Grenadian Day

With a bad morning to start it though.

Went to my immunology lecture this morning (which is not, regrettably, on Sonic Foundry) and despite having felt *fairly* caught up in that class, thought the instructor was reading an eye chart off the back wall. So had a bit of a "I hate med school" fit but snapped out of it. I studied the summary notes (which are different from the lecture slides) and it's starting to make sense, and it only takes the amount of time of my other two classes combined, so no big deal.

But had lunch at Sugar Shack, dining on a lambie (conch) roti and a ting. This is a wonderful combination when you're feeling sorry for yourself because it's not only magically delicious (conch isn't as good as abalone, but it's pretty damn good, and ting is just... Caribbean crack, grapefruit flavored crack, and I don't even like grapefruit), but very island-y.

Went home to do the aforementioned studying and when I took a break for my evening walk (which has been doing wonders for me, and yes, it's 'parentheses' day), I decided to go off the normal, well-traveled, rush-hour, honked-at, killed-by-reggae bus routes and go back toward campus and up into the hills.

This also emphasized the really positive islandy aspects because it's stunning up there, while keeping me very much mentally ON the island because I forgot to drench myself in toxic chemicals before venturing off into the jungle at dusk and predictably got the living crap bitten out of me by mozzies. Hello, dengue! Don't worry, this island doesn't tend to produce the hemorrhagic form.

But that actually didn't bother me much. I'm used to mosquitoes. The views were pretty, the nasty dogs stayed in their yards, and I managed to somehow time being at a high vantage point overlooking one of the many inlet-seas right at sunset, so that was flat awesome. No camera though, unfortunately. Another time. It also seems to be a safer route since there's FAR less traffic. Only problem is that a lot of it isn't paved, and though I'm using a brand new ankle brace bought from the drug store (Grenada apparently, has better braces than Walmart, whose brace I responsibly bought prior to coming has done such hideous blistery things to my left foot that it looks like I have hookworm), I'm still trying to be careful with it.

Frigging thing. To catch people up, in January, approximately three days after I arrived on Grenada, I sprained my ankle for the first time in my life by the insanely bold athletic act of walking along a path at a party. Wasn't even drunk yet! Was on crutches for about a week, wore a wrap on it, seemed a fairly normal-course injury, and yet, ten months later, it still likes to periodically swell, creak, ache, and occasionally tries to turn again (unsuccessfully to date).

While exercise exacerbates this somewhat, it does this anyway, quite normally, even when I have it elevated, iced, and am watching television on the sofa, so I finally figured I'd just brace it, and since it's acting like it's going to want surgery in the distant future, I might as well have fun destroying it. I want the MRI in ten years to be definitive and *impressive*. None of this borderline stuff. I want to have an ankle like the shoulder I saw when I was doing my orthopod shadowing, where the doctor looked at the MRI, whistled and said "looks like someone set a bomb off in there." Hells yeah. On an anatomical note, the humerus isn't supposed to be attached to the clavicle, is it?

Anyway, to complete my Grenada day, I finally polished off the soursop ice cream I had in the freezer. A word of advice on that... my roommate introduced me to soursop last term as a base for smoothies, which is really nice *when you mix it with other things*. By itself in ice cream... the first bite seems like it's going to be horrible, and has an initial "ooh, do NOT like" sensation, but then kind of grows on you, but not to the extent ice cream normally should. It has a taste quality that is vaguely reminiscent of the fibrous parts of melons, despite the fact that it has the consistency of normal, creamy ice cream. Definitely not as bad as the artichoke ice cream in Castroville though, where your response is "Wow... that's far less atrocious than I thought it was going to be, yet remains bad."

Since I'm a cheapskate and don't hate the stuff, I was resolved to finish it before buying a new container of something better (Sugar & Spice's nutmeg, rum/raisin, orange pine, and strawberry swirl are all awesome), and so now that mission is accomplished. Back to T-cells.