Chicago

Well, I've done a lot so far... It's a couple days after Christmas and I've hit my peak and on my way down... Anyone else notice the after Christmas, there is a decline in cool things to do... I've been to St. Louis, drank at the brewery, pet a wombat, watch my sis celebrate her 21st with style, and ate myself to another belt loop... And now that the day of all holidays has ended, things start to sloooooowwww down... There's less to do, not much to look forward to... New Years is a little less fun when most of your friends are couples and they get the power for decision making... You end up w/ your best friends clinking glasses and saying some lame new year announcement while all the tag team couples are making out and deciding who's house to crash w/out parents home... Awesome!

I mean i love those two guys but celebrating new years unattached is not much to look forward to after the giant buildup that is Dec 25... Ugh, I'll get through and hopefully w/ some good stories at least... Laters

Last Round

Tomorrow is the last round of tests and as long as I don't bomb any of them, Full-Blown veterinary student here I come!!! Also, tomorrow is my flight home almost immediately following the exams so my little laptop has weather web pages up, praying for good weather for all three flights. But hopefully there is still snow on the ground when I reach Chicago because that's what's been killing me on this whole Christmas in the Caribbean thing. No SNOW!

Vet Prep Class Fall '08 on last day of Anatomy class w/ Dr. Danny

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Check this out, while I've been gone, Illinois has:

-Got a Senator into the white house
-Not produced any baseball trophies (grr... Cubbies)
-Sit-ins at window and glass companies
-Tribune has filed for bankruptcy
-Had a governor brought up on conspiracy charges

What? Was I holding that place together?

Official!

SCUBA certified member of PADI

What A Friday!

Here's the list w/ some editing:

- SCUBA Diving where I saw puffer fish, octopus, snake eel, lobster in trap, eel, and green turtle
- Good steak at Diamond Cut
- Fire breathing/eating
- "Hippy dancing"
- Teacher gambling
- Free hotel rooms
- Room service at 5am
- Walking on roof of Marriott
- Elbow in the mouth

All in all, an interesting night to say the least

One more set...

So I've finished my 4th round of tests and have only one more on the 10th of December (yes, the day i come home). They went decent, but I have to be completely honest, it's uber hard to study when there is little to study from. More detailed questions from less material I think is much harder than less detailed questions from more material. Well anywho, in anatomy, we're not far from finishing the dog anatomy which if you scroll down a little, you can get a comical picture of what I've studied. I mean if you can't get a laugh out of a balloon dog skeleton, then what can you get a laugh out of?

So just over two weeks til i return to Chicago... my list of things to do:

Zoo (St. Louis, Lincoln Park, Brookfield)
Chicago style hot dog (probably at Vienna Beef factory)
Nice hamburger (Ruby Tuesday, just for good times)
Driving
Thorbjorg!!!
Sis 21st
Doing nothing for a day (probably multiple times)
Bears and chips/salsa
Good beer!
American money

and much, much more...

Whoops

Oh yeah, I have a blog... Gotta keep it up to date (thanks to the siblings for reminding me)

Alright, since the last blog, I had tests about a week ago and I did well on them all, but physiology scared me when I left. Thinking that I had failed, it was pretty neat that I had luckily beat the curve not of my own accord. I'll definitely study harder next time so I don't have that feeling again.

Oh, oh, oh, to touch and... errr... that's something else, but I do have something new to tell you... I'VE BREATHED UNDERWATER!!! Yeah, I've had SCUBA class twice in a resort pool and Monday I go out into the ocean for my first open water dive. So I'm uber excited about that.

I got to play in a full field soccer game with goals and a (sort of) ref. It was awesome! We lost in PK's, but there were FANS. And a whole lot of them. Cheering and yelling. Kelly was organizing the "Give me an R!" cheer, while Ron was yelling about the "faux-hawk". We had probably twice, if not triple, the size of Windsor (a medical school on the island) cheering section. Somewhere around 50 or 60 people. It was soo exciting and just made playing so much more fun. It was the greatest Friday night I've had in a long time. Thank you to all the fans. It was amazing!

School is going well and as always, I'm excited about going to class and learning so I'm still very happy to be here. Thanks to all those that are helping me stay here.

And I will be back the 10th of Dec.

Hilarious picture, just wanted to share...

if you ever wanted to learn about dog anatomy, this is how I want to learn:

Late Night

So... can't sleep and decided to blog about it. Especially since I haven't in a while. So here's the update, with Halloween right around the corner and my love for coming up with random costumes, I got excited. Then the excitement was lost because a few days after the parties, I had too many tests and wouldn't allow myself to celebrate. Luckily, there was a party early, this weekend in fact. So I got to celebrate without guilt. Which also meant I had to make a costume up with very little to go on. Well, I wasn't going to win any competitions, but my "Captain" outfit went alright. Carried a Capt. Morgan bottle all night and tried to have my knee up, which is extremely difficult I might add. It was fun though. Felt like a Undergrad party where everyone got to let loose. Some more than others, which was also fun to watch.

But for some reason I have the inability to sleep and the only thing I've found good at night is...

... the internet connection. Which means I can watch all the videos online streaming without jumping and such. And the other good thing I found today was that TNT has all the Angel episodes streaming! So that's what I'm doing, right now... Streaming episodes of Angel. Just can't keep my eyes closed.

Mid-Semester Break!

Today is the campus' day off to relax, have a long weekend, and cool their jets (though a few are using it to get ahead in school). But if you remember from previous post, I haven't had much to study so I can't do that. Don't have a car, so no whim trips around the island. So it's been a lot of movies intermittent with a little studying to just get ahead. And that continues again today. Ugh

I mean, it's not like I haven't done things, I celebrated a birthday, checked out island damage, met a cigar seller who will sell to me cheap, and went island hopping to Nevis. So some excitement, just seems like a lot less when school is not there, constantly knocking, reminding, and poking reminders.

So is this me missing school? Do I want it back? Or do I just want something to do out of boredom?

Aftermath

I've now been through my first hurricane! Wasn't the worst thing in the world, but we also got lucky that the eye passed north of us and we mostly got wind and rain as a side thought. Omar got up to a Category 3 Hurricane around midnight. We got intermittent rain all night and it was pretty intense around 1:30am, but nothing the island couldn't handle. Seems like the school pulled through, just waiting to hear about any damage to the rest of the island. But other than that, it went well.

In other news, you all know that I'm never going to get snow days again, but now I get Hurricane Days. We got yesterday off to prepare and today off to recover. So two days off of school after the hell weekend of sickness and 6 tests. All I have to survive is Friday which is only two hours of Anatomy because Physio prof is out of town and there is no Applications this week. Pretty sweet week of school, I'd say. Unfortunately, the lack of school means lack of things to study and therefore little to do without transportation. One of the downsides of bumming rides and whatnot.

What I've learned so far:

C=DVM
Cat 1-3 Hurricane=Hurricane Parties

Recovery

So the recovery phase is in order now or period of convalescence as MicroBiology has taught me. I am recovering from the cold that I had and also the 5 (some say 6) tests that I had yesterday. It's weird, each of them by themselves were not hard, it's the combination of them together in one block of time that gets the students. The stress of all that really made some pretty mad at the university and why they'd teach this way, but I was a defender of the system. The advantage of the block exams is that I study for each class equally (well less for math and terminology) leading up to them. This way I never ignore one class because I have another coming up sooner. It's really helping me personally stay on top of things. Well, except for the past two nights which were my celebration/relaxation/recovery period. But that ends tomorrow. Nose back to the grindstone. It's actually kind of a relief because i had no idea what to do with myself today. I just had nothing to do and it was raining so no way i'm going to the beach.

Which brings me to my next point, keep me in your mind over the next couple days. There's a possible hurricane rolling through this hood and could create some havoc. Just try to keep an ear out for my little rock here. Well that is all for today.

SICK!!!

Ugh, so I got sick. Those who know me, know I don't normally get sick and am not very good at being empathatic towards those who are. Now I'm paying for it. I have that basic head, nose, throat thing. Started with only a sore throat which worried me that it was strep, but once the rest kicked in, I knew... Basic Common Regular Cold. Ugh.

I did get lucky that my study buddy was sick too and we enjoyed seeing the nurse at 7:15am to have her not help at all. Well, I did get some sweet lozenges, but she didn't get squat (granted her "pink eye" went away). So suffered through the day, didn't go to rugby b/c of TA session which I couldn't really get to b/c of the rain. Plus studying for the (~6 but officially) 5 tests on Monday. This weekend is gonna be hell mixed with a little volleyball and soccer. Plus my new test of not getting pissy towards those trying to help. It kinda happened last time around for tests and I don't want it to happen again.

Wish me luck

Wonders...

You gotta love the wonder of the 'net. I have been catching up on the backstories for shows I've been following. Unfortunately, a lot of shows don't play outside the U.S.. Weird, so like nbc.com and whatnot do not work here in the islands. Not cool, but due to the wonders of google and the lovely world wide web, I got it taken care. Fixed it so I can understand why the desperate housewives hate each other (just kidding, hate the show). And fyi, Dad, I use it for study breaks. 2-3 hrs studying and then a little catch up on US tv. Just in case you were worried.

Second reason the internet is great: I've been reading a lot about how great some Batman graphic novels are and so in an effort to expand my knowledge of the subject, I purchased a few through amazon.com and they should be delivered between oct 31 and nov 21. Really!? I got a twenty day window, one month from now? So the internet is helpful, but delivery systems are not. I am actually gonna ship that home and have "Dr" bring it down to save myself the hassle.

Lastly for this post, though my tests are next Monday, I'm starting to feel the stress. Just that thought in the back of my head that I just don't know enough yet. That is the one that is starting to bother me. This may be a bad weekend coming up so watch out all. Just gotta remind myself not to take it out on those helping me. Sorry Study Buddy. But it's not all bad, I'm doing decent in anatomy and physio. I went to the lab extra today and felt I had done a good job practicing with other students. It's weird that I can just go and pull my dog out whenever and take a look. The freedom and trust in the lab is pretty cool here.

So no real revelations in this post, but doing well here. Oh, the new theater is pretty cool with sweet rocking chairs for seats.

Postseason

So if you know me, you know I'm from Chicago and am a Chicago Cubs fan as I live and breathe. And what do I do in a year they decide to crush the NL Central Division and give themselves an amazing chance at a run for the pennant... I go out of country to Vet School where I have little time to watch the games and can't even see all the games. I have to watch it on Gameday at MLB.com! I can't even do the live TV thing they offer because, oh wait, the internet connection isn't good enough! WTF!? So here I am, one game into the post-season and I can't even celebrate in Chicago. I'm on a rock in the middle of the caribbean.

Alright, alright... it's not all that bad. There a whole lot of Cubs fans down here. Two of the major male fans aren't even from Chicago area. One is Iowa and the other is Florida. Iowa just had nothing else near him and so Cubbies was the adoptive choice. Florida's family was from Chicago and that's where he got his love. He hasn't even been to Wrigley! So yeah, I got some other fans and we got a sweet place to watch which is the Marriott Resort where they have multiple flat screens to show the games and it's actually in the casino so if I'm feeling lucky, I can go win some money to pay for beers... granted I lost $10 when I tried to pay for the pitchers of beer. Oh well. So that's what I got, ups and downs due to the timing of Vet School, but I do love the classes and being on the island and just getting my future rolling. Okay, game starts in 40 min so I gotta go steal a tv in the dorms.

MakeUp!?

We will now discuss the awesome idea it is for my math teacher to miss a whole 3 weeks of class and then want to make up those 3 weeks in the span of... what... umm... hmm... 3 weeks! Who does that!? Basically, we have tests every 3 weeks, therefore, he wanted to have two tests after the double set of 3 weeks! What!? Double our hours, in of all courses, math and then take two tests instead of one!
Ugh.
Anyways, we're in week 5 and things are basically in full throttle mode. Oh, by the way, this will probably be the only time we see two posting so close together. It's not that I don't care whether you folks hear my rants, but I'm just lazy. Anyway, full throttle school. We have double the math and everything else is on schedule. Luckily, I have a study buddy who is keeping me on track just like my study buddy in undergrad did. Though it is much easier now b/c I feel like I will actually use all this info and I have this idea in the back of my head that this isn't just to "diversify my education". Thanks UIUC. When am I actually going to need to know about the mythology of East Asia??? Apparently they felt it was important. So yeah, we've been dissecting Chubs and doing pretty well, though, his fat content is ridiculous. Unbelievable! And oh yeah, the professor for that lovely class (I do like the class and prof) decided to tell us today, that he wanted the dog skinned by tomorrow so we could begin going through muscles. He couldn't tell us a couple days ago? Apparently not.
Ugh.
I promise that future posts will be less anger rants.

So far...

Wow, this place is amazing!

I'm here in St. Kitts at Ross University School of Medicine and I can barely study. It's gorgeous here and the quote of the island is "live de life" with basically a Bob Marley-esque dude pictured next to it. There are beaches everywhere, the beer is cheap, and it's never below 70 degrees.

Things I've done so far:
-Swam in the Atlantic Ocean
-Swam in the Caribbean Ocean
-Snorkeled in the Caribbean
-Been on a catamaran trip
-Dissected a dog
-Studied on the beach (once with a professor)
-Played beach volleyball weekly
-Played soccer
-Joined a rugby group
-Bought meat out of a van
-Almost got in a fight with a british guy (his fault, not mine)
-Spooned!
-Got "rooted" by a giant 700lb pig
-Got lost on a hike and waited in some random town on the wrong side of the island
-Failed a test, then 5 minutes later, didn't
-Dissected(ing) a dog we named Chubs
-Jumped on a floating trampoline at the Marriott resort
-Talked my way around getting caught at the Marriott (students aren't allowed)
-Had a Mudslide at 10:50am on a Monday (I don't always have class on Mondays)
-Changed 3 tires on the same car in a hours time (but only 2 were popped)
-Had a delicious, but ghetto-ly made, angel food cake on my B-Day

That's about all I can think of right now. But as you can see it's exciting and I've only been here a month or so. I'll keep updating this if I feel like it's working for my cause as to update everyone that I can't reach by phone/laptop.