Grace's Raging Blog!

Going for the record... hitchhiking style!

2011-10-15T01:39:00.003-04:00

So the plan today is to drive from London to Penzance (318 miles) then probably bus it down to Land's End and from there the epic adventure begins for real. Hitchhiking from Land's End (the extreme southwestward point of Great Britain) to John o' Groats (extreme northern point of mainland Scotland). The current record was made in a little over 17 hours.. can my friends Loren, Zaria, and I beat this record? Probably not, but we're going to give it a run for its money. An epic 874 miles by road... braving the ever pleasant and sunny English & Scottish weather, rolling the dice with each passing vehicle.. Here we go!

Here it begins.

2011-07-13T22:03:00.003-04:00

I want to do something. Something great. Something monumentous. Something inspiring. Something different. It all starts with an idea. Baby steps. Let's do it.

Lonely is a Freedom

2010-08-04T15:47:00.008-04:00

Based on the poem by Tanya Davis.

Indomitable

2010-06-23T15:25:00.005-04:00

I don't know how many of you have been following the performance of the U.S. soccer team at the World Cup this year in South Africa. To be honest, I've never followed it like I have this year. But this year, in part thanks to the enthusiasm of my flatmate, Lua, I've really gotten into it.

Those of you who've known me for a while, know that I'm a big soccer fan... but not really so much of the sitting in front of the telly and watching the sport as the getting into the grit of it on the pitch kind. I love this sport. Have loved and played it since grade school, all the way through into medical school. I love how you can just get on the field and go all out. Get down and dirty, fighting and tearing up the field. The aggressive physical and mental spirit of it is invigorating and liberating.

Maybe this year it's because I'm in England and not in my home country and we ended up in the same group as England. Maybe it's because I'm tired of taking all the BS I have to deal with being an American abroad. Maybe it's just because football/soccer is such a big deal here and it's hard not to be swept up in the excitement. But regardless of the cause, I have a keen interest in our performance at this World Cup. I feel invested. Similarly during the Olympics, but even more so. And being in England it's so much easier to really get into watching the game a the pub because everyone else is yelling at the screen so you feel liberated to do likewise. It's quite fun actually.

But I digress... I must say that I am so proud of our Team. We've performed above and beyond expectations. The first match against England was a HUGE deal here. Lua, Tiffany, and I were the only Americans at a pub jammed to the max with fans wearing their white and reds. At first we thought it best to keep a low profile... Especially when even just during the pregame show every time a commercial or commentary came on with the U.S. team showing there was much booing and jeering, which only escalated during the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. We went out in our blues to represent, since this was such a key game! Def not the time to be diplomatic and dress neutral.

I found that my cheers where largely overwhelmed by the groans of despair of the crowd, so I could pretty much cheer to my hearts content. It was a nerve wracking game, especially with England scoring only 4 min in. But watching soccer is so much more entertaining in England than it would have been Stateside. The crowd is much more involved and vocal. Every 5 minutes would be a round of singing and chanting with the lulls filled in with random berating or yelling at the screen. I remember sometime near the end of the second half, a woman screamed, "KILL THEM!!!!" To be sure, there's never a dull moment. I was so nervous during the first game, I was shaking. I wanted us to do well and represent ourselves before a world who thought we were just a bunch of pretty boys that didn't even know the name of the game.

I think that we've been playing solid games thus far. We've done a great job personifying what it means to be American. Our indomitable spirit and our sportsmanship have consistently stood out. Despite being plagued by injuries, ridiculously bad calls and denied goals, we have come through at the top of our group. We fight, get back up, stand our ground, move forward, and never give up. We are ready to take on the next stage. Inspirational.

Come what may, we're still number ONE! Bring it on!

When Money Fails

2010-06-07T18:11:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I'm almost persuaded that national health care is the way to go. Working in the NHS has given me some insight to how great it can be when it works, and just how completely horrific it can be when it falls short. Getting my MPH really opened me to the idea of universal health care... health care for all regardless of your social or economic status, age, sex, orientation, race, religion, etc. It seems so right and just, this free and equal access... But this world we live in, though at times fueled and inspired by such dreams and hopes, is not always this fair or merciful. It's too practical, rational, pragmatic. Universal health care cannot just be wished into existence with a light dusting of pixie dust. It comes at the price of cold, hard, unyielding cash.

In the A&E there was an elderly gentleman who came in because he had tripped, fallen, and hit his head. He was slightly dazed from the fall, but only had mild abrasions on his head to show for it. His son brought him to the A&E and on arrival he was grand, GCS 15/15. Very pleasant chap. About an hour or two after the initial incident, he started sluring and couldn't remember his last name or the date. Five minutes later, he could barely speak. An emergency CT was ordered but had to wait 30 minutes because there was another pt being scanned at the time. By this time, he was seizing and it was fairly difficult to gather a clear CT, but what came through clearly showed large bilateral subdural hematomoas. Now most even junior medical students could have told you from the just the initial history that his man most likely was at high risk of having a subdural hematoma. Many junior doctors would probably also be able to tell you that this situation could be treated and alleviated by boring a hole(s) in the pt's skull to relieve the pressure. While this procedure comes with considerable risk, not doing anything was even worse. True, 20% or so will recover without any intervention... but, come on... this is an old guy with 2 large hematomas. Really, what are his chances? No way, any moral, ethical, or humane person would just leave him as his brain slowly gets squeezed by the increasing pressure within his skull til it herniates or he suffocates, or however the end result is the same. Death.

But that's just what happened. Because of his age and the fact that he had a few comorbidities, the procedure that could have saved his life was not NHS approved. It is deemed a waste of money. Instead, his son must call the rest of the family to quickly come to the hospital because their husband/father was not long for this world even though just a few hours prior he had been fit and well. Would he also have to tell them that one of the reasons why their loved one was dying was because the NHS didn't have the money to allocate to a potentially lifesaving procedure? The doctors' hands were tied. They couldn't do anything because it wouldn't be paid for...

I was flabbergasted at this. I can't imagine that this would happen in the States. Even though our health care system had been far from perfect, we never denied life saving emergency treatment based on a person's ability to pay. Maybe I'm being naive and ignorant. And now our health care system is one step closer to maybe even the government dictating who gets to live, and who will have to die.. because frankly, you're just not worth the copper.

Scotland cont.

2010-05-07T19:35:00.003-04:00

So I made it to Scotland Thursday morning... later than intended, but hey, I'm here :)

Toured Edinburgh for the day. Free walking tour that was pretty great and "ghost" tour that was highly recommended that I have to say I was quite disappointed with. A friend of mine's boyfriend lent me the keys to his apartment while he's in England.

Anywho, I'm in Fort Augustus right at the moment at the foot of Loch Ness... no luck thus far on spotting Nessie, but there's still Sunday :)

Scotland

2010-05-05T21:55:00.002-04:00

Headed up north to the land of William Wallace, Nessie, Sean Connery, golf, Scotch whiskey, haggis, bagpipes and kilts. Be back next week :)

Ireland

2010-04-24T19:52:00.006-04:00

This is for those peeps who wanted to make sure I was alive and didn't get blown up or something...

I made it to Ireland Thursday morning, despite the volcano.. Checked out Dublin for the day... caught the train to Mallow.. caught a ride at Mallow to Killarney... Drove the Ring of Kerry... Biked through the Killarney National Forrest... Tore off a quarter of my left palm's surface area and could possibly have needed a stitch on my left knee from a fairly deep puncture wound... Just arrived in Belfast just under 2 hours ago.

More details when I get home to upload pics and such.

Short. Not too sweet. To the point :)

Oh yeah. And I'm loving it! The fact that there's a lot more good looking guys here than back in England doesn't hurt either. lol. And I've met some fantastically awesome peeps along the way :)

2010-03-30T10:50:00.003-04:00

I rearranged my room. Because I was bored. Because I wanted more space to work out. Because I wanted some change. And now I love it. I have some plants on my windowsill. I should buy more flowers. They make me happy :)

I found more bruises. Big ones. Sheesh.

Bruised

2010-03-29T12:35:00.003-04:00

So I have these random bruises that have cropped up in the past day or two. I'm assuming they must be from when I assailed that fence, but I don't remember it being that physically traumatic. I have a fairly impressive one that runs medially along my left calf and spans just over 5.5 inches. Several others over my ribs, triceps, palms, and along where the adductors and gracilas are situated...

A depressing fact to note..

"The 2010 Main Residency Match was the largest in NRMP history, encompassing more than 37,000 applicants, 4,100 graduate medical education programs, and 25,500 residency training positions."

This seems to imply that over 10,000 applicants for this year's match failed to match. Of course this probably includes the ones who "pre-matched", e.g. signed outside the match, but even so, that's a really sobering number who did not match. I know several people who didn't and thankfully some of them were able to scramble into open spots, but others have not yet been so fortunate. I'm thankful that most of my interests are non-competitive so I have some resemblance of a chance of getting a field I'll enjoy, but still...

Barbed Wire

2010-03-26T13:26:00.007-04:00

I knew I should have worn jeans to go into town. But I figured I'd just be making a short jaunt to the school office to drop off a form and deposit, so why bother changing?

I decided to go exploring on my way home and took a path I hadn't tried before that ran between the cemetery and train tracks. As I was walking down the path I saw a group of teenagers, 4 boys and a girl, poking at something on the other side of the barbed wire fence that ran alongside the railroad tracks. As I approached, one of the boys said something to me but I had my earbuds in so I couldn't didn't catch what was said, but I gathered from the sight of the soccer ball on the other side that he had asked something about how to get it back over or something. Here's me thinking, dude, there's 4 of you guys.. in jeans no less.. and you're asking me, a girl in khaki slacks for help? Any way, when I asked why they didn't just jump the fence and get it, they kept saying, but it's barbed wire... um... so? It wasn't like it was a rusted over tangled mass of tetanus breeders, but rather a vinyl coated chain linked fence with 3 lines of green painted barbed wire. Seriously? And these weren't like boys dressed in their prep school finest, but they looked like they wanted to be the punky cool kids with low riding jeans, converse shoes, and spiked hair. Lame. My roommate said English boys were pansies. Guess so.

I took off my backpack and climbed the fence. On my way over, my khackis caught on the barbed wire and there was a nice rip right over my knee. Great. But without further difficulties, I went over, tossed back the ball, and after tossing over my shoes...with some help from the boys holding back the wire, I climbed back. I got many thanks, but I can't say I really actually even looked at them and made eye contact with more than maybe that first boy who had asked me for help. Maybe it was cuz I didn't want to feel like I was showing off, because I know I have the tendency to enjoy proving myself to challenges. Or maybe it's because I didn't want them to feel bad to have a girl throw them back their ball, when they were too much of a wuss to get it themselves.

We parted ways and after walking a bit, I looked down to check out the damage to my pants only to see a dark spreading stain above it. Huh. I took a peek, and yup, low and behold a gorgeous 2 inch gash that was happily oozing away. I hadn't felt it. It didn't hurt. I had some pocket tissues and tried to blot and stop it, but it just kept a going, so I figured I may as well just keep walking home. By the time I got home, the entire area was soaked in blood.

So it would seem I paid the price for being nice and all tough girl idiocy. I tore up my one pair of khaki work slacks and am left with only one pair of work slacks. I have a beautiful gash above my knee. Slight rush from finally doing something active and out of the ordinary. And I need to go shopping now. Lame. I shouldn't have chased the goose. Or maybe just say no. I should have just worn jeans.

Can't help but love her

2010-03-24T18:26:00.003-04:00

I had a patient today that almost made me ache to do Peds. She was maybe 7 years old with a history of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and late diagnosed subdural hematomoa resulting in cerebral palsy. She also had some speech impairment and developmental delay. But what was so remarkable about her wasn't her disability, but rather despite her disability, the pure and simple cheer and joy that radiated from her. She was so funny, cheeky, and sweet that my lips and cheeks were sore from the smile I that couldn't help but respond with. We asked if she was always so cheerful and chatty, and her parents laughed an affirmative. She lit the room and her charm was irresistible. I felt myself almost jealous of her innocent and effortless charisma. I couldn't help but think that despite how difficult it must be to raise a disabled child, her parents were amazingly blessed. I hadn't been so purely delighted in a long time. Simply put, she was awesome.

She was beautiful.

2010-03-10T15:34:00.003-04:00

I lost my first baby today.

No one understands or can explain why. How could it all go wrong, without an inkling of a warning? The baby was perfectly healthy, no antenatal issues. The obstetricians are at a loss, the pediatricians are at a loss. We did full on resuscitation measures, and kept a flicker of hope that somehow it would be enough. It was an extremely intense situation and such a horrible outcome that all the adrenaline just leaves a hole in you. I have this feeling, right below my sternum...

I don't think it's hit me yet.

International Relations

2010-03-07T12:48:00.006-04:00

So this past Tuesday I went to the Emirates Stadium, home of the Arsenal football team, in London for an international friendly match between Brazil and Republic of Ireland. To be honest, this isn’t something I would usually shell out money for, esp not 42GBP since I’m much more into the actual playing of the sport than the watching. But since I was kind of put on the spot to make the decision, I went with an affirmative. It was definitely a fun game and I’d say a good time. I went with my roommates, Clayton and Lua, who are both big football fans. We had great seats in the first row of the upper tier and had great vantage view of the field. Lua and Clayton cheered for Brazil with their Brazilian flags and I cheered for Ireland. I mean, I knew Brazil was the better team, but I like Ireland :) Anywho, we were sitting in a predominately Irish fan crowd, though they were way outnumbered by the number of Brazilian fans. It was a good game, even though the fate of the game could easily have been guessed prior to the ball drop. Ireland clearly dominated the first half of the game and Brazil only scored off a lucky shot 2 minutes before half time. Sadly, after that, the second half seemed almost like a joke. Ireland seemed to lose all will to live and Brazil pretty much played Keep-Away from the boys in green. I think the Irish fans though were the most amusing with their accents and caustic, rowdy comments. Provided much amusement throughout.

Sorry for the delay, folks

2010-02-19T12:29:00.003-04:00

I've been mucho busy... Just finished my Ob/Gyn written exam less than 30 minutes ago and whew, I think my heart is still racing... I have my oral exam in about an hour... But I think the written exam went fairly well, I'm thinking maybe a B... Hope I'm not being too optimistic :)

I just sharpened my first wood pencil in I don't know how many years. Can't go wrong with the original. It had stamped on the side, "Knowledge is the enemy of disease." Yeah, baby.

I have much to regale you with, as in my blogging absence, I've made two trips to London, celebrated Chinese New Year, avoided Norwalk virus like the plague, and attempted to open a UK bank account.. my venture into getting a credit history here.

So til that time comes that I can update you, so long and farewell my faithful friends. lol.

I plan to celebrate tonight!

Update 2

2010-02-04T18:01:00.003-04:00

Monday, February 1, 2010

I discovered that while I may not be all that into surgery... laparoscopy and laparoscopic surgery is amazing. When I saw the first images sent by the laparoscope onto the screen, my jaw nearly dropped. My first thought was that the human body is a beautiful thing. Seriously, exquisitely beautiful. It was like a National Geographic special. I had seen images online before, but I just thought they were computerized renditions and that there was no way it was that clean and put together inside our bodies. I don't know what I was expecting, but having only ever really seen drawings of internal organs, or images from surgery where the picture is marred by blood and other fluids, or organs after they have already been removed from the body... I hadn't really grasped what the human body looked like from within. When everything is where it should be, living, working.. and you take a peek inside... words aren't enough. I think I was in love, lol. It's just so incomprehensible seeing the liver, uterus, fallopian tubes, omentum, vessels, etc all in their proper place... it was like being let in on a great secret. Like someone said, "peek-a-boo" and opened my eyes to a never before seen wonder. Even better than the magic school bus :)

I was able to scrub in and assist in an laparoscopic oophorectomy for a torsioned ovary. Viewing it inside the body and comparing the greatly enlarged, hematogenous, necrotic ovary to the normal one only inches away was like, wow. Then watching the removal of this ovary with an 11cm cyst from a 1cm hole in the abdomen was incredible. Now that I can get into :) It really is as others say, like playing a video game. Soooo cool.

I also attended an infertility clinic. Seeing all these couples coming in looking for some hope to have a child made what I had seen in the labor & delivery ward all the more precious. Despite how often I see and hear laboring mothers suffer and cry that never again will they put themselves through that experience, I can't help but think of all the woman who are desperate to be in their position.

Witnessing these laboring women has made me wonder whether or not I will still want 5 after my first. lol. They say that your memory of the labor is but a distant faint image once you behold your baby for the first time, but I know many that would beg to differ. I've met women who were so traumatized by their first labor experience that when they found out they were pregnant again, they cried for days. It is hard sometimes to distance yourself emotionally from what the patient is going through so that you can have a clear clinical focus. Then of course there's the weight of having all the knowledge of everything that could and does sometimes go wrong...

Another heart wrenching scene is bearing witness to a mother's guilt and pain in terminating a pregnancy that was a miracle in and of itself since she had been sterilized twice and still gotten pregnant, but the pregnancy turned out to be positive for a Down's baby. Just her waiting in the ward for the medication to take effect and her body to expel her baby, I don't think it's something she will forget for a long time. And the guilt of another mother going through the same knowing that she works with mentally disabled children. How hard is that? I mean, the heart break such news must have been to them, and the subsequent internal turmoil they must have had to reach such a decision. I can't even begin to imagine it. Especially if they had begun to feel the quickening within them.

Today, Thursday, February 5, 2010

I went into town and donated blood today. I have to say that I quite enjoy donating blood. I'm not really sure what exactly it is that I like, but I like knowing that I'm giving of myself to help another. I like watching them insert the needle and watching my blood flow through the tubing into the bag. I like trying to see how quickly I can fill the bag. I'm a pretty fast bleeder when I try, so I feel a sense of satisfaction when I can fill my blood bag before others. Is that morbid? I dunno, it's weird but I enjoy it so I do it whenever I have the opportunity.

I must commend the Brits or at least those here in Winchester on their fervor in donating blood. There were a lot of people who came to the blood drive. They even had appointments to donate. It was the busiest I had ever seen a blood drive. People just kept coming in the door. It was quite heartening to see so many people desiring to donate. It wasn't even like it was Christmas and people would feel compelled to do something charitable. It was just donating to donate. Kind of public healthish too and that's just great :)

Update

2010-02-03T18:41:00.002-04:00

Friday, January 29, 2010

This day was horrible. Like downright awful. So bad it made me cry... twice... In front of two different consultants no less. So for those of you who know me and my opinion about crying... it was that bad. I mean, I've gotten over it now, so I can talk about it with a blasé attitude, but that was a pretty miserable day, and that kind of translated to the stress I've been under since.

It started out well enough. I went to theatre that early that morning and was able to perform my first vaginal exam and speculum exam, so that was cool. I feel that my fingers are too short to really be all that effective, but maybe it's just my technique. Even with me feeling like I was pressing my hand as deeply against the pelvis as possible, my fingers barely grazed the "bump" that was the cervix. I couldn't get in deep enough to actually manipulate the uterus, but I was able to palpate one of the ovaries :) I was told that since the patient was nulliparous, her uterus was still pretty high up which probably contributed to my difficulty. But I think that unless my fingers miraculously lengthen I'd be pretty useless at VE's on nulliparous women. Guess Obs & Gyn is out for me, lol.

I had a one-on-one teaching session with Mr. Olujide on menorrhagia, and that went well enough until the end. Sometime in the middle of our session, he asked if I wanted coffee and went out to make some. While he was out, his phone rang 3 times, and I thinking that it might be important since it rang that often in such a short period of time went to look for him. I ran into the husband of a patient who's history I had taken and had a little chat with him about how his wife was doing. While I was out I saw my preceptor, Mr. Louden, walking down the hall. At the same time, Mr. Olujide was also coming towards me, and I went to him and gave him his phone. Mr. Louden came up and said he was supposed to have been doing my mid rotation assessment that day. This was news to me, as when I had checked the schedule at his secretary's office the day before, I had seen no such appointment. I expressed my surprise and He said he had to talk to Mr. Olujide, so I went into the office where I had been having my teaching session. However, they were standing only a few meters from the open door to the office and I could pretty much hear everything they were saying... Mr. Louden expressed his concern about my missing so many days of the posting and his doubt and "puzzlement" about this "induction" thing that I said I had to attend, and other stuff to which Mr. Olujide agreed and said he would talk to me about it. I got the impression, they thought I was making up this induction thing and was just skipping days. They both did not sound pleased. After hearing all this, when Mr. Olujide got back to the office, I asked him if I was in trouble. He said, not much, but yes and we would talk about it later. Of course after that moment, I had a hard time focusing on the teaching and was just dreading the end of the teaching session.

When we came to the end of the teaching and moved on to the topic of my performance thus far, he asked me how I had been doing and what I'd been doing. When we came to what happened that miserable Wednesday afternoon in Scan, I stopped talking because I couldn't really talk about it. I had no desire to go into what happened, but I guess just thinking about that afternoon brought all the feelings to the fore and on top of my nerves about the fact that I was in trouble... my lips started to tremble, I couldn't look at Mr. Olujide and every time I started to say something I felt my eyes well up. It was pathetic. To make matters worse, Mr. Olujide asked me what was wrong and his being nice about it was what tipped me over to full out tears. *sigh* I'm sure my stressing out and exhaustion didn't help my restraint in the matter, but I find it so much harder to be composed when people are being nice than when they're being mean and stern. He discussed things I should be doing to improve matters and gave me some pointers. Then he brought up two Biblical analogies about Joshua, and that just made me cry again because he wasn't just being nice, but also offering up biblical and spiritual support which was even more unexpected. He also said that the particular consultant with which I had such a miserable time with did not like students working with him and that even the SHOs and and other residents who were sometimes assigned to him, he wouldn't let them do anything.

After that, I attempted to compose myself, went to the restroom and washed my face with cold water, took a couple deep breaths before heading over to see Mr. Louden. I asked if I could reschedule my mid-core assessment as I didn't realize it was today, but that it would be fine if he wanted to continue with it that day. Then was pretty much a repeat of the conversation I had with Mr. Olujide. In addition, he asked me to clarify why I missed the days I missed and detail what I had been doing each day that I had been in the hospital. He said that I couldn't afford to take any time off during the day to do reading and that I had to make sure I was doing something each AM and PM session. He said that he had asked around about me and none of the consultants had really seen me or even knew who I was. No one had really seen me working in the hospital and as far as they knew, I hadn't been there. This is exactly what I had been afraid would happen and I guess that showed on my face because then he said, "Oh you look upset, don't be upset, what's wrong," then reached out and touched my hand. I lost it again. Sheesh. I'm so weak against people being nice. lol.

I told him that this was exactly what I had been afraid would happen and that I had been stressing out about it for quite some time. I explained to him that I took that Thursday morning off to read because I had been miserable and felt like a complete idiot after the Wednesday session, though I wouldn't go into what happened. When he heard the reason for why I took that morning off to read, he said he now understood why I took that morning off to read, and it was okay. So that made me feel better that he realized what happened and it didn't really surprise him I guess. I suppose the consultant told him I was a dimwitted American who'd never amount to anything. lol. He expressed annoyance and frustration that I had missed the days for a mandatory induction. He called my student coordinator to check on it and when he confirmed my story said that it was ridiculous and unfair that we SGU students had to go through that when the Southampton students did not. He asked who he had to take this issue up with because it had seriously adversely affected my posting.

Once the story was all out, he said he understood why I had missed all those days and that it wasn't anything of my doing. However, I had a lot of making up to do and couldn't afford to miss anymore days and that going to clinics were of paramount importance because that was where the consultants would actually see me. He gave me all satisfactory checks for my assessment for which I was ever so grateful and said to let him know if there was anything or anyone that I was having difficulty with. And that was that.

After all that, I went home that evening for about 2 hours before I went back in to the labor ward for voluntary night shift. Maybe I was trying to prove that I am willing to work hard and put in the hours to make up for lost time, but I ended up spending almost 24 hours at the hospital that day since I didn't get home til about 5am the next morning.

The best thing that happened was that I got to deliver my first baby :) It was a baby girl and she came out fast! Her mother was only 5 cm dilated then just 10-15 min later she was yelling that she needed to push. After only about 3 pushes and 5 min, out came the bundle of joy. With the midwife guiding me, I got to deliver her, clamp and cut the cord, deliver the placenta and all that lovely goodness. Despite everything that happened earlier, I ended my day with a smile.

Today, February 3, 2010

I delivered my second baby today. Also a baby girl, and they even were gracious enough to name her after me :) Her middle name is Grace. Well, okay, so they had already picked out the name long before, but it's kind of a cool coincidence :) This time I was also able to give the mother an injection of Syntocinon to help her deliver the placenta.

I also went by the breast screening clinic this morning and watched a few mammograms. Sat in on an Antenatal clinic, and didn't eat all day til dinner. But I have to say that today was a good day. It was the first day since Friday that I have actually felt more at ease and not so stressed out. Maybe tomorrow will even be sunny :)

Seeing is believing

2010-02-02T15:37:00.002-04:00

Sorry, but I've been so exhausted since Friday that I haven't had the energy or even really the will to write anything. My days currently consist of me going to the hospital in the morning, going home for lunch, back again in the afternoon, staying til the evening, coming home and making/eating dinner, drag myself to the library, go home and attempt to read, fall asleep reading, worry about not getting enough reading done, giving up on reading and collapsing in bed.

I'll try to actually have a catch up post sometime down the road, but suffice to say that I'm keeping busy.

The login I was using to access internet on my lappy at the hospital was disconnected or inactivated or something so I can no longer use my laptop for skype or other internet related things.

I've seen and done some cool stuff at the hospital, but it's pretty stressful trying to always be smiling, cheerful, and attentive and not let on that you really hope that no one asks you anything because you don't know diddly. But I do want to be asked questions because I know it helps me learn and it helps me make connections to the material I know is up there, but just hasn't been accessed in a while or not often. But I want to be asked because they want to help me learn, not because they want a means by which to judge me.

Really I feel like I'm trying so hard to make sure everyone sees me doing something productive. It's like a show I have to put on because if I just go and do the work and not pay attention to what other people are seeing or what they may be thinking, I get in trouble... not because I'm not doing anything, but because they won't notice unless I make the effort to be noticed. It's like I have to make the effort to constantly mentally shout, "Look, I'm here on the ward!" "I'm here at clinic!" "I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, and I'm working hard!" And the effort of the show is exhausting. I'm exhausted from stressing out. I just want to do the work, get the most out of this experience, and learn as much as I can. That's what it's supposed to be about... learning and growing. I shouldn't be worrying about proving myself to the consultants or anyone because my actions should speak for themselves. Unfortunately, if the actions aren't seen by the consultants themselves, they are considered nonexistent.

Apology

2010-01-27T14:20:00.004-04:00

Maybe I owe the general British people an apology. They're not all bad. And despite what I said, I think that saying "most" are ungentlemanly or what not is a bit of an exaggeration. There have been a few that have colored my opinion and those are the ones of which I've spoken, but there are even more that are gracious and kind and wonderfully nice :)

Today was the last day of orientation. We did "Manual Handling" training which involved teaching us how to move patients. It was quite an interesting training session and very informative as well as practical. I learned how to use slide sheets, slings, hoists, etc. I think their methods of handling are ingenious and should be employed everywhere. Of course in the reality of the field, these items don't get used nearly as often as they should be, and patients aren't moved appropriately and safely every time. But at least the skills are there, just the application of such sometimes falls in favor of speed or just because of laziness. It happens. But the reasoning behind the use of these maneuvers and products is sound. They reduce the chance of injury to both the patient and the handler. They also make the process much easier and smoother.

There are many things they do here in the UK health care system that I believe works better than that in the States. An obvious one is that they have now gotten rid of all the white coats worn by doctors and medical students. White coats are no longer allowed as part of the uniform because it is believed to be unhygienic and spread disease and infection. Another thing is their "bare below the elbow" rule. No sleeves, watches, or jewelry of any kind below the elbow except for a single wedding band. Long sleeves have to be rolled up, watches placed on belts, and jewelry nil. Nothing hanging either and this applies to both jewelry and neckties. So while neckties are still allowed, they must be taken off or tucked in when seeing a patient. All this makes perfect sense from an infection control standpoint.

Today a few of us new SGU students here met with, Dr. Dryden, our clinical director here at the hospital. His specialty is microbiology and he was not what I expected when I saw his picture. He was pretty cool and seemed really interested in trying to resolve some concerns we had since coming here. For example, prior to our arrival we were quoted a rental rate of £300/mth. However, upon our arrival, our lease agreement had our rent set at £350, which is more than a 10% increase. Another thing is that the lease agreement ends our housing before we're actually finished with our rotations. Also, the lack of Internet. And much more. So it was nice to see that we had someone who would be trying to sort things out for us since we had no one to go to about that kind of stuff, or the people to which we had gone to have been unhelpful to say the least. He's also starting up teaching sessions specifically for us SGU students. Nice. He also suggested we meet up to hang out at a pub sometime. Awesome. lol.

I did a venipuncture today. Yay me :) It was difficult as this patient had almost no veins whatsoever. She had never had her blood taken, she was afraid of needles, and after I stuck her she felt faint. Oi. And she's not a bleeder. Even though I had a vacutainer attached, the blood filled slowly and she looked like she was going to pass out even as she was grimacing in pain. Sorry :( The SHO had to insert a cannula and even she couldn't find a suitable vein. After digging around for a while in one arm, she had to try the other before finally getting it in. She too was only able to draw a small amount of blood and she even used a syringe to do it. I hope it was enough for the vials, but there wasn't much in them... hopefully the labs will still come out on those. But at least I can get that checked off my list. She said if I came by next time she was working, she'd let me do a vaginal exam and a speculum exam. Excellent.

So I guess it's safe to say that today was a pretty good day :)

Concerned

2010-01-26T16:53:00.007-04:00

I'm concerned. I seem to have a lot of concerns of late. And I seem to vent a lot about my concerns on here. Does this make me seem like an angry person? lol.

I've been here for about almost 2 weeks now, had one week of actual hospital experience, but this is technically my 3rd week of my O&G rotation. I will soon be getting my mid-rotation assessment, and starting next week I will be having these mini-CEX's (clinical evaluation exercise) which are a method of assessing skills essential to the provision of good clinical care. I'm just worried because I feel I will be graded on the expected 3 weeks of experience even though I've only had one. *sigh*

Anyway, I've been quite exhausted so far this week even though I haven't really done much. Maybe orientation is draining in how boring it is. Apparently the US is quite backwards and behind in its CPR standards. We had a review of CPR here and things have changed since I last went through the steps. You no longer give breaths at the beginning during the ABC's section, and you don't check for a pulse either. You go straight from look, listen, and feeling to compressions. There's a couple other changes, but those were the most significant. What bugged me about the guy doing the lecture was that when I brought up the difference between what we had been taught and what he was telling us now was his response. That response was that we were still using the old 2005 standards and were behind while they were using the new 2010 standards. It wasn't so much what he said as how he said (isn't that how it always is?), with a hint of smugness. Otherwise, the guy was funny, entertaining, informative, and could be kind of cute. And I have no problem with learning something new, I would have just liked for him to explain the new change and how it improved upon the old. Rather then just assuming that I was hung up on the old standard because that's just how I always did it, as he put it. I'm not hung up on it. I just want to understand. Plus I have taught it, so I'm doubly interested in the new changes. I know the standards change every 5 years so I'm sure we're due for another overhaul (though there was a fairly recent change I think). I'm not going to just assume that these new standards are better because you say so. Help me understand. How do I know that the UK and the US don't have different standards? I would assume that CPR is a universally taught standard, and I'm fine with you guys being ahead. No big deal. I'm not one to think that America is better than everyone else and that we know everything. I know there are a lot of things we fall short on.

British people are so disappointing. I had expected them to be more cultured, accepting, polite, well-mannered etc than the average American I guess. Perhaps I had idealized them and held them to too high a standard resulting from my reading in my younger days because so far they have done nothing but disappoint. I've found that the typical American is much more accepting and less bigoted, in my opinion, than most of the lovely English I have had the pleasure of meeting. Sheesh. Now I've started my ranting again. Grrr...

Back to CPR. So I went to Google and did a search on the new 2010 guidelines. There are new guidelines, but they won't go into effect until October 2010. CPR is an international standard and there is an international review board that looks into all the problems and questions people have had on improving CPR and implements the changes based on this feedback and research. And often the UK is ahead of the US in a lot of the medical and healthcare managements. Nice. Good for you guys. That's awesome. Who's got the ego now? You want to drop down and compare size?

Boring....

2010-01-25T17:13:00.002-04:00

Today was orientation. And it was boring. Really quite boring. I had to struggle hard several times to stay awake. And I still have 2 more days of this drudgery. I yi yi. The one amazing thing I learned about this hospital is that it has had only 1 MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infection in 2 years! ONE. That impressed me to the point where I felt my eyes grow big lol. They said that one of the biggest sources of MRSA was determined to be cannulations (IVs) so now those can only be initiated with a prescription order and there are strict protocols for how often it has to be checked and replaced.

But what was great today was that I went running with my roommate. First time in a long time and it was a rough start. If I hadn't been running with someone I would have quit a quarter of the way and just walked the rest. But since she was running the entire time, I felt like I couldn't just stop but had to keep going til my legs gave out. The cold air didn't help, but once I got past the point where I thought I couldn't keep running, it got easier and I hit a stride. Just focused on breathing in and out, in and out. It was a happy accomplishment and one that surprised me. Oh and on the run back home, I was sure I could smell the distinctive scent of weed as I passed the hospital... Someone self medicating perhaps?

Not much going on...

2010-01-24T17:12:00.003-04:00

I went to the Winchester Family Church today, and though I was late to the service, I arrived just in time for the start of the message. This church was more of your modern/contemporary type compared to last week's which was more traditional. Their mission is "...to magnify Jesus Christ by building a Spirit filled Christian community of all ages and backgrounds that is engaged with the culture around it but is clearly different from it - Something Different!" They have a band that includes electric guitars, drums, and keyboard along with more contemporary praise and worship music. It wasn't overtly "Rock out Jesus Christ," but more contemporary than say, "How Great Thou Art." The message seemed a bit superficial, but brought up some interesting points that I hadn't noticed before in the passage in 1 Kings about Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. I have a vague feeling they believe in speaking in tongues, but I'm not adverse to visiting again next week if I can't find another to try.

This week I have the Trust Induction. Sounds like some sort initiation into a secret club or cult, but pretty sure it's just general hospital orientation. Plus I think it comes with free food... always a bonus. It'll go on for 3 days, so nice that I can sort of have those days "off" though I'm considering going in to do some histories on the days it ends early... or I can go touring Winchester with my roomie. To be studious or not to be... The decision may actually just be dictated by the weather...

Communication Interuptus

2010-01-23T15:55:00.005-04:00

My school is notorious for its lack of communication. And that's not just in reference to their communication with the students, no, but even with their staff, faculty, affiliated hospitals, etc. Often, when you have a question you start out with the most obvious source of information, who will then refer you to someone else, who will tell you to email this other person, who will then never reply to your email so you call someone else up, who then never responds to your voice mail, so you return to your original source who tells you to check back in a week.

I'd like to think I'm a fairly patient and forgiving person. I tend to let things slide and try to be understanding. Sometimes I will get frustrated, but that tends to happens when things start to buildup and there's the accumulation of questions and a stark absence of answers.

Take for example my first clinical rotation. I arrive, and report to the student coordinator here, who's a lovely lady and full of helpful information and such. I am given a packet that's specifically made for SGU students with a booklet tailored for our clinical rotations at this hospital, Royal Hampshire County Hospital. I'm then told that the information within the booklet is not very reliable, however, and that schedules in there are subject to and most likely have already changed. Well, that's fine because I understand that schedules change and it'd be hard to keep un updated list of all the schedules of all the departments.

Then I find out that I'm not scheduled to do my Psych rotation here as I was previously told, but that I have been scheduled for Peds. Well, this was a surprise as I had clearly communicated with the clinical director of the UK program that I did not want to do IM or Peds here because I felt it important to get a US recommendation letter for those programs, as I am considering them for residency. I was told that this was fine and that my UK rotation schedule had been changed accordingly and confirmed for Ob/Gyn, Psych, and Surg. Wonderful. Now I arrive and the student coordinator is at a loss as to why I was told that I would be doing Psych when I have clearly been scheduled for Peds. Even when I showed her the letter I received stating I would be doing Psych, she couldn't explain it. Well, that's okay. I can always do a Peds Sub-I rotation and get a letter out of that.. no big deal.

I start my rotation eager, excited, and nervous. This is what I've been training for: to work in the hospital, rub elbows with up-and-coming who's who health professionals, learn the secret of the healing touch from veteran attendings, perform innovative procedures, and work miracles. Can we all just agree that I'm naive here and get that out of the way? Anyway, I'm handed a schedule and a welcome letter explaining the schedule and told, "This posting is self-directed. We believe this will facilitate you to learn what you feel is important and of interest to you. Now go forth and do great things."O-kay... Now what? How do I start? Is there a list of things I should be doing, maybe some objectives I'm supposed to try and meet? Who do I talk to? What does the school want me to be able to do? How am I being evaluated? How is anyone going to know that I'm actually doing anything? Hello? Help?

Over the next week I slowly find answers. But it's like scrounging around in a urban city trash bin looking for a slice of unmoldy cheese. Asking the student coordinator doesn't always help because she hasn't been given the answers by the school. Searching on the school website reveals that we're supposed to be keeping logs of our patient encounters so our preceptors can have an idea of how much we're doing and what we've been exposed to. Oh, really? And when were you going to tell me that? So much of what I do know is hear-say from other students. I don't know if I'm missing something crucial or if there's something else that I should be doing that's going to be vital in how I'm to be evaluated in this posting. My concern is that I will finally find out when it's too late, and I can hardly tell the school, "Hey look, it's your fault."

Expensive

2010-01-22T12:38:00.003-04:00

Today was a good day :) Teaching session in the morning that I was able to actually follow along with because I'd had the chance to read up on the subject matter ahead of time. Then I did a bunch of clerking for practice. Clerking as I discovered is the term they use here for taking a patient history. So I practiced my history taking skills and presenting them to a doctor, in this case a Senior House Officer (SHO, like an upper-middle class resident).... (Residents here start as Foundation Year 1, Foundation Year 2, Senior House Officer, Registrar, until you are finally the big kahuna: Consultant.) She offered me some helpful tips that I intend to put to good use. Then I decided to take the rest of the day off. Oh, oh, oh! And I got to put on some blue surgical gloves and help change a pressure bandage. lol. Lame, yeah, but hey at least it was actual patient contact! Yay. Also I'm going to start doing blood draws. How exciting.

I learn a lot from doing histories because seeing an actual patient with the clinical problems that I've been reading and learning about for the past few years puts a "face" to the disease, disorder, complication, etc. Also there are so many things that I haven't even read about or only studied because it was part of the curriculum that become real when a patient is telling me that she's had an ovary removed because of a hemorrhagic cyst, or she's here for a Mirena coil replacement, or she just had a hysterectomy because she initially started out with just some annoying malodorous vaginal discharge that was resisting all treatments thrown at it until it was discovered there were displastic patches of abnormal cells growing in her uterus. I met a lady today who had a very strong family history of breast cancer. Her mother died of breast cancer, she had breast cancer which ended up in a double mastectomy (DCIS in one breast and stage 3 invasive breast cancer in the other), and one of her two daughters also had breast cancer and had an elective double mastectomy when it was found that she also carried the BRCA 2 gene. So that's 3 generations of breast cancer. It's something you read about with genetics and how genes play a role, but to actually see the family that was so affected makes it more real and tangible. It's not just academic now, it's reality. Plus it gives me a reason to read up on breast cancer, endometrial carcinomas, IUDs, etc and this is a good thing :)

My roommates and I went into town this afternoon to do some grocery shopping. From Wednesday to I think Saturday there is a sort of small open market type deal on Market St. We found this really amazing stall with fresh baked goodies. Couldn't resist loading up on the carbs even though, I had so far resisted buying and bread. Everything tasted heavenly and we promised to return next week :) Once again, it was raining so we were quite soaked by the time we were ready to head back home.

Lua and I are planning on going out to try a Thai restaurant we saw in town when we were there earlier. It looked kind of fancy though, and we heard from a taxi driver that there are no cheap restaurants here because after all we are in Winchester. Apparently if you can afford to live in upper-middle class Winchester, you can afford the prices here. Guess that makes what that lady said yesterday about a well fed, well paid, middle class population here, make sense. There is a pub by the O & G building that apparently a lot of the students go to for decent food that's reasonably priced, so if the Thai restaurant proves to be unreasonable, we'll head there. Since Lua and I are still waiting for our refund checks, we're still counting our pennies. But we've been here for a while and haven't really had a chance to do much in ways of chilling and down time, so we figured this weekend was as good as any to start. Also interestingly, the only "fast-food" restaurants we've seen have been American: Subway, Pizza Hut, McDonald's. Perhaps they are others, but just aren't obvious to us that they're "fast-food." Or that could also be another reason why there's much less of an obesity problem here as there is in the States.

Still much to learn

2010-01-21T14:59:00.002-04:00

So apparently "fraternal twins" is an American term. Or maybe just not one in the British English vocabulary. I asked the 2 Southampton University med students if they knew what that term meant and they were quite baffled. So... looks like I can educate them a little ;) Well, looky here, an American student that has an English term or two that the Brits don't know... lol. I'm sure it's considered quite pedestrian *shrugs*

So because yesterday was so abysmally miserable and I felt like such a failure, I decided to take most of the day to do some reading and self-educating. I did a fair amount of reading and it felt good. I'm not usually one to do a lot of textbook reading. Especially of the sort where you start at the first page and work your way to the end and often end up quitting somewhere between page 5 and 20. I usually have to have some sort of goal or a focus. If I have a desire to read up on a certain topic, I will more than happily find several sources and read page after page on that topic. So it's not that I'm not capable of doing the reading, I just have to feel the purpose of the reading, since it's not really reading for pleasure. If reading with a focus, I actually get something out of it.

I'm thinking of taking tomorrow off as well as there isn't going to be any consultants around really except for one doing theatre. But I have a teaching session in the morning on Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome. I actually got to see a patient with this and it was quite interesting as apparently it's not too common around here despite the increase in families seeking IVF. There wasn't much to see of course, but the patient history was interesting. This woman was going through an IVF program and instead of the expected 10-15 extra eggs after the initial stage, she produced over 30! So her body was reacting to the excessive increase in her hormone levels.

I got a new roommate today, Clayton. He's also from SGU and was supposed to start at the same time as I did, but had passport issues so he was delayed. Lua (my current) roommate and I were slightly dismayed as we were quite enjoying having the place (and shower) to ourselves. lol. But no matter, he lives downstairs and we upstairs... and the shower's upstairs anyway :) Plus there are 2 separate entrances so it's really not that big a deal. I knew of him back in school in that I knew who he was and had seen him around. He was friends of friends, but I never spoke to him directly. Funny though when I met him downstairs after he arrived, we spoke as if we had always known each other. Guess that kind of happens when you're in a new place and you meet someone that you "know" or at least has a similar background and you kind of just assume a familiarity based on that common background.

So my knowledge of anatomy has needs to be improved, being as it's been about 3 years since Anatomy, but I've learned that I shouldn't guess... though it really depends a great deal on which consultant I'm talking to. With Mr. Olujide, I can be more relaxed and not worry too much about being wrong, but concentrate on learning. I tend to have a problem with thinking out loud, because for me it sometimes helps to verbalize my reasoning out an answer to a question. But I'm getting the impression, it's just not done here. With Mr. ____, I don't think I'll speak unless I feel like what I'm saying or asking is actually remotely intelligent. I don't remember if I mentioned, but in response to an answer I gave to one of his questions, he replied, "That is a ridiculously stupid answer." Gee.. really? You think if you just explained to me the correct answer or why my answer couldn't be correct, I wouldn't be able to deduce that my given answer was really quite amateur and outlandishly misplaced? Maybe in his experience when a student is publicly humiliated in front of a patient and staff, they remember the correct answer more vividly. This may be well founded, as I do remember the correct answer now, but I remember more the experience rather than the question and correct answer. But that is just the way of it. Part of the whole learning experience. Well, bring it on. I'll take it.

Oh and right, doctors in O&G and Surgery are referred to as Mr or Miss or Ms and not Dr. This is based on something way back, when they used to just do surgery's and deliveries and such as a 2nd job and were just referred to as Mr. But when they were finally brought on board with all the other official doctors and accorded with the title Dr. they wanted to stick by their traditional titles. Seems to only really be applicable to the old school docs here and not so much the new breed going through now... though, I would have thought this changeover had occurred prior to anyone living's birth, much less career.

Bi-polar

2010-01-20T14:55:00.002-04:00

So you're wont to think I'm bipolar after this as today in my writing this, I'm a bit bummed. I dunno. I guess I just need to develop some thick skin and seriously, I do need to review a lot of material admittedly. But, really, how is "fraternal twins" such an American thing to say? I mean, really? Okay, so I'm a bit biased being American and all, and sorry if my terminology isn't as polished as you'd like. Sorry if I can't quite follow your line of questioning because I'm completely lost as to what you're asking, and it doesn't help that you sometimes mumble or maybe my American ears just can't discern the finesse of your proper British English because I've been listening to watered down American swill English all my life. Seriously. Whatever.

Anyway, now that I've got that off my chest :) Today was fine. I went to the Gyn outpatient clinic this morning and saw a couple patients with urogenital problems mainly dealing with pelvic prolapse or urinary incontinence. Watched a few replacements of pessaries. And that was that. Went to a drug rep lunch so free lunch was nice. Then brief teaching session on thecomas.

This afternoon I went into a scanning (ultrasound) session with one of the consultants. First time I met him, and well, I'll reserve judgement. It was a scanning session for high risk obstetric patients which means they usually come in for a scan because of some sort of complication or problem with their pregnancy. Today, most of the patients who came in was because their genetic screening showed that their baby had a reasonable-significant risk for Down's syndrome. The worst one was a 1:3 chance, so it was kind of sad. We did quite a few amniocenteses which was I found kind of surprising, though I understand the use of them and why they were being done here. I got pimped and I answered maybe one out of 20 questions correctly, which meant one question the entire afternoon. I tried to think, but my brain wasn't cooperating, which is my fault because I haven't been using it much lately. So anyway, I'm sure this dude thinks I'm a complete idiot as do the patients and the registrar (aka senior resident) who was training on using the US machine. Anyway, I'm still slightly miffed about it all, but I'll get over it.

Something that I find kind of odd, well, maybe I guess it's not odd, but it doesn't exactly help people's opinion of me, even though I know that shouldn't matter that much.. .but is that they assume that because I went to med school in Grenada that I'm from Grenada and therefore should know all about life in relations to what is standard procedure in hospitals, etc. And yes, I realize I write in run on sentences when I'm not caring. I mean, how many people really read this anyway.

I didn't sleep well last night though I passed out early, before 11. I've been exhausted and I'm not sure if that's because of not sleeping well at night or because I've been working long days. I don't really feel like I've been doing much to warrant being exhausted, but I guess I am at the hospital usually 10-13 hours a day. And this is supposed to be a nice little posting. I dunno why I'm working so hard when the other students seem to take this posting (O&G) much less seriously. I should start skipping :) But back to sleeping, I was warm last night in my sleeping bag, though I kind of wish it wasn't such a strict mummy shape as my legs were really sore and I felt that I wanted to stretch them out. They've been sore since arriving, and I'm not sure if it's from all the standing I've been doing + the 20 minutes maybe I worked out or if it's still from my flight over. Maybe I have problems with my veins.

So to sum it all up: I'm frustrated, discouraged, annoyed, disappointed, and just not quite happy with the way things went today. But I'm sure I'll be over come morning. So here's to my sunny morning disposition.

Me say...

2010-01-19T14:43:00.004-04:00

So I'm pretty excited right now. Though I doubt the excitement will last for long and it's a pretty pathetic reason to be excited all things considered, but whatever. I was leaving the post-natal ward this evening when I stopped in to see if one of the consultants was still in his office. Surprisingly, he was despite it being past 5:30pm. I was able to get some good direction on how to proceed with my posting in O&G and now I actually have an idea of how I can be more proactive in my education. I also got a recommendation for a church in town, so I think may try it out on Sunday :)

Today was actually a pretty good day. The morning wasn't much as the labor ward was really dragging and not much in ways of goings on, so I went to see a scheduled elective C-section. It was pretty cool, though I found looking at the baby more interesting than watching the surgeon close the site. I had hoped surgery would be more interesting, but I guess not. lol. The opening of the site was much more so. Maybe I'd be more into it if I was actually doing something to take part of the procedure. The most interesting aspect of the C-section was that the mom bore a striking resemblance to Sigourney Weaver.

The coolest thing I did today was play translator for the doctors to a Chinese lady who couldn't speak a lick of English. Okay, that's not true, I heard her say, "morning" and "thank you". But it was nice to just actually feel like I was doing something and being helpful, since I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing around here. She is an asylum seeker so when she had her baby, she wasn't able to go back to her previous accommodations. Now she's staying at the hospital because the UK Border Agency says she has to go back to her previous address because that's the only address she has permission to stay at, but since she can't go back, she's staying in the hospital until other arrangements with Social Services can be arranged. Her case was fairly interesting as well, but I don't think I can go into that here. But my broken Chinese made up for her lack of English and at the end I think both she and the doctors were happy with the progress made in communication.

Oh and I bought me a sleeping bag today. It's a fairly nice Vango Fusion 2-3 season bag that was on sale at an outdoor specialty store so I got it at a fairly reasonable price. I weighed my options after seeing both the sleeping bags offered and the duvet + set offered and my choices were 1) get a sleeping bag that I would actually use after I left here but pay about $15 more or 2) get a duvet + set that was cheaper, and would make the room look more homey, but would probably end up just leaving here. I opted to get the sleeping bag as I could get more mileage for the money put in.

Anywho, enough. I'm off for food and a potential work out :)

Forceps

2010-01-18T16:51:00.006-04:00

So today was a long 13 hour (7am-8pm) day in the labor ward. Voluntarily mind you, but nonetheless, long. It doesn't feel really like it's been that long because I'm not really tired, but my legs and feet are a bit sore. And now my preconceived schedule has gone to pot. I got to see my first "professional" birth, and while it was prob not the best to see as a first, it was quite interesting. It was a birth by foreceps. What this basically entails is that the baby is literally pulled out with a pair of foreceps while the mother pushes.

There are 3 methods of delivery: your usual spontaneous vaginal delivery, then there's the assisted delivery (e.g. with forceps), and then there's the C-section. So the assisted delivery is the middle ground where the mother can't quite get the baby out on her own, but either she doesn't want a C-section and really wants to just try assisted first, or the baby just needs a bit of a help.

This one required the doc to really put his back into it though and there was concern at one point when the baby's heart rate seemed to drop to a scary level.. the baby came out understandably bruised, but seemed otherwise unharmed and in fairly good health. The mother was just so grateful that the baby was finally out. Completely understandable as the baby was postterm and on the way to becoming quite the bruiser :) Didn't really disuade me from having children, despite the frank distress I've witnessed that comes with childbirth, but yeah. It could all change with my first.

I'm not sure what I can really say more on here without risking breaking confidentiality, so suffice to say, it was a good day. The midwives I worked with were great and I learned a lot about the birthing process. Still haven't met any of the consultants I'm supposed to be following though...

There was a lady that was brought in by ambulance because she got stuck in solid traffic on her way in and was having contractions 2 min apart. She ended up giving birth about 10 min upon arrival, so the midwives made a good call in sending the ambulance to get her from the the road.

Think I'll try the labor ward again tomorrow morning and maybe try something different in the afternoon... Or maybe take the afternoon off since I still have to go and get that comforter.... Decisions, decisions :)

The Anointing

2010-01-17T17:45:00.012-04:00

Today was beautiful. The first non-gloomy, dreary, rained upon day since I’ve been here. So my walk to church this morning was lovely.

I got a bit turned around when walking there, but in the process found the public library and another grocery store, a Tesco express. So church. Yes, I visited the Winchester Baptist Church… read BAPTIST. I was late as I had forgotten what time the service started and got a bit lost, but back to it being a Baptist church.

So, here’s me walking into a nice looking, kind of formal building, their sanctuary is fairly small but has a balcony and choir loft. I’d say about 35-40% of those in attendance were 50+. I squeeze in past some folk and take my seat. I’m sitting there listening to the speaker for a while… he’s speaking on the power and the pain that comes with being a Christian, and all seems to be fairly kosher. He continues on about the suffering that Christians are sure to experience and that while many new Christians look expectantly for the power of God to come upon them, most are surprised by the suffering. But it is when he starts talking about the experience of the power of God that my ears start to perk up… And how the experience of God is manifested in the speaking in tongues (uh-oh). Then he mentions that this is a conservative Baptist church, planted by Charles Spurgeon (very cool) and that they have progressed in inviting him, a Charismatic preacher, to speak to them. It’s here that all the not so subtle wordings he’s been using like “anointing,” “laying on of healing hands,” and such clicked and I think to myself… oi, this is going to be interesting… and sure enough…

He spoke about a famous Charismatic preacher, Smith Wigglesworth (cool name), who raised 14 people from the dead (including his wife for a short moment before she told him that God wanted her and that he should let her go so he did and she went back into death), and warned the congregation about praying to God for that kind of anointing because it comes with a heavy price (e.g. the death of Wigglesworth's beloved wife). About how he healed, by the grace and power of God, the black Labrador retriever of a burly, miner-type skinhead who then as the result of seeing such a healing, got saved and became the youth leader of his former church, and so on. I think the church has a ministry where they go out on the streets periodically and lay on healing hands, and they do this as part of a group of churches that included charismatic, Anglican, Unitarian, etc churches.

To cap it all off, at the end of his talk, he said he was going to do something that he was sure was unusual here: he asked those in the congregation who had need of the power of God, whether for healing, troubles in their lives, etc to stand. Everyone was then to take a hand and lay it on one of those standing close by and pray with him for the power of God to come upon them. There was one girl a seat away who started to break out in sobs at this point and continued even after the service was over. The speaker said he could see with his spirit, the power of God descending from above, coming down from the ceiling as golden 24 karat leaves floating down upon them. He warned that sometimes when a church prays for healing, there is a time when at first there is a surge of sickness so as he closed, he commanded and called out to banish and bind sickness from this church. The girl was still sobbing at the end of the service so after waiting politely for 5 minutes, I decided to do what the guy next to me did… climb over the seats in front and make my way out.

So that was my first, first-hand experience with Pentecostals/Charismatics. I hope I don’t sound callous in my rendition of what I heard and saw, because it was obvious that these people were sincere. I do believe in the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. I do believe that God heals and is able to perform miracles. I just don’t believe that He still manifests Himself and power in such ways, like speaking in tongues, now. It’s not that He can’t, but that He doesn’t. I’m still debating on whether I should go back next week since this was obviously an atypical Sunday morning service and most of the other churches within walking distance are Catholic. Maybe I can find one that’s close to a bus route…

The rest of my day was spent getting a library card, cooking, and the majority trying to make sense and organize one cohesive schedule from 4 very confusing and sometimes contradictory O & G (or as we call in the States, Ob/Gyn) schedules.

Now for some reading, then bed.

To Town...

2010-01-16T13:58:00.011-04:00

I've been doing some reading for my clinicals and have finally gotten my room cleaned up and organized. I haven't really been sleeping very well mainly I think due to the fact that the amount of blankets I need to keep warm at night weigh very heavily on me so I wake about every 2-3 hours. It's quite bothersome. I was hoping to sleep in today since it's a Saturday and I went to bed pretty late the night before, but nope, was out of bed before 9. I really have to give housekeeping a call on Monday... I went into the center of town today to see if any of the charity/thrift stores had any duvets/comforters for sale, but alas, none was to be found. So I guess Monday...

Like I mentioned, I went into town today with my roommate and we both got new SIMs for our phones. I actually switched mine from Orange to Lebra because it had cheaper rates for calling international and local. It costs about $0.06/min now for me to call the US with this SIM (vs $0.09/min with the previous), but all incoming calls regardless of origin are free. How sweet is that?

Also went to Sainsbury's, a local grocery store, kind of like a small Bi-Lo/A&P/Shop-rite. It's about a 15-20 minute walk from where I live (about 0.8miles). The walk was nice despite the on again-off again rain. Food and just generally everything is more expensive here. Even items on sale, it hurts making the conversion, so I've stopped at just making a cursory conversion, enough to determine which brand is the cheapest and just go with that.

I walked past a church on my way to the grocery store and it looked like it would be a good one to try out tomorrow. "Breaking Bread" starts at 10am, Sunday School at 2:30pm, and something else is in the evening around 4:30. I'm not really sure what "Breaking Bread" is... but that's around the time I'm used to going to the morning service at church, so I might try that out. I couldn't see the name of the church on the building, but it looked cool. Old traditional stone style building on the main shopping road. But for all I know it could be some Catholic Cathedral. I'll see if I can find any info on Google...

Well, didn't find any info on that church but found another one that looks like it might work, Winchester Baptist Church. After browsing their website, I'm left with mixed feelings, but I think I'll check it out since it's the most promising of the ones within walking distance to me.

Winchester, UK

2010-01-15T19:40:00.005-04:00

So, I arrived in England yesterday morning after flying out from Charlotte, via JFK, to London Heathrow Wednesday evening. I took the National Express coach from the airport to Winchester where my hospital, the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, is located. The flight was uneventful other than my missing my original flight from JFK to London, but I was able to catch the next flight out an hour later. (I told security that it was my flight they were announcing "last boarding call" for, but they just kept saying, "Oh you'll fine, you'll make it. You have plenty of time." They were wrong.) Flight times were decent with a little under 2 hours from Charlotte to JFK and a bit over 7 hours from JFK to London. I had a 3 hour layover in JFK and thanks to a handy dandy free voucher from my Dad, I stayed at the posh Oasis lounge. People if you travel a lot and have loads of money, invest in one of these airline club memberships. Free hot and cold buffet, well stocked open bar, Starbucks coffee, decent tea, free wi-fi, comfy seats, bathrooms with nice looking showers, and all that first class service. Plus it makes you forget that you haven't gone through security yet and to take that time into consideration when catching your connecting flight ^_^

Accommodation here is fairly basic, but works. I'll see about getting pics after I actually get my room kind of straightened up, but suffice it to say that my homestead for the next 6 months is very much like a 4 bedroom duplex. 2 bedrooms on the downstairs and 2 upstairs. There are 2 bathrooms (1 half, 1 full) a common living room, and common kitchen. One of the big perks is there is a sky light in each room which I love, but I need to get me some higher wattage light bulbs if poss, cuz for those who know me, I love me some light :) Each bedroom comes with a twin bed, desk, wall shelf, 2 chairs, a dresser+mirror, night stand, ottoman w/ storage, tiny closet, and sink. Bed linens were standard hospital issue.

I'm looking into getting an internet "dongle" (mobile internet key thingy) here that will give me internet access on my laptop, as there is none to be found in my complex. Only access at the moment is at the medical library about a 2-3 minute walk away. It's not bad, decent connection, slow responding computers, IE 6, Office 2003. Right now it looks like it will be fairly expensive ($25 or 40/mth for 3 or 10 gb down/mth respectively), but I think it's something that's fairly important (or maybe that's just the withdraw speaking) as there are some things that I will need to do regularly online.. It'll also give me free calls home and back using Skye... But really, a 2-3 minute walk every day isn't that bad. I walk further to the hospital every day...

Anyway, I did my first full day of Ob/Gyn today. It went very well, though I'm still kind of nervous for Monday when I will be pretty much on my own. The teaching style here is very much "self-directed". This means that you're given the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it. If you want to learn a lot you can go out and be proactive and do a lot. If you don't want to do much, no one's making you do anything. So basically you can spend as much or little time as you like in the rotation. There are 2 other students in my rotation. They are from the Southampton University School of Medicine. They've been very helpful and nice so far, so I think we'll get on well, though I'll prob only see them mostly in the teaching sessions we have together.

The weather here is cool and fairly dreary for the most part so far. I've seen some sun, some rain, and there's still a lot of snow on the ground. It's been about 2-4 degrees Celsius (35-40 F) here lately and I'm told this is quite chilly for this time of year. My room was cold last night and I woke up around 1:30am to put on a jacket and add 3 more doubled up blankets to my already 3 layers of blankets. These blankets though fairly thin are uber heavy so it felt like I was sleeping under a sheet of metal. But at least it was warmer and I ended up waking in a sweat and had to take off my jacket. Afterwards, it was fine. I'll have to call housekeeping on Monday to see if I can get a comforter, or I'll just get to their equivalent of a Walmart here somehow and buy one...

I'm not too jet lagged, but I do think I will be sleeping in hopefully tomorrow.

Anyway, I guess that's all for now, I'm going to head home now.

Sexy Cars

2009-02-20T00:24:00.009-04:00

So, I distracted myself from my slacking studies today by checking out beds and cars.. both sexy ;) but the cars.. Oh. My. Word. The cars. I understand the allure, truly. Exciting enough to actually update this abandoned blog of mine. One day, babes.. one of yous may be mine. haha.

Aston Martin V12 Vantage

6.0L V12 good for 510hp
A 0-60 time of 4.1 seconds and a top speed of 190 mph
Carbon fiber driveshaft, six-speed manual transmission
Independent double wishbone suspension

Aston Martin One-77

7.0-liter V12
Carbon fiber chassis
Handcrafted aluminum body with performance to match
0-60 time of 3.5 seconds, top speed of over 200 mph
Price Tag: £1 million (Yikes!)

2010 Ford Mustang

Mixes classic looks with modern design
V6 or 315-hp V8
New, meaner exterior with a more aggressive grille, a powerdome hood, larger wheels, retuned suspension
First new Mustang emblem since 1964
Headlamps inspired by the 1970 Mustang
Customizable ambient and instrument lighting that lets you set the mood in any of 125 colors
Starting at $21,845

Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster 722 S

650 hp; top speed of 220 mph
Supercharged 5.5 liter V8 engine hand-built in the Mercedes-AMG engine shop in Affalterbach
Carbon fiber body, crystal antimony grey paint finish, and a soft top that can withstand sustained 200 mph+ top speeds
Only 150 of these very-much-not-for-mass-production rides will be sold
Price tag: >$495K

Fisker Karma

Created by Henrik Fisker, the designer of the awesome Aston Martin DB9 and BMW Z8
Sports sedan hybrid!!! (50mi on a pure electric charge) Extend to >620mi w/ Karma's gas/diesel engine
Claims to hit 60 mph in 5.8s; top speed of 125 mph
Price tag: $80K

Neiman Marcus Special Edition Hennessey Venom 700NM

700-hp engine
0-60 time of 3.3 seconds
200-mph tested rear wing
Only 7 made
$179,500

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport

Topless version of the world's fastest production car
$2.25 Million

Zenvo ST1

Mid-mounted turbocharged & supercharged 7.0-liter V8 engine
1,104 horsepower!!!
1.430NM of torque
0-60 time of 3.2s; top speed of 233 mph
Only 15 scheduled for production

Lotus Evora

Maserati GranTurismo

NM 2007 BMW Individual M6 Convertible

An old one.. but still niiiiice...

Okay, I'm tired of posting now... another time.

Lost & Found Camera

2008-02-28T01:32:00.001-04:00

I Found Your Camera is a cool site to visit if you lost/found a camera.. or even if you haven't lost a camera you can check out the pics and see if there's anyone you recognize and can maybe help reunite them with their camera.

Dogs & Cats

2007-09-19T15:15:00.000-04:00

Alina posted this earlier, but I found it so delightful I had to repost... So funny... I need to get me a cat one of these days ^_^

The Dog's Diary

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!

9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!

9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!

10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!

12:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!

1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!

3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!

5:00 pm - Dinner! My favorite thing!

7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!

8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with my people! My favorite thing!

11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

The Cat's Diary

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.

They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I never heless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet.

I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates my capabilities. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event.

However, I could hear the noises and smell the food.. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released, and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe.

For now...

Raqueting the Cockroach

2007-09-15T00:54:00.001-04:00

So here I was minding my own business.. wasting my time in front of my laptop as I so often do at half-past midnight, when Aaron comes to my room in his usual manner..

"Hey! There's a cockroach in the kitchen on the wall! How do you think we should kill it? I can't reach it. It's up too high!"

So I follow Aaron back to the kitchen where I see this huge thumb drive sized cockroach chill'n out about 17ft up on the wall. I get the brilliant idea to try hitting it with a tennis ball. You can imagine the hilarity that ensued.. I had no idea that Aaron hated and had a general healthy respect for bugs of all shapes and sizes so when I threw the ball at the roach and hit about a foot away from it making it scurry off down the wall closer to us, Aaron backed away. I handed him the ball.

"You've got to try this! It's sooo much fun!"

Being as it was a long distance sport and involved standing far back from the roach Aaron and I proceeded to play racquetball with the roach... which ran back and forth along the wall as we did our best to hit it or make it come down the wall low enough to smush. Aaron called Jill out to participate in all the raucous and when she threw the ball at the roach she screamed bloody murder and ran back into her room. Man, I have to say I could not stop laughing throughout the event. I mean, picture mid-twenties adults attempting to peg an insect on a wall with a tennis ball and ducking as the tennis ball bounces back and all over the kitchen, chasing after the ball, laughing like it was a skit on SNL. Sure it was silliness to the extreme but it was so much fun!

Finally the roach was low enough to where I got on the kitchen table which proceeded to creak ominously and took Broccoli's water dish and rolled it over the roach, smearing roach innards all along the wall and the bowl. That was actually rather gross... I was going to leave it up on the wall as a reminder of the fun and because it was so disgusting I thought it would be a fantastic surprise for my other roommate Deann to see in the morning. heh. oh well. It turned out to be a tad too graphic for Jill and Aaron's taste so I climbed back up and unceremoniously wiped him off the face of the wall after giving a detailed description as to the color and similarities of its guts to chicken meat.

My one regret? Not catching everything, esp Jill, on camera ^_^

Musing...

2007-08-26T17:52:00.000-04:00

what if we live today like it is the tomorrow we dream it will be and the yesterday we wish we could have done differently?

Oh them buddles of joy!

2007-08-24T11:34:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine posted this as a note on her facebook, and it was so great I had to repost.. so have fun with this one... all I can say is I am sooooo ready. hah! riiiight.. bring it on! :P

HOW TO KNOW WHETHER OR NOT YOU ARE READY TO HAVE KIDS

MESS TEST Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

TOY TEST Obtain a 55 gallon box of Legos (or you may substitute roofing tacks). Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream because this would wake a child at night.

GROCERY STORE TEST Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

DRESSING TEST Obtain one large, unhappy, live octopus. Stuff into a small net bag making sure that all the arms stay inside.

FEEDING TEST Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal into the mouth of the jug, while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

NIGHT TEST Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and fill it with 8-12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly in water. At 3:00 p.m. begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9:00 p.m. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10:00 p.m. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these too until 4:00 a.m. Set alarm for 5:00 a.m. Get up and make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

INGENUITY TEST Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and pot of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now take a toilet paper tube and turn it into an attractive Christmas candle. Use only scotch tape and a piece of foil. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty box of Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

AUTOMOBILE TEST Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a dime. Stick it into the cassette player. Take a family size package of chocolate chip cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There, perfect.

PHYSICAL TEST (Women) Obtain a large beanbag chair and attach it to the front of your clothes. Leave it there for 9 months. Now remove 10 of the beans. And try not to notice your closet full of clothes. You won't be wearing them for a while.

PHYSICAL TEST (Men) Go to the nearest drug store. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasize to them that they should never allow their children to run wild. Enjoy this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

I saw a bird the other day...

2007-08-20T17:07:00.001-04:00

... with a broken wing in the middle of the road in front of Banana's. It was still alive and must have gotten hit by some errant car. It seemed to be trying very hard to "crawl" out of the road dragging its one broken wing whilst weakly flapping the good wing. I didn't see it til I had almost driven right past it. I looked in my rear view mirror and there were 4 more cars behind mine, one of which was a reggae bus. Fear gripped me and I knew that there was only the slightest chance that the bird could survive that many cars... I kept driving, and yet all the while I kept thinking about the bird and what could have happened to it and wondering if I should turn around and try somehow to save it. Maybe the VTH (Veterinary Teaching Hospital) would take it in. I could call my roommate and see if the VTH could even do anything about it. I turned my car around...

The entire way back, I kept saying, "please don't be dead.. please don't be dead.. please don't be dead"...

I drove past Banana's... all that was left was a flattened feathered remnant with a single down feather still twitching in the breeze. I don't know why.. but I felt a great sadness.. Sure it was only a bird.. but it hadn't seemed like some backwater scavenger bird.. it had been pretty and something about its feeble attempts at escaping from certain death had struck me in a way I couldn't ignore. I thought about that bird the entire way home...

Coming Soon!

2007-05-20T04:53:00.000-04:00

This is for Shaheryar since you said you'd check and I wanted to make sure I actually have something here for when you check :)

I will update more.. now that I of course "have more time." heh. Will def try. It's on my TO DO list, along with get 3 jobs, go see the eye doc, orthodontist, give my dogs a bath, clean my room, unpack, have a yard sale, go to CA, get in shape, bench press 200lbs (lol), train Vasco to jump through flaming hoops, etc. You know, the usual :)

SGU on TV

2007-04-20T17:54:00.001-04:00

So I could have been on TV...

***********

(Credit for the majority of this goes to Yon.. )

"GoGo Lucky Productions has approached SGU to use the school as a backdrop to film a docudrama about the struggle and challenges of life as a medical student in the Caribbean [think med school Grey's Anatomy reality TV]. The series will run on the Oxygen network [Oprah's network]. We would like to hear your feedback on the idea since obviously there are many pros and cons to go with it.

A little bit about GoGo Lucky productions is that it was responsible for the series "Laguna Beach" however, this docudrama has been said to be a "success show" and not Luguna Beach-esque. They recently have started a show called "Esquire" which is along the same lines as the idea proposed to SGU, except that it was done following a law student at Vanderbilt University. This show is yet to air on television so we do not know of its success or the impact it has had on the school. [also I heard they tried this idea at a US med school in CA, but it was really boring with little drama so the idea of med school in the Caribbean was broached and apparently seemed much more appealing...]

Here is a little information about how this docudrama will work....

The production company plans to select about 10 students to film and follow, starring as the "main characters" [and potentially up to 30 secondary supporting characters]. The creative ideas have been evolving since the inception of the idea, but the aim is to have about two incoming first term students that can be followed from the States to Grenada as well as students from other terms. About six of the main characters will be American students and the others may be international students, and the idea is to choose a diverse group to portray the cosmopolitan student body here at SGU.

Filming of these students will be 3-4 days a week, shot in scenes, not 24/hours a day like MTV's TheRealWorld. The camera crew will consist of about 5 people who may in some cases set up the shot and leave the camera rolling. They plan to film many moments in the students lives including preparing to leave for the island, arrival in Grenada, orientation, white coat ceremony, first day of classes, first day of labs, study groups with friends, DES sessions, entering and leaving exam halls, phone calls to home when homesick, nights out at bananas, sandblast.... you name it. They plan to film in lecture halls, libraries and study spaces to get the shots they need to portray the story.

Some things to note.... anyone caught on camera while filming the scene will have to sign a release form if the shot is to be aired on television. Thus people who do not want to be on TV can actively refuse to sign the form and the shot cannot be used.

Students selected to be on the show will be paid though we were advised that the sum is not very much. [I was told it would be about enough to cover our textbooks for a term...]

Now for the pros and cons.... this show, if successful, can portray SGU in a great light to the American public. It can be a medium for advertising the school and may even help abolish the stigma that Caribbean med schools are inferior to American schools by showing the dedication and drive of the students in addition to the facilities we have available here in Grenada.
However, should the show end up portraying the school or the students in a negative light, we would not want to jeopardize the credibility of SGU. [not to mention, that many students tend to celebrate the end of any major exam by getting plastered the evening after... not exactly something you want the admin looking at your application for residency seeing.. not to mention your future patients should they Google you... and let's not even mention Sandbast...]

With that said, the network has informed us that if SGU chooses not to participate, they will run the show at either American University of the Caribbean in St. Maarten or Saba University School of Medicine in the island of Saba. Now this has implifications for us, in that if the show is successful, America may think that all medical schools in the Caribbean are like these smaller schools, including SGU. This may in fact hurt our reputation.

Chancellor Modica has assured the SGA that he will not proceed with this idea unless the student body wants it, so please use this wall to voice your concerns, opinions on the idea so that the SGA can truly represent you on this matter. Please also feel free to talk to your SGA reps or email SGArep2010@gmail.com."

If decided on, casting call would have begun next term with filming commencing in January of 2008.

*************

Okay, so since all this buzz, the SGA met and voted AGAINST "SGU TV"

Email to the chancellor stated the following:

After a long discussion this evening, the Student Government Association voted overwhelmingly against the motion to have GO GO LUCKEY Productions film the "docu-drama" at St. George's University. Many students discussed the potential for the program to reflect badly on the university as well as the students. Additionally, the issue of privacy as well as distractions inside and outside the classroom were discussed. After considering the past projects the producer, Austyn Biggers, has been involved with, including "Hottest Mom in America", some students believed that the intentions of the network and/or producer may not have been presented completely. Although there were individuals who believed that there was some potential for the university to gain good exposure and publicity, the students believe the negative aspects could potentially be more damaging. They were concerned that they would be identified during residency interviews and elsewhere as "attending the school on that television show". Finally, the students were uncomfortable with the fact that the final decision of what was to be aired by the network was not clear, and that this could potentially be problematic for the university and those students involved and not involved in the filming."

The chancellor basically replied and said that he would inform the producers of the school's decision to NOT go through with it. Kind of cool that the "student" vote was the deciding factor.

***********

So I guess all you peeps back home will just have to satisfy yourselves with the occasional pic and even rarer blog to keep you up to date on the goings on here in the Caribbean... all I can say is that I'm lovin' it... most of the time anyway :P

MTV actually did a video of the school a while back.. you can find it here. Video options are at the bottom of the page.

I know, I know...

2007-02-26T13:09:00.000-04:00

I haven't updated in a while. What else is new? Mainly it's cuz I've been waiting on pics from Vasco's emergency vet visit. For those who don't know he was attacked by a neighbor's dog while he was out in our backyard... I'll actually post the story when I do finally get the pics... but suffice it to say he had to get 20 stitches but he's doing great now.

Midterms are next week. Anatomy -Monday, Histology - Wednesday, and Biochemistry - Friday. Exciting. I think not. Is it bad if I'm already sick of it? I'm such a lazy bum :) What I've found interesting is that my worst class in undergrad is now my best class in med school and the classes I did fairly well in undergrad I find the most challenging. *shrugs*

Anyway, I'm tired, so I guess that's all I'll be updating now. In histo class now, and I don't know why I decided to actually come to class today. Maybe I thought that a new prof would actually make a difference, but alas, no. Ah well.. I chose this path, no? I'm happy. Really... I'm happy. am I? I'm just tired.

Luggage Woes

2007-01-12T18:40:00.001-04:00

So I arrived in Grenada on Monday night and guess what? No luggage. I must have jinxed it on my flight. I was talking to this girl who was starting 5th term in St. Vincent and told her that Liat had been pretty decent with me luggagewise, as I had yet to lose my luggage with them. Well, I spoke too soon. It's Friday and still.. no luggage. I've called twice a day because there are two Liat flights daily from Puerto Rico. But alas, nothing. The Liat personnel are not very supportive or helpful. They just tell me there's nothing they can do and that it happens. What I don't understand is why it hasn't come so far. They promised it'd be back Thursday night, but when I got to Point Salines International Airport, they said that there wasn't enough room on the last flight so it had been left behind (along with about 30 other pieces of luggage) til Friday's flight. So we'll see...

Strange thing is that I've flown with them many other times, and there have been instances when the flight's been overbooked and everyone has 2 pieces of luggage weighing 50lbs or more and every piece of luggage makes it. Somehow, when we came in, there was a baggage embargo so you were only allowed 50lbs total for 2 pieces of luggage. And our flight wasn't overbooked, rather there were several empty seats.. and for reasons Liat cannot explain except to say "circumstances may have been different" there wasn't enough room or something. Either way, luggage was left behind. And not just mine, but several others on my flight did not get their luggage. I asked if I could be recompensed for expenses I would need to spend in the mean time for clothing and necessities and of course, Liat will not take any responsibility.

So I've been borrowing clothing and sheets from my roomies for the past 4 days. No big deal really. They're cool with it and offered.

So why do I fly with Liat when I have had so many issues with them? Cuz they're cheaper than if I fly straight with American. I typically save $300-400 per ticket. Is it worth it? I'm beginning to wonder...

Back to School

2007-01-07T01:58:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm beginning my flight back to Grenada tomorrow/today. Leaving Sunday at 9:20AM from Charlotte, flying to Philly then onto San Juan, Puerto Rico for an overnight stay. Then I'll be flying out from PR Monday afternoon and finally arriving in Grenada around 8:05PM.

Things I'm concerned about:

I'm going to exceed the allotted weight limit... again.
I got Vasco a larger carry-on bag... it's a lot larger, so I'm concerned that if the peeps ask too many questions, they may not allow me to use it. It's pretty much only 4 inches taller and 2 inches wider.. and it'll "collapse" to fit any type of conformation for underseat storage, however, it still looks pretty massive.. so that's a major concern.
I'm sick. I haven't been feeling well since Friday morning and I'm still feeling pretty ick. Much of it is GI issues of which I shall not disgust you with details ... it's actually not that bad, but it's bad enough to cause concern and some major discomfort. Something I'd rather not deal with when traveling.

So if you think of it, pray for me. Thanks! :)

Oh and I just started packing like 2 hours ago, and am nowhere near finished. poo.

And this time, I found it much harder to feel ready to leave.. I don't feel nearly ready :( Yet I'm trying to psych myself for the trip and hope it'll be fun and one that is not full of regret but rather promise.

To The Happy Couple

2006-11-14T20:33:00.000-04:00

Congratulations are in order to my great friends Rich Sevilla and Beth Ryerson. They got engaged on the 4th at some location in the States.. and that's about all I know actually :P I haven't heard the story yet, but I look forward to it once we have the time to in each of our schedules (FT school for them, and FT work for moi). So yeah, when I know... believe me, you'll know. heh. though I guess it may be a really long time before you know considering my current trend with updating my blog and all :) So yay again! I'm sooo happy for them!

Wedding's currently set for the 20th of October, next year... in pleasant Greenville, SC. Sadly, I'll prob be in Grenada at that time in the middle of med and all... hmm.. maybe American Airlines or something will have some extravagant sale right then... wouldn't that be Providential... I could always hot air balloon it too... hmm....

They're sooo cute!

Update

2006-11-09T00:54:00.000-04:00

So I've been meaning to blog and update and all that good stuff.. and I have pics and stories, and so much to tell... but obviously I haven't exactly gotten around to it yet.

I get my wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow morning at 8:30, so I'll prob be loopy for that day, then probably really not feeling up to update then either... so that's just to let you know what's up.

I have started my practicum, and it's going great! Another thing I mean to blog about... um.. okay, guess that'll do for now. I need sleep.

Clean Slate

2006-11-02T02:40:00.000-04:00

My laptop crashed for good last night, so since then I've been reformatting, reinstalling my OS... Currently I'm updating and reinstalling all the programs.. I have to say, I love updating and installing :) no wonder my laptop gets full so quickly. Anywho... when it's finally up to par, I'll update in more detail. Til then...

It's a Wonderful Life

2006-11-01T19:25:00.000-04:00

Check this out! It's a vid Eugene, Rich, and others made.. gotta say it's rock'n! Even if depressing :P

its a wonderful life

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Much delayed

2006-10-27T14:44:00.000-04:00

Well, I left Grenada at 7:40 this morning when I should have left at 7... and I've now been stuck in Antigua since 930 because Liat cancelled our flight to San Juan. So we're about to catch an American Airlines flight to San Juan in a few minutes but because of all the delay, I'm going to have to overnight it in San Juan. Bah. I guess it's just another sleepless night. More details of trip to come later. :(

Update

2006-10-26T08:56:00.000-04:00

I know I have been really slack in updating my blog this term, and for that I sincerely apologize. Sorry to have to make this one short too, but after another long sleepless night studying for my last final, I must conserve the min. remaining energy for a final boost of mind energy... right. Anywho, the point is, I have my last final today at 1pm. I need to do ever so well on this to seriously give my grade a boost, for as it stands now, it is very pitiful indeed. There really is no margin for error. So please pray for me if you would. I also have to turn in my final copy of my Capstone paper as well as last term's Promotion's work. So there is still very much to do...

Tonight's my make-up dinner party for some friends so that should be fun and hopefully relaxing :P Then I'll pack and catch my early morning flight out on Friday! Yay! Then sleep :)

Updates will follow, I promise! Just no idea how soon after. You know how it goes. Okay, well, back to studying!

To end on a happy note, here's some pics of Vasco and the new additions to the fam..

Kingsley, Jill & Aaron's cat

Brocolli, Jill & Aaron's Dog

Kingsley & Minche's meet and greet.. Black vs. White

...and it's Vasco!

HbA1C

2006-10-09T01:48:00.000-04:00

I just want to share the great news that my bro's most recent HbA1C was 5.9! This is the lowest it's ever been since he's been a diabetic and a really great improvement over the last couple of results. A normal person's HbA1C is between 4.5 and 5.7, so my bro's really getting there! This is definately a cause for great rejoicing! The doc said that he seemed to really be doing a good job regulating his insulin and controlling his diet. Yay. My bro's really starting to grow up and take responsiblity for himself. I'm so proud of him ^_~

He'll prob throttle me if he ever finds out I posted this... but I'll deal with that should the event occur :)

In Memory Of Lady

2006-09-28T04:24:00.000-04:00

I am so sad and heartbroken right now. I'm sure some people won't understand how it is possible to be so emotional over the death of a dog, and one that wasn't even mine. Lady was Paul and Kate's dog, and to me she wasn't just "some dog." To me she was almost like a rambunctious, wild child who adored you and wanted only ever just be with you and play with you. She wanted so much to be with those she loved, and tried so hard to stay with them that in the end, she died trying.

But tonight, though tears have been shed and may very well still be shed, I take with me the picture of her lopsided happy grin, with her tongue hanging out... and adoring, ready to please eyes.

I'll miss you, Lady.

Skytop

2006-09-12T00:06:00.000-04:00

This is the story of a house called Skytop. Well, not really, I guess it's more a recount of events relating to a house called Skytop. Which I guess is the same thing, only from my point of view? Eh, whatever. Okay, so my roomie, who we shall call Deann because, well, that's her name, and I have been planning on moving from our current place of residence in the Bouganvillea Apartments of Mourne Toute for the January term. We've been keeping a watch on the SGU Post for postings of available housing that seem to suit our needs. My roommate found a post for a 3 bedroom house in Lance Aux Epines. She went to visit, and called me right after seeing it. She was so excited and what she told me made me made me really excited to see the place.

So the following day, during my 12pm break between classes, Deann took me up to see the place. And wow. It was incredible. I was only able to see the outside since the doors were locked, but there was a clear view of the living room and patio from the back yard. And speaking of the yard... it was HUGE! I mean simply ginormous! And the view... the house is situated on top of a hill so that the backyard and driveway overlook Prickly Bay and the beach. You can even see the True Blue campus from the yard. The backyard was completely overgrown with grass coming up past the knees. There was no screening on an of the windows, and no furniture to be seen. But none of that mattered. I was in love :P My roomie was in love.

So we went back to the apartment and my roomie called up that was handling the house rental for the owners. And the news.. was grim. She told Deann that just that morning the wife of a visiting vet professor had come to look at the place and that they were going to move in at the end of the week. My roomie was devastated. I was crestfallen, but optimistic. I guess my roomie had an extra day on me for the house to grow on her, so it was hitting her a bit harder than me. She told the lady to take her number and that if anything happened or came up to give us a call. The lady promised and that was that. Deann was really down about it for days. It really was a let down. It seemed the perfect place and had everything we ever wanted for an incredible rent. I mean, I was disappointed, but I guess not obviously so, cuz Deann asked me, "How can you still be so peppy all the time? Is it a Christian thing?" I laughed and was kind of surprised even. I just told her that for me I just see it as God's will, even though I am kind of sad about it. But that if He wanted us to have it, He'd make it happen.

Heh. For days after we'd plot about stalking the couple who "stole" our house or how we could make the house unappealing to them. But we never followed up on it. They were supposed to move in on a Friday, and Sunday when I drove by on the bus to the Gardenghi's it seemed uninhabited with no car in the driveway and no seeming life inside. But of course that meant nothing because I mean, I don't have a car and the house is big enough that 2 people inside can be easily hidden :P

Then Wed or Thursday my roomie heard a piece of news... apparently the couple weren't very happy with the place and were looking to move elsewhere. This was a very encouraging piece of news, though did make me wonder what could have been so bad to have made them not want it. My roomie said she'd look the professor up and ask him about it and see if he was still considering moving and that if he was to tell her first cuz we wanted first dibs on the place. She finally caught up with him on Friday and called me right after. She was ecstatic. The couple apparently moved in Friday but moved out the very next day. A miracle! I mean, it was unbelievable. I asked how that could be and why, and she said that they were an older couple and since the house was completely unfinished with no screening, scant furniture they had gotten eaten up that Friday night by mosquitoes and found the place unappealing unfinished.

We were so excited! Immediately upon returning home my roomie called the lady up and she confirmed that the couple had moved out but that she had promised the house to someone else. Again, we were like, "WHAT?!" She said she was looking for the girl of a purple car that she had promised the house to. My roomie was like, "That's me!" Apparently the lady had lost Deann's number and had been trying to track her down all week and now we were contacting her! She said that we could go take another look around the place since there were workers there working on the house and the doors would be unlocked.

I was finally able to take a look around the inside of this wonderful dream house and the inside was just as the out. There are 3 spacious bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Each bedroom had lots of closet space. The master bedroom is huge with a walk-in closet and own bathroom. The other 2 bedrooms technically share a bathroom since they have adjoining doors to the bathroom, but with 3 bathrooms in the house, each roommate would have their own bathroom. The "separate" bathroom even has a pseudo bathtub. There is an extensive patio and large full size kitchen with full size stove and fridge. It also has plenty of cabinet space. Included is a washing machine that we plan on just using for emergencies to cut down on electricity cost.

When we got there the workers were putting up screening and the lady taking care of the house told us that she was going to put an A/C unit in one of the bedrooms. They had cut some of the lawn in the back so we could actually walk around a bit and see the back of the house. My roomie talked about how she could see all the study parties and barbecues she could throw and started planning out a house warming party :)

We called up our former 3rd roomie, Breon, to see if she could convince her father to let her move in with us. We gave her a lower rent because we knew her father had wanted her to move in the first place because the other place had been cheaper. Deann said that she had a friend that lived close to where Breon is now living and that her friend had just gotten robbed a few days ago in broad daylight and her boyfriend had gotten roughed up. Breon said she'd try to convince her dad. Well, Deann called me tonight with the sad news. Breon wasn't able to convince her parents to let her move. She hadn't even been able to say anything because her father didn't even want to hear about it. It was sad. Sad mostly for Breon, but for us as well, because now we're short a roommate and we'd rather not have to foot the whole rent on our own. So we've got an ad up in the SGU post and we'll see if we have any takers.

As it is I'll already be paying for 2 months rent for when I'm not even here to take advantage of it *sighs* oh well. We've called our landlady here and left messages to let her know that we were looking to move to another place. Since we haven't really actually signed a renewed lease, we're technically not obligated to stay. But we want to give her about a months notice to give her some time to find replacement tenants for our current apartment. Hopefully she'll let us go with not too much trouble. Deann will prob have to pay some money because of some damage the cats have done to the furniture here, but other than that, the place is still in good condition. We're hoping to move in around the 9th or 10th of October, though the 1st would be great as long as we can get out of this place. We'd rather not be paying for rent in two places and only staying in one. So yup yup... Things in housing are looking up :)

Genius Friends

2006-08-25T00:39:00.000-04:00

Figures my friends are those who can so well make me feel so inferior :p

My bud Andy (who recently got the enthusiastic nod of approval from his girl Jemima Yumena's parents.. yay!), successfully completed the below quiz in 2 min 14 sec (he even friggin timed himself! Well, check out his blog and you wouldn't be so surprised). So... anyone care to challenge?

Japanese IQ Test

2006-08-24T22:38:00.000-04:00

Here's a mind bending IQ test that should be at least relatively familiar to most of us. Thanks go to Paul for sending me the link. Took me about 10-15 min to solve, and even on repeat tries, I still had to think about it. How long does it take you?

New Advisor

2006-08-23T16:10:00.000-04:00

So I've had a new advisor every term that I've been in the MPH program. First advisor was Mr. Gerald St. Cyr, current Capstone Practicum Coordinator. He was new to the staff and faculty when I started in January and gave up his advisees the following term due to the work load and responsibilities he had as the practicum coordinator. He was nice, til he started getting in the weeds with trying to get students practicum sites. I think he was frustrated and the myriad students coming up to him and all asking him the same questions about their practicum sites and when they were going to see results or whatever started getting to him. I can understand that. I'd prob start getting pretty peeved myself after the 58th person to ask me if I'd found them a practicum site yet.

Second term, I had Dr. Kianre Eouanzoui. He was our Biostats prof first term in Jan. I'm pretty sure I've blogged about that in the past, so I'll leave that for you to review. He's not here this term, though I'm not sure why. Maybe he had some unfinished business to take care of, or maybe he got sick of the students and some of the crazy attitudes and rumors he'd get from them.. not sure. He was signed on as the permanent Biostats prof, but this term, Dr. Forde is teaching it again, and Dr. Eouanzoui is nowhere to be found. Even his office has been reassigned to others. Kind of sad. I hope if he is gone for good, he doesn't leave with all together a bad impression. That would be sad and unfortunate

This term, I have a new advisor, Mr. Brian Neff. I didn't even know I had one til I was walking by the office and realized that Dr. Eouanzoui was gone. So I asked the secretary who m new advisor was and she informed me it was Mr. Neff. I thought it would be a good idea to at least intoduce myself and such so I went to his temp office and told him who I was and he said it would be great to just sit down and talk a bit. So we went to the back break room area and had a nice little chat. He's brand new to the University, but apparently here for good. He was a hydrologist from Michigan and I found some info online that he was doing some stuff with United States Geological Survey. He told me some more about himself and how he arrived with no info whatsoever. Didn't even get a welcome package that we students received when we first got accepted, so hasn’t' really had much to go on. He was offered the opportunity to do a PhD in microbiology while he is here on staff and after reviewing the program, is going to go for it. So he's kind of a student-teacher, but not. He seems really nice and cool. I like him and think that this may be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. lol. Anywho, he's going to be taking over teaching Environmental Health. He said he didn't even realize he was going to be teaching the class til he got here about 2-3 weeks ago, so he's been going over Dr. Forde's notes and slides and taking out things he doesn't need/want. I think he'll be a good prof, though of course my opinion is based only on a 15-20 min convo with him. We talked some about my practicum and he gave me some advice on that. I'd say he's prob advised me more profitably than either of my two previous advisors have combined. I left with some things to think about and consider, which is a good thing, and felt like we'd actually accomplished something.

So for my practicum, I'm looking into something maybe related to pediatrics and emergency medicine. Mr. Neff suggested maybe looking into doing something with disaster relief/preparation... even out of States. He thought maybe that the Red Cross, or other humanitarian societies would even pay for my flight, room, and board if I volunteered my time and services with them and I think it would definitely be something along my line of interest. Sounds like a great experience both learning of both hands on and head knowledge. Which is I think what it should be about. So, yeah. I like my new advisor. He's cool. Hope I still think so at the end of the term :) Presently, I have no reason to think otherwise.

Ack!

2006-08-22T09:08:00.000-04:00

So I just found out that my class that was supposed to start today doesn't actually start til next week. So I could have actually stayed home for an extra 2 weeks.. though I did want to come for the opening activities, nevertheless, it would have been good to know. So here we were, the whole class, sitting in class waiting for our professor to come in, when Dr. Forde (another MPH prof, and vice chair of the dept) comes and tells us that there's been a mix up in the department with scheduling and that this class (Capstone) doesn't actually start til next week. *sighs* oh well. An extra week of break... and I guess I can use it to finalize my topic for my paper and "use my time wisely" or some such...

So I'm here....

2006-08-22T01:50:00.000-04:00

So I've been on the island since Wednesday. I left Tuesday morning and all was well traveling to Puerto Rico. Had a minor tense moment when the US Airways check-in desk guy asked if Vasco could stand up and turn around in his carry-on bag, but he didn't actually make him do it so all was well. San Juan was great. Really enjoyed it. Wish I could have stayed longer to have been able to take the time to really enjoy it fully. Tried out 2 complimentary of drinks at the Wet Bar of the Water Club Hotel. Discovered that melon martinis are pretty good, and that I can't really hold my alcohol *grins* I wasn't drunk, but I did feel the effects. A tad tipsy... maybe what they call a buzz. heh. Well, guess that's my Asian heritage.

Flight out from San Juan was delayed for 30 min but no big deal. Flew in to Antigua where I was informed that they were going to switch my flight so I would now be traveling through Barbados because they said that they had overbooked the flight from St. Vincent to Grenada. But I told them I couldn't do that because I had a dog with me. Heh. Everytime I mentioned that I had a dog, the response was the same.. "WHAT?!" But yeah, Barbados has a new restrictions where they no longer allow animals through their airport. I wasn't about to fly there only to find out that I could go on but Vasco had to be sent back, so I told them that I wouldn't be able to fly out to Barbados... so after much trouble, I was finally put back on my original flight. Flight from Antigua to St. Vincent's was delayed for about 2 to 3 hours due to a mechanical failure of the air conditioning unit in the plane. The flight to St. Vinnies had quite a bit of turbulence and the plane wasn't exactly new either... much rattling and tremors and vibrations during the flight. The flight from St. Vinnies wasn't overbooked as I had been told. There were are least 3-4 empty seats. But arrived in one piece safe and sound in Grenada about 2.5 hours later than the intended arrival time. Was supposed to get in at 8, didn't get in til about 1030pm. Went through customs without any difficulty and got Dexter, a local taxi driver, to drive me back to my pad...

And what a surprise awaited me when I arrived at the apt. The cats had gone feral.. there was cat litter and cat food all over the floor... Cassie, my roomie's dog had 2 accidents on the floor.. a messy welcome to say the least. My roomie had been gone for about a month and had asked some friends to take care of the kiddies while she was gone. She also hired a guy to come take care of them when her friends weren't able to. I assume that the factors contributing to the messes were the fact that they lacked and missed the human interaction and contact that they usually get when my roomie or I are at the place and that whoever was responsible for the kiddies the day I got back either didn't come, or figured I'd get back early enough to take care of the last treatment for the day and so they didn't make the final round.

I woke up the following day, Thursday, thinking it was still Wednesday and cleaned up the place. Swept and mopped the floors, cleaned the bathroom, did laundry of clothes, curtains, bath mats, sofa covers, sheets, everything. Went to the store and stocked up the fridge. It was pretty productive I'd say, though tiring.

Friday, I went on the Rum Runner Cruise sponsored by the University for new incoming students. There was a smaller turnout this term compared to last term, and seemed a bit more tame. We went to a different beach... the one in front of the Rex Resort which was a smaller beach. I had brought snorkeling gear with me this term so had fun doing that apart from the main group. Lots of fishies, coral, plants, and the like. No sharks were to be found to my great relief. It was fun :)

Return to the Island

2006-08-15T05:30:00.000-04:00

Well, sadly, my newest update is only just to let you all know that I'm heading back to Grenada this morning. My US Airways flight leaves from Charlotte, NC at 9:30am and will arrive in San Juan, Puerto Rico around 1:11 pm. I'll be staying the day/night here then going on from there to Grenada tomorrow. I'll be taking Liat, leaving PR around 2:10pm, with a bunch of mini connecting flights through the islands before finally arriving in Grenada around 8pm.

I'm actually looking forward to going back. Should be hopefully a good term. Stupid Capstone paper thing. Hate papers. oh well... maybe I'll actually keep up with my updates here.. heh. right-o!

So it's now about 5:30am, with another sleepless night. But my bags are packed (only slightly overweight...) my room's actually clean.. .and I'm ready to go. Just have to take Vasco for a last walk around the hood and we'll both be set to go. Pray for us that we may have a safe flight and that there won't be any issues or delays due to the new security precautions/restrictions. Also that they don't look too closely at how much room Vasco has in his bag, cuz he's just about out grown it.. poor baby.

Update on Mateo - 2

2006-08-01T02:26:00.000-04:00

Well, Mateo's got his splint off. It was removed last Thursday, and while at the vet it was discovered that he had a skin parasite, Demodex canis, which causes the condition that he now has, Demodectic mange. It's an inherited parasite that he got from his mother, but most dogs' immune system can overcome it and suppress it. However, Mateo's immune system was apparently not up to par, so hence he now has this mange thing. He's got a spot of it on his side where it's red and going bare. It's not contagious or anything, and hopefully will remain localized and not spread to anywhere else on his body, though I think I found a new spot the other day. He's on antibiotics for it and has another appointment coming up to check both the progress on his leg and the mange spot.

His leg is still weak and discolored. He still has a pronounced limp when he walks, but doesn't seem to slow him down too much. He's able to put some weight on it though, which is good. You can tell when comparing his two hind legs that there's been muscular atrophy because one thigh is much smaller than the other. Hopefully, it'll improve as he gets more use out of it.

Mateo, Faith, and Vasco all got bathed on Sunday, so now they're nice and clean. Let's hope they stay relatively clean til their next bath time... I'm hoping to get one more in before I leave because I know Faith, Hope, and Mateo won't get washed while I'm out... that's just the way things are. I'm the only one who takes the time to give them bathes. oh well...

Catching up is hard to do... Part 2

2006-07-14T04:04:00.001-04:00

I know it's been about time since I actually updated my blog from when I said I'd update it so here's some of the past dates of possible interest..

Friday, May 26 - Scuba: Session 2

Today for our Open Water session we went to the Northern Exposure. This was really cool because we went during starfish breeding season when thousands of starfish come to this spot to mate. We went a few days after the week of prime mating so there weren't nearly as many starfish, but there were still hundreds of them all over the sea floor. It was so cool. They were huge! Some spanned over 2 feet in diameter. They come to this one spot during about a one week period every year to breed. I hope to come out again next year during this time and hopefully I'll have an underwater case for my digital and be able to take lots of pics!

Saturday, May 27 - Scuba: Session 3 & 4

For our final Open Water scuba sessions, we returned to the Northern Exposure for our first dive in the morning, and in the afternoon we went to the Victoria Wreck site. This wreck is that of a cargo ship that had started taking in water in the harbor. However, by the time the pumps from land arrived to help pump the water out of the ship, it had already sunk, the day prior to their arrival. Late by a day. Though if you know anything about how timely things typically run on the island, it comes as no surprise. So anyway, the dive shops in the area all got together and thought it would be great to have a wreck dive site that was close to the island that they could take their students and clients to. So they had the ship towed out to sea. However, enroute to the chosen site, the tow cable snapped and the ship once again sank. But it ended up working out well since the site the ship sank was on a nice coral reef so it was actually quite a nice dive site.

When we dove there, the wreck was about 10 years old and it was teeming with aquatic life. It was very neat as we were able to swim around the ship as well as in the cargo hold area. We even got to see some barracuda who left us alone as we them. One side of the ship's hull was bare while the other was covered with coral, barnicals and other from the way the current flowed.

And so the conclusion of our 4th and final Open Water dive signaled our graduation and certification as Open Water Scuba Divers! yay! So much fun. I can hardly wait to go out again. I've enjoyed it immensely. Much more than I ever thought I would. Now only to come up with the money to fund my joy dives :)

Update on Mateo

2006-07-14T03:17:00.000-04:00

Well, Mateo doesn't have hip dysplasia. Not yet anyway. Rather he broke his leg. Not sure exactly how, but the speculation was either he tripped/got tangled in the lamp cord or the lamp fell on him. He got X-rays at the vet and there's a crack right above his growth plate on his femur. Since the bones did not seem to have pulled apart, the vet splinted the leg and hopefully it'll be able to heal up without surgery. Surgery would end up involving screws and stuff costing over $1000 at the least. Mateo though has been doing well so far. He seemed pretty depressed and down the first couple of days. Not having much of an appetite and not really moving around much. My mom suggested giving him buttermilk to help supplement calcium and protein to assist with the healing, and had I been thinking about it I would have said that dogs were lactose intolerant, but alas I did not. So Mateo and Vasco were both suffering from diarrhea for about a week. Even still now, they have pretty loose stools. It's gotta be hard for Mateo. But he seems much more perky now. Already he'll hobble around and even sometimes attempt to jog some if we're not watching. He's eating much better though still not up to his usual amount and plays with the other dogs. We have to be careful though because Vasco will try to sometimes jump on him and they can get a bit rough when they play. Mateo's supposed to try to no move around too much and get as much rest as possible to help the leg heal up. The vet said it should be good in about 2-3 weeks since he's still just a puppy and they apparently heal really fast. His last check up on the Monday following the incident showed no indication of any swelling, so we have another appointment scheduled for this upcoming Monday. I guess we'll see how things have progressed. My mom's bought beef liver for Mateo to supplement his food because liver's really good for this kind of thing. Hard to explain in English sometimes surprisingly the ideas that I originally learned in Chinese as a kid. We've tried to keep his leg in a plastic bag for several reasons: 1) the splint has to remain dry otherwise it'll have to be replaced and that will cost another $45 on top of the $190 I already spent on his vet bill, 2) it helps keep the splint clean esp when he goes outside, and 3) he first one or two days after his injury he would have accidents when he was either laying down on the bed or the couch and it would be a total mess. We had to clean him, the furniture, etc. The bag protects the splint in the event of an accident helping with reason number 1.

Mateo's Hurt

2006-07-06T04:35:00.000-04:00

We're not sure what happened, and I wasn't home when it did, but when I came home this evening, my brother told me that Mateo seemed to have a permanant limp. He was unwilling or unable to use or put any weight on his left rear leg. My brother said that he wasn't sure, but that he thought it might be hip dysplasia since Mateo had earlier been able to do some pretty crazy things with his hind legs like do a complete split much like my roomie's cat would do. So Mateo's been really quiet this evening and has remained for the most part on my brother's bed without much movement. Even petting him, hugging him, talking to him usually doesn't even make him open his eyes. Only when someone new opens the door does he open his eyes and raise his head to see who it is. I'm planning on taking him to the vet in the morning, and hopefully we'll find out what's wrong. He's only a puppy, but they can get hip dsyplasia too.. And he's been jumping on and off the furniture and standing on his hind legs for a while now which can instigate or provoke this occurance. Hope it's not that.. but I guess we'll find out for sure in the morning. It's really sad to see him just laying really quietly on my bro's bed. He's almost never this calm and still. Usually he's utterly insane bouncing all over the place, play-fighting with Vasco or Hope. I suppose there's nothing much to do but wait and pray.

Jaw Surgery

2006-07-01T03:38:00.000-04:00

I went to an orthodontics doctor before I left for Grenada my last term. This was sometime in April I think.. not sure if I blogged about it or not. But anyway, he said that my lower jaw had continued to grow after it was supposed to have stopped so now it's not in the correct position. So my back molars are now doing more work than they should be doing which means that in 5-20 years they may wear and breakdown. Whether or not this actually would happen would depend a lot on my genes. So my mom's opinion that my jaw is the way it is because I didn't stick with wearing my retainer wasn't valid. I have an underbite like my dad's from his genes. Bad genes. Why do I always get stuck with the bad genes and not the nice ones, like the ones that gave my mom her good looks *grins* Anyway, he gave me two options. 1 - jaw surgery, this is the only correction that could fix the problem "perfectly" and completely. 2 - serious rubberband work, this would not be guaranteed to work, and would only correct the problem partially, and would depend on me using them consistently. I told him that I would have to think about these options he presented and talk it over with my parents. He told me that after about 24 or 25 years of age, the bones don't heal as well or readily so the optimal time would be now if I was to go with the surgery. He gave me the name and number of an oral surgeon who he said did the type of surgery I needed often. Apparently he's the most experienced in this type of surgery in my region. Nice.

So anyway, I told my parents. Discussed it with them. Told them that the surgery would prob cost about $6500. My dad was told he should get the surgery too when he was younger, but he never did. He's still got all his teeth. So it's not like I have to get it it would seem. But I can tell there's something not quite right with my alignment in my mouth and it gets bothersome and annoying at times. So I told my parents I was okay with the surgery if they thought it was alright with them.

I then left for school with nothing really decided. During the end of the term I once again discussed the surgery option with my mom and she said that if the doc thought I needed it and it would help me in the long run, to go for it. Though she said that Chinese people usually use surgery only as a very last resort and don't recommend it as an option because it is seen to take 5-10 years off your life when you undergo surgery. More years the more severe and drastic the surgery. I guess maybe I've just been Americanized, or it's the youthful fearless outlook on life that nothing bad can possibly happen to me or something, but I find it difficult to let that dissuade me. So I set up an appointment for a consultation with the oral surgeon for the 24th of July. I was somewhat concerned at this late scheduling because that would give me only 3 weeks after that date to get my surgery and recover before I left again for Grenada on the 15th of August. Or so I thought anyway.

I returned to the states and this past week went in on Thursday to the orthodontist to get molds made of my teeth for them to send to the oral surgeon. I guess he needs them for his records when I go in for my consultation or something. I talked to the assistant lady who made my molds about my surgery and she said I wouldn't be going in for surgery right away because I needed to do at least 6-12 months of braces before I could get my surgery. This was news to me. I hadn't even considered that. My understanding now is that the braces or orthodontics work is to get my teeth to where they need to be so that when my jaw is moved back, my teeth will be aligned in the new position. Makes sense.

I asked for a copy of the letter that my orthodontist sent to the oral surgeon.. and it said that I have a "Class III dental and skeletal pattern due to a prognathic manible" and asked the oral surgeon to evaluate me for a "BSSO mandibular advancement." Dunno what that means, but maybe I'll google it later or something. It also said that the doc thought it would take about 12 months to orthodontically prepare me for surgery... so yeah. Something to look forward to. Braces. Again. At 23. Great.

Home again

2006-06-25T01:46:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone who actually reads my blog!

I left Grenada at 730am Friday. I was up all night prior and early that morning packing my stuff and cleaning up the apt. I am happy to say that the apt was look'n pretty nice when I left. However, during the cleaning process was getting somewhat irritated and frustrated because there seemed to be so much to do and things just weren't going well. I found that one of the cats pooped in the bathroom sink, then I think my roomie's dog peed on the bath mat, so that ended up being more work, and at 1 in the morning there isn't exactly a washing machine that I could just easily go to and clean it up at. But everything got cleaned, and I think I packed everything I meant to pack. All the furry kiddies got taken care of, so I believe it all worked out in the end.

Dexter, the taxi driver, came and picked me up around 600 and took me to the airport. There were already a lot of people in line waiting to check in. Everyone looked bleary-eyed from lack of sleep whether due to late night/early morning partying, packing, or some of both. We flew from Grenada at 730 on American Airlines Flight 5077 to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was able to switch seats from my assigned seat to the front and ended up sitting by 3 of my other classmates. The first half of our flight, all of us crashed. We tried, however uncomfortably, to snatch what little sleep we could. When the flight attendant came by with juice and Doritos though, we woke back up and couldn't sleep again so we spent the last leg of our flight gabbing about classes, complaining and ranting against the Social and Behavioral final exam (another story in and of its own), Dr. Amuleru-Marshall, recapping and comparing S&B to Biostats, raving about Dr. Keku, and what not.

We arrived at San Juan and here, most of us parted and went our separate ways. Only 2 others went with me to Miami. My flight to Miami was uneventful. I flew a new type of plane I had not flown before. Arranged with double seats on the wings and 5 seats in the center. My seat partner originally was an older man, who seeing me converse with a fellow classmate sitting 2 rows in front offered to switch seats so that we could sit together. That was really cool of him. A few minutes later, we noticed that there were two empty rows behind us so my classmate, Carrie, moved to the empty row behind me giving us both a double to ourselves. Very nice I tell you the simple things in life :) I was able to spread out a bit more comfortably and both of us zonked out before the plane even took off. Vasco, as usual, remained "calm" and quite throughout the flight. Maybe he slept, maybe he didn't. Either way, there was no way for me to tell from the silence at my feet.

At the Miami airport, Carrie and I said our farewells. I was headed to Atlanta finally. Boarded and ended up in the window seat of a triple with a middle aged lady to my left and a guy to her left. Flight was fine. I again slept most of the way. However, when the flight attendants came by with the snacks I to my great misfortune deviated from my norm request of a cranapple juice to a sprite. An hour before landing I was most regretful for this choice of beverage as my stomach and intestines began to writhe. I attempted to sleep through it, and was successful for about 20 minutes but after which nothing helped. The fact that the pilot turned on the seat belt sign and announced for the flight attendants to prepare for landing and for us passengers to remain seated didn't help since that meant I was trapped. My poor seat buddy must have been quite perturbed at my constant squirming and tightly clasped hands. Maybe she thought I'd be sick, and she had no idea. Even better was the roughest landing I have ever, and from what I overheard, the flight attendants as well ever experienced. As soon as the pilot turned off the seat belt light and after counting to 10, I headed to the rear of the plane to take care of issues. heh.

I was the first to pick up my luggage at the baggage claim in the Atlanta airport, which was cool since I was the last one off the plane. However, not having a cell phone and not thinking to arrange prior to leaving Grenada with the family about where to meet, I had to make several phone calls and travel through a bit of the airport before finally meeting up with my waiting family about 30 minutes later. They seemed happy to see me and Vasco :)

We loaded up the car with my lone suitcase that I spent 30 minutes the night before repairing (ripped corner during incoming flight) and Vasco's crate. Then we were off and headed to a Chinese buffet my dad said he had been to once when he had come to Atlanta for one reason or another. It was a nice, well stocked, almost ritzy buffet. Had both a Mongolian Bar-B-Q and sushi bar in addition to about 6-7 individual hot and cold bars. Our attendant that took care of us didn't seem to really care much about doing his job. When I found an eyelash in my soup he just kind of shrugged and took it away without so much as even an apology. Humph! But no matter, the food was good. Prob the most expensive buffet my family other than myself has ever been to. For the 4 of us the total came to $50, and all we got to drink was water! I was surprised and even kind of impressed that my dad volunteered to take us here (yeah, materialistic, superficial, shallow, etc of me, I know). But if you know anything about typical Asian families, you'd be surprised and impressed too.

So yeah, now I'm home. Met Mateo for the first time and that boy is one crazy bundle of energy. He's pretty much been spoiled by my bro, doesn’t seem potty trained in the least and pretty much does what he pleases. Boy does he need work. Faith has gained more weight since I left, mostly as a result of being neutered and not having the advantage of the helpful hormones... Hope's about the same. All in all, it's pretty crazy having 4 dogs at home. Amusing too considering we started with none, moved to one, and slowly but surely have gone from no dogs allowed to dogs everywhere.

I know I have really not been good with updating my blog so I'll attempt to keep up with it at least ever couple of days. Show some love and support and who knows, maybe I'll be so encouraged to do so more often :p now I'm sounding like my dad. pooey. heh. okay, I'm off now. latas all!

You know you're losing it when...

2006-06-21T14:51:00.000-04:00

you start dancing for your dog and think it's the greatest thing in the world and are vastly amused by it. but hey, it was fun! :)

The end is near...

2006-06-20T23:38:00.000-04:00

Kate had her baby yesterday! Isaac Thomas-Allen Gardenghi was born yesterday at 8:38pm, weighing in at 8lbs 8oz. For more details please see
Kate's Blog and Paul's Blog. I'll try to blog more on that when I have time... but the experience was incredible. I'm still in awe of Kate. She was so incredibly strong and brave. When I first heard Isaac cry... words cannot express... they fail to express the sensation that overcame me. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for Paul and Kate. He is so beautiful. Not at all like some of the other newborns who come forth wrinkly or discolored from the birthing experience. He was beautiful.. Perfect. I'm still grasping for words to describe those 18-19 hours in which Kate was in labor. But I will attempt to do so hopefully in the near future. While it is still fresh in my mind... though I do not believe I shall ever forget. Paul too was very strong. He thinks he did not do much, and perhaps comparatively not so much, but he was strong for Kate when she had such need for him to be so. I could tell it hurt him to see her in so much pain. But he did not desert her or wallow in helplessness. He was there, holding her hands, supporting her, whispering encouragment, breathing with her, kissing her, rubbing her in reassurance. Love cannot be more evident.

-------

Sadly, I myself am so bored and looking, hoping for, yet dreading distractions right now. I'm attempting to study for my last, and prob most massive final in Social and Behavioral Health. It's very slow going. I've barely made any progress. Barely started studying until today and the final's tomorrow evening. *sighs* I'm just kind of at a state where I don't want to care, but I'm afraid to completely give into that level of apathy. I'm just so mind weary. Just one more day... it will be over soon.

Doggie Beach Day

2006-06-16T01:59:00.000-04:00

So yeah, I'm procrastinating again.. it would seem that the only time I actually update my blog is when I have something else I should be doing. heh. oh well, that's me.

So yeah, my roomie's been gone since sometime early this week. She went back to Barbados to visit family, being originally from there and all. So I'm here babysitting her kiddies (2 cats, 1 dog). Since today was a holiday (Corpus Cristi) and we didn't have classes, I had a little more free time (okay a lot of free time) and decided that Vasco was starting to look a bit chunky and could prob do with a good run. So I took him and my roomie's dog Cassie out to the beach for a nice stroll.. Well, I forgot that today being a holiday, the beach would prob be crowded.. and so it was. Lots of people. Now Cassie's not that much of a people person, though she tolerates them. but she cannot stand other dogs. She's def alpha female quality stuff. So she goes nutz at the sight of every dog, slipping her collar once even. But no big trauma, she just chased that dog into the water. So I took the kiddies to a relatively more isolated section of the beach and let them play around in the water and Vasco went a little crazy happy running around. But it was good for him. Good for them both I think. I had another ulterior motive, that being trying to work on getting rid of some stark tan lines on my back, but I doubt an hour in the sun will do much for them...

Anywho, so here's some pics of the furry kiddies we have at our place

Bella

Minchi
(Jap for: "Ground Beef")

Cassie
(don't let her calm exterior fool you, she's a trained killer! :p )

and of course...

Vasco!

run, Vasco, run!

mmm... salt water... tasty

just having some fun

Cassie and Vasco each "enjoyed" a nice bath upon thier return and some good grooming. So now they're both soft, clean, cuddly fluff balls. Let's see how long that lasts *grins*

Tooth Fairy

2006-06-09T17:57:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! My baby lost his first canine today! I know, I'm really pathetic now :p

Wonder what the tooth fairy'd give me for that... hmm....

Little Accomplishments

2006-06-07T08:47:00.000-04:00

Guess what? Last night, Vasco took the spiral stairs to and from the apt all by himself! Okay, so mst dogs could prob have done it by now, but for him, it's an accomplishment. So yay! My baby's getting all grown up. He's prob grown about an inch or two since we've gotten here. So next time you see him, be sure to give him a pat on the back :)

Word's Out...

2006-06-05T20:24:00.000-04:00

Morgan Freeman is on de Island! Now I dunno how accurate my roomie's source is, keep in mind this is just a sighting, but apparently she was driving behind him (he is said to drive way too slow lol). Word out is that he also likes to hang out at Bananna's. Now I'm not one really for spreading rumors and rumors of rumors but this seemed worthy cause for procrastinating. I know, I know, pathetic :)

okay, back to work.

Catching up is hard to do...

2006-06-05T00:11:00.000-04:00

Okay, okay, I know I've haven't updated in a while. Things have been a bit hectic and I've been a tad swamped with group projects and individual projects and presentations... But I promise I haven't forgotten. I'll prob end up getting to it after this term's over or when I'm further procrastinating on something vitally important :p So anyway, here's a start...

Thurday, May 25 - Dodgeball

To celebrate the end of midterms, our MPH program organized a Dodgeball Tournament that took place on the basketball courts in front of the Student Center. I had heard that the first tournament, held 2 weeks ago, had been a great success so I was interested in participating. It was scheduled to begin at 9pm and I arrived about 9:30 and it was in full swing. There wasn't as large a turn out this time as last time, but it didn't take away from any of the competitive spirit among participants. It was relatively organized with some semblence of teams, ball handlers, and even a ref with a plastic whistle.

I joined right in and pleasantly surprised myself by not being half bad :) I remember in elementry school, I loved playing dodgeball in gym class but I wasn't really that great (couldn't throw, couldn't catch, etc) so I had some trepidation, but either everyone else was pretty bad or I just improved with age and lack of practice, I did a decent job. Still can't throw, but I can catch. yay! I even got picked over other guys and if you're a girl you know how it is always being among the last to get picked for a team because you're a girl and so people think you're whimpy, etc. blech. So that was cool and def a boost of the good 'ol self esteem. Hah.

Belmund, our MPH rep, had it in for me that night because I got him out several times. Several vocalizations of "Grace is an Animal!" and "You're dead, Grace! I owe you!" heh were yelled throughout the ensuing games. By the end though, an addition of "I'd go to war with you, Grace!" joined the other vocalizations. I think that was a compliment, but well, Belmund if you ever read this maybe you can clairfy with a comment :p

So that was a nice, fun, sweaty/active activity. About time.

Belmund's the dude in the red T, and blue shorts :p
(Be not fooled, there were more participants)

They're Over!

2006-05-25T15:16:00.000-04:00

Yay! Midterms are over! Actually they were over yesterday, but I didn't turn in one of my take-home midterms due to my studies for the Social and Behavioral midterm, so I just finished it up today in class and turned it in. The prof was fine with it, and that's part of what I was relying on, his ambivalence *grins*. I know, I know, I'm bad, slacker, slothful, academic misfit, or whatever.. but it's all good. I'm just glad to have them over with and am looking forward to relaxing and sleeping for more than 3 hours a night.

To give you something else to be happy about, here's a really cute pic of Vasco a friend of mine, Marc Armstrong, took a couple weeks ago. Vasco's actually grown some I think since this pic was taken.

Ta-da! :)

Midterms

2006-05-23T01:12:00.000-04:00

Well it's that time of the term again when things start to pile up (well, actually they've been piling up since last week and I've just been procrastinating like I am now by writing this post and have been all day if you haven't noticed that I'm at an all time high of 3 posts in one waking period :p ). I've been working for most of the night on a presentations my Community Health Promotions class (all 6 of us) is going to present to the La Sagesse community about drug abuse prevention interventions that have worked elsewhere so that they can choose a model that they believe they can modify to work in their community. For the rest of this now morning, I will be working on spewing out an 8-10 page paper for my take-home Health Policy midterm (extremely boring class). And tomorrow, well, rather to be accurate, today, I will spend all my non-class waking hours studying for my Social and Behavioral midterm that's scheduled for Wed night. The material covers over 600 slides and is purely memorization and I've barely started. So yeah. I'm excited! Yay! Whoo-hoo! It's great that my coffee's actually kicking in and having a "positive" effect this time so I'm all up and ready to goooo! Otherwise, I'd likely be in a state of despondence and despair over the seemingly insurmountable amount of material I need to cover in such a short period of time. Alrighty then, it's back to work with me!

Racist

2006-05-22T16:59:00.000-04:00

I think Vasco's racist :p This afternoon when I was taking him out to do his thing, one of the girls who live next door asked if she could come walk Vasco with me. I was glad for this because Vasco hasn't had much interaction with children so this would be a good chance for him to do so. Her name is Camilla and she's in the 5th grade. I think she's a native, or at least of African decent. Anyway, Vasco was focused on getting to his plot of grass, found his spot and proceeded to pee.. in the process he looked up and saw Camilla. He then did this crazy kick spin thing with his legs and started barking at her. It was actually kind of funny, but he kept going on and was getting distracted from the main reason why he was out. My impression was that he had never had anyone with darker skin stay so close before. Strange as that is since the natives here in Grenada are mostly of African decent. Color blind or not, he can tell the difference. But after about 2 min he seemed to be a little better with her around. She asked if she and her sister could come over sometimes to play with Vasco. I said that that would actually be great. It'll help familiarize him with those of darker skin and children at the same time. It's great.

He's such a poser :)

Addendum:
Though now that I think about it, it may be because he was protecting his territory. He kind of considers where he does his business 3 times a day as his. I do remember now, that he did bark at this one white lady hanging her laundry out. So maybe that's it... Either way, more exposure to diverse populations will be good for him. :)

You know you’re tired when…

2006-05-22T09:50:00.000-04:00

You go to bed at 3, wake up for your 8 o’clock class, thinking that the bus comes by at 8:45, only to realize as the bus passes you when you’re taking your puppy out that it actually comes by at 8:40. So you walk 10 min to the next bus route, propelled and compelled only by the fear that you may miss a random quiz in class, and catch that bus to campus, only to remember that “oh yeah, class isn’t til 9” which is fortunate for you because otherwise you would have been an hour late to class instead of 20 minutes. Then you see a bunch of your classmates walking from the building where all your classes are held and ask them if class has been canceled and have them look at you like you’re going crazy. And they say, “Grace, it’s Monday, you’re on the Tuesday schedule and you’re thinking too much Social[and Behavioral]. Go get some more sleep..” And you foolishly try to convince them that you know its Monday and you have morning classes on Monday… only to remember after they go by that oh right, that 9 o’clock class you thought you had at 8, was really tomorrow and you hadn’t had to get up til 12 today because your classes today didn’t start until 1pm.

So I’m finally back at my apt and going back to bed now :p

Commuting

2006-05-18T16:32:00.000-04:00

Stupid Mont Toute bus was AWOL for 2 of it's departure times from campus, so I'm now stranded here for another 3 hours for class.. This'll be another chance for Vasco to demonstrate the resiliency of his bladder *grins*... It's the second time this has happened to me, only the previous time it never came to pick me up to take me to school. I ended up waiting, along with 2 other girls, for 45 min in the searing sun til the next bus came. And when I asked the bus driver if he had come by, he said he had.. What a bunch of bunk...

Series of Unfortunate Events

2006-05-17T17:10:00.000-04:00

Last night, my Community Health Promotions class went back to La Sagesse village and presented to the community risk factors for the problem they told us they would like to address - Violence and Drug Abuse. We did a great presentation and all was well...

However, just now in class, my prof told us that one of our profs who came with us, Ms. Frame, on her way back home fell asleep while driving home and her car went over a precipice. She totaled her car, but only by God's grace, there was a tree that caught the car and saved her from almost certain death. Ms. Frame is okay and that is a miracle.

Also the mother of the girl who committed suicide 2 days ago, is associated with the Public Health dept. Two of the faculty/staff have buried family members in the past couple months. Sober events.

Death of a Student

2006-05-16T13:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, an undergrad Business student here at St. George's committed suicide.

It was said that she had been having some trouble the past couple weeks with depression and stress, and had attended a counseling session here on campus and was scheduled to do more sessions that she missed. No one, it seems, checked up on her and it was said that there were other signs of trouble (she began cutting herself the last week). Her mother though didn't seem to be concerned because she went off on holiday so the girl was left on her own (they just finished classes 2 weeks ago). Her mother returned home to find her daughter hanging from a tree in the backyard.

She left a list of 30 reasons for why she was doing this.

First Dive Lesson

2006-05-10T18:12:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I decided to go ahead and take diving lessons. Man, am I glad for that decision. I mean, the experience was amazing!

This past Sunday morning, I walked the 25 min to the dive shop, Dive Grenada (they specialize in wreck diving), located on the Grand Anse Beach and arrived around 8:30am. After liberally lathering myself up with suntan lotion, SPF 50, our party of 8 girls from the MPH program gather in a corner of the dive shop and watched a 35 min DVD that reviewed the first three modules in the PADI dive book we were to have read before coming for the lesson (I skimmed through most of it, but for all basic purposes, I read the whole thing :)

After the video we split into two groups. 4 girls with the dive shop owner, Phil, an older British man who's had hip replacement surgery. He's a very experienced diver, though of his experience I know little. The other group of 4, went with another dive instructor whose name escapes me presently since I wasn't in that group (oh yeah, his name's Mick). Along to help, since we were such a large group, was a Divemaster from Germany. She assisted the instructors with our learning.

My group was the first chosen to do the practical learning session first, while the other group did the academic/book work. We were first sized for our BDU dive jackets, weight belts, and fins. I ended up with an XXS jacket, size 8 weight belt, and size 3/4 fins. Not that I think that means anything to most of you who actually read this *grins* but I may as well draw this out as much as I can. We then learned how to attach the air tank to our jackets, fit the respirator apparatus to the tank, and choose proper fitting masks. Next we hiked the 100 ft to the pool located on the Flamboyant Hotel property. In the pool (wow, it was nice to get in and relieve the weight of the equipment!) we learned how to use the respirator to breathe underwater (the first time was so cool!), clear water from our goggles, retrieve a lost respirator, hand signals for communicating underwater, assisting another diver who's run out of air with the alternate air supply we all carry, swim underwater with our fins (I keep wanting to say flippers :p ), and adjust our buoyancy underwater (a tricky business, I tell you).

After we successfully learned how to do all the above mentioned and demonstrated proficiency in these tasks, it was our turn to do the academic/book work while the other group did their pool work. For the book work, we reviewed the 3 modules we had read, took quizzes on each module (easy quizzes). We ate lunch during this time and then after a short break the group of us (8) got our wetsuits (not altogether uncomfortable, surprisingly) and suited up for our first open water dive. The general feel from the other girls was one of both excitement and nervousness. I was just excited.. not really nervous, didn't see any reason for it, but that's just me ^_^

We rode on one of their 32 ft boats to Flamingo Bay, one of the top 3 dive sites in Grenada. "It offers the dive wall with the most prolific fish life. Shoals of Creaole wrasse, yellow chromis, grunts, and jack fish lead down the wall to 90 feet where grouper, jacks and rays can be seen." We learned how to do a backward roll of the boat and once in the water we followed a rope to the bottom. It was a decently shallow reef, we went down to a depth of about 40 ft and visibility was great, about 50 ft I was told. The aquatic life was amazing. I felt like I was swimming in a teeming aquarium. We swam around and over the reef. Seeing sea fans, angel fish, sea anemone, eels , flounder, and much much more. It was an amazing experience. I can't wait to do it again! I found myself time and time again wishing I had an underwater camera. Maybe a consideration for an underwater case for my digital... though there's a level of concern, more like paranoia, with that as well. Or maybe just get a relatively inexpensive digital for underwater use. Eh, to be determined.

Anyway, I'm greatly anticipating my next dive. I was told the subsequent dives with this dive shop will only be $5! That's incredible. Makes the whole thing much more worth while and is a definite incentive for going on more dives. Yay! I'm excited!

Meet Passion Mateo

2006-05-09T13:07:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone! Meet the newest member to my family, Passion Mateo. The name is a tad odd, but my mom wants his first name to be Passion to remind my brother to focus on his studies for getting into med school. She said we could give him any middle name *grins* so we chose Mateo, which means "Devoted to God."

There is a story behind Mateo, but I only know a part of it. It's a sad story. My mom was coming home from work one morning and she stopped by a flea market. She said that she saw Passion (I'm going to use the names interchangably depending on who's involved) in a dirty cage with another dog. He was in a pittiful state and kind of sick apparently with an infection and some drainage from his genetils. She decided to rescue him, not really thinking that we would be able to keep him for long. But surprise, surprise.. .with just a little TLC, he's bounced back! Litterally.

My mom says he's completely healthy now, though a visit to the vet is still in order, and my brother tells me about Mateo's voracious appetite. He's always hungry and sometimes gobbles down his food so fast he gets hiccups. Dave said that the first time Mateo got hiccups, he thought he was having a seizure, but since they went away and he seemed fine he thinks they were just hiccups.

Needless to say, my brother adores the new puppy. He's a white/yellow lab and my bro has always wanted a lab. Purity of breed is somewhat questionable, though he apparntly came with papers. Dave tells me that Mateo follows him around everywhere and is very lovey and will just crawl into his lap and fall asleep.

They think he's about 11-12 weeks old. Only a few weeks younger than Vasco. I can't wait to get back so that Vasco can meet Mateo and the two of them can have some good puppy play time. He seems to get along well with the other dogs and the others with him. He's fearless. Dave said he was successful in barking Hope (our lab/shepherd mix) away from a papya peel. Believe me that is an impressive feat. Even Faith (our Sheltie) hasn't been successful in that. There's a vid clip my bro sent me where Faith and Mateo are outside and Mateo rolls over and does a stretch and Faith seeing this lays down and copies the move! How cute is that! :)

Wish I could be there to play with him, but I'll be there in a little while. I can't wait to meet him in person!

Morning at the Beach

2006-05-06T20:14:00.000-04:00

This morning I took Vasco with me to Grand Anse Beach. This beach is one of the more popular beaches in Grenada and SGU has student housing located right on the beach. I however had never visited the beach, more from laziness and not really having any reason to (I guess if I had nothing to do and plenty of time and money, I'd got beach hopping in Grenada) but anyway, it was both Vasco and my first time at this beach, though it was Vasco's first time at the beach, period. It's a gorgeous beach. Better than I had ever envisioned. I can see now why it's so popular and why so many of the students love to live on the Grand Anse campus.

Anyway, I had to go visit the dive shop which was loctated on the beach to pick up my books and pay, so Vasco and I walked the 10 minutes to the beach and the 15 min it took to get to the other end of the beach where the dive shop was located.

When we first got to the beach, there was this little dog... dunno what type of breed.. small, short, white, fluffy tail with some sable patches. Her name was Angel and belonged to, I presume Grenadian, a guy who worked at another dive shop on the beach. She loved the water and would run into it, lay down in it, regardless of the waves washing up around or over her. She played tag with Vasco who didn't seem too interested in playing, but she sure didn't let up. She'd come at him full force, kind of like Lady does, and just pounce on him occasionally even knocking him over.

But Vasco seemed to enjoy himself on the beach. He'd run into the water when I called to him, even sometimes allow the waves to wash up to as much as his neck. He didn't seem afraid, just cautious.. Prob a few more outings on the beach, and he'll be chasing the waves.

But yeah, I was impressed by the beach. Got somewhat burned because I didn't think about the sun being up (duh) and I didn't realize the walk would be that long. No matter. It's all good...

Scuba

2006-05-05T18:40:00.000-04:00

So I'm thinking of doing a PADI Open Water Course begining this Sunday with some of my classmates. It costs $250USD and will take 4 full days to complete. I am really interested ... the only think I'm hesitant about is the cost and whether or not I'll actually get anything out of it (e.g. use it) after the course is over. This course will allow me to dive with another person (without an intstructor), anywhere in the world where there's water, to a depth of 60 ft.

I'll prob do it. Go by the dive shop (Dive Grenada) tomorrow morning to pay and pick up the text. We'll see how that goes.. might not have room for me to join. But it would be cool...

New and Improved Grade

2006-05-05T01:27:00.000-04:00

Well, I apparently did better in Epidemiology than originally had been posted on the class website. After the class ended last term, my final grade in the class was a B. However, I was curious as to why since all that the professor seemed to have calculated into the grade were the three exams we took in class. None of the homework, extra credit work, or other points (attendance and participation) had been included in the grading process. This was a big issue with many of the students who over break emailed the professor (including me, but mine was very polite and courteous I promise! ^_^). None of us received a reply. But it seems Dr. Amuleru-Marshall (dept chair) checked with Dr. Russell (Epi prof) and everything was sorted out and when the new grades were posted, I got an A! Yay! That was pretty encouraging.

Now, if I can just keep that up...

Back in Grenada

2006-04-26T02:35:00.000-04:00

Well, if you don't know already, I've returned to St. George's University in Grenada for the second term of my MPH to MD program. This term I'll have 5 classes again: Health Policy and Management, Social and Behavioral Aspects of Public Health, Chronic Disease Epidemiology, International Public Health Practice, and Methods of Community Health Promotion.

So far I haven't been a very good student. I've missed either the entire first class of every class that's started so far or at least the beginning part where they go over the syllabus. This afternoon, I overslept and missed the bus to campus, so I ended up missing the first 30 min of Health Policy and Management. Not that it turned out to be anything important or meaningful apparently. Same with International Health, I missed the first two classes because I was still in the states. I had initially thought I was only going to miss one class, but they had a make up class on Friday that I wasn't aware of so I ended up missing two. But from what I've heard from my classmates from that class, I really didn't miss much if anything. This evening, I was sure I had a class, but when I talked to some of the other students, they assured me we didn't have class... well, after just coming home around almost 2am, I check my schedule and sure enough, I did have a class, just a different one from the one they were referring to... So I missed that class too. I have really not started off on the right foot this term.

Anywho, my trip down from the States to Grenada was crazy. Initially I was supposed to fly down Sat morning. My flight departed from Atlanta at 6:05am and the ATL airport (typically about a 2-3 hour drive from my home) opened at 4:30, so I need to get there by then. Well, Bruce was going to give me a ride to the airport, but of course I had put off packing until the last few days before I had to leave, so I was still making a mad rush to finish when he arrived. Then my luggage was overweight so we wasted time trying to fix that. We finally left home, but once on the highway we encountered torrential rainfall. It was so bad that at times, Bruce could only see the white line 2 feet in front of him on the road... but the lightning was spectacular. It seemed super close and lit up the sky like noon day only with ultra "white" light rather than the "yellow" of the sun. We had to slow down to about 45mph for a while and that prob set us back 20-30 min. When we finally arrived and got into the airport around 5am, there was a long line waiting to check in. We were in line with all my luggage, my roommate's dog (did I mention, my roommate shipped me her dog so I could bring her down with me?!), and Vasco, but for some reason I didn't think my flight was international (I mean, I was only going to Miami first...) and maybe we could check in faster if we used the self-check in computers. What a bad move. We lost our place and by the time we got back in line and up to the desk... the lady told me I had missed baggage check-in by 10 min. 10 minutes! Oi vey. And since they only flew to St. Kitts (where I was going to make a connecting flight on Liat, one of the local Caribbean puddle jumpers) once a day, I would have to wait til Sunday if I wanted to check in baggage.

I couldn't make an informed decision as to whether or not to take the Sunday flight because I had to make sure that I would be able to catch a flight from Liat to Grenada that day as well, otherwise I'd be stranded in St. Kitts with nothing to do and nowhere to go. So Bruce and I waited for about 1 1/2 hours for Liat's reservation desk to open so I could call and ask them. Bruce was so good about it even though he was tired and hungry. He lent me his phone so that I could use the web browser to check the websites and allowed me to call Liat, long distance, for almost 15-20 minutes which will prob cost him about $30. He's so good to me *smiles*.

Anywho, when I finally got through to Liat, they said I could change my flight; however, it would be an additional $160. Oi vey! That's more than the original cost of my ticket and I had already paid about $80 to get it changed once. This was definitely an expensive trip. And my credit cards were already maxed out from buying misc items for the house and lawn when I was home so I didn't have the available credit to buy the ticket. Once again, Bruce came to the rescue and told me he'd pay for the ticket. I'm not free loading, mind you. I'll pay him back... when my refund check finally arrives, but he's been quite a "trip" saver.

Bruce drove me back home after that. We stopped by the Mall of Georgia and took about a 2 hour nap in the car and had lunch in the Food Court. When I got home I gave Cassie (my new roomie's American Eskimo) a pretty good brushing and ended up with a small mountain of white hair... Her coat had been in quite a bad state with a lot of mats throughout. I also trimmed the hair on her paws so they looked semi neat. Before they were all gross and straggly. I knew that if she soiled herself during the crate, trimming the hairs would at least be a minor help in keeping her paws clean. Then I took about a 6 hour, much needed nap. Upon waking I was able to clean my room (since it had been left in a state of complete disarray) for my mom's use.

My mom came home from work about 45 min before I had to leave. She had no idea I was even home so she was very surprised, but I think happy to see me. For once, she'll be awake when I'm leaving *grins*

Anyway, Bruce came to pick me up around 2am and my mom decided that she wanted to come along to see me off and because she would feel it more appropriate if she came along rather than it just being Bruce and myself in the car. However, honestly, there wasn't much room. We were driving in a Towncar and its nice and roomy... pretty exansive, however, even if we moved things around so that everything was in the back, whoever sat in the middle would have zero room to even put their feet down. They'd have to put a foot in the drivers and a foot in the passengers feet area. Not that that'd be particularly hard to do, since I've done it before... however for a 2-3 hour drive it could not only be uncomfortable, but dangerous.

So I mean, I didn't really mind if my mom came, but Bruce didn't exactly do anything to attempt to make more room (though really it was packed full with 2 intermediate sized dog crates and a large suitcase, there wasn't any room to move anything), or at least voice willingness to have her come with us, so my mom was... let's just put it mildly, very displeased.. Okay, why play around with words, she hates him. *sighs* so I felt really bad and missed having her come with us.

Our trip down to Atlanta this time once again was impeded by weather... only this time it was fog. Thick, rolling fog. Not quite as "obviously" bad as the torrential rainfall, but more subtle. There would be periods when you could see fairly well through the fog but then all of a sudden, we'd be engulfed in a thick cloud of it.

We also got pulled over by the police. I was a bit nervous and asked Bruce if he had been speeding (I had fallen asleep) and he said he'd been going about 80-85 in a 70 mph zone. So yeah, there was reason to worry, but Bruce said there was no way the cop could have known he was speeding because he was going in the opposite direction and there were no other cars around that he could have compared our speed with. Anyway, we waited with sweaty palms and the officer asked where we were going, where Bruce had gotten the car (okay, so two 20 somethingers do look kind of odd in a champagne colored Towncar normally driven by those of an older distinction) and Bruce said it was his parents but they had just gotten it from his grandfather in NY the week before and that's why the plates/tags were still NY tags. He asked Bruce to get out of the car and go to the back with him. I was thinking he was going to get searched or something, but a few minutes later, Bruce came back and we were on our way. Apparently he just wanted to ask a couple more questions and that was that... Odd. Kind of just random. Maybe one of those random police checks, though I had never been involved in one before. But it was cool. We saw the cop driving actually under the speed limit by us when we pulled out behind a van. We wondered if he was going to pull the van over as well, though the van obviously wasn't going past the speed limit and lo and behold, a few minutes later the cop car pulls in front of us and behind the van and blue lights flash, end of story. It was an interesting ride to the airport to say the least.

Things went smoothing at the airport. Both my luggage were overweight, but I was only charged for one! Nice. The flight to Miami went by quickly, then at the Miami airport I walked about 12 min (according to the signs, though it felt much longer) to my terminal to wait for my flight to St. Kitts. Poor Vasco got jostled quite a lot during that walk and got a bit of motion sickness and threw up a bit. But after that he was just fine. He's a very good traveler. Slept the whole way pretty much to Grenada. In St. Kitts I changed flights to Liat and we flew to Antigua, where I got a connecting flight to St. Vincent then finally Grenada. I had a bit of trouble at St. Kitts with getting Vasco approved for travel in cabin, but there was a lady in line behind me who told the travel attendant at the desk that their website said it was allowed, so he allowed it. However when I tried to board the plane, the stewardess told me it wasn't allowed and Vasco had to be placed in his soft-sided carry-on into cargo. I was a bit worried, but they said that they'd secure him away from the rest of the cargo and since the flight was only 20-30 min, it would be too long. In Antigua, I learned my lesson and closed up all the ventilation flaps prior to boarding and pretty much bulled my way past the stewardess and stowed Vasco safely under the seat in front of me. The stewardess had more to worry about anyway since the flight had been overbooked. We had an unruly child aboard that cried, screamed, or whined the whole hour to St. Vincent, most of the 30 minutes we waited in the plane, then most of the 20 minute flight to Grenada. *sighs* I typically try to sleep on my flights because I know I'll be exhausted anyway and it gives me something to "do" so during the flight as I was dozing the little girl's screaming became one of those really annoying drones that you can't quite figure out why you're uncomfortable until you fully awake and your senses reattune to it. Dunno if I explained that clearly enough, but oh well.

Anywho, my new roomie Deann Ashby and a friend of hers came to pick me up from the airport. We got through customs without too much hassle and ended up not having to pay too much for the dogs, only 40EC each which is less than US $16. So that was cool. And so here I am... I'll update on my accommodations and hopefully put up some pics later.

Regression

2006-04-19T01:36:00.000-04:00

So yeah, you know how I was all excited and everything by the progress Vasco has made in the past couple of days? Well, today he prob had at least 5-10 accidents in the house. I have gotten too slack and must start restricting his activity once again. One time while I was cleaning up one mess, he comes up to me to investigate and proceeds to pee not more than a foot away! I quickly scooped him up, deposited him outside where he proceeds to run around the yard like mad and not pee a single drop. Bother.

But yeah, he's been quite peppy lately. Frisking about chasing nothing. Trying to provoke Faith to play with him by jumping at him and yipping. Faith just either ignores him or gives him a gruff bark, as if to say "Back off, Squirt!" Vasco of course ignores this and continues merrily with his antics. He's also started "barking" if you call his really cute squeaks barks ^_^

I received in the mail today his Sturdi bag carry on bag that I was planning to use in cabin with him. My concern though is that the American Airlines requires him to be able to stand in the bag. While he is able to stand, he isn't able to fully hold his head upright. So he can stand as long as he's looking at the ground. Dunno if this will be a problem. I really really hope not, but it would seem that he will definitely have to return home in his crate. Sooo.... if AA decides that he's too small for the carry on, I'm going to have a prob because there's no way I'm leaving him... but I'm packing, no... stuffing his crate to the max, so... yeah.

I don't know if I've mentioned on here, but my future roomie, Deann, has asked me to bring her dog, Cassie, an American Eskimo dog from the states for her. She'll be shipping Cassie to me on Friday and I'll be bringing her with me back to Grenada on Sat. Not quite sure how that'll work out, but well it'll have to. Should be alright. We've had a lot of correspondence in attempts to work out any kinks, so hopefully we've anticipated most of the potential problems and planned for them.

Oh I never did show any pics of Vasco's sire and dam (parents) so here they are:

Vasco's Mom: Chartin Stonerhaven Designs, CGC - "Chari"

Vasco's Dad: Ch. Stonerhaven Tribunal, U-AGI, CGC - "Judge"

And one of their beautiful boys, Vasco! at 8.5 weeks

Training

2006-04-16T01:15:00.001-04:00

This morning at 6:30 when I woke to take Vasco out for his morning potty break he was up and ready to go! He was so excited, bouncing around and running around like mad. It was great to see him with so much puppy energy and took all my fears away :)

We've been working on "Fetch". The breeder said that Shelties are not an instinctively retrieving breed so that's one of the most important things to be working on at this stage in his life, since he'll need to know how to retrieve if he wants to do other more advanced things with show or work or other advanced skills. Also, it'll provide years of enjoyment for me in the future if I can play Fetch with him. Very true. She gave me a bunch of papers on puppy life stages and what happens when and what should be developing and fostered at what point in their lives. It's very interesting.

I'm really working hard with "Come" and "Sit" as well. Vasco's got "Sit" down pretty well. He'll do it usually 2 of 3 times, but "Come" is still in the works. Sometimes he'll come running, other times he'll just pretend he didn't even hear you *grins* cuz he's Vasco the Rascal.

As for housebreaking and potty training... it's been going well. He's only had two small accidents so far, both of which were my fault because I knew the time was coming up when he needed to go soon, but I put off taking him out.

He's been really good though. He's very mild when you pick him up and loves his crate. When he's tired, he'll just walk to my room and go into his crate and falls asleep. My mom thinks he's eerily good and calm for a puppy. He has hardly barked or whined at all. But my mom was put a bit at ease when she saw how frisky he was this morning when he was playing outside.

I've been trying to get him used to car rides and such since it'll be helpful to him when it comes time to fly. He was car sick when we brought him back from the breeder and he threw up in the car, but he's been getting more used to it I think. He rides calmly in either my arms or someone else’s when we're in the car and either sleeps or snuggles under an arm. I'm looking forward to when my Sturdi bag (the carry on that I'll be using with him in flight) comes in, so that I can get him used to using that.

I've also been trying to socialize him with other people, children, things. I took him when my brother and I went to Walmart this morning. He got to see the carts and the many cars in the parking lot as well as people walking to and from the store. (He walked really well on the leash too! Another achievement.) I also brought him to Bruce's home this afternoon so that he could meet Bruce's 2 year old niece. I want him to get used to children and be comfortable around them. But you gotta be cautious when introducing a puppy to children because children have to be instructed that puppy is not a toy and that you have to be gentle with him (ie. don't hit him, pull on his tail, yell and scream, etc :) I hope to bring him to Petsmart sometime so he can get meet some other dogs. Faith and him have a cautious truce going on. They'll both curiously sniff at each other but if one gets too personal, the other will back hastily away. Hope and Vasco though are another story. Hope seems to hate Vasco, or at least see him as an intruder, while Vasco's terrified of him because he's so big and loud compared to what he's used to. Vasco grew up with older shelties so he's got a healthy respect for the bigger dogs, but Hope's huge comparatively.

After the vet

2006-04-14T23:39:00.000-04:00

Today was Vasco's first full day with my family... well, part of my family anyway. My dad's in Taiwan til tomorrow and my mom's been working long hours and doing orientation for a new job so she had only glimpsed him through his crate while he was sleeping.

We went to the vet today and the vet along with the assistants all commented on how well behaved and calm he was. He even fell asleep while waiting for the vet to come back. So we got all the paperwork (vaccination certificate, Interstate certifcate for travel) that hopefully he needs for traveling. He also got 2 vaccinations, including rabies. However both vaccinations usually aren't given for another 2 months so I hope that was okay. They were required though for him to travel...

He's been really... mild ever since the exam. Sleeping a lot. This evening when I was petting him, he yelped and kind of wimpered around one of the injection sites so I'm somewhat concerned. If it still seems to pain him tomorrow morning, I'll call the vet. But yeah, I'm a little worried now, because he doesn't seem to respond to much and just seems to want to sleep. He went into his crate and just lay down. Didn't matter who was walking in and out of the room, or if the vacuum cleaner was on, or even if you stuck your head into his crate and talked to him, there was no response. If it wasn't for the fact that I can see he's breathing I would be afraid he'd died or something. So I hope this is just a mild reversible side effect from the vaccinations. Really hope he's back to his young self in the morning.

Vasco

2006-04-13T17:32:00.000-04:00

Hey! Everyone meet Vasco, the new addition to my family! Isn't my baby the cutest ever? I'll try to fill in more later and put up some more pics, but for now feel free to melt at the cutest face with the sweetest expression *smiles* I'm only a little biased...

Vasco at 8 1/2 weeks

Today (12 1/2 weeks)

Today (12 1/2 weeks)

Dave (my bro), Faith (9 1/2 years), Vasco (12 1/2 weeks)

Dear Lappy, Get Well Soon

2006-04-12T00:19:00.001-04:00

So I sent in my laptop today to the Dell depot to get all fixed up and what not. It was a chore though just getting that done. I always had given Dell the benefit of the doubt and praised them for their wonderful service, product, blah, blah, blah.. but lately they haven't quite been living up to their standards.

I called them up 2 nights ago and got some foreign guy. I have nothing against foreigners or people who do not speak English good *grins* nor really do I care that Dell outsources their service calls to India after hours. However, this guy I got was rude and unhelpful. He gave me faulty information (told me my AC adapter was not included in my laptop's warenty and only had a 1 year warrenty) and gave me the wrong phone number to call for DHL to pick up my laptop even though I repeated the number back to him. He kept asking me to hold for "just 2 minutes" and near the end of the call kept repeating that he had answered all my questions, only I never said he answered all my questions and I still had other questions. Then at the very end he said to me, "And I have answered all your questions now. Good bye.... ... Grace, you have to hang up now." I was like, um... okay. So yeah, whatever with that...

I called back the next night after having no success at reaching DHL at the number provided. The lady I spoke with also had an accent, but she was very helpfu. She told me that my AC adaptor was under warrenty and that she would have one sent to me (it arrived today - only 1.5 days after my call). She then provided me with the correct phone number and told me that if I had any other problems just to email her and she'd put a note down. So that was cool.

The DHL guy came yesterday and gave me a box to put my laptop in. Since I was in the middle of burning some stuff off of my lappy, I asked if he could come back the next day (today) to pick it up. He was cool with that and came this morning. So.. you may wonder, though you prob don't, how it is possible for me to be updating my blog then without my laptop. Well, the obvious answer is that I have access to other computers in my home... and this is true. But not the case, or not the full explaination anyway. I'm actually typing this up on a very cool, very new Dell Inspiron E1705.

Ultra spiffy cool. It's Bruce's laptop that I spent ever so long ordering but which actually has a faulty video drive making games and DVDs impossible to play/watch (that's the not so cool part). Bruce on his part has spent ever so long (over a month) trying to get Dell to keep up with their end of the bargain when they told him they'd send him a replacement laptop. Finally, he was able to get in touch with the regional supervisor who's giving him a superfine super awesome laptop that isn't even out in market yet. It's their new XPS system. He tried to give Bruce an upgrade to the current XPS system,

but it actually was a downgrade since Bruce ordered pretty much the best system they had out. So.. this guy fixed Bruce up with something nice, and well, while it may not perhaps totally make up for the atrocious service he received, it's definately something . I'm happy. He's... relatively happy. So it's all good. Dunno if he'll be allowed to keep this lappy (it wasn't mentioned) but if he is, I got first dibs! Mwah-ha-ha! Not that it'll do me any good when I want to play games or DVDs but nevertheless, it's sooo cool!

Decisions

2006-04-10T00:20:00.000-04:00

So Friday night I was all excited because on Saturday I was going to visit a breeder in Roebuck, SC to look at 3 of her sheltie puppies. Andy Gray (senior chem major and friend from BJ) and I went downtown since we both had nothing to do on a Friday night and went mouse hunting. While driving downtown we saw some really nice fireworks and stopped to ooo-and-ahh... They seemed to be coming from the stadium downtown, though neither of us knew what the occasion was. Anywho, we began at the opposite end of downtown near "Zombieville" (story for another time, if you ask) and walked back into the main part of downtown to begin our hunt.

There are 9 bronze cast mice scattered within a 9 block stretch of Main St. downtown. They were inspired by the book Goodnight Moon and were a project designed to give kids something to do on school trips downtown. Anyway, I had looked up the clues for where to find these elusive mice online before leaving the house, but couldn't remember most of them by the time we got there. So we walked the stretch of Main St. where they were said to be located between the Hyatt and Westin Poinsett Hotel, but could only find the 3 obvious ones (located by the Hyatt fountain, stairwell to Coffee Underground, and the one located at the bottom of the rain drain by the Italian restaurant across from the Westin Poinsett)... only 3 out of 9. Sad I know. But it was dark, and there were a lot of people about and I mean, I could have asked them if they had seen a mouse around somewhere, but had no great desire to cause a general hysteria *grins* But regardless of mice unaccounted for, we still had a good time. Finally did some catching up and whatnot.

Saturday morning, I took my dad to the airport (GSP) at 5:30am so he could catch his flight to Taiwan. He'll be visiting his dad and brother there for a week. However, it began to pour (rain) just as I got home so his flight was delayed. He called Sunday morning and told us he had finally arrived.

Around 1pm, my brother, Arwen Clark (BJ piano perf grad, friend, and oldest sister to Alina), and I headed out to the breeder's home. From the beginning we were lost. Well, in part my fault, and in part the breeder's. She gave me directions to her home, which I read back to her and I was sure she said 385 to Spartanburg. Well, 20 min on 385 and we were pretty sure it wasn't 385. So I called, and sure enough it was supposed to have been 85 to Spartanburg. So we turn around and 40 min later, we're on the right track... then we get off 85 at the correct exit and drive for about 5-7 min and become somewhat nervous that we haven't seen any of the landmarks given on the directions... so we turn around again, only to find out we were actually on the right track but it was supposed to be about 8-10 miles down that road before we were going to get to the landmarks mentioned. (I always did hate following Yard Sale/Garage Sale signs in the country where there was one sign ever 5 miles so that you never knew for sure if you were going in the right direction, following up-to-date signs, or just on a wild goose chase.) Anywho, we ended up in the country where we saw what appeared to be a dairy farm and other farms and finally arrived at Christina Stoner's residence and her puppies (after about an hour more than it should have taken us).

Oh boy the puppies were adorable! Little bundles of furry energy and cuteness. There were 3 of them at 12 weeks old, 2 girls - Lucky and Brownie, and a boy - Vasco (cool name, after the explorer). Brownie was a little bit on the bigger side and seemed somewhat reserved but totally huggable. Mrs. Stoner said she would prob be the most loving of the bunch. Vasco was very cool. He was very friendly, independent, and adventurous. Very fun. Lucky was a sweet little girl who was always off doing her own thing. Arwen and I liked Vasco the best, and my bro really liked Brownie. They would be mahogany colored when they grew out their adult coats (Sable colored with a black overcoat). We also met some of the older shelties including their grandmother. Three of the older shelties we met were Best in Shows and Champions in their own right. One of them was Best in Show, Best of Breed in 1994. She was 15! They were all beautiful. I prob would have gotten Vasco right then and there if I had been sure I could and would bring him back with me to Grenada when I went back after this break. Which is where my dilemma comes in...

*sighs* So, that night after an evening of revelry and fun (j/k) when I came home I did some research into airline approved kennels/crates and carriers (for in cabin use). Found a really good carrier by Sturdi-Bag, but wow, it's more expensive than the crate. But that's the least of my issues. I had to make sure that I had off campus housing ready, had to look up options for changes in my flight itinerary, still have to call the Ministry of Agriculture or the school to get the animal import permit. I spent a lot of time looking around online and making calls both last night and today. And what I've come to realize is that it will cost me about an extra $250-300+ to change my flight itinerary (this has to be done because my original flight is through Barbados which now does not allow pets to come into their airport. boo!). This cost will be on top of the cost of the puppy, crate and carrier, vet fee, regular airline pet fee, and other puppy expenses. The total which would be $1400+. So yeah, expensive. My decision then is should I wait to get a puppy and save this extra $300+ or just go ahead and get the puppy now. The most reasonable, practical, and mature decision seems to be obviously: wait. But... what if I don't want to wait? what if I want my puppy now! lol. Tough, you say. Well, thanks for being so unsympathetic... But I can actually make up for the extra money I'd be spending by living off campus...

So what to do, what to do....

Reasons I shouldn't get the puppy now:

Costs an extra $300+ to change flights
Could wait and get things more prepared and organized for his/her coming (papers, permits, essentials)
As much as I might want to think otherwise, I don't have to have one now
Not as significant, but I'll be jumping ship with my roommate. She just emailed me today and told me she missed me and that it was weird not having me there... so I feel a twinge of guilt (I'm sure the puppy would more than rectify that though :)
Wait and save the $160-200 airfare for it's flight this time

Reasons I can:

Puppy's available (And he's so wonderfully cute and adorable!)
Can probably get all the things needed together in the next 2 weeks
Can make up the extra cost by saving with off campus housing
Can find housing needed (will know for sure by Tues)

So yeah, any recommendations? Suggestions, comments, criticisms? I'd welcome your thoughts.

The Number Two Pencil Conspiracy

2006-04-05T21:43:00.000-04:00

I found this a long time ago online and rediscovered it in my Misc folder of My Documents. There are a lot of good stuff in there! Good memories. Enjoy this one...

Here's something maybe you didn't think about: when you take standardized tests, you always have to use a Number Two pencil. Every single little bubble that is ever filled in must be done so with a good ol' Number Two pencil. That's a lot of bubbles. That's a lot of pencils.

Clearly the makers of Number Two pencils have much to gain from the huge standardized testing trade. I'm sure they sit back and laugh every new testing season, delighting to the sounds of erasers running down and pencil sharpeners grinding away towards pure profit. Such are the mechanisms of this corrupt empire.

The real scary part is what Number Two pencils are made of: wood, obviously, which means trees. These tests, and ultimately these pencils, demand a huge sacrifice from our forests. How many trees must die so that you and I can fit easily into a college acceptance profile? This is just not cool. Test what you want, but don't cut down the great redwoods just to make a buck. Thanks.

And then there is the secret ingredient, that which makes Number Two pencils so special and distinct form the rest: Number Two. What, did you not realize the crucial factor is those deliciously smooth writing, dark colored leads? See, they can't use lead anymore, 'cause it gives you poisoning. Instead, they figured out a way to turn out body's natural waste into pencil stuff. Number Two. Cheap, but sickening.

Number Two pencils: is there any atrocity they will not commit?

Webcam

2006-04-05T20:48:00.000-04:00

My Logiteh QuickCam Fusion arrived in the mail today. It's pretty spiffy. My family got a Logitech QuickCam Orbit while I was in school so they could talk to me. They got that one on sale for about $80 something and so when I came back to the states I was looking for one as well so I wouldn't have to always borrow my roomie's (not that I actually used it that often). Anywho, my bro found a great deal on Radioshack.com for the Fusion which is one step down from the Orbit. The only main difference besides style is that the Fusion doesn't have automatic pan and tilt, which I actually prefer not to have. So the Fusion was a good choice for me. Got $40 in rebate, so it'll be "affordable" once I actually get my rebate checks back *grins*
Some of its basic specs include:

Built-in mic
High quality ture 1.3 Megapixel sensor
Up to 640x480 pixels Video capture
True 1280x960 pixels Still image capture
Up to 30 frames per second

Me's a like it!

Laptop Issues

2006-04-05T02:37:00.000-04:00

So yeah, I've been meaning to call Dell up and have them fix my lappy up. It's got issues:

Battery dies in less than 15 min (a first today) and I wasn't even doing anything, not even word processing!
Stupid power cord/brick needs to be taped in place to keep it connected
My screen's coming apart, screws coming loose, cracked, etc
My speakers are [enter choice word here] when it comes to WMP and sometimes even other players
The paint on my bottom panels is almost completely gone now.
Trackball right-click button doesn't work

Thing is it'll mean no laptop for about a week, maybe more... And not being connected just seems daunting to me. I mean, what am I going to do in the wee hours of the night? Sleep? Preposterous! I will just feel so vulnerable, disconnected, lost. The power of the computer and internet on my everyday life. I'm usually prob on it for at least 4-5 hours a day almost always more. Sad, but true. Maybe it'll be a good time to develop a new hobby or something. heh. right. *sighs* Oh well... we'll see

I'm babysitting Bruce's niece, Cayla tomorrow. Should be fun as long as she stays in a relatively good mood :p Nah, she's cool. A tad spoiled.. no correct that, she's thoroughly spoiled but still ultra cute and sweet. Really funny too. A complete rascal as she calls herself. It'll be fun.

All is well

2006-04-04T18:30:00.000-04:00

Yay! Faith's awake and seems to be doing well, according to the vet. The concern with Faith getting neutered at such an "advanced" age is that the risk when putting him under is that he won't wake back up and there are more complications for an older dog undergoing surgery. So they put in an IV line and O2 stat monitor and such so that if anything were to go wrong, they could wake him up. But he's awake now and I'm going to pick him up tomorrow. Can't wait to see him again!

Emasculated

2006-04-04T09:51:00.000-04:00

My dog, Faith, is getting neutered today.

My brother and I took our two dogs to the vet yesterday for their much overdue annual checkup. Faith is a 9 year old, Shetland Sheepdog and Hope is a 3-4 year old, Lab-Shepherd mix. Hope had to be muzzled because he absolutely hates shots and anything that is vet related. He was so mad! Faith's just old and usually nervous. They both got violated during the fecal exam which showed that Hope has whipworm so they're both going to be on treatment for that for 5 days then monthly. Otherwise, they're fine. Faith's enlarged testical is going to be removed today as well as his other "normal" one. My poor baby's getting emasculated! But yeah, it should have been done years ago. Though all they got was just a physical exam, rabies and DHLP boosters, heartworm exam, and fecal exam plus the dewormer meds and Faith's bloodwork for the surgery the cost was over $300! Whew! Expensive! Add another $100+ for Faith's surgery and wow... almost $500. I mean, I knew it would be expensive, but still... heh.

Now I've been in contact with a couple Sheltie breeders in my area and hopefully one of them will be willing to let me adopt one of their puppies. I don't know for sure if I'm getting on for right now (to bring back when I go to Grenada this time) or next time. But it's expensive bringing pets down. Around $700 for the puppy, another maybe $50 for the vet exam, $100 for the airline, and dunno how much it'll cost to actually bring in to Grenada. But the procedure for bringing dogs into Grenada is actually pretty easy and straightforward. Apparently just get the dog vaccinated and fill out a form and you're done.

More to come... I'll try to add pics later.

The Long Way Home

2006-04-01T02:31:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I've been really really really slack on updating my blog. Kind of been just blah about it, though I keep thinking I should update, but then I remember how behind I am and how long my next blog's going to be so I just put it off another day. Great way to get even more behind, eh? :p

So, I figured I'd just add things in piecemeal style. So if things aren't in chronological order or whatnot, my apologies.

I don't remember too much of anything leading up to my departure from Grenada. I did study the morning of my Substance Abuse final on the Black Sand beach. As you can see from the pics, I was only mildly distracted at times ^_~

JuMp!

Go little crabs, go!

I've gotta find out how to put color into these b/w pics...

I did find out that I got an A in that class.. though not due to my spectacular work on the final.. heh. Dr. Amuleru-Marshall even told me to take my exam back and look it over after I turned it in. That was nice of him, but I don't think I really made any changes that helped my grade any. It was my Ecstasy presentation that gave me just what I needed to get that A. Yay! So that was cool. Made me happy :)

Hmm.. So yeah, my departure from Grenada was fraught with danger, deceit, and foul play. Okay, not really, but that makes it sound a bit more interesting than what really happened. Well, I had called the night before my departure to arrange for a taxi to pick me up at 9:30AM to take me to the airport (my flight was at 10:55am). Dexter (the taxi driver) said that would be fine, so it was all good. Thursday morning came and I woke early, wolfed down some food and double checked everything, then went downstairs to wait for the taxi. 9:45... no taxi. So I give Dexter a call, just to make sure he hadn't forgotten me, and he tells me that he just found out that his eldest daughter had died of leukemia in Miami the night before so he was presently at the airport trying to find a flight out of Grenada to Miami. He apologized for forgetting and gave me the number of another taxi driver who came about 15 min later and transported me and my single Pullman to the doors of the airport.

Flew on Liat with no difficulties. Arrived in Barbados and was stuck in the check out line for over an hour, though I was second in line. Apparently they were having computer problems so hence the delay. Funny thing was that the security dude, Michael, who checked my bag, gave me his number and told me to call him when I come back to Barbados and had time, he'd take me on a tour... Considering his offer... yeah, I prob lost his number already. He was nice and kind of cute, but alas somewhat young (20, okay, so not really that bad :p) and though innocent looking, perhaps treachery was afoot! Ahem. Pardon my dramatics. But yeah, it wasn't really all that big of a deal with that wait since I had almost 2 hours anyway even after that hour wait before my flight with American Airlines to Miami left, during which I napped, albeit uncomfortably.. .I have got to remember not to sit in front of the A/C vent...

I had awesome seats on my Barbados to Miami flight. A whole row all to myself, of which I proceeded to sprawl across and sleep. Let me tell you, it was great *contented sigh*. Must try to arrange for a repeat of that experience on the flight back...

Well, there was some bad weather with rain and lightening in the Miami area so our flight was delayed landing. We circled NASA for a bit and entered into some "holding pattern" while waiting. When we finally landed we waited yet another 45-50 min on the runway for our dock to be cleared. I wasn't too worried at this time since my flight from Miami to Atlanta was still an hour away.

Passport control was a mess, which was of course where I had to go through next before I could actually enter the heart of the airport. I was stuck in line for almost, or at least what seemed like 2 hours. Not moving. The story was that the guy in the front didn't have his papers in order so hence the standstill. I kept thinking that if I just changed lines... but I've watched Office Space and I was also convinced that knowing my "luck" I'd end up worse off than I was before. I was prob wrong about that oh well *sighs*. Anyway, I got all my fruit I had hoped to bring back home confiscated because I was stupid enough to declare them. Stupid, stupid. Ah well. Guava and Wax Apples. Great stuff. Don’t' have Wax Apples in the States but I used to love getting them when in Taiwan. Some of my fav fruit.

Anywho, because of the manifold delays encountered I missed my flight to Atlanta. And that was the last flight out to Atlanta. I waited in yet another line with other disgruntled passengers of other flights who had also missed their flights to see what the airline was going to do to rectify the situation. Well, apparently not too much. They "couldn't" provide me with accommodation at any of the Miami hotels because supposedly they were all booked up due to Spring Break. I also didn't receive any food vouchers, though I saw other passengers who did get them. The attendant though was nice, Marlon, I think his name was. He let me use his cell phone when mine ran out of minutes so I was able to call Bruce and let him know I wouldn't be needing that ride, and my bro to let him know I'd be spending the night at the airport. I was able to book a flight for 6:25am to Charlotte which actually is closer to Greenville than Atlanta.

Thence began my occupation of the airport.... I was actually getting quite tired by this point (around 10-11pm EST, but 11pm-12am ATL) and hungry so I found the floor that I needed to be on, got some food (some sort of Cuban or other with too much meat not enough anything else) and after walking back and forth towing my Pullman behind me to find the gate terminal area I needed to be to check out later that morning I found myself a niche and set my things in order...

Looks comfy, no? See that little hollow space in the middle of all my things? That's me pad...

I, along with about 800 other passengers, spent that night on the barely-softened-by-carpeting concrete floor of the Miami airport. They passed out blankets and pillows they took from incoming flights, but somehow I never managed to get my hands on any. I had fortunately packed my pillow because I wanted to change it for another at home and was able to have at least that comfort along with my squishy pillow! (yay!) I laid it across my suitcase and attempted to find that illusive sleep. And illusive it was. I woke almost every 30-45 min and each time, there would be more people on huddled on the floor. Families huddled around columns, couples leaning against each other against the counters. And then there were people like me, by ourselves who were so exhausted we didn't care where we slept, or who was watching or around us and found any open area and plopped ourselves and belongs down upon our temporarily claimed territory.

I must say that while I did not "enjoy" per se the experience, it's not one that I look back on with disgust or cringe at. I rather think I found it intriguing and not really too upset at it but took it for the new experience it was. Weird perhaps, but I'm kind of glad I've had the opportunity so now I can say that I know what it's like to sleep in an airport on the floor surrounded by hundreds of strangers *grins*. Others have it so much worse, so how can I be so prudish or pompous as to complain all that much, money paid or not?

So about 5 hours later, around 4am, people begin to stir. The check-in counters opened at 5, so I got up and went to wait in line. Lo and behold there was already a decently sized lined formed. Don't these people sleep?! Anywho, the airline was kind enough to open at 4:30 and once they had more personnel working the counters, things began moving right along. I checked-in, went and located my gate and sat down for another wait. The bus arrived to take us to our little plane and we boarded. I sat next to a woman who had just flown in on an all night flight from Chile. We then sat in the plane for another hour. Our flight out was delayed because the plane did not have the proper decals and paperwork so we would be flying illegally. After the paperwork was filed, we then had to wait for the plane to be refueled. You'd think they'd have done that before we boarded, but apparently not. Our plane was quite chilly and the lady next to me kept bugging the attendant about it so she finally turned on the heat (thank goodness). I don't know what it is about flight attendants, but you kind of think they're supposed to be these nice and friendly people who at least appear to like their job and like people, but I've come across some very nasty attendants. Dunno what their problem is *shrugs*.

But well, I arrived in Charlotte about an hour late. The weather was dismal and oh my word it was COLD!!! I know, I know, it's still winter, but after being used to the Caribbean weather it was a bit mm... chill. Here's me walking out of the airport in sandals and short-sleeves and it's like 30 degrees out. Heh. On the car ride back, Bruce had to put up with me bemoaning how much I missed Grenada *laughs*.

Blog of Epic Proportions, To be continued...

It's over!!

2006-03-23T00:13:00.000-04:00

Did I mention that finals and classes are finally over?! YAY!!! What a relief and burden lifted . So nice...

Going Home

2006-03-22T22:49:00.000-04:00

Yay! Going home tomorrow! By this time tomorrow I'll still be in flight to Atlanta. Prob somewhere in GA though since I'm supposed to arive at ATL at 10:21pm. We'll see. Kind of tired, so I'll attempt to keep this one brief and expound later on the goings on the past couple of days.

Looked at another apt that shows much promise. It's $400/mth with all utilities included except electricity. Comes with "free" internet that can be accessed from the porch. No one seems to know who's it is, but no one's complaining so it's all good. The building is mostly rented by vet students. If I room there, I'd have 2 vet girl housemates who have 3 dogs. Bigger dogs. But that's cool. I was encouraged to bring a dog (yay!). The place was nice, spacious, seemed like a decent environment. The girl who showed me around told me I could rent an SUV with her and 2 other girls. But it's about a 7-10 min walk from campus I was told, though I think it may take longer. It's over half a mile from campus, so yeah, but right on the bus route so not really an issue.

Front Entrance and Dining Area

The Kitchen

Living Room

The Room

I'll post more on the hike to the Seven Sisters (awesome time, seriously wild) and trips into town later on when I get home.

All packed now and cleaned my room. Pretty much ready to go I think. I'm going to check in with American Airlines online and get that squared away with. Already arranged for a taxi in the morning to the airport. Hope all flights are on schedule. Hmm.. going to see if I can get a seat in a row all to myself , that'd be nice.. Oh well, anyway, I'm off.. fill in more later.

What a Ride

2006-03-18T02:01:00.000-04:00

Whoa. Today was definately busy. I've only really been able to sleep about 4 hours in the morning, lately. This isn't because I don't have the time to sleep more, but rather my body keeps waking up after only 4 hours and resists being put back down. So, I got up around 10 and turned in my epi extra credit homework, filled out an 18 page course evaluation for the program (ack), then decided to go apt hunting and ended up bus hopping for most of the afternoon. When I got on the bus I asked the bus driver if he could drop me off at such and such an address. But he got caught up in a conversation and forgot, but was really cool enough to go off the route to take me to where I needed to go when he realized that.

The first place I visited was a one bedroom cottage with a seperate living room, very narrow (1-1.5 walking space) kitchen, bathroom, and "ocean view" veranda. It's in a very nice part of Lance Aux Epines, right on the bus route making that much more convienant. It's also only about a 10-15 min walk from Paul and Kate's. Rent is $650/mth and comes with water. It's "fully furnished" meaning it's got basic furniture (table, bed, basic cooking items, stove, fridge, washing machine (no dryer), and some odds and ends. It doesn't come with a/c but it's got a nice breeze that it gets from the windows. Though, I'm sure during the wet/hot/summer season it gets a bit more stuffy. I must say though that I like it. Kind of reminded me a bit of Taiwan housing. But it was simple and small. The issue was brought up by a classmate as to whether or not I'd be lonely... well, I hadn't really thought of it before, and I think prob so. I do like having a roomie... but I think I'd be okay on my own. That's why I want to get a puppy/dog. However, the landlady isn't so sure about allowing pets, so that's a bit of a downer. Another thing is that the cottage becomes avaiable at the end of this month and the earliest I would move in would be August. I could pay 1/2 months rent for June and July to hold it for Aug. but if someone was to want to get it before then, well, it's only fair for her to lease it out. So, we'll see. It's located right next to a house the land lady owns which she leases out as well, and there's 2 guys living in the back of the house in another apt. The landlady herself lives across the street in a nice yellow house.

The Street (Easten Avenue)

The back of the cottage (That's the gardener at the bottom)

The View

After looking at the cottage, I had about an hour to burn before the bus came around again, so I kind of wandered the area some. Let me just say that I have not walked around Grenada so much as I have today in Lance Aux Epines. Tried making some more calls for apts but to no avail.

Finally returning back to campus, I made another call and made an apt to see another apt a few hours down the line. So I figured I'd go get some quick grocery shopping done before heading out. I hopped on a bus to Grand Anse and went to Spiceland Mall for about 15 min, then grabbed the bus heading back, got off at CK's for 5 min, and grabbed the next bus from Grand Anse to campus. Put away the groceries, and 15 min later was on a bus back to Lance Aux Epines to look at another apt.

This apt was located much further away in Lance Aux Epines, in a very quiet residential area,right on the coast. Single apt adjacent to the home of the landlady. It is currently rented out to a vet student who's finishing up his 3rd year here at SGU and will be going to Scotland to do his last year of clinicals. The apt seemed a bit more cramped, though that may have more to do with clutter than actual size. The entrance is the double doors seen in the pic. The apt doesn't really occupy much if any of the longer half you see jutting out into the righthand side of the pic. It had a kitchen/living room with a small kitchen island, seperate single bedroom, and small bathroom. But the view and the free access to the coast was pretty breathtaking. There is no a/c and during the day when no one's home, the windows have to be closed because they face the weather side (meaning if it rained it'd all come in). However, rent is only $550 and includes all utilities except electric. Comes with water, phone, gas, etc. Came with the same basic amenities as the cottage and has a maid come once a week. Pets are allowed because the landlady has a 2 year old chocolate lab herself. However, I'm not really as fond of this one... while quiet, it seems almost too quiet and remote. I love the coastline access, but I'm not totally bought by it. Another benefit though is that I would only have to pay a month's rent for deposit that would be applied as my last month's rent to hold the apt. This means I wouldn't have to pay anything extra in reality to have the apt held for August.

The Coastline View and Access

Well, I actually visited this apt with another girl. She was a 2nd term vet student who just happened to be on the bus with me to go look at the place. So we found the place together and talked some. We went to the University Club to wait for the bus only to realize 15 min later that we had already missed the bus and that it would be another 20-30 min before the bus even left campus again. (The apt is past the University Club towards one of the lighthouses. Not that this means anything to most of you... ) So we decided to begin walking since she could prob reach her apt that she was living at before the bus even came by. We saw so many student drivers on the road it was crazy. Almost like the cats on campus. At least 6 or 7 of them. I can imagine that Lance Aux Epines would be an ideal area to practice driving though because the traffic isn't nearly as bad or as busy as other areas. When we came to the road where she'd turn off, we parted and went our seperate ways.

I decided to go to the beach while waiting for the bus since I had at least 15 min before it'd be by the area. The tide had come up but it was beautiful. I had been longing to walk through the waves again, and it was great to take off my sandals and sink my feet into the wet sand and walk through the aquamarine water. The water was very clear this time and I was facinated just staring at the sandy bottom watching the tide come in and go back out. The sun was setting and made for a very nice atmosphere all round, being on the beach with the setting sun, walking through the waters... it was nice and soothing.

As I was walking back up the beach to the road to catch the bus, a guy I recognized from when I walked to Paul's place called to me. I couldn't hear him so I ended up going up to him and chatting with him for a bit. He's a little weird, and I was kind of edgy when talking to him, though I tried not to let that be evident. I mean, I was alone on a pretty deserted beach, the sun was setting, and here's this odd man talking to me about if I enjoyed walking on the beach, and if that guy over there was my boyfriend, etc. Anyways, I told finally told him I had to go catch my bus and walked away only to find that he was leaving too, and going in the same direction. So we ended up walking together for quite a ways. He's a neighbor of Paul's, kind of, and told me that if he was thinking of selling his home for a bigger one, though if they change their mind and decide to rent I'd be welcome to rent from them. He also said that I was welcome to come to their home anytime as they had a very nice house and a swimming pool and all that. Just a tad creepy you know . But it could just be me being paranoid, because he may just be a really nice guy just having a conversation. Nonetheless, I tried to always keep walking behind him or keep at least 3 feet distance between us otherwise. Yeah, paranoia . We ended up walking so far as the strip of restaurants in the area and since the bus still wasn't due for another 10-15 min, I figured I may as well, try one of them since I had yet to get any food from any off campus restaurants. Michael, the guy's name, said he would buy me dinner had he brought his wallet, but I assured him that I was fine and we parted ways.

I decided to go for Choo's Light Chinese Restauarant, since it was "chinese" and I wanted to see what it was like. I must admit though I was highly tempted to go next door to The Red Crab where I had heard rumored they have excellent steak. I'm sure they would have been much more expensive though. I struck up a conversation with Mrs. Choo and she told me that she was looking to rent out a 4 br apt and a small 2 br apt that would prob be most suited to 1 person. She gave me her number I gave her my money, and she gave me my food (Chicken Chow Mein). It was pretty good, not really like the Chinese food in the states, but not really different either. Reasonably priced, 14EC, approx. 4-5USD for a large box. I ended up still waiting longer for the bus, which finally to my relief did come. Though by now it was quite dark.

I went back to my room, polished off my meal, and headed out for the field where the campus was hosting a talent show. I must say I was very impressed with the diverse talent in the student body, and that the med/vet students have time to have bands and the like. Of course, not all were good some were downright horrible, but there was a lot of great stuff. Most of it was singing with or without playing instruments. Lots of guitars. Had a group of girls do choreographed dancing. Two girls swing fireballs. A biochem prof sing Sinatra and dance with a skeleton. An Indian girl do a cultural dance, etc. Overall, it was quite a good time. Beer was widely, though not freely, distributed and the consumption of such was greatly encouraged as, I mean, how great is it to have a day (St. Patty's) you can celebrate by drinking.. or so I am told.
Afterwards, around 10pm or so, I watched Domino with Sherayar, during which I fell asleep but woke in time to watch most of the parts I had not yet seen. And here I type.

Tomorrow, I'm considering skipping out on my Substance Abuse Review class and going on a hike to visit the "Seven? Sisters." Supposedly a group of waterfalls. Either that or going to Sandblast which is supposed to be the celebration of the end of midterms for the first term meds. I've heard it called a wild drunken orgy, though when I actually asked, I was told it's not really all that bad. Right. So, we'll see... I'm kind of more interested in the hike than the Sandblast though Sandblast is supposed to be the event. Kind of like the AMSA party at the beginning of term. Either way, I'm sure fun will be had. Will have to consult with Paul and Kate and see what they're up for. Well, I guess that concludes this apparently epic blog. Makes up I think in part for the lack of blogging in earlier weeks Tootles!

*Splat

2006-03-15T15:09:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I just got burned by the biostat exam. I looked at the first question and groaned. My mind blanked and I struggled through.. painful minute by minute. Ugh. I at least twice changed a right answer to a wrong answer. Now I'm so nervous about it that I can't even sleep though I know my body is exhausted, my mind just won't power down. Except it's one of those v-fib type where it's just a mass of spastic neurons firing choaticly. well, it's over and done with. On with life...

On a happier note, I bought my tickets and will be on my way next Thursday. There was a slight hiccup that really ate into my study time last night. I was talking to my dad about coming back and he said that he didn't think it was very practical, so while I hadn't been planning on it before, I was beginning to get my hopes up about going home, and then to have them kind of dashed was a bit emotional, esp since I was and am already at such an exhausted state. Then I was put in a situation where I had to make a decision in less than 2 hours because I had put a hold on an airfare, and the cost had gone up $400, so if I were to wait then I wouldn't go anyway because the cost would be prohibitive. So anyway, I'll be on my way, and my "worst" exams are over. I did ace my first exam so that was encouraging...

Anywho, I'm going to see if I can visit some apts tomorrow or Friday morning since I won't be able to do it during break now. I'd like to go by the market too... maybe Friday or Sat... still much to do. But I can maybe relax a tad now, at least take a breath and sleep!!!! :p