Bad Blogger; No Cookie!

Yeah yeah, it's been a few days since I blogged, for a number of reasons... drunkenness, laziness, stress...ness... it's a word now, and not simply because of my traditional overuse of ellipses. I'm in therapy for it. It's not going well.

So where was I? Playing rugby. Great. That was Thursday, so we'll flip through Friday.

On Friday, I grumbled as I awoke just in time to be quite late to my new clinical skills weekly lab starting at 8:30 in the morning, with a bonus histo lab right after since they're changing schedules around, thus ensuring I'll miss EVERYTHING.

At the time, I was quite pissed off by losing what had been one of my last free mornings. In retrospect, I discovered that this would earn me my Tuesdays and Mondays, which, considering their proximity to the weekend, is MUCH better, so wahoo school.

Still, the beginning of patient interviews didn't thrill me because to date, with the exception of nailing a differential diagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy, I've found clinical skills to be the bane of my existence, filling hours with things that turn out to be common sense or flat wrong.

But an exception!!! The patient interview lab was not only entertaining, but, wait for it, potentially useful!!! We talked for a bit about taking a patient history, which fortunately I got as an EMT since I missed part of it, but then an actress came in and we all took turns interviewing her for her ailment. I felt good about diagnosing her with gallbladder disease (mentally) the second she said "greasy food", but my group seems to consist of smart cookies because they got it too.

It's funny to go back and review interviewing though, and since our group leader was good, making sure to avoid leading questions, particularly when covering personal or difficult questions: "do you drink? Well how much? Is it like once a day or once a week? Like a glass?" No. No. No.

The actress said we did a good job and made her feel comfortable too, and our group was quite supportive of each other. A couple of my friends said they did theirs and people in their groups were really critical, but either we're all awesome or all kind, and I'm happy either way.

But you want to hear about Sandblast, don't you? Ahhh Sandblast.

Sandblast is the drunken fervor that follows midterms, I believe for both med and vet students. Everyone is welcome, and best yet, it's on Grand Anse Beach.

In advance, I'd had a light plan of drinking sufficiently (which I've been good about not doing lately) to have people say "Whoa, is she all right?" Mission accomplished! A preface to all of this is: Kids, don't try this at home.

Sandblast, not so coincidentally, fell on St. Paddy's Day. Wahoo! So Ishie had her first green beer, which makes me sad to say, but I only started tolerating beer recently, so there you go.

I headed out there a little late (around 2 PM), because, I'm embarrassed to say, I was up really late the night before... STUDYING. Oh, the shame.

Got to Sandblast and after getting my cup on a string (everyone needs a cup on a string), immediately stripped down to bathing suit in an ATTEMPT to give the illusion that I live in the Caribbean and have seen the sun in recent months. Once you paid for the wristband (which I had in advance), the alcohol was "free", and I took full advantage of that fact. Hooked up with some friends (not like that) and just generally was drunk and rowdy. We also found a business professor named Carlos who was very cool, so we dragged him around with us for a while, took pictures, and then he eventually wandered off, probably to talk to people that had a blood alcohol level that put them somewhere near coherent.

Good music; good drinks; good friends; and inexplicably, good food, which is a rare commodity unless you either make the food yourself or buy the cheese fries at Glovers. I even had a hamburger! And it didn't suck! Or make me sick! They were also passing out full Magnum bars which made for a happy Ishie.

Then it was playing in the water with David, including a swim out to Shadowfax to net a free Carib which one of the crew (Shadowfax is a pretty boat that does cruises around the island) opened and passed down to us as other students (who had money inexplicably on their persons, despite being quite a distance off the beach) climbed aboard. I didn't see the boat leave, and I'm not sure where it left to or if we got those students back, but hopefully they had fun. We had plenty of fun playing "swim back to shore with open bottle of Carib while sipping off the top and NOT getting ocean in it".

There were also guys with boats pulling either banana boats or innertubes for money. David, Emily Kate and I opted for the latter and climbed aboard our respective rubber vessels, drunkenly barreling along at full speed (again, kids don't try this at home). Unfortunately, the tubes hit the wake of a different boat and I did a full flip upside-down, still clinging onto the handles on the innertube. David also took a dive, though Emily Kate miraculously kept her innertube upright.

The horsecollar flotation device that had been carefully attached to me came straight off so the floaty part was on the surface and I was under it with the strap tangled around my neck. Gee, thank heavens for safety measures. Without that lifejacket, saving myself would have been MUCH easier. Fortunately, I swim well. Even more fortunately, I swim well when a bit intoxicated, which is a key thing to know.

Hitting the water actually hurt quite a bit at that speed, and I jacked my knee up to a degree that it still smarts, though no swelling, but it kept me out of rugby Sunday. Dammit! When I hit the water, I opened my eyes in time to realize my sunglasses were lost to the briny deep and that I was still underwater with a not great idea of where "up" was. I did a brief mental check of my systems to make sure no serious injuries, oriented myself, detangled the stupid strap around my neck, and broke surface, apparently a little later than the boat captain would have liked because I came up to "Sweetie???? Sweetie???? You all right, sweetie???" Heh. My freediving abilities must be getting better. I didn't even feel particularly desperate for air. But then it was back rocketing along at full speed with hearty "woos!" by all, which, by the way, absolutely rocks, even if you do substantially increase your chances of drowning.

Back to drinking and dancing and doing so in front of my first foam cannon. Those are fun!!! Sandblast is a serious party... the kind of party I didn't know actually existed but thought they staged on MTV to make me feel like a loser in high school, but they're real!!!! You just need a tropical beach to make them work.

Following all this of course came the inevitable result of drinking all day, thus I decided to take a much deserved nap in the sand, causing concerned amusement on behalf of my friends, and alarm on behalf of the locals who kept trying to get me up and squeeze oranges in my mouth. I'm not sure what oranges are supposed to do for drunken idiots, but they tasted good. So good in fact that as David and Nina got me to my feet, I managed to clasp an orange in my hand, which I apparently didn't drop until I got back to my dorm room, confusing the heck out of me when I found it under my desk in the morning... "What the??? I haven't even bought oranges!!! Wait a minute..."

David thankfully got my bag, ensuring that I have my camera, wallet, and histo book for posterity (Yes, I brought a book to Sandblast, but don't judge me; it's not like I read it), though my sandals and towel (along with sunglasses) have been sacrificed to Bacchus.

Apparently I was staggery enough that Sej, concerned, gave some advice on drinking water and taking Tylenol and made sure I was all right, thus fulfilling my "Is she okay?" prophecy from earlier. Bwa ha!

NOT a fun bus ride. One thing about me is that I will NOT vomit 'where I am' if you will, or in inappropriate places. Outside is fine; a toilet is fine. Otherwise, no way. It upsets me. I mind less when other people do it as I'm used to it, but I have a mental block against doing it myself, largely because it means either drunkenly trying to clean up a mess myself or having to look someone in the eye later that had to do it for me. So that bus ride was "Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Don't throw up."

So I kept my dignity, only throwing up once I was on the lawn of the Superdorms, like any self-respecting future doctor would do.

Nina and David patiently helped me out and then got me up to the dorm and into bed to pour some Gatorade down my throat while my roommate tried to scrape sand out of my eyes to what was apparently hilarious drunken commentary from me.

I felt a little better later so we went out for some of those magnificent cheese fries from Glover's. Ahhhh mercy. By this point unfortunately, I started not feeling great and my knee hurt so to bed, to awaken somewhat confused because my sheets were FULL of sand, as was the floor... as were my ears... and my hair... blech. Note to self: do NOT lie down on the beach when drunk (or sober, probably). you will get sand places you didn't think sand could get. And I'm still regularly sweeping the floor.

Sunday I actually got studying done, but still wasn't feeling great and was a bit moody, not to mention bummed by skipping rugby because my knee hurt... no problem, I figure hangover, right?

So MONDAY, I wake up, STILL feeling kind of yucky, but mostly REALLY moody, like "I want to go home; this sucks" kind of moody. Hmmm... hangovers do not last that long, particularly when one has vomited up a good portion of her alcohol and isn't that prone to hangovers anyway.

Temperature? 101. Damn. Not a hangover.

But I'm feeling better now, thus have been alternating between being a lazy bum while watching Futurama, and being a productive bum while studying biochem.

But remember kids, drugs are bad, mmmkay? To those ready to chide me for my drunken debauchery, just remember, it can't be bad.. it's school sponsored! I wonder if those drug seminar people will make us retake that "are you an alcoholic" test now. I'm guessing after a couple months of medical school, those class averages would be WAY up!