The week in review...

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?

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..

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

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

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

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

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.