I absolutely love the time after an exam has passed. That first week before panic has set in for how behind I am when I can still live like I'm on vacation.
Exams went decently, though no clinical skills grade yet. I'm not sure if they're planning on failing half the class (likely not) or how they're going to handle the fact that a great number of us aren't doing well in a class that used to be one of the no prob classes (probably when it was in St. Vincent's). They seem like a fair lot though. We have our OSCE exam next Tuesday which will be a large determinant in how grades go.
So what's been going on? Friday was the pharm exam. While being horrible, it wasn't half as horrible as the last one, probably because I took the "memorize the drugs" approach this time rather than the "read and understand" approach I took last time, which, given the nature of a class where the goal is to memorize drugs, was probably a stupid move.
I've progressively gone from acute panic attacks first term to "Oh my god I just don't care anymore", which has proven to be the better route. I'm also learning to sleep before exams. Thursday night, I was kind of in that place where I really didn't want to study anymore and was majorly tired of it, but was cranky in that sort of child throwing a tantrum (hence the video) way rather than some deep penetrating sort of fear. You know that stage where you're like "I COULD spend the next hour doing worm flashcards, but I so do not feel like it, but I still have six hours until bed time and can't justify spending it watching Scrubs reruns"?
So Friday night was the celebration of Krash's birthday, so we headed to Aquarium for a very nice dinner, Wayne sang to her, and it was all great fun. Saturday was my day for catching up sleep and bumming around doing nothing. Sunday was early rising for a cruise around the island, some hardcore waves up snorkeling, a BBQ off Sandy Island, a powerful rainstorm over some amazing rock formations, and great company, great rum punch. Dinner with Dave and then movie night with Krash, with popcorn and pie, plus Without a Paddle and Oceans 11, neither of which I've seen because I've been living in a cave.
Today was brief responsibility in the form of a surprisingly useful meeting on the boards and attaining a residency. Then that quickly gave way to a girls night at Ocean Grill, which is one of my favorite restaurants. Lori was showing Grenada to her visiting family, so we piled six people into a rented car and took off for St. George's. More wining and dining. And beering and pizzaing at Prickly Bay this coming Friday. What medical school?
That impression given to her family also makes me realize the lucky parts of living here again. Sailing, enjoying the beaches and general Caribbean life. Funny stories about the stuff we do in our precious free time. I realize I've had more 'recreation events' in the last two years than at any time in my life because we work so hard. So rather than having those blissful unemployed days of doing very little but playing Bloodrayne 2 for weeks, I'm Sandblasting or turtle watching or hashing or sailing (or sleeping in and watching tv, but you know).
Message of the day on the general meeting: THE STEP ONE IS THE MORE IMPORTANT EXAM YOU WILL EVER TAKE IN YOUR LIFE. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT SCREW THIS UP.
Eek. Message received. Also, although I've seen the "choose a specialty flow chart" before, it always cracks me up and was a great mood lightener to the meeting, as were the appropriately placed jokes in the speakers' routines ("No one told me we had a second exam!!!!" If there were only one exam, they wouldn't call it the Step 1. They'd just call it the Step.").
So that was good. Most of our "so you're gonna be a doctor" meetings are completely useless. I contemplating skipping this one in tradition with my general nature as a truant, but decided to stick it out and was glad I did.
Time to write a case report.
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Nov 10, 2008
Sep 30, 2008
Geeze where do I begin?
I went from having really nothing to say but "camped at Taylor Hall; made doe-eyes at boyfriend; tried to find source of study for pathophys; periodically mimed the First Aid book eating my head. Highlighted every line of pulmonary physiology in the BRS Physio since it all seemed important. Thought I was doing well at studying pharm but totally wasn't. Watched Red Dwarf. Slept." to having a ton going on where I don't know where to start. As frequently seems to occur.
Midterms! Aiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee.... oh, was that ever an exercise in humility. Weirdly, the exam I had the most problem with at a philosophical level is the one I'm pretty sure I did the best on with all the added hoopla (not that it justifies anything), while I'm thinking I didn't do half as well in Clinical Skills as I thought (damn you, Hashimoto's thyroiditis!), and I have no idea what I got in pharm, but I'm kind of hoping it's in the double digits. Gods.
Taking the pharm exam made me realize two things:
1: I'm VERY bad at drugs. I knew this from biochem when I was going through my flashcards while my dad was visiting, and he was reading me off the answer for the mechanism of neomycin without looking at the card because I'd missed it so many times.
2: When I learn drugs, it's kind of like I have this new deck of playing cards in my head where each suite represents a drug class and I know what order they're in. Taking a pharm exam is kind of like taking that deck of cards and playing 52 card pickup. And I just look at the fluttering mess on the floor and go "Uh oh." So... new study approach for me, I think.
In the wake of midterms, I pretty much spent the rest of Friday in full on bender-mode, starting with George's party, featuring great company, great rum punch, great food, great pinata. Then the Beauty and the Geek party which had some really innovative costumes by my colleagues. Then Banana's, largely to steal Dem's french fries.
Then spent the rest of the weekend recovering from Friday by lounging on various beaches and making a two and a half week overdue trip to Spiceland Mall to buy food, since my on campus studies have caused me to subsist off food from Pearl's, which means I've hit my upper limit for intestinal parasites.
Saturday, La Sagesse was characteristically gorgeous and the weather went from looking like it was going to rain us out to being really nice. We had a wonderful lunch at the restaurant there, went for a long swim, and got eaten by ants on the beach. Oh, though word of advice since this applied to all of us, myself included... don't go out for a long night of drinking and reveling, get four to five hours of sleep and then jump into a cab for a lengthy ride along fast tight curves. Glurgh.
Sunday, initially dive planned, but still recovering, so lounged at Grand Anse. The beach was nice, but apparently the storm that missed us hit it, and the water was kind of eerie. There was a dead eel washed up on the beach which some brave girl, as everyone watched her in awe, picked it up by its rotting dead tail and hauled it over to the garbage can so people wouldn't have to deal with it. REALLY nice of her.
The seascape though, save for a couple flying gernards (woo hoo!) seemed oddly dead. The coral was pretty brown, and then Lori and I swam through a patch where there were bubbles on the surface and we couldn't see anything, but then started feeling itchy and then actively stingy and we were like "okay, time to go", so I have no idea what that was about and it's never happened before. I'm wondering if we swam through the remains of a boat propeller-hit jellyfish. I had some spots when we got out, but quickly faded, and drying off to a diminishing sun made it all worthwhile. As did not having to study.
Last night was Dark Knight night, since Lori and I seem to be the last people on earth who haven't seen it, so we made a night of it with Dave. Awww, RIP Heath Ledger. Much as I love Batman, I've always thought most of its villains weren't half as scary as Batman himself, but that is the kind of Joker that makes you want to sleep with the lights on. Sorry Jack Nicholson; you'll always have the Shining.
In the meantime, the surge of response to the whole pathophys thing has been awesome and you guys are absolutely fantastic!! It looks like we may get some changes too: Our note packet was printed and there for lecture (Yes, I went; stop the presses, though three buses passing me made it a thirty minutes late for first lecture thing), they seem to be shifting the setup of the Friday classes AND have already posted the objectives, they're having a meeting, and stuff's happening. Wahoo!
We just started the hematology unit which so far seems to be recycling path. Hematology is one of the nastiest parts of path due to having to be able to read a CBC in 75 seconds and pull a diagnosis out of it, but so far it's review, which is good, because eventually if I study myeloid derivations enough, it may stick in my head like the frigging female menstrual cycle finally did. You'd think, that being female, it would not take me FIVE SEPARATE medical school classes to learn when the progesterone rises, but I'm slow like that. Some stuff goes in once and stays there until I'm dead and other stuff that other people have gotten a year ago, when they're reviewing it in class, I'm going "dammit. Still don't know it." And I go back to my original source or the internet (Wiggers Diagram, I'm looking in your direction) and I redraw it, and I read all the parts of it out loud, and I see if I can redraw it from memory, and state all the parts, and feel secure, and know it on the exam, and promptly forget it entirely until it comes up again.
To backtrack a bit, I had my anesthesia rotation this morning, which I thought would be really boring (ewww, pulmonary phys), but was really interesting, particularly when first the Bovie died, and then the entire power shut off three times until the OR was running on the backup generator. The doctors were great, let us close in on a hernia operation, and showed us everything. They're also a very calm lot, moving effectively and deliberately, but not panicky as the anesthesia cart is screaming over its sudden power cut, the lights have gone out (hooray for windows), and the patient is open. Noooo problem. Continue putting hernia back in, no reason for alarm, sewn up, with awesome response to being put under.
They let us in pretty close without screwing up the sterile field, and were very willing and ready to answer our questions. So far all the docs have been like that, so I've been impressed, as I've mentioned, with the rotations, and find them to be a really cool experience that's giving us not only a taste of a lot of different areas of medicine, but also of the whole "medical experience in another country". Some stuff is utterly the same, while other stuff is mystifyingly different.
Got home from the selective to wash up since I knew I had a nice dinner after lecture, but found I had no water. I haven't found that this happens to me all that frequently, but when it does, it tends to hit at inconvenient times. Same with internet access. I'll have NO problems with internet access for weeks when I'm screwing around watching youtube videos while trying not to study, but the second I try to download some small group assignment that's due the next day? Total connection meltdown.
In other news, FANTASTIC dinner with Dave tonight where he was, per usual, being a perfect gentleman, and is gradually breaking me into Merlot, which is usually up with Cab on the "List of the only two wines I have trouble choking down", but I've been really enjoying it lately. What can I say; I'm a wino!
Midterms! Aiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee.... oh, was that ever an exercise in humility. Weirdly, the exam I had the most problem with at a philosophical level is the one I'm pretty sure I did the best on with all the added hoopla (not that it justifies anything), while I'm thinking I didn't do half as well in Clinical Skills as I thought (damn you, Hashimoto's thyroiditis!), and I have no idea what I got in pharm, but I'm kind of hoping it's in the double digits. Gods.
Taking the pharm exam made me realize two things:
1: I'm VERY bad at drugs. I knew this from biochem when I was going through my flashcards while my dad was visiting, and he was reading me off the answer for the mechanism of neomycin without looking at the card because I'd missed it so many times.
2: When I learn drugs, it's kind of like I have this new deck of playing cards in my head where each suite represents a drug class and I know what order they're in. Taking a pharm exam is kind of like taking that deck of cards and playing 52 card pickup. And I just look at the fluttering mess on the floor and go "Uh oh." So... new study approach for me, I think.
In the wake of midterms, I pretty much spent the rest of Friday in full on bender-mode, starting with George's party, featuring great company, great rum punch, great food, great pinata. Then the Beauty and the Geek party which had some really innovative costumes by my colleagues. Then Banana's, largely to steal Dem's french fries.
Then spent the rest of the weekend recovering from Friday by lounging on various beaches and making a two and a half week overdue trip to Spiceland Mall to buy food, since my on campus studies have caused me to subsist off food from Pearl's, which means I've hit my upper limit for intestinal parasites.
Saturday, La Sagesse was characteristically gorgeous and the weather went from looking like it was going to rain us out to being really nice. We had a wonderful lunch at the restaurant there, went for a long swim, and got eaten by ants on the beach. Oh, though word of advice since this applied to all of us, myself included... don't go out for a long night of drinking and reveling, get four to five hours of sleep and then jump into a cab for a lengthy ride along fast tight curves. Glurgh.
Sunday, initially dive planned, but still recovering, so lounged at Grand Anse. The beach was nice, but apparently the storm that missed us hit it, and the water was kind of eerie. There was a dead eel washed up on the beach which some brave girl, as everyone watched her in awe, picked it up by its rotting dead tail and hauled it over to the garbage can so people wouldn't have to deal with it. REALLY nice of her.
The seascape though, save for a couple flying gernards (woo hoo!) seemed oddly dead. The coral was pretty brown, and then Lori and I swam through a patch where there were bubbles on the surface and we couldn't see anything, but then started feeling itchy and then actively stingy and we were like "okay, time to go", so I have no idea what that was about and it's never happened before. I'm wondering if we swam through the remains of a boat propeller-hit jellyfish. I had some spots when we got out, but quickly faded, and drying off to a diminishing sun made it all worthwhile. As did not having to study.
Last night was Dark Knight night, since Lori and I seem to be the last people on earth who haven't seen it, so we made a night of it with Dave. Awww, RIP Heath Ledger. Much as I love Batman, I've always thought most of its villains weren't half as scary as Batman himself, but that is the kind of Joker that makes you want to sleep with the lights on. Sorry Jack Nicholson; you'll always have the Shining.
In the meantime, the surge of response to the whole pathophys thing has been awesome and you guys are absolutely fantastic!! It looks like we may get some changes too: Our note packet was printed and there for lecture (Yes, I went; stop the presses, though three buses passing me made it a thirty minutes late for first lecture thing), they seem to be shifting the setup of the Friday classes AND have already posted the objectives, they're having a meeting, and stuff's happening. Wahoo!
We just started the hematology unit which so far seems to be recycling path. Hematology is one of the nastiest parts of path due to having to be able to read a CBC in 75 seconds and pull a diagnosis out of it, but so far it's review, which is good, because eventually if I study myeloid derivations enough, it may stick in my head like the frigging female menstrual cycle finally did. You'd think, that being female, it would not take me FIVE SEPARATE medical school classes to learn when the progesterone rises, but I'm slow like that. Some stuff goes in once and stays there until I'm dead and other stuff that other people have gotten a year ago, when they're reviewing it in class, I'm going "dammit. Still don't know it." And I go back to my original source or the internet (Wiggers Diagram, I'm looking in your direction) and I redraw it, and I read all the parts of it out loud, and I see if I can redraw it from memory, and state all the parts, and feel secure, and know it on the exam, and promptly forget it entirely until it comes up again.
To backtrack a bit, I had my anesthesia rotation this morning, which I thought would be really boring (ewww, pulmonary phys), but was really interesting, particularly when first the Bovie died, and then the entire power shut off three times until the OR was running on the backup generator. The doctors were great, let us close in on a hernia operation, and showed us everything. They're also a very calm lot, moving effectively and deliberately, but not panicky as the anesthesia cart is screaming over its sudden power cut, the lights have gone out (hooray for windows), and the patient is open. Noooo problem. Continue putting hernia back in, no reason for alarm, sewn up, with awesome response to being put under.
They let us in pretty close without screwing up the sterile field, and were very willing and ready to answer our questions. So far all the docs have been like that, so I've been impressed, as I've mentioned, with the rotations, and find them to be a really cool experience that's giving us not only a taste of a lot of different areas of medicine, but also of the whole "medical experience in another country". Some stuff is utterly the same, while other stuff is mystifyingly different.
Got home from the selective to wash up since I knew I had a nice dinner after lecture, but found I had no water. I haven't found that this happens to me all that frequently, but when it does, it tends to hit at inconvenient times. Same with internet access. I'll have NO problems with internet access for weeks when I'm screwing around watching youtube videos while trying not to study, but the second I try to download some small group assignment that's due the next day? Total connection meltdown.
In other news, FANTASTIC dinner with Dave tonight where he was, per usual, being a perfect gentleman, and is gradually breaking me into Merlot, which is usually up with Cab on the "List of the only two wines I have trouble choking down", but I've been really enjoying it lately. What can I say; I'm a wino!
Feb 25, 2008
On! On!
And in other news, third term grades are in, and my half-lidded truancy and steady diet of Old El Paso tortilla pizzas has paid off! Woo hoo! I suspect fourth term will not be so kind.
I've done a hash! And not the illegal kind! A hash is a sort of fun-walk/jog/run/hike that here seems to be somewhere between 4-6 miles long, and involves a lot of yelling (Are you? On! On!), and a lot of beer. I have an official "Certificate of Loss of Virginity", which I'm tempted to frame as a substitute for my degree to instill that extra vote of confidence in my patients.
For those quick to judge, all this was AFTER hiking pretty strenuous trails for five miles and sprinting through a gamut of non-virgin hashers coating us in beer. This also meant I smelled like a three-day dead hobo. Perfect for getting back onto the bus with others who were similarly qualified, or as the certificate put it "exhausted, sweaty, and smelling like a ram goat".
Oddly enough, this certificate was awarded by the head of the library, who turns out to be incredibly awesome AND a seasoned hasher. I am humbled.
Not knowing there was a bus directly to the hash, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by attempting to "meet up" on the Carenage down in St. George's, not finding anyone, wandering around sufficiently to further my face burn (by the way, THREE cruise ships in port? Good lord!), and finally just saying "Balthazar?" to people at the bus terminal until someone stuffed me, and I do mean STUFFED me, into a van.
Probably made it in record time though. The reggae bus driver was burning off the tires on the turns.
But got there without a problem in time to watch the SGU buses pull up. Sigh. Incidentally, *they're* free.
I'm completely new to the hash, though I've read up on it a bit. Here's the website for the Grenada Hash House Harriers.
If I could recommend nothing else, if you have one of those camelback integrated water systems, by all means take it. If you're slow, take a flashlight. They do them at 4 PM, I believe to intensify the penalty for lollygagging by having you blunder through the rainforest at night looking desperately for shredded bits of paper to mark the trail. Fortunately, I was hiking towards the front! Which is a first!
The hash:
The beginning, with us having no idea what's about to be in store for us.
Suggestions for not dying (standing on a 2X4 on a barrel not being one of them) as given by our excellent hare (the hounds chase the trail the "hare" leaves), the one, the only, River Rat!
And speaking of rivers:
We were periodically crossing the Balthazar River, usually only mid-thigh deep (though I got to clean my running shoes), but in a couple people's cases, mid-head. Having fifty some-odd people try and hurry across slippery rocks in a river is pretty interesting.
These seem pretty (and were) until you realize how much slippery uphill river crossing, mud grappling you have to do to GET to these views, and it was far prettier in person.
If only they'd had rotis... the hash would have ended right there...
The hashers seemed to be the event of the month to some local kids, one of whom was amusing himself by making an *incredibly* convincing impression of a doberman growling and then jumping out with an equally convincing bark. I'm not even afraid of dogs, and this circa 6 year old made me jump about five feet.
These kids said "take our picture!" "Take our picture!"
If you ever want to be ambassador to the children of another country, own a digital camera. That is hours of entertainment right there, and netted me the following picture when I was in the Philippines:
And the more shots you take, the better they get, since the more they see the pictures of them, the rowdier they get. I'm sure their parents just love it.
Anyway,
Mmmm... chocolate...
Some pictures from the hash aren't present because the trail got nasty (and wet) enough that my camera was half-safely tucked into a plastic bag tucked into my bathing suit top, and I was *still* worried about falling in the river and destroying it.
So we made it to the sweet sweet end of the trail, where beer and goodies are typically served at whichever bar they've crashed. We did our initiation, climbed into the SGU bus reeking of beer, Grenada, and our natural juices, and someone said "we want ice cream".
For the most part, SGU buses, even special events ones, have a certain hypothetical course that they tend to follow without side trips. Reggae buses, not so much. This was not one of those buses. So we were off to St. George's, to the strangest little local ice cream/bar we could find. Went in, ordered beer and ice cream (mmm nutmeg), and somehow, someone whipped out from behind the counter these Rossi wine jugs that someone had made rum in, and had filled said rum with things like nutmeg, sticks, bay leaves, and... we'll just get to the "and" in a minute.
Being already a bit inebriated from the beer and with a free one in hand, it struck me that it would be a good idea to try a shot from the nutmeg infused one figuring I like nutmeg and I like rum, and the best rum is usually served out of a bulk wine jug at a bar where even the locals won't touch the stuff you're drinking, so what the hell, right?
OMG, I think I now know what antifreeze tastes like. Though it's supposed to be sweet. I used to think tequila and whiskey were bad but this was a complex feast of bad in the mouth that had staying power. Gods.
Then, the bartender/executioner whips out a jug that has the bottom full of Grenadian centipedes, or as Jay calls them "deathipedes" because they tend to be between 6 and 14 inches long, and yes, they're venomous. In said jug, there is a brownish pond scum looking murky liquid that smells a bit like scotch tape and gasoline.
Oh, you thought I was kidding?
Something to know about me is that as an idiot, a former anthropology major, someone who worked at a science museum, and someone who's been camping a lot, there is virtually nothing I won't eat or drink, and even that barrier is usually broken by alcohol (I can tell you exactly what squid eyes, mealworms, earwax flavored jelly bellies, and wood moths taste like, for instance).
This was not one of those times. I'm not TOUCHING that stuff. In fact, after a shot of the nutmeg moonshine and a shot of the bay leaf moonshine, I considered myself lucky to still have my eyesight.
Two of the manly men in our party were not similarly dissuaded, and swung back two shots of this vile muck to the sounds of gasps and groans as camera flashes (and regret) exploded in their faces.
Then came the process of getting one of the local patrons to try the stuff who had not witnessed the initial shot, so in a friendly game of "America vs Grenada", the only way the two guys could convince the third guy to take a shot of the worm venom was to do *another* shot of it with him.
The fact that the last time I saw these guys, they were still alive (though had inexplicably bought four baby chicks off a woman making oildown, or as they said "chickens, the ultimate impulse buy") is a testament to their characters. It's similarly impressive that the guy they were pitted against ran outside immediately after, I believe, to throw up. I had a similar urge just by watching the process.
Somehow, in a lack of timely oildown, we all ended up at the wine bar with 8-10 people and four chickens fifteen minutes before they stopped serving food(poor wine bar), to put panini on top of, in one guy's case, about five beers, two shots of regular rotgut moonshine, two shots of centipede moonshine, and a piece of uncooked callaloo (don't do that either, by the way) he'd eaten during the hash. Glurgh.
And then I "hashed" home. The bus was taking a while.
I think it's a testament to *my* character that I was able to drag my aching butt out of bed today to go to La Sagesse and sunset point. You know you've had a rough day when going to the beach the next day takes initiative, but it was well worth it:
And now, having lived it up for an entire weekend where I had absolutely *no* responsibilities, Monday starts the beginning of fourth term, thus the end of life as I know it. Ciao!
I've done a hash! And not the illegal kind! A hash is a sort of fun-walk/jog/run/hike that here seems to be somewhere between 4-6 miles long, and involves a lot of yelling (Are you? On! On!), and a lot of beer. I have an official "Certificate of Loss of Virginity", which I'm tempted to frame as a substitute for my degree to instill that extra vote of confidence in my patients.
For those quick to judge, all this was AFTER hiking pretty strenuous trails for five miles and sprinting through a gamut of non-virgin hashers coating us in beer. This also meant I smelled like a three-day dead hobo. Perfect for getting back onto the bus with others who were similarly qualified, or as the certificate put it "exhausted, sweaty, and smelling like a ram goat".
Oddly enough, this certificate was awarded by the head of the library, who turns out to be incredibly awesome AND a seasoned hasher. I am humbled.
Not knowing there was a bus directly to the hash, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by attempting to "meet up" on the Carenage down in St. George's, not finding anyone, wandering around sufficiently to further my face burn (by the way, THREE cruise ships in port? Good lord!), and finally just saying "Balthazar?" to people at the bus terminal until someone stuffed me, and I do mean STUFFED me, into a van.
Probably made it in record time though. The reggae bus driver was burning off the tires on the turns.
But got there without a problem in time to watch the SGU buses pull up. Sigh. Incidentally, *they're* free.
I'm completely new to the hash, though I've read up on it a bit. Here's the website for the Grenada Hash House Harriers.
If I could recommend nothing else, if you have one of those camelback integrated water systems, by all means take it. If you're slow, take a flashlight. They do them at 4 PM, I believe to intensify the penalty for lollygagging by having you blunder through the rainforest at night looking desperately for shredded bits of paper to mark the trail. Fortunately, I was hiking towards the front! Which is a first!
The hash:
The beginning, with us having no idea what's about to be in store for us.
Suggestions for not dying (standing on a 2X4 on a barrel not being one of them) as given by our excellent hare (the hounds chase the trail the "hare" leaves), the one, the only, River Rat!
And speaking of rivers:
We were periodically crossing the Balthazar River, usually only mid-thigh deep (though I got to clean my running shoes), but in a couple people's cases, mid-head. Having fifty some-odd people try and hurry across slippery rocks in a river is pretty interesting.
These seem pretty (and were) until you realize how much slippery uphill river crossing, mud grappling you have to do to GET to these views, and it was far prettier in person.
If only they'd had rotis... the hash would have ended right there...
The hashers seemed to be the event of the month to some local kids, one of whom was amusing himself by making an *incredibly* convincing impression of a doberman growling and then jumping out with an equally convincing bark. I'm not even afraid of dogs, and this circa 6 year old made me jump about five feet.
These kids said "take our picture!" "Take our picture!"
If you ever want to be ambassador to the children of another country, own a digital camera. That is hours of entertainment right there, and netted me the following picture when I was in the Philippines:
And the more shots you take, the better they get, since the more they see the pictures of them, the rowdier they get. I'm sure their parents just love it.
Anyway,
Mmmm... chocolate...
Some pictures from the hash aren't present because the trail got nasty (and wet) enough that my camera was half-safely tucked into a plastic bag tucked into my bathing suit top, and I was *still* worried about falling in the river and destroying it.
So we made it to the sweet sweet end of the trail, where beer and goodies are typically served at whichever bar they've crashed. We did our initiation, climbed into the SGU bus reeking of beer, Grenada, and our natural juices, and someone said "we want ice cream".
For the most part, SGU buses, even special events ones, have a certain hypothetical course that they tend to follow without side trips. Reggae buses, not so much. This was not one of those buses. So we were off to St. George's, to the strangest little local ice cream/bar we could find. Went in, ordered beer and ice cream (mmm nutmeg), and somehow, someone whipped out from behind the counter these Rossi wine jugs that someone had made rum in, and had filled said rum with things like nutmeg, sticks, bay leaves, and... we'll just get to the "and" in a minute.
Being already a bit inebriated from the beer and with a free one in hand, it struck me that it would be a good idea to try a shot from the nutmeg infused one figuring I like nutmeg and I like rum, and the best rum is usually served out of a bulk wine jug at a bar where even the locals won't touch the stuff you're drinking, so what the hell, right?
OMG, I think I now know what antifreeze tastes like. Though it's supposed to be sweet. I used to think tequila and whiskey were bad but this was a complex feast of bad in the mouth that had staying power. Gods.
Then, the bartender/executioner whips out a jug that has the bottom full of Grenadian centipedes, or as Jay calls them "deathipedes" because they tend to be between 6 and 14 inches long, and yes, they're venomous. In said jug, there is a brownish pond scum looking murky liquid that smells a bit like scotch tape and gasoline.
Oh, you thought I was kidding?
Something to know about me is that as an idiot, a former anthropology major, someone who worked at a science museum, and someone who's been camping a lot, there is virtually nothing I won't eat or drink, and even that barrier is usually broken by alcohol (I can tell you exactly what squid eyes, mealworms, earwax flavored jelly bellies, and wood moths taste like, for instance).
This was not one of those times. I'm not TOUCHING that stuff. In fact, after a shot of the nutmeg moonshine and a shot of the bay leaf moonshine, I considered myself lucky to still have my eyesight.
Two of the manly men in our party were not similarly dissuaded, and swung back two shots of this vile muck to the sounds of gasps and groans as camera flashes (and regret) exploded in their faces.
Then came the process of getting one of the local patrons to try the stuff who had not witnessed the initial shot, so in a friendly game of "America vs Grenada", the only way the two guys could convince the third guy to take a shot of the worm venom was to do *another* shot of it with him.
The fact that the last time I saw these guys, they were still alive (though had inexplicably bought four baby chicks off a woman making oildown, or as they said "chickens, the ultimate impulse buy") is a testament to their characters. It's similarly impressive that the guy they were pitted against ran outside immediately after, I believe, to throw up. I had a similar urge just by watching the process.
Somehow, in a lack of timely oildown, we all ended up at the wine bar with 8-10 people and four chickens fifteen minutes before they stopped serving food(poor wine bar), to put panini on top of, in one guy's case, about five beers, two shots of regular rotgut moonshine, two shots of centipede moonshine, and a piece of uncooked callaloo (don't do that either, by the way) he'd eaten during the hash. Glurgh.
And then I "hashed" home. The bus was taking a while.
I think it's a testament to *my* character that I was able to drag my aching butt out of bed today to go to La Sagesse and sunset point. You know you've had a rough day when going to the beach the next day takes initiative, but it was well worth it:
And now, having lived it up for an entire weekend where I had absolutely *no* responsibilities, Monday starts the beginning of fourth term, thus the end of life as I know it. Ciao!
Aug 30, 2007
Beach and wine!
The perfect combination!! This is another short entry because it's late and I have class tomorrow, and I've been busy all day pre-studying for the new classes beginning tomorrow, if "pre studying" consists of hanging out at the beach all day draped in Grenadian children, and then shedding said children and bumming out at the wine bar drinking Chenin Blanc.
Verdict: Parasit... rocked it... I am now an asswormologist. If you have explosive parasitic diarrhea, well, I can tell you how much it's going to suck. A useful skill, to be sure.
Genetics... we don't have the results yet, but I feel good about how the exam went. I had trouble sleeping (as always) but didn't feel panicky or horrible this time and it was only one night, I did the exam carefully, and thought that it was really fair and much less horrible than I expected.
What's weird and a little concerning is that most people either thought it was really pretty easy or insanely difficult. There isn't really a middle ground of "eh" people (at least that I saw), and that's a bit of a concern. I didn't think it was bad, but wondering if I missed some sinister effect. But hopefully, we'll see tomorrow.
For now, it's bedtime!
Verdict: Parasit... rocked it... I am now an asswormologist. If you have explosive parasitic diarrhea, well, I can tell you how much it's going to suck. A useful skill, to be sure.
Genetics... we don't have the results yet, but I feel good about how the exam went. I had trouble sleeping (as always) but didn't feel panicky or horrible this time and it was only one night, I did the exam carefully, and thought that it was really fair and much less horrible than I expected.
What's weird and a little concerning is that most people either thought it was really pretty easy or insanely difficult. There isn't really a middle ground of "eh" people (at least that I saw), and that's a bit of a concern. I didn't think it was bad, but wondering if I missed some sinister effect. But hopefully, we'll see tomorrow.
For now, it's bedtime!
Apr 15, 2007
LOTS of pictures to sort!
Dang, and I'm not kidding either. My new roomie is asleep, so this won't be the longest entry, thus FURTHER dividing my blog into sections because man... Saturday was like a week long vacation packed into a single day... rainforest, boat ride, jeep ride, beach, aquarium trip, more beach, shopping, cute little roadside stand to get Coco Loco (it's a drink, you rampant cocaine addicts), sunset, dinner, strippers... ooh, piqued your interest with that last one, didn't I? That hotel has EVERYTHING!
We got up on Saturday morning, applied COPIOUS amounts of sunscreen and bug spray, packed up our stuff for the trip, which means Nina (Grr) and I had bags, and David *thought* he was just taking a wallet, but as a man, made himself in so doing, the 'spare bag holder', aka man-who-doubles-as-living-purse. Usually, you don't get one of those until you're married, but David is an overachiever.
First off, I discovered that when you arrange a jeep ride... let me retract that. When you arrange ANYTHING, for god's sake, get the name of the guy you talked to and the company, lest you end up in front of the hotel watching the FLEET of jeeps from different companies arrive, and have no idea which one you're booked on, nor where your alleged voucher is or whether you were supposed to get one.
Fortunately, a guy from the awesome hotel ran up and identified us in Spanish, hurriedly handed me the voucher, and vanished. More comforted now, since by that point, I was half-convinced we'd missed our tour, our chariot arrived... a very nice, modified jeep arranged so that people could sit either next to the driver, in a bench seat behind the driver, or sitting across from the other passengers in the back which had an opening one could stand up in and yell "Woo!" at passerbys, which I believe, as translated through the Pimsleur language program means: "I have too much money. Please rob me. I am an idiot American/German tourist..."
Speaking of Germans, there are a bunch of them in Margarita, but not too many Americans, so they seemed to like us largely for the novelty of having us. At least one country doesn't hate us! REALLY wasn't expecting it to be Venezuela, though...
Best yet, unlike the other jeeps that pulled up that were packed so full of tourists, they needed a ring-top to open them, our jeep had only us!!! Not sure how we lucked into that arrangement, except that the guy I spoke to on the phone must have intuited that we were awesome. Yeah, that's it. Or so socially inept as to not be trusted around other people... or the only people on the tour that didn't speak German or decent Spanish... (lots of mainland Venezuela tourists on Margarita too). Whatever reason, it was nice. Private tour!!!!
We met up with other members of the caravan in a little town where we met the main guide, the one who spoke excellent English (and his sidekick, an English guy who spoke excellent German; I didn't ask).
Our guide. Aqui esta George:
He's holding a map of Margarita while essentially saying "Yes, you will be seeing all of this. No, there aren't any hidden charges. Just the 40 bucks... for a 9 hour jeep tour. Yes, gas here costs 60 cents a gallon."
The little town also provided our first of many opportunities to buy muchas cosas, and unlike Porlamar on Good Friday, there were people in the shops!! So prepare for vacation-gifts, family! The town also had the first of three birdie photo ops (also free), providing us with the first glimpse of Grr's hatred of them... tsk... do we now have a vegetarian that only eats parrot?
Polly says: "I'll see you in hell, bitches!"
After Grr's near death experience with the parrot, which consisted largely of her pointing out that birds, inexplicably, have beaks and claws (and feathers), we were off again! (and boy, is Grr going to make me pay for this entry, but not to worry; we haven't gotten to David's hair yet!!)
This time, after getting permission from our driver to stand up in the back of the jeep and yell "Woo!", we were whisked off and up into the mountains, through little towns where people waved at us (even when we were woo-less) and smiled and generally acted like they were glad to see us. Hooray for Margarita people!
We first stopped at a national park that featured mangrove trees, a short hike, and a really pretty view overlooking Porlamar. Observe:
We got drinks with the Caravan, and then back into the jeep to zoom along the Venezuelan highways and backroads until coming to another little vendor area... or so I thought.. turns out it was the dock to our cruise!!! Boat ride through the mangrove swamps, and those little boats were VERY close to the Jungle Cruise boats at Disneyland, but with some horsepower! Yet AGAIN, the three of us were treated to a private vehicle...
Aren't they cute???
But alas, not everyone could go...
Having seen what water does to a midrange Olympus digital camera, I don't even want to CONTEMPLATE what it would do to that thing.
So we'll end here for the night... you don't get to find out about the mangrove swamps yet (or if a hippo rose out of the water and wiggled its ears, indicating we had certainly taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque). Ha ha!!!
In the meantime, my laziness means we're racking up other events... curses!!!
New roommate is one of the St. Vincent 6th termers displaced by the recent crime wave. She's cool, and tends to dispense wisdom about what to expect, which is a DEFINITE plus. She's also from San Francisco and likes the room at subarctic temperatures as I do. No power bill until next term and I wants my moneys worth of my housing cost! Bwa ha!!
Lyla/Leila/Lana lane, but never Layla, which means "sheep" in Arabic thus she doesn't appreciate my singing Eric Clapton songs at her, had her magic 21st on Wednesday! Which we ignored to take her out to dinner on Sunday, because that's how med school works! We WANTED to take her to Margarita with us, but someone wanted to be responsible, stay home, and study. Feh. She also got robbed of her legality milestone since I think the drinking age in Grenada is 18. Poor thing. But I gave her a Venezuelan mask with a vertebrae (not human) stuck in it, so hopefully that'll make her feel better... some chicks like diamonds... I'm partial to dry bits of animal carcass, and I project that love onto others. Be advised if you ever want a present from me...
And speaking of birthdays (and mom's is on the 18th with her unbirthday on the 17th, so don't you THINK that I forgot you and rip out the mom guilt on me), Grrr celebrated turning the ripe old age of 26 on Friday, which she only did so she could be more like me... heh heh... she's going to hit me really hard in class on Monday for this blog entry.
For Grrr's 26th, we all went out to... uhh... expensive hotel across from Spiceland Mall. I don't think that's what's written on their welcome sign, but that's what it's called now. VERY nice restaurant in there, great ambiance, bug spray provided upon request, steel drum player more than willing to play happy birthday, NICE, TIMELY waitstaff who were also willing to ice a cake for the birthday girl, and (drumroll) lambi (conch) that wasn't chewy and steak (David's order) that wasn't the consistency of toothpaste! Damn, there's a reason they're expensive! Though actually, Grr's order wasn't outrageous. I'm going back there soon for that creme brulee with nutmeg ice cream though. When I saw that listed as a menu item, I thought any minute I was going to end up in my biochem exam in my underwear and then I'd wake up with a start...
And speaking of waking up, one cannot wake up without first going to sleep. Adios and goodnight!
We got up on Saturday morning, applied COPIOUS amounts of sunscreen and bug spray, packed up our stuff for the trip, which means Nina (Grr) and I had bags, and David *thought* he was just taking a wallet, but as a man, made himself in so doing, the 'spare bag holder', aka man-who-doubles-as-living-purse. Usually, you don't get one of those until you're married, but David is an overachiever.
First off, I discovered that when you arrange a jeep ride... let me retract that. When you arrange ANYTHING, for god's sake, get the name of the guy you talked to and the company, lest you end up in front of the hotel watching the FLEET of jeeps from different companies arrive, and have no idea which one you're booked on, nor where your alleged voucher is or whether you were supposed to get one.
Fortunately, a guy from the awesome hotel ran up and identified us in Spanish, hurriedly handed me the voucher, and vanished. More comforted now, since by that point, I was half-convinced we'd missed our tour, our chariot arrived... a very nice, modified jeep arranged so that people could sit either next to the driver, in a bench seat behind the driver, or sitting across from the other passengers in the back which had an opening one could stand up in and yell "Woo!" at passerbys, which I believe, as translated through the Pimsleur language program means: "I have too much money. Please rob me. I am an idiot American/German tourist..."
Speaking of Germans, there are a bunch of them in Margarita, but not too many Americans, so they seemed to like us largely for the novelty of having us. At least one country doesn't hate us! REALLY wasn't expecting it to be Venezuela, though...
Best yet, unlike the other jeeps that pulled up that were packed so full of tourists, they needed a ring-top to open them, our jeep had only us!!! Not sure how we lucked into that arrangement, except that the guy I spoke to on the phone must have intuited that we were awesome. Yeah, that's it. Or so socially inept as to not be trusted around other people... or the only people on the tour that didn't speak German or decent Spanish... (lots of mainland Venezuela tourists on Margarita too). Whatever reason, it was nice. Private tour!!!!
We met up with other members of the caravan in a little town where we met the main guide, the one who spoke excellent English (and his sidekick, an English guy who spoke excellent German; I didn't ask).
Our guide. Aqui esta George:
He's holding a map of Margarita while essentially saying "Yes, you will be seeing all of this. No, there aren't any hidden charges. Just the 40 bucks... for a 9 hour jeep tour. Yes, gas here costs 60 cents a gallon."
The little town also provided our first of many opportunities to buy muchas cosas, and unlike Porlamar on Good Friday, there were people in the shops!! So prepare for vacation-gifts, family! The town also had the first of three birdie photo ops (also free), providing us with the first glimpse of Grr's hatred of them... tsk... do we now have a vegetarian that only eats parrot?
Polly says: "I'll see you in hell, bitches!"
After Grr's near death experience with the parrot, which consisted largely of her pointing out that birds, inexplicably, have beaks and claws (and feathers), we were off again! (and boy, is Grr going to make me pay for this entry, but not to worry; we haven't gotten to David's hair yet!!)
This time, after getting permission from our driver to stand up in the back of the jeep and yell "Woo!", we were whisked off and up into the mountains, through little towns where people waved at us (even when we were woo-less) and smiled and generally acted like they were glad to see us. Hooray for Margarita people!
We first stopped at a national park that featured mangrove trees, a short hike, and a really pretty view overlooking Porlamar. Observe:
We got drinks with the Caravan, and then back into the jeep to zoom along the Venezuelan highways and backroads until coming to another little vendor area... or so I thought.. turns out it was the dock to our cruise!!! Boat ride through the mangrove swamps, and those little boats were VERY close to the Jungle Cruise boats at Disneyland, but with some horsepower! Yet AGAIN, the three of us were treated to a private vehicle...
Aren't they cute???
But alas, not everyone could go...
Having seen what water does to a midrange Olympus digital camera, I don't even want to CONTEMPLATE what it would do to that thing.
So we'll end here for the night... you don't get to find out about the mangrove swamps yet (or if a hippo rose out of the water and wiggled its ears, indicating we had certainly taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque). Ha ha!!!
In the meantime, my laziness means we're racking up other events... curses!!!
New roommate is one of the St. Vincent 6th termers displaced by the recent crime wave. She's cool, and tends to dispense wisdom about what to expect, which is a DEFINITE plus. She's also from San Francisco and likes the room at subarctic temperatures as I do. No power bill until next term and I wants my moneys worth of my housing cost! Bwa ha!!
Lyla/Leila/Lana lane, but never Layla, which means "sheep" in Arabic thus she doesn't appreciate my singing Eric Clapton songs at her, had her magic 21st on Wednesday! Which we ignored to take her out to dinner on Sunday, because that's how med school works! We WANTED to take her to Margarita with us, but someone wanted to be responsible, stay home, and study. Feh. She also got robbed of her legality milestone since I think the drinking age in Grenada is 18. Poor thing. But I gave her a Venezuelan mask with a vertebrae (not human) stuck in it, so hopefully that'll make her feel better... some chicks like diamonds... I'm partial to dry bits of animal carcass, and I project that love onto others. Be advised if you ever want a present from me...
And speaking of birthdays (and mom's is on the 18th with her unbirthday on the 17th, so don't you THINK that I forgot you and rip out the mom guilt on me), Grrr celebrated turning the ripe old age of 26 on Friday, which she only did so she could be more like me... heh heh... she's going to hit me really hard in class on Monday for this blog entry.
For Grrr's 26th, we all went out to... uhh... expensive hotel across from Spiceland Mall. I don't think that's what's written on their welcome sign, but that's what it's called now. VERY nice restaurant in there, great ambiance, bug spray provided upon request, steel drum player more than willing to play happy birthday, NICE, TIMELY waitstaff who were also willing to ice a cake for the birthday girl, and (drumroll) lambi (conch) that wasn't chewy and steak (David's order) that wasn't the consistency of toothpaste! Damn, there's a reason they're expensive! Though actually, Grr's order wasn't outrageous. I'm going back there soon for that creme brulee with nutmeg ice cream though. When I saw that listed as a menu item, I thought any minute I was going to end up in my biochem exam in my underwear and then I'd wake up with a start...
And speaking of waking up, one cannot wake up without first going to sleep. Adios and goodnight!
Apr 11, 2007
Queremos comprar muchas cosas...
So, I have these Pimsleur language tapes that crack me up, because while they are good about teaching you some really useful phrases and doing so in a manner that aids memory, they also tend to teach you things, in stilted language no less, that will either get you mugged, laughed at, or slapped.
Some examples. For starters, both the Czech and Spanish lessons spend an awful lot of time trying to teach you how to pick up women, including women that are reluctant to talk to you. It also teaches a woman (need to be equal opportunity and all) how, upon meeting Juan, who asks her out to a bar and orders three beers for breakfast, to go about discussing his drinking problem ("Bebe usted demaciado!" or "Sir! (formal) You drink too much!"). Yes, having an intervention with a stranger in a foreign country in a language you aren't fluent in is a great idea. What could possibly go wrong?
Also, the translations aren't always spot-on, and they tend toward the lofty. For starters, referring to Spanish as "Castillano" in Mexico or Los Angeles seems vaguely insulting.
With Spanish, at least I have enough training to somewhat moderate the language tapes as in "Hey, wait a second." In Czech? No telling. I can't WAIT to get my ass kicked in Prague. "Please no! I just wanted to know how to get to Voditchkova St!!"
I do like Slappy's idea of learning how to say "Pardon me, but my language tapes have made me inexcusably rude" in every language I plan on attempting with native speakers. Come to think of it, I should have employed that strategy when coupling cognates, training, and Babelfish (ah, Babelfish) at Annexcafe.
But what does this have to do with the cost of piranha teeth on Margarita Island?
Well, we'll start, as is common (unless you're in a Tarantino movie), from the beginning.
Something you should know about Margarita Island aka an island off VENEZUELA if you do not want to end up like the pissed off Ozzies at the end of the trip frustrated that no one spoke any English: They speak SPANISH, people. They will TRY to meet you halfway, but start with an "hola", would you?
Flew in via Conviasa, which is apparently the new official airline of Venezuela, which I thought would mean new airplanes because I'm a moron; however, having flown Southwest MANY times, old rickety airplanes do not bother me, and the service on them was good.
Oh, and note to little Grrr... grabbing for the drink cart to read what "Sprite" sounds like in Spanish is muy malo!!!
Getting through Point Salines airport (Grenada) wasn't too bad. They don't have a Conviasa counter well marked though, because the flights only leave once a week. They also wanted some little form they gave us when we got here, that we were allegedly supposed to hang onto.
I laughed at this assumption, since I'm the most disorganized person on the planet (thus perfect to be a doctor), but laughed again at thwarting myself since as it turns out, I DID have said form... why? Because I haven't cleaned out my passport case in 3 months! I trumped lazy with lazier! It all goes full circle someday, babies. Found the voucher for my laptop import tax too, since I thought my dumb ass had lost it and would have to pay 50 bucks again when I come back to the country.
Boarded the plane and had relatively uneventful flight. Of course, the fact that it was a 40-50 minute flight jazzed me, because I STILL can't believe that I'm only an hour away, tops, from such an exotic place. The entire time, I insisting on annoying fellow passengers by sing-songing "going to Venezuuuueeelllaaa".
Plus, I got a stamp on my passport, BOTH entering and leaving and a new Grenada stamp when I re-entered, and that kind of insanely geeky stuff appeals to me.
Landed at the airport and went about the process of trying to secure an ATM since I haven't had US dollars since a week after I got to Grenada and the Venezuelans are so very uninterested in our pretty Caribbean money.
The conversion rate is around 2200 Bolivar to the dollar. I mention this to make brief fun of ATM paranoia, which I have previously only experienced in Mexico, and hardly to the same degree. ATM paranoia is when you are standing in front of an ATM having a panic attack at the prospect of taking out $200,000 from ANYTHING, as if it's going to fake out to American dollars and your bank won't call you saying "did you authorize a charge for 195,000 more dollars than you've ever SEEN?"
So got a taxi and that is when we discovered the relevance of those language lessons I mentioned above. You see, the only word of "English", the cab driver knew was "Hotel", which is cheating since "Hotel" in Spanish is "El Hotel" (love me, love my cognates).
On my language lessons, I was bemused when it stated "Yo tengo demaciado dinero. Yo quiere comprar muchas cosas." Supposedly this literally means "I have too much money. I want to buy many things." I always translated this phrase as: "I am a complete frigging idiot, aka an obnoxious flamboyant American tourist. Please mug me. Leave me for dead in a ditch. No one will miss me."
Until... leaving out the first part, you realize you want to go somewhere to shop, but you have no idea WHERE. The largest city on the island is Porlamar, which is a proper city in its own right. Unfortunately, it is such a proper city that it has an airport, incidentally, the one we flew into, thus saying "Queremos ir a Porlamar, por favor) (we want to go to Porlamar, please) when you are already IN Porlamar, is confusing.
We settled on "queremos comprar muchas cosas in la ciudad, por favor" (We want to buy many things in the city), and were whisked off to the shopping district, though unfortunately, not the big time shopping mall, since none of us could remember how to say "mall" in Spanish.
The drive was pretty darn cool, and though this segment is desolate, in places really reveals the area around Porlamar as being quite developed:
You know what isn't a wildly good idea? Going shopping in a Catholic country on Good Friday. Observe:
If you press your ear to the screen, I think you can hear crickets chirping. Or perhaps not, because they were probably also in Mass.
BUT it gave us a cool chance to wander around the city without being packaged in huge crowds. Fortunately, I insisted on dragging our luggage around a little longer so that we could explore (since our hotel was 40 minutes away on Playa El Aqua), thus we not only found an open shopping district with stores and living breathing people selling things (like sandals! Beautiful beautiful, I haven't worn socks in three months level sandals!), but check out this beauty!
Booyah! It was gorgeous inside as well, but there was a service going on, and while I felt comfortable enough (the locals are REALLY NICE) to go inside and stand in the back for a little bit, I was not about to start snapping pictures.
Then it was time to hail a cab (which is really easy, and tends to run 30 thousand Bolivar, or circa 15 bucks, for a 30-40 minute ride for three people combined) and hit the hotel:
I was thinking the price on the hotel was a bit steep, not realizing that not only was it all inclusive with some surprisingly decent food (particularly compared to the on campus fare), BUT was a pretty decently sized resort that came complete with at least 5 pools, a stage with nightly entertainment, a playground, a little garden, and a pathway that involved crossing ONE road and you're on the beach! Dang!
Plus our hotel room was really nice, not only sporting a killer bathroom (don't ask):
But also, a sweetass balcony that wrapped all the way around the corner.
Our first course was to check out the beach, which had vendors galore as well as bars and restaurants that are usually COMPLETELY slamming (still were, to a lesser extent), but had been quelled to some extent by the Easter alcohol ban.
Then sunset:
Then DINNER!! This sure beats the hell out of Pearl's!
I'd read on Virtual Tourist that the Jeep safaris were pretty cool, so wanted to arrange one for the next day. Managed to convey that in broken Spanish to the desk clerk (though actually a good number of them spoke functional hotel English and were very accommodating), and the guy called up someone, put me on the phone to a man that spoke excellent English, and offered us a 8-9 hour jeep safari including full circuit of the island, ride up to the rainforest, boat cruise through the mangrove swamps, lunch, trip to the beach, offroading across the desert, and another trip to the beach for sunset. This, he told me almost apologetically, would cost 40 US dollars a person.
Oh. Baby. I love this country!!!! So booked that ASAP and bedtime. Rest of the story (and the best pictures!) come later!!! And you thought you'd find out the origin of the parrot picture. Silly readers!
Some examples. For starters, both the Czech and Spanish lessons spend an awful lot of time trying to teach you how to pick up women, including women that are reluctant to talk to you. It also teaches a woman (need to be equal opportunity and all) how, upon meeting Juan, who asks her out to a bar and orders three beers for breakfast, to go about discussing his drinking problem ("Bebe usted demaciado!" or "Sir! (formal) You drink too much!"). Yes, having an intervention with a stranger in a foreign country in a language you aren't fluent in is a great idea. What could possibly go wrong?
Also, the translations aren't always spot-on, and they tend toward the lofty. For starters, referring to Spanish as "Castillano" in Mexico or Los Angeles seems vaguely insulting.
With Spanish, at least I have enough training to somewhat moderate the language tapes as in "Hey, wait a second." In Czech? No telling. I can't WAIT to get my ass kicked in Prague. "Please no! I just wanted to know how to get to Voditchkova St!!"
I do like Slappy's idea of learning how to say "Pardon me, but my language tapes have made me inexcusably rude" in every language I plan on attempting with native speakers. Come to think of it, I should have employed that strategy when coupling cognates, training, and Babelfish (ah, Babelfish) at Annexcafe.
But what does this have to do with the cost of piranha teeth on Margarita Island?
Well, we'll start, as is common (unless you're in a Tarantino movie), from the beginning.
Something you should know about Margarita Island aka an island off VENEZUELA if you do not want to end up like the pissed off Ozzies at the end of the trip frustrated that no one spoke any English: They speak SPANISH, people. They will TRY to meet you halfway, but start with an "hola", would you?
Flew in via Conviasa, which is apparently the new official airline of Venezuela, which I thought would mean new airplanes because I'm a moron; however, having flown Southwest MANY times, old rickety airplanes do not bother me, and the service on them was good.
Oh, and note to little Grrr... grabbing for the drink cart to read what "Sprite" sounds like in Spanish is muy malo!!!
Getting through Point Salines airport (Grenada) wasn't too bad. They don't have a Conviasa counter well marked though, because the flights only leave once a week. They also wanted some little form they gave us when we got here, that we were allegedly supposed to hang onto.
I laughed at this assumption, since I'm the most disorganized person on the planet (thus perfect to be a doctor), but laughed again at thwarting myself since as it turns out, I DID have said form... why? Because I haven't cleaned out my passport case in 3 months! I trumped lazy with lazier! It all goes full circle someday, babies. Found the voucher for my laptop import tax too, since I thought my dumb ass had lost it and would have to pay 50 bucks again when I come back to the country.
Boarded the plane and had relatively uneventful flight. Of course, the fact that it was a 40-50 minute flight jazzed me, because I STILL can't believe that I'm only an hour away, tops, from such an exotic place. The entire time, I insisting on annoying fellow passengers by sing-songing "going to Venezuuuueeelllaaa".
Plus, I got a stamp on my passport, BOTH entering and leaving and a new Grenada stamp when I re-entered, and that kind of insanely geeky stuff appeals to me.
Landed at the airport and went about the process of trying to secure an ATM since I haven't had US dollars since a week after I got to Grenada and the Venezuelans are so very uninterested in our pretty Caribbean money.
The conversion rate is around 2200 Bolivar to the dollar. I mention this to make brief fun of ATM paranoia, which I have previously only experienced in Mexico, and hardly to the same degree. ATM paranoia is when you are standing in front of an ATM having a panic attack at the prospect of taking out $200,000 from ANYTHING, as if it's going to fake out to American dollars and your bank won't call you saying "did you authorize a charge for 195,000 more dollars than you've ever SEEN?"
So got a taxi and that is when we discovered the relevance of those language lessons I mentioned above. You see, the only word of "English", the cab driver knew was "Hotel", which is cheating since "Hotel" in Spanish is "El Hotel" (love me, love my cognates).
On my language lessons, I was bemused when it stated "Yo tengo demaciado dinero. Yo quiere comprar muchas cosas." Supposedly this literally means "I have too much money. I want to buy many things." I always translated this phrase as: "I am a complete frigging idiot, aka an obnoxious flamboyant American tourist. Please mug me. Leave me for dead in a ditch. No one will miss me."
Until... leaving out the first part, you realize you want to go somewhere to shop, but you have no idea WHERE. The largest city on the island is Porlamar, which is a proper city in its own right. Unfortunately, it is such a proper city that it has an airport, incidentally, the one we flew into, thus saying "Queremos ir a Porlamar, por favor) (we want to go to Porlamar, please) when you are already IN Porlamar, is confusing.
We settled on "queremos comprar muchas cosas in la ciudad, por favor" (We want to buy many things in the city), and were whisked off to the shopping district, though unfortunately, not the big time shopping mall, since none of us could remember how to say "mall" in Spanish.
The drive was pretty darn cool, and though this segment is desolate, in places really reveals the area around Porlamar as being quite developed:
You know what isn't a wildly good idea? Going shopping in a Catholic country on Good Friday. Observe:
If you press your ear to the screen, I think you can hear crickets chirping. Or perhaps not, because they were probably also in Mass.
BUT it gave us a cool chance to wander around the city without being packaged in huge crowds. Fortunately, I insisted on dragging our luggage around a little longer so that we could explore (since our hotel was 40 minutes away on Playa El Aqua), thus we not only found an open shopping district with stores and living breathing people selling things (like sandals! Beautiful beautiful, I haven't worn socks in three months level sandals!), but check out this beauty!
Booyah! It was gorgeous inside as well, but there was a service going on, and while I felt comfortable enough (the locals are REALLY NICE) to go inside and stand in the back for a little bit, I was not about to start snapping pictures.
Then it was time to hail a cab (which is really easy, and tends to run 30 thousand Bolivar, or circa 15 bucks, for a 30-40 minute ride for three people combined) and hit the hotel:
I was thinking the price on the hotel was a bit steep, not realizing that not only was it all inclusive with some surprisingly decent food (particularly compared to the on campus fare), BUT was a pretty decently sized resort that came complete with at least 5 pools, a stage with nightly entertainment, a playground, a little garden, and a pathway that involved crossing ONE road and you're on the beach! Dang!
Plus our hotel room was really nice, not only sporting a killer bathroom (don't ask):
But also, a sweetass balcony that wrapped all the way around the corner.
Our first course was to check out the beach, which had vendors galore as well as bars and restaurants that are usually COMPLETELY slamming (still were, to a lesser extent), but had been quelled to some extent by the Easter alcohol ban.
Then sunset:
Then DINNER!! This sure beats the hell out of Pearl's!
I'd read on Virtual Tourist that the Jeep safaris were pretty cool, so wanted to arrange one for the next day. Managed to convey that in broken Spanish to the desk clerk (though actually a good number of them spoke functional hotel English and were very accommodating), and the guy called up someone, put me on the phone to a man that spoke excellent English, and offered us a 8-9 hour jeep safari including full circuit of the island, ride up to the rainforest, boat cruise through the mangrove swamps, lunch, trip to the beach, offroading across the desert, and another trip to the beach for sunset. This, he told me almost apologetically, would cost 40 US dollars a person.
Oh. Baby. I love this country!!!! So booked that ASAP and bedtime. Rest of the story (and the best pictures!) come later!!! And you thought you'd find out the origin of the parrot picture. Silly readers!
Mar 20, 2007
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!
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!
Jan 21, 2007
Annie, Annie, are you OK?
Is it politically incorrect to say I hate renewing my CPR cert?
Ah well, at least I didn't get stuck in a combined total of six hours of fun like the uncertified other half of the school did. Nope, it was the fast track for me on Friday night while the unfortunates had their *first* CPR lectures. Oh, and they changed it AGAIN. Guys, seriously, as my check off person was telling me (among other extremely useful tidbits for making connections), just beat on their chests and breathe in their mouths in SOME ratio, the exact one doesn't matter, until someone gets there with an AED. The patient ain't getting any deader. Oh, you used the old ratio of 5 to 1 instead of 30 to 2!! If only you'd gone with the new system, she'd be riding a bike in no time! No.
Anyway, my liberation bhy means of doing this all before left me a weekend of fun, while bemoaning, on their behalf, that our first week of classes in the Caribbean was terminated NOT by a drunken bash (unless you count that stoplight party that I skipped out on), but by more classes! Tsk! Not nice, SGU! Some of us still haven't seen Grand Anse!
Speaking of stoplight parties, what the hell? You wear colored buttons to allegedly note your willingness to party. I have a different interpretation:
Green: Total slut mode. One beer and I'm yours. Maybe even half a beer.
Yellow: I'm cheating on my spouse, so try to be good looking.
Red: My spouse is at this party. Slip me your phone number discreetly.
I could have partied at la casa de Sej y Melissa, but de Sej has gone into full responsibility mode and is studying like there's no tomorrow, which should be the procrastinator's oath. Sigh... party girl, where art thou?
So I've decided to instead balance my options by spending the beginning of yesterday going into the market at St. George's and securing myself a number of tasty, fresh items including veggies, most notably potatoes because there's only so much "Irish" the Caribbean can fix before one reverts. I'm only hoping my more prominent Scottish ancestry doesn't take over so I start feeling the overwhelming urge to eat sheep organs. While shopping, Lori and I partook in buying a couple of coconuts, freshly macheted, and spent a happy hour drinking the milk. Med school? We're in what?
I also went to the fish market, learned you should go early in the morning, not late in the day, but was able to secure some sailfish for my roommate's promised fish curry, which I've wanted to learn how to make.
AND, on the way back from the Saturday market by way of the bus depot, I finally didn't get ripped off by a city bus! Hooray! I've been accepted. There were 11 of us, I believe, crammed into the van, token reggae music blasting for ambiance, and the seater/money taker half sitting in my lap because I was taking up his leg room with a blender (smoothies!), a bag full of fish, a bag full of fruits and vegetables, and a chunk of sugar cane. Sorry, seater/money taker.
The way this generally works is the city buses have a driver, who may or may not be partaking in ganga (ours wasn't), and a guy that sits behind and takes the money and reorganizes people, apparently into the least deadly configuration. When someone gets off or on, this triggers rearrangement, which may involve everyone getting off and getting back on. It's groovy. If you read other things, this is punctuated by screeching, death defying hairpin turns through town, but I haven't found them particularly terrifying. I wouldn't want to drive here necessarily because it's a great place for a lot of fender benders and close calls, but compared to what I've read about the Autobahn? Bah. It's also *supposed* to be 2 bucks (EC) for adults (kids in school uniforms get a discount), but I've been largely getting hosed for 3-5, but not anymore! Caught the SGU bus back from the stop and studied hard for about 5 hours with a Scrubs break in between. Hooray iTunes!!! I also grabbed Pirates 2 while I was on there, because Johnny Depp makes me smile. Rowl... though there is a high body count in that movie; I'd imagine it would scare the hell out of a lot of children, but what do I care? Jack Sparrow!!!
For dinner, I felt full incorporation into island life by sitting comfortably in my dorm room, air conditioner off at about 79 degrees, eating a fish curry, and channa scooped up with roti. Combined with not getting ripped off the busses, I feel practically local, well... except for the sunburn.
Today, I will be maximizing responsibility by going to the beach. I will give a nod to said responsibility by bringing a book I will likely not open in the duration, but I really want to see Grand Anse and haven't yet walked on its splendor.
I also discovered, with Lori's help, the black sand beach ON CAMPUS. Okay, I previously thought the black sand beach was the beach right near my dorm which actually doesn't look great for swimming. It has some overturned boats, some wires and fishing lines and occasionally produces a funny smell. It's really pretty from the dorm, but not wildy swimmable.
People caution you about the contamination of the black sand beach and not swimming there. Hello? The actual one is beautiful and features a number of not-germaphobic students that swim there regularly, as I will be doing soon. Absolutely gorgeous and a thirty second walk from the Bell lecture hall. Just don't open your mouth.
Ah well, at least I didn't get stuck in a combined total of six hours of fun like the uncertified other half of the school did. Nope, it was the fast track for me on Friday night while the unfortunates had their *first* CPR lectures. Oh, and they changed it AGAIN. Guys, seriously, as my check off person was telling me (among other extremely useful tidbits for making connections), just beat on their chests and breathe in their mouths in SOME ratio, the exact one doesn't matter, until someone gets there with an AED. The patient ain't getting any deader. Oh, you used the old ratio of 5 to 1 instead of 30 to 2!! If only you'd gone with the new system, she'd be riding a bike in no time! No.
Anyway, my liberation bhy means of doing this all before left me a weekend of fun, while bemoaning, on their behalf, that our first week of classes in the Caribbean was terminated NOT by a drunken bash (unless you count that stoplight party that I skipped out on), but by more classes! Tsk! Not nice, SGU! Some of us still haven't seen Grand Anse!
Speaking of stoplight parties, what the hell? You wear colored buttons to allegedly note your willingness to party. I have a different interpretation:
Green: Total slut mode. One beer and I'm yours. Maybe even half a beer.
Yellow: I'm cheating on my spouse, so try to be good looking.
Red: My spouse is at this party. Slip me your phone number discreetly.
I could have partied at la casa de Sej y Melissa, but de Sej has gone into full responsibility mode and is studying like there's no tomorrow, which should be the procrastinator's oath. Sigh... party girl, where art thou?
So I've decided to instead balance my options by spending the beginning of yesterday going into the market at St. George's and securing myself a number of tasty, fresh items including veggies, most notably potatoes because there's only so much "Irish" the Caribbean can fix before one reverts. I'm only hoping my more prominent Scottish ancestry doesn't take over so I start feeling the overwhelming urge to eat sheep organs. While shopping, Lori and I partook in buying a couple of coconuts, freshly macheted, and spent a happy hour drinking the milk. Med school? We're in what?
I also went to the fish market, learned you should go early in the morning, not late in the day, but was able to secure some sailfish for my roommate's promised fish curry, which I've wanted to learn how to make.
AND, on the way back from the Saturday market by way of the bus depot, I finally didn't get ripped off by a city bus! Hooray! I've been accepted. There were 11 of us, I believe, crammed into the van, token reggae music blasting for ambiance, and the seater/money taker half sitting in my lap because I was taking up his leg room with a blender (smoothies!), a bag full of fish, a bag full of fruits and vegetables, and a chunk of sugar cane. Sorry, seater/money taker.
The way this generally works is the city buses have a driver, who may or may not be partaking in ganga (ours wasn't), and a guy that sits behind and takes the money and reorganizes people, apparently into the least deadly configuration. When someone gets off or on, this triggers rearrangement, which may involve everyone getting off and getting back on. It's groovy. If you read other things, this is punctuated by screeching, death defying hairpin turns through town, but I haven't found them particularly terrifying. I wouldn't want to drive here necessarily because it's a great place for a lot of fender benders and close calls, but compared to what I've read about the Autobahn? Bah. It's also *supposed* to be 2 bucks (EC) for adults (kids in school uniforms get a discount), but I've been largely getting hosed for 3-5, but not anymore! Caught the SGU bus back from the stop and studied hard for about 5 hours with a Scrubs break in between. Hooray iTunes!!! I also grabbed Pirates 2 while I was on there, because Johnny Depp makes me smile. Rowl... though there is a high body count in that movie; I'd imagine it would scare the hell out of a lot of children, but what do I care? Jack Sparrow!!!
For dinner, I felt full incorporation into island life by sitting comfortably in my dorm room, air conditioner off at about 79 degrees, eating a fish curry, and channa scooped up with roti. Combined with not getting ripped off the busses, I feel practically local, well... except for the sunburn.
Today, I will be maximizing responsibility by going to the beach. I will give a nod to said responsibility by bringing a book I will likely not open in the duration, but I really want to see Grand Anse and haven't yet walked on its splendor.
I also discovered, with Lori's help, the black sand beach ON CAMPUS. Okay, I previously thought the black sand beach was the beach right near my dorm which actually doesn't look great for swimming. It has some overturned boats, some wires and fishing lines and occasionally produces a funny smell. It's really pretty from the dorm, but not wildy swimmable.
People caution you about the contamination of the black sand beach and not swimming there. Hello? The actual one is beautiful and features a number of not-germaphobic students that swim there regularly, as I will be doing soon. Absolutely gorgeous and a thirty second walk from the Bell lecture hall. Just don't open your mouth.
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