room there is glass patio doors leading onto a fully screened (with wire, bug mesh and lattice) patio. The whole room is really retro but with a little cleaning it is going to look great. That will be tomorrow’s project I think. The only downfall to carribean weather is that it is conducive to “stuff” growing on the walls. The floor is purple fake marble lino so at least it will be easy to wash. I’ll try to post some pictures after it has been cleaned☺ Things I’m most excited about with this dorm room are: It has non stop as much as you want air conditioning controlled with a remote, it is huge so Fig has tons of room and with a screened patio he can sit outside if he wants, it is right on the beach ** so cool!!
Also met my RA, his name is Christian and he’s in his 3rd year of the med program. He seems really reasonable, I think he’ll be good at his job so that’s a relief.
The absolute most exciting thing that happened today though, is that I got to try out the new cell phone. First I tried to call mom at home but no one answered so I called dad at work and bothered him for awhile, then I called mom at home and bothered her for awhile and then after supper tonight I called both of them again just because I could! I’ve really missed everyone at home, it’s really nice to hear how everyone is doing and to hear their voices again! I’ve been pretty bad at keeping in touch since I left so I feel bad that mom was worrying how I’m getting along. I think it’ll be better from now on. I still wasn’t done with my phone yet so I called Keith. We’ve been chatting a bit but this was the first really conversation since I left almost a week ago. It meant a lot to finally be able to talk. Sounds like he’s got a good schedule with school and I am so jealous that he is taking some of the classes he is. His gross anatomy class sounds sooo cool! His class learns anatomy then dissects to see it in person. It’s so generous of people to donate their bodies to science like that so others can learn. He’s also going to Calgary this weekend to visit and I wish I could go too!
It’s noisier here tonight, someone moved into the apartment next door and with everyone’s windows open you can hear showers going, talking and sneezing! One of the little shops at the bottom of the hill around the corner has decided to play their music really loud, good thing its good music or it might be annoying;)