It's off to New Orleans I go for the weekend, with the wonderful Dave, who made this is birthday present to me in November, so he gets to take leave of his Island Prison briefly to lovingly show me around his old haunts. Naturally, I'll be drinking grenades out of novelty cups.
Woot!
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label party. Show all posts
Apr 10, 2009
Oct 22, 2008
Ambivalence
in the flesh.
This term has me on an emotional roller coaster that's hard to adequately express because my mood towards it is changing so rapidly as are my approaches to attempt to stave off a bad attitude.
While my nature is generally sarcastic and cynical (as is anyone who read over a hundred issues of the Babysitter's Club as a child), my overall attitude is one I try to generally be happy (being sarcastic makes me happy), try not to let little things get to me beyond the surface irritation, thus I enjoy making fun of things without being too hard-hit by them, with a few notable exceptions that are pretty dramatically splashed onto this blog.
I've also let myself get cases of the deep-blue-funks which made the overall decently-run second term a complete misery for me while I enjoyed the "rabid monkeys made my schedule" fourth term largely by avoiding anything that wasn't mandatory and keeping chipper that this would be the hardest term in basic sciences and I was enjoying most of the material.
Flash forward to my current state of affairs where I am desperately seeking a positive attitude so that I do not waste my last couple months on this tropical island wallowing around feeling sorry for myself. This is difficult because there are a number of negative factors that are making the term a bit of a hell, while not allowing me to sink too deeply because there are a bunch of goods, and the goods are frequently rather spectacular goods, which just gives me that whole unstable bipolar feeling that I never know if I'm going to cry or dance around.
This is all being exacerbated by my having an absolutely *galloping* case of senioritis, thus I don't feel like doing anything, go for long periods of doing absolutely nothing but procrastinating, then followed by marathon study sessions, all the while kind of resenting that they're making me do this whole med school thing when I'm supposed to be relaxing on the beach, doing hashes, going scuba diving, playing guitar, seeing monkeys, island hopping, and all the other impossible goals I hoped to get in before leaving for good. Like it's third term or something.
Oh, to get onto the good... I've been chronicling this little battle with the pathophys department for a while, which was constituting a lot of the "bad". Long story short: chancellor letter, huge and surprising response, big open forum where we got listened to by all the department heads and the deans, some initial changes made that were promising, and continue to look promising, but cautious optimism.
This took a slight down-swing with hearing the reports to the fourth termers, though their 5/6th might be worse than ours, in that they were told a couple of times that they'd need to bring back all their books and notes (unrealistic and sucktastic, but at least announced), but that the current term (ours) had a bunch of complaints because no one told us we would have to think critically so they should be prepared for that for the next term.
So that was kind of pissy. "Well, we can't tell the 5/6th termers this because they'd completely destroy us in a debate over it by citing our lack of organization and preparation while citing the past pathology course as requiring integration and the BSCE1 as being a test of our recall from other classes, but we just wanted to let you fourthies know that unlike your special-ed upperclassmen, who have made it to the near-end of their second year of medical school without being able to arrive at any conclusion that wasn't drawn out in capital letters on something shiny for them, you're actually going to have to use your brains next term, so be prepared."
BUT
Lest I withhold credit where credit is due, they are reinstituting a curve based on the actual class averages and standard deviations, per an announcement on Angel! Woo hoo!!!! And though NONE of the renal Sonic Foundry lectures have been posted, the notes for heme, GI and renal were on time, and they changed up the way the BSFCR was run, as they indicated they would while getting the objectives up in advance, as they also said they would, so while I have no idea how this is going to play out on the upcoming exam, I'm going to go ahead and give the administration credit for following through on this one, and make it generally known that if you do feel like your education is taking an inexcusable hit, politely express that, and you never know what can happen. While I'm not wildly appreciative of the announcement to fourth term, it was made to fourth term, and so long as they're fixing the problems that are plaguing this term and are aware of the problem, I'm going to go ahead and give them a pass on saying anything they like. I mean, I'm going to completely make fun of it, but that's all part of the "not a deep hurt" part of above.
In Clinical Skills, they continue to demonstrate that though there is a ton of disorganization, you generally don't have to go any higher than the department heads (or sometimes the tutors) to get a response, and the disorganization seems regretted and inadvertent. And as I've said all along, attitude goes a *long* way with me. If you point out a problem and someones says "I'm really sorry for the inconvenience and we're working to do _________ to fix it.", I will readily let a whole lot of stuff go. Today, during our morning session, one of the students in my group pointed out that our patient write up grades hadn't been posted yet, which is important so we know what we can fix for the next ones, and they were up by this afternoon, and the reception of the request was apologetic and active rather than defensive. Pretty impressive.
The department is also fairly accommodating to students in situations that are directly the student's fault (totally guilty), and I haven't really seen any of their instructors or directors be overtly nasty, gripey, or unprofessional. Usually they're extremely friendly, helpful, and eager to add on stuff that'll benefit us. I'm not giving a pass on the organization, because it is a problem, but knowing you can actually talk to them and they'll respond nicely is honestly one of the high points of my experience with the school. I'm not sure what that says about me or the school, but there you go.
Pharm. Pharm is the definition of ambivalence for me, as I've mentioned before because I maintain that it is well run, but I hate this class probably more than any other and it is taking up a huge portion of my time, which means I'm spending a huge amount of time focusing on a subject that is difficult, heavy, high yield, and mindnumbing. So it's a lot like being forced to spend 2-8 hours of your day eating liver. It's good for you; it may be made well by champion chefs and butchers, but it's still going to ruin your day.
Clinic. The clinic is driving me nuts. 90 minutes minimum to renew prescriptions, only to have it dragged on for a week or two weeks or whatever the on-duty feels like giving me and having the pharmacy frequently out of what I need, while the mail from home isn't reliably making it. Not a great use of time. Also an added stress I don't need hitting right at the end.
Social... another big source of ambivalence. I'm finding more and more that I like a huge number of the students at this school, and have established close friendships with a number of them and I'm deeply enjoying being around them. My boyfriend is being completely awesome, per usual, and since we're both incarcerated in the study hall a lot, it means I get to spend more time with him.
BUT... (there's always a but)... I am becoming more and more acutely aware that though I'm extremely excited to get done with basic sciences and begin the next stage of my life, I am also going to lose the close contact with my fellow convicts and we're all going to get scattered to the wind. Many of us will likely end up at the same hospitals, and there's internet connections, but it's not the same, and I'm going to miss that. Some of my closest friendships have been made on this island, and I'm going to be abandoning that to have a close relationship with my step 1 videos. I'm going to miss running into a ton of people I know and like on campus, at the beach, at the market, and the whole closeness of the campus. Yes, this also creates a fishbowl here, but it can be a pretty comforting one, and soon, it's going to be back to the scary real world, having lost the ability to hold conversations with people that aren't Caribbean medical students. "Hey, how are you doing? So... who's running for president? Did you catch the last season of that show that ended three years ago? Don't you hate it when you're trying to watch an episode of House, but the channel feed keeps switching between the Colorado and New York feed so you can't tell when it's on? It's about as reliable as the egg supply at IGA. Wanna go get a Carib? How many EC do they go for at that bar on the corner? As long as they're not blasting soca, know what I mean? No?"
Also, there's the scenery. I love the scenery in the states too, don't get me wrong, but even after nearly two years, I frequently look around and am taken in by the surreality of essentially living in a Windows screensaver. Though I probably go to the beach and dive way less frequently than I did in California (and no, I didn't live near the beach), the fact that it is so close is something I'm always aware of.
So it's a whole weird thing. I'm having to do "next stage of life" things like register for the USMLE, which was always this huge looming someday off in the distance thing and now it's a 700$ charge on my credit card and I'm having to choose date periods and get photos made for my ID. I'm having to figure out what I'm doing for rotations, when I'm starting them, and how I'm handling the period in between rather than just continuing on the island, paying my rent. I'm dealing with what I'm going to do with all my stuff, people are touring my apartment, and it's a huge change.
I'm going to get to see my family again. I'm going to get to have seasons again. My clothes are going to last longer and can be varied. I'm going to get to have fast food and cheap meat and ethnic cuisine, and trips to the grocery store, and quick pick ups of anything I need as close as the local love/hate Walmart. I'll be able to drive. I won't need to book a boat or a plane to anywhere outside of an 11X22 mile radius.
So it's all... blah, mixed up inside me. And making it hard to study. As is the suddenly rescheduled meeting at 5 tonight.
To change gears abruptly (much like my moods at any given second), I guess I'll Sandblast-talk, since that's an actual event rather than some diary description of my overall feelings.
Since I wasn't behind in school enough, I chose to hit the last Sandblast for me (hopefully), which had a Halloween theme, making it particularly appealing because I love Autumn and Halloween, and they don't really do either here. I had to grab and orange AND black t-shirt since they not only had the whole Halloween thing going for them, but chose to mesh it with a Dark Knight Heath-Ledger-as-Joker pumpkin "Why so serious" motto that just upped the awesome. Well done, designers.
For a change, I actually got there close to when it opened rather than sleeping late and not getting there until they were half out of beer thing that I normally do. I also chose to maintain a steady state of alcohol in my bloodstream rather than gorging myself on it first thing, falling over, and being done for the evening by 5 PM. Muchhhh smarter. Makes for rougher mornings though.
I had promised Ashley a beer pong partner, so we first cruised the area a bit, grabbed our mugs, a well-made cocktail from the bar, hit the food tent and relaxed on the beach for a bit. Refilled a bit later on inexplicably pink beer. We attempted to figure this one out for a while, but it turns out, pink was supposed to be red for *blood* beer. While it ended up looking like we were drinking the run off from an eviscerated Care Bear, it's probably better off that there was not a sufficient amount of red food coloring to turn the beer *really* red or the clinic probably would have had a run on it the next morning the likes of which has never been seen.
So beer pong started up and we wandered over, and promptly watched a couple vet students run the table to a degree that it was surprising they were still standing.
To our credit, we got them down to the last cup to sudden death, and that is *quite* an accomplishment, but sadly, they got it in for the win. Much shame. Ran into Jay and Jordan, hung out with them for a while, and got a full thing of beer dumped over me by two guys who were "fighting or are they wrestling, I'm not sure, let's just move". Fortunately, you wear disposable clothes to Sandblast.
Ran into Grace and Dem and headed down to the Owl to watch the game. Good chicken wings there but unfortunately, only crab racing on Monday nights, which I still haven't seen. Some pool, some jeopardy, a good night swim, then home to preen for Bananas, which I ended up leaving with Grace and Dem at around 5 in the morning. Gods.
If this seems excessive, this is pretty much "just another Sandblast". One thing about medical school is that it destroys your sanity *and* your liver.
So now I'm paying the price and attempting to catch up pharm... which will leave me catching up renal in pathophys, which inexplicably puts me in the same place as everyone who either studied for the entirety of last weekend OR spent the entire weekend drinking. It's like the entire class procrastinates together and always seems the same number of lectures behind. See why I love these guys?
This term has me on an emotional roller coaster that's hard to adequately express because my mood towards it is changing so rapidly as are my approaches to attempt to stave off a bad attitude.
While my nature is generally sarcastic and cynical (as is anyone who read over a hundred issues of the Babysitter's Club as a child), my overall attitude is one I try to generally be happy (being sarcastic makes me happy), try not to let little things get to me beyond the surface irritation, thus I enjoy making fun of things without being too hard-hit by them, with a few notable exceptions that are pretty dramatically splashed onto this blog.
I've also let myself get cases of the deep-blue-funks which made the overall decently-run second term a complete misery for me while I enjoyed the "rabid monkeys made my schedule" fourth term largely by avoiding anything that wasn't mandatory and keeping chipper that this would be the hardest term in basic sciences and I was enjoying most of the material.
Flash forward to my current state of affairs where I am desperately seeking a positive attitude so that I do not waste my last couple months on this tropical island wallowing around feeling sorry for myself. This is difficult because there are a number of negative factors that are making the term a bit of a hell, while not allowing me to sink too deeply because there are a bunch of goods, and the goods are frequently rather spectacular goods, which just gives me that whole unstable bipolar feeling that I never know if I'm going to cry or dance around.
This is all being exacerbated by my having an absolutely *galloping* case of senioritis, thus I don't feel like doing anything, go for long periods of doing absolutely nothing but procrastinating, then followed by marathon study sessions, all the while kind of resenting that they're making me do this whole med school thing when I'm supposed to be relaxing on the beach, doing hashes, going scuba diving, playing guitar, seeing monkeys, island hopping, and all the other impossible goals I hoped to get in before leaving for good. Like it's third term or something.
Oh, to get onto the good... I've been chronicling this little battle with the pathophys department for a while, which was constituting a lot of the "bad". Long story short: chancellor letter, huge and surprising response, big open forum where we got listened to by all the department heads and the deans, some initial changes made that were promising, and continue to look promising, but cautious optimism.
This took a slight down-swing with hearing the reports to the fourth termers, though their 5/6th might be worse than ours, in that they were told a couple of times that they'd need to bring back all their books and notes (unrealistic and sucktastic, but at least announced), but that the current term (ours) had a bunch of complaints because no one told us we would have to think critically so they should be prepared for that for the next term.
So that was kind of pissy. "Well, we can't tell the 5/6th termers this because they'd completely destroy us in a debate over it by citing our lack of organization and preparation while citing the past pathology course as requiring integration and the BSCE1 as being a test of our recall from other classes, but we just wanted to let you fourthies know that unlike your special-ed upperclassmen, who have made it to the near-end of their second year of medical school without being able to arrive at any conclusion that wasn't drawn out in capital letters on something shiny for them, you're actually going to have to use your brains next term, so be prepared."
BUT
Lest I withhold credit where credit is due, they are reinstituting a curve based on the actual class averages and standard deviations, per an announcement on Angel! Woo hoo!!!! And though NONE of the renal Sonic Foundry lectures have been posted, the notes for heme, GI and renal were on time, and they changed up the way the BSFCR was run, as they indicated they would while getting the objectives up in advance, as they also said they would, so while I have no idea how this is going to play out on the upcoming exam, I'm going to go ahead and give the administration credit for following through on this one, and make it generally known that if you do feel like your education is taking an inexcusable hit, politely express that, and you never know what can happen. While I'm not wildly appreciative of the announcement to fourth term, it was made to fourth term, and so long as they're fixing the problems that are plaguing this term and are aware of the problem, I'm going to go ahead and give them a pass on saying anything they like. I mean, I'm going to completely make fun of it, but that's all part of the "not a deep hurt" part of above.
In Clinical Skills, they continue to demonstrate that though there is a ton of disorganization, you generally don't have to go any higher than the department heads (or sometimes the tutors) to get a response, and the disorganization seems regretted and inadvertent. And as I've said all along, attitude goes a *long* way with me. If you point out a problem and someones says "I'm really sorry for the inconvenience and we're working to do _________ to fix it.", I will readily let a whole lot of stuff go. Today, during our morning session, one of the students in my group pointed out that our patient write up grades hadn't been posted yet, which is important so we know what we can fix for the next ones, and they were up by this afternoon, and the reception of the request was apologetic and active rather than defensive. Pretty impressive.
The department is also fairly accommodating to students in situations that are directly the student's fault (totally guilty), and I haven't really seen any of their instructors or directors be overtly nasty, gripey, or unprofessional. Usually they're extremely friendly, helpful, and eager to add on stuff that'll benefit us. I'm not giving a pass on the organization, because it is a problem, but knowing you can actually talk to them and they'll respond nicely is honestly one of the high points of my experience with the school. I'm not sure what that says about me or the school, but there you go.
Pharm. Pharm is the definition of ambivalence for me, as I've mentioned before because I maintain that it is well run, but I hate this class probably more than any other and it is taking up a huge portion of my time, which means I'm spending a huge amount of time focusing on a subject that is difficult, heavy, high yield, and mindnumbing. So it's a lot like being forced to spend 2-8 hours of your day eating liver. It's good for you; it may be made well by champion chefs and butchers, but it's still going to ruin your day.
Clinic. The clinic is driving me nuts. 90 minutes minimum to renew prescriptions, only to have it dragged on for a week or two weeks or whatever the on-duty feels like giving me and having the pharmacy frequently out of what I need, while the mail from home isn't reliably making it. Not a great use of time. Also an added stress I don't need hitting right at the end.
Social... another big source of ambivalence. I'm finding more and more that I like a huge number of the students at this school, and have established close friendships with a number of them and I'm deeply enjoying being around them. My boyfriend is being completely awesome, per usual, and since we're both incarcerated in the study hall a lot, it means I get to spend more time with him.
BUT... (there's always a but)... I am becoming more and more acutely aware that though I'm extremely excited to get done with basic sciences and begin the next stage of my life, I am also going to lose the close contact with my fellow convicts and we're all going to get scattered to the wind. Many of us will likely end up at the same hospitals, and there's internet connections, but it's not the same, and I'm going to miss that. Some of my closest friendships have been made on this island, and I'm going to be abandoning that to have a close relationship with my step 1 videos. I'm going to miss running into a ton of people I know and like on campus, at the beach, at the market, and the whole closeness of the campus. Yes, this also creates a fishbowl here, but it can be a pretty comforting one, and soon, it's going to be back to the scary real world, having lost the ability to hold conversations with people that aren't Caribbean medical students. "Hey, how are you doing? So... who's running for president? Did you catch the last season of that show that ended three years ago? Don't you hate it when you're trying to watch an episode of House, but the channel feed keeps switching between the Colorado and New York feed so you can't tell when it's on? It's about as reliable as the egg supply at IGA. Wanna go get a Carib? How many EC do they go for at that bar on the corner? As long as they're not blasting soca, know what I mean? No?"
Also, there's the scenery. I love the scenery in the states too, don't get me wrong, but even after nearly two years, I frequently look around and am taken in by the surreality of essentially living in a Windows screensaver. Though I probably go to the beach and dive way less frequently than I did in California (and no, I didn't live near the beach), the fact that it is so close is something I'm always aware of.
So it's a whole weird thing. I'm having to do "next stage of life" things like register for the USMLE, which was always this huge looming someday off in the distance thing and now it's a 700$ charge on my credit card and I'm having to choose date periods and get photos made for my ID. I'm having to figure out what I'm doing for rotations, when I'm starting them, and how I'm handling the period in between rather than just continuing on the island, paying my rent. I'm dealing with what I'm going to do with all my stuff, people are touring my apartment, and it's a huge change.
I'm going to get to see my family again. I'm going to get to have seasons again. My clothes are going to last longer and can be varied. I'm going to get to have fast food and cheap meat and ethnic cuisine, and trips to the grocery store, and quick pick ups of anything I need as close as the local love/hate Walmart. I'll be able to drive. I won't need to book a boat or a plane to anywhere outside of an 11X22 mile radius.
So it's all... blah, mixed up inside me. And making it hard to study. As is the suddenly rescheduled meeting at 5 tonight.
To change gears abruptly (much like my moods at any given second), I guess I'll Sandblast-talk, since that's an actual event rather than some diary description of my overall feelings.
Since I wasn't behind in school enough, I chose to hit the last Sandblast for me (hopefully), which had a Halloween theme, making it particularly appealing because I love Autumn and Halloween, and they don't really do either here. I had to grab and orange AND black t-shirt since they not only had the whole Halloween thing going for them, but chose to mesh it with a Dark Knight Heath-Ledger-as-Joker pumpkin "Why so serious" motto that just upped the awesome. Well done, designers.
For a change, I actually got there close to when it opened rather than sleeping late and not getting there until they were half out of beer thing that I normally do. I also chose to maintain a steady state of alcohol in my bloodstream rather than gorging myself on it first thing, falling over, and being done for the evening by 5 PM. Muchhhh smarter. Makes for rougher mornings though.
I had promised Ashley a beer pong partner, so we first cruised the area a bit, grabbed our mugs, a well-made cocktail from the bar, hit the food tent and relaxed on the beach for a bit. Refilled a bit later on inexplicably pink beer. We attempted to figure this one out for a while, but it turns out, pink was supposed to be red for *blood* beer. While it ended up looking like we were drinking the run off from an eviscerated Care Bear, it's probably better off that there was not a sufficient amount of red food coloring to turn the beer *really* red or the clinic probably would have had a run on it the next morning the likes of which has never been seen.
So beer pong started up and we wandered over, and promptly watched a couple vet students run the table to a degree that it was surprising they were still standing.
To our credit, we got them down to the last cup to sudden death, and that is *quite* an accomplishment, but sadly, they got it in for the win. Much shame. Ran into Jay and Jordan, hung out with them for a while, and got a full thing of beer dumped over me by two guys who were "fighting or are they wrestling, I'm not sure, let's just move". Fortunately, you wear disposable clothes to Sandblast.
Ran into Grace and Dem and headed down to the Owl to watch the game. Good chicken wings there but unfortunately, only crab racing on Monday nights, which I still haven't seen. Some pool, some jeopardy, a good night swim, then home to preen for Bananas, which I ended up leaving with Grace and Dem at around 5 in the morning. Gods.
If this seems excessive, this is pretty much "just another Sandblast". One thing about medical school is that it destroys your sanity *and* your liver.
So now I'm paying the price and attempting to catch up pharm... which will leave me catching up renal in pathophys, which inexplicably puts me in the same place as everyone who either studied for the entirety of last weekend OR spent the entire weekend drinking. It's like the entire class procrastinates together and always seems the same number of lectures behind. See why I love these guys?
Jun 28, 2008
You know it's a good night when...
You wake up in the middle of your tile floor because your alarm went off for yesterday's exam!
WOOOOOOOOOT END OF FOURTH TERM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't freaking believe it!!!
I also can't believe I ended up swimming off Prickly Bay. For those who try that, by the way, it is damn near impossible to get back onto the dock unless you happen to run into kind Trinis that let you use their boat because you're stuck in the water because the dock's too high.
Great great great GREAT night!!!!!!!!!!!!
And to those who managed to get me into the taxi post Bananas, thank you!
WOOOOOOOOOT END OF FOURTH TERM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't freaking believe it!!!
I also can't believe I ended up swimming off Prickly Bay. For those who try that, by the way, it is damn near impossible to get back onto the dock unless you happen to run into kind Trinis that let you use their boat because you're stuck in the water because the dock's too high.
Great great great GREAT night!!!!!!!!!!!!
And to those who managed to get me into the taxi post Bananas, thank you!
Aug 19, 2007
Bootiemas!
Conjugation of "to bootie". I bootie. You bootie. He/She booties. We bootie. Ya'll bootie. They bootie. And on Mondaymas, the day before Spicemas/Carnival, apparently, half the island of Grenada booties.
Yeah, I'm reporting late, but I was busy... first stressing, then celebrating... I didn't get to go to the Tuesday festivities, but Monday was awesome, particularly since it helped rip me out of my funk, thus I won't bitch too much, for at least the next, like... 1.5 blog entries. Maybe 1. But definitely 1. Or not.
Anyway, I was determined to do something for the Mondaymas as a break from studying for biochem, so I headed over to Lori's to see what was up. After checking out her *awesome* pictures from a summer in Europe, we managed to get outside just in time to be invited along by an EXTREMELY nice 4th termer to cram into his car for a grand total of 6 (in a four seater, starting with three in the back, one in the trunk/back, and two in the front, and switching, by the end, to two in the front, one sitting on the gear shift, and three in the back) and drive to the Carenage to see what was going on in town. I had heard something about events going on at the new stadium (where the Cricket World Cup was last term), so that was our tentative plan. For those who don't know, the Carenage is the road in downtown St. George's that runs alongside the harbor, and it's pretty cool.
Serene, eh?
Problem was, when we got to St. George's, we couldn't seem to get to the road that headed to the stadium... we kept getting diverted, and the town proper seemed to be somewhat deserted, so we decided to park, and begin walking along the correct route to see where we could get.
Helloooo?
Turns out we kept getting diverted because otherwise we would have run right over the parade! As we walked to the outskirts of town, we saw more and more people until we saw a bunch sitting in the graveyard overlooking the main road, and then it was score!
Now, this was a serious bootie parade. There was a serious interest in bootying going on. From my study of anatomy, I wouldn't have thought it possible to gyrate butts like that without dislocations and hip fractures happening elsewhere, but the spirit of Carnival was in the air, and the soca truck was blasting, so bootie they did, and the funny thing, bootying is infectious, though I am certainly not a pro, nor was I wearing any variety of feathered bikini, but the love was there, I assure you.
"Hey buster, my face is UP here... above the feathers."
And the weird/cool part... if you turned around from the blasting soca music, colored costumes, and rump-shaking, this was the view:
You'd almost expect to hear birds chirping and see graceful butterflies floating by, but wait!
Even the birds and bugs bootie in Grenada! As do many of the children, which was kinda odd, but not all of them...
Er, no thanks on the sequins; I'll just hold the flag...
Of course, I'm one to talk considering some of the black sequined, feathered costuming my 11 year old butt used to be stuffed into when I was an ice skater, and that was when it was cold!
Carnival was hot; my goodness it was. Particularly when one is dancing, shaking or whatever, or actually, even sitting in the shade.
We ran with the parade for a little while, and then were starting to get uncomfortably hot, so headed back up to the car... and promptly got stuck behind the parade. Whoops! We couldn't find a way to get out of town (variations on a theme), so at a stop light, we asked a cop, who promptly told us nothing in the way of directions and instead starting yelling at us about having three people in the front seat of the car, and insisted we fix the situation immediately, a difficult thing when you're in the middle of traffic and behind a parade... it was similar to this time that we saw a girl wearing some variety of sequins and feathers climb onto the hood of someone's car before emulating Paris Hilton in that Carl's Junior commercial (sans burger), thus got the idea (once out of sight) to put Jason on the hood of the car (going slowly), thus ensuring an (almost) correct level of passenger occupancy.
At a similar time, Lori and I just decided to walk along the Carenage and meet the guys on the other side of town, thus negating the necessity of endangering Jason's life, but it was funny!
We met up on the other side of town, again with Jason sitting half on/behind the gear shift (carefully), and throwing himself backwards between the seats as we passed police officers, so we all became quite close on *that* trip!
Midway back, Danny, our benevolent driver, willing to risk cop-shout and broken struts for us, said the magic words "does anyone fancy a beer?" Oh, heck yes, I do. So we headed to his gorgeous house (HOUSE, like real people live in!)to drink Carib and chat about diabetes (hey, we are all medical students after all). His place has an enviable view, thus the beginning of my better attitude on Monday night and extending through, well, now, even.
So gorgeous views, the best bootie-party of the year, and a view overlooking the rainforest... all right all right, I'll be a good girl for a while... I think doing it helped me on the biochem exam too.
In case my spirits threatened to drop with the onset of classes (though I really like parasitology and genetics, which makes them easier to study), last night, I decided to celebrate my biochem test in conjunction with the big Aquarium party (I believe corresponding to the one I sprained my ankle at last term), but since the island has raised the prices on bar-drinks (apparently), we decided to pre-drink at my apartment...
We didn't have pizza, since I believe my apartment to be the ultimate beer/pizza pad, but beer and rum-raisin ice cream substituted well. Jay, David, and Nina came over, with Jay playing my guitar, us having a singalong, and all sorts of cool stuff... Simpsons, card tricks, tips on playing the tables in Vegas (I'm hopeless at gambling; I truly am), and so forth, before we swung to campus, picked up Laila, and grabbed a bus to Aquarium.
We got there around midnight and the party was hopping; though we went down the wrong hill and had to hop the wood fence to get in because we were not about to walk back up the way we came because it was also POURING rain, a situation that does not lend itself well to girls in heels that don't want to sprain anymore ankles. Had a lot of fun, danced the night away, and grabbed a taxi home. Good times.
As a quick addendum, no, medical school is not one gigantic party, but the beginning of term offers a few more opportunities to get out and have fun without sacrificing too much in the way of schoolwork. But for first termers, find a study groove that demonstrably works for you before you dive into the party scene. You have to know what works for you because once you get behind, it's half-impossible to catch up until after midterms. What worked well for me is taking one day a week to myself, that is mine, thus enhancing my play time for one day increases the intensity with which I study on the other days because I don't feel the burn out.
It's also far more interesting to write about, though David suggesting allowing my Manlocks study aid from histology, to become introduced to the wonderful world of parasitology... I'm tempted, but I think said fictional character would hang himself if he ended up with explosive diarrhea from Crpyto and a half-rotted face from Leishmania, so time will tell... I may just make up imaginary episodes of House as a memory key, especially since the show's not coming back on until September 25th.
In other news, now-hurricane Dean did virtually nothing to us, since I've gotten some questions on it. Some students reported that surf was a bit up on Grand Anse beach, but I don't think it was anything spectacular or particularly dangerous... I'm told we had wind and rain, and we certainly had rain, but I didn't notice any significant difference between Dean-rain and rainy-season rain. Pull for Jamaica though; poor guys...
Yeah, I'm reporting late, but I was busy... first stressing, then celebrating... I didn't get to go to the Tuesday festivities, but Monday was awesome, particularly since it helped rip me out of my funk, thus I won't bitch too much, for at least the next, like... 1.5 blog entries. Maybe 1. But definitely 1. Or not.
Anyway, I was determined to do something for the Mondaymas as a break from studying for biochem, so I headed over to Lori's to see what was up. After checking out her *awesome* pictures from a summer in Europe, we managed to get outside just in time to be invited along by an EXTREMELY nice 4th termer to cram into his car for a grand total of 6 (in a four seater, starting with three in the back, one in the trunk/back, and two in the front, and switching, by the end, to two in the front, one sitting on the gear shift, and three in the back) and drive to the Carenage to see what was going on in town. I had heard something about events going on at the new stadium (where the Cricket World Cup was last term), so that was our tentative plan. For those who don't know, the Carenage is the road in downtown St. George's that runs alongside the harbor, and it's pretty cool.
Serene, eh?
Problem was, when we got to St. George's, we couldn't seem to get to the road that headed to the stadium... we kept getting diverted, and the town proper seemed to be somewhat deserted, so we decided to park, and begin walking along the correct route to see where we could get.
Helloooo?
Turns out we kept getting diverted because otherwise we would have run right over the parade! As we walked to the outskirts of town, we saw more and more people until we saw a bunch sitting in the graveyard overlooking the main road, and then it was score!
Now, this was a serious bootie parade. There was a serious interest in bootying going on. From my study of anatomy, I wouldn't have thought it possible to gyrate butts like that without dislocations and hip fractures happening elsewhere, but the spirit of Carnival was in the air, and the soca truck was blasting, so bootie they did, and the funny thing, bootying is infectious, though I am certainly not a pro, nor was I wearing any variety of feathered bikini, but the love was there, I assure you.
"Hey buster, my face is UP here... above the feathers."
And the weird/cool part... if you turned around from the blasting soca music, colored costumes, and rump-shaking, this was the view:
You'd almost expect to hear birds chirping and see graceful butterflies floating by, but wait!
Even the birds and bugs bootie in Grenada! As do many of the children, which was kinda odd, but not all of them...
Er, no thanks on the sequins; I'll just hold the flag...
Of course, I'm one to talk considering some of the black sequined, feathered costuming my 11 year old butt used to be stuffed into when I was an ice skater, and that was when it was cold!
Carnival was hot; my goodness it was. Particularly when one is dancing, shaking or whatever, or actually, even sitting in the shade.
We ran with the parade for a little while, and then were starting to get uncomfortably hot, so headed back up to the car... and promptly got stuck behind the parade. Whoops! We couldn't find a way to get out of town (variations on a theme), so at a stop light, we asked a cop, who promptly told us nothing in the way of directions and instead starting yelling at us about having three people in the front seat of the car, and insisted we fix the situation immediately, a difficult thing when you're in the middle of traffic and behind a parade... it was similar to this time that we saw a girl wearing some variety of sequins and feathers climb onto the hood of someone's car before emulating Paris Hilton in that Carl's Junior commercial (sans burger), thus got the idea (once out of sight) to put Jason on the hood of the car (going slowly), thus ensuring an (almost) correct level of passenger occupancy.
At a similar time, Lori and I just decided to walk along the Carenage and meet the guys on the other side of town, thus negating the necessity of endangering Jason's life, but it was funny!
We met up on the other side of town, again with Jason sitting half on/behind the gear shift (carefully), and throwing himself backwards between the seats as we passed police officers, so we all became quite close on *that* trip!
Midway back, Danny, our benevolent driver, willing to risk cop-shout and broken struts for us, said the magic words "does anyone fancy a beer?" Oh, heck yes, I do. So we headed to his gorgeous house (HOUSE, like real people live in!)to drink Carib and chat about diabetes (hey, we are all medical students after all). His place has an enviable view, thus the beginning of my better attitude on Monday night and extending through, well, now, even.
So gorgeous views, the best bootie-party of the year, and a view overlooking the rainforest... all right all right, I'll be a good girl for a while... I think doing it helped me on the biochem exam too.
In case my spirits threatened to drop with the onset of classes (though I really like parasitology and genetics, which makes them easier to study), last night, I decided to celebrate my biochem test in conjunction with the big Aquarium party (I believe corresponding to the one I sprained my ankle at last term), but since the island has raised the prices on bar-drinks (apparently), we decided to pre-drink at my apartment...
We didn't have pizza, since I believe my apartment to be the ultimate beer/pizza pad, but beer and rum-raisin ice cream substituted well. Jay, David, and Nina came over, with Jay playing my guitar, us having a singalong, and all sorts of cool stuff... Simpsons, card tricks, tips on playing the tables in Vegas (I'm hopeless at gambling; I truly am), and so forth, before we swung to campus, picked up Laila, and grabbed a bus to Aquarium.
We got there around midnight and the party was hopping; though we went down the wrong hill and had to hop the wood fence to get in because we were not about to walk back up the way we came because it was also POURING rain, a situation that does not lend itself well to girls in heels that don't want to sprain anymore ankles. Had a lot of fun, danced the night away, and grabbed a taxi home. Good times.
As a quick addendum, no, medical school is not one gigantic party, but the beginning of term offers a few more opportunities to get out and have fun without sacrificing too much in the way of schoolwork. But for first termers, find a study groove that demonstrably works for you before you dive into the party scene. You have to know what works for you because once you get behind, it's half-impossible to catch up until after midterms. What worked well for me is taking one day a week to myself, that is mine, thus enhancing my play time for one day increases the intensity with which I study on the other days because I don't feel the burn out.
It's also far more interesting to write about, though David suggesting allowing my Manlocks study aid from histology, to become introduced to the wonderful world of parasitology... I'm tempted, but I think said fictional character would hang himself if he ended up with explosive diarrhea from Crpyto and a half-rotted face from Leishmania, so time will tell... I may just make up imaginary episodes of House as a memory key, especially since the show's not coming back on until September 25th.
In other news, now-hurricane Dean did virtually nothing to us, since I've gotten some questions on it. Some students reported that surf was a bit up on Grand Anse beach, but I don't think it was anything spectacular or particularly dangerous... I'm told we had wind and rain, and we certainly had rain, but I didn't notice any significant difference between Dean-rain and rainy-season rain. Pull for Jamaica though; poor guys...
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 9, 2007
Arrrrrr Matey!
Predictable, but meh...
Ohhh, you wanted to hear about Margarita Island, right?? Well, that's later, and let me just tell you, frigging FANTASTIC, by the way. And though there's almost no English on the island, they don't hate Americans! Hooray!!!! And between three people, we can speak enough functional Spanish to do quite well, though I'm sure we amused them by collaborating like we were on Family Feud before saying something.
But I promised you pirates, so pirates you'll get, thus I won't try to do some major megablog that incorporates both, particularly since I have so much Venezuela stuff that I'm probably just going to be dropping pictures in here and there. For now, we'll go with pictures of pirates at the Lance Aux Epines party and a couple pictures of the afterparty at Banana's, because if there's one thing we know how to do, it's drink!!!
For reference, here's what Ishie SHOULD have been doing instead of partying... or instead of going on vacation, really:
But instead...
We were not the only ones to abandon studying. The concept of it left some pirates more vehement than others:
Now, I felt pretty tricked out as a pirate, despite realizing that I wasn't dressed ALL that different from how I normally am. Argh. Or Arrrr.... yes... bad pirate humor. You can't escape it. However, once I found myself among other wanderers of the sea, I discovered that some take it VERY VERY seriously:
So seriously, in fact, that I did not bother to enter the costume contest, but merely vehemently cheered for the dear captain with unbridled glee, since he so richly deserved it just for having the brass cohones to take the real sword and not real pistol through customs and explain them.
As the party started to wind down, having sucked down plenty of grog and sulked that the people at the entry gate stole my kickass "P" stamped on the arm ala Pirates of the Caribbean idea and were drawing on on EVERYONE as an entry pass, I headed to Banana's with fellow pirates (Hawaiian pirate and Sublime t-shirt pirate) over to Banana's.
Banana's is the local watering hole for students, stays open until frick-knows-when, has cheap beer, is on the bus route, and is conceivably in staggering distance of campus, though they recommend not careening through the dark at night while inebriated. I've mentioned it before, but here's pictures:
So there you have it!! Next blog... we begin our trip through Isla Margarita con no margaritas! Muchas gracias, Senor Chavez! But here's a taste of what's to come:
Look! It's a birdie!! We'll get into why Little Grr is the only vegetarian on the planet that hates animals such as birdie in our next blog, though perhaps only Grrr could tell you for sure.
Ohhh, you wanted to hear about Margarita Island, right?? Well, that's later, and let me just tell you, frigging FANTASTIC, by the way. And though there's almost no English on the island, they don't hate Americans! Hooray!!!! And between three people, we can speak enough functional Spanish to do quite well, though I'm sure we amused them by collaborating like we were on Family Feud before saying something.
But I promised you pirates, so pirates you'll get, thus I won't try to do some major megablog that incorporates both, particularly since I have so much Venezuela stuff that I'm probably just going to be dropping pictures in here and there. For now, we'll go with pictures of pirates at the Lance Aux Epines party and a couple pictures of the afterparty at Banana's, because if there's one thing we know how to do, it's drink!!!
For reference, here's what Ishie SHOULD have been doing instead of partying... or instead of going on vacation, really:
But instead...
We were not the only ones to abandon studying. The concept of it left some pirates more vehement than others:
Now, I felt pretty tricked out as a pirate, despite realizing that I wasn't dressed ALL that different from how I normally am. Argh. Or Arrrr.... yes... bad pirate humor. You can't escape it. However, once I found myself among other wanderers of the sea, I discovered that some take it VERY VERY seriously:
So seriously, in fact, that I did not bother to enter the costume contest, but merely vehemently cheered for the dear captain with unbridled glee, since he so richly deserved it just for having the brass cohones to take the real sword and not real pistol through customs and explain them.
As the party started to wind down, having sucked down plenty of grog and sulked that the people at the entry gate stole my kickass "P" stamped on the arm ala Pirates of the Caribbean idea and were drawing on on EVERYONE as an entry pass, I headed to Banana's with fellow pirates (Hawaiian pirate and Sublime t-shirt pirate) over to Banana's.
Banana's is the local watering hole for students, stays open until frick-knows-when, has cheap beer, is on the bus route, and is conceivably in staggering distance of campus, though they recommend not careening through the dark at night while inebriated. I've mentioned it before, but here's pictures:
So there you have it!! Next blog... we begin our trip through Isla Margarita con no margaritas! Muchas gracias, Senor Chavez! But here's a taste of what's to come:
Look! It's a birdie!! We'll get into why Little Grr is the only vegetarian on the planet that hates animals such as birdie in our next blog, though perhaps only Grrr could tell you for sure.
Feb 13, 2007
I passed!!!! Wahoo!!!!!
Okay, in case anyone's been wondering where I've been, I dived into my books and haven't resurfaced in some time due to a little thing called the "First Unified Quiz". Which makes me feel all responsible and such. The Unified is not a very significant portion of your grade. I think between 3 and 5 percent generally. The thing about Unifieds is that they tell you HOW you've been studying. If you crash and burn on them, essentially that's a wake up call that says "Hey buddy, you need to reevaluate your study methods and start over" and I SO didn't want that. Basically, I was terrified that if I failed biochem, it would mean NO social life for Ishie because I've been dedicating SO much time to it over the weeks. Histo... er... well, it's my lowest unit class. I'm sure I glanced at some of the lectures!
I hadn't left the dorm since Friday night, really, and prior to that was pretty study oriented. On Saturday, it was ALL DAY. I was literally in my dorm room from wake until sleep with the exception of doing my laundry which involved walking 15 feet down the hall. Gah.
Sunday, I studied at the library, requiring a change of scenery, and on the way back, ran into the bazaar for the people running clinical rotations. I feel so WANTED!!! Well, not by California; I saw none of my peeps, but apparently, I'm catnip to New York and England.
I'm not the primary target since I'm only a first termer, but even in the midst of studying, it's not a bad idea to make connections early. These people will own you in your third and fourth year so good impressions are important as are "ins" with people.
So then it was back to the dorm for even MORE studying. Gah. Then, with a brief interruption for some high school shit I'm not sure why I was a part of, it was MORE studying, followed by sleep (I'm getting too darned old to pull study-all nighters), followed by another FOUR HOURS of morning study in the library, punctuated by that realization that I don't know anything! Eek!
As a great omen, it began POURING at about 1:35, just as we were making our way to the lecture halls for seating at 1:45. They check ids at the door and the wind here falls horizontally, and I was in the back of the line, so let me tell you how much fun *that* was.
By the time I got into Bell Hall, I was DRIPPING wet. I had to dry my hands and arms so I could take the test. Water was running down my face. What's also notable is that Bell Hall is wonderfully air conditioned. What wasn't so wonderful is that now, for the first time since I've been in the Caribbean, I have been COLD. Shivering freezing COLD, as one is when you drench them from tip to tails and put them under an air conditioner for two hours.
But anyway... did all the official test stuff with my heart leaping in my throat, opened the test booklet andddddddd.....
Hmm... not so bad. I know most of this stuff!
So I went through and felt pretty good, but it's a multiple choice test with 25 questions in each subject (Histology, Developmental Anatomy {composed of gross anatomy and embryology for a whopping 8 units of your grade}, and BIOCHEMISTRY, my white whale), which means even if you think you did well, one blip in subject matter, and you've got a 60. I prefer more choices on a test.
The results! I knew I hadn't done all that well in Histo because I'd skipped a bunch of middle guy (The one that woefully is NOT Dr. Paparo) lectures, and then hadn't read them through enough because... uh... it wasn't biochemistry.
72 in Histology. Which is passing!!
88 in Anatomy. Which is .5 points from an A!
80 in Biochem. I gotta B in biochem! I gotta B in biochem! Happy day!!!!!
Apparently the trick in biochem is to not attend half the lectures and dedicate 80 percent (a coincidence?) of your study time to it. Who knew?
Naturally, the culmination of our first test meant.... excuse for a party! I got out of the test at 3:40, and ran into some friends, so we made the mutual decision of going to Pearl's/Glover's to grab beers. Hey, as long as it's after 5 somewhere, right? Apparently, we weren't the sole people failing our clinical skills seminar, because we ran into, probably half the class, most of whom were already well on their way to intoxication. I felt so behind. David bought me a couple of beers, and I introduced him to Piton. Ah, Piton...
We all made plans to meet at Banana's for dinner, did so, and enjoyed some painfully bad service, but good food. Ah, Caribbean life. Joie didn't come though. Come with us next time, Joie!
So we walked back from Banana's (as a group this time!) and I had EVERY intention of going to my dorm, maybe putting in a LEETLE bit of study time, and then going to bed, since I had a lab this morning...
Toga parties are fun... right? I've now been to my first toga party, though I regrettably wasn't wearing a toga.
Sej, on the other hand, takes toga parties VERY seriously and had someone run into town to get her special toga and rope material, which combined with her bitchin' sandals to make one hell of an outfit. I felt so unhip in my cargo pants, despite the fact that the models dancing in the Gap commercials assured me that they were Crazy! Sexy! Cool!
We grabbed an airport shuttle (shrug) to Stuart's, which is a beautiful resort bar, but damn, bring your own alcohol! I was leaning over the counter for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, TRYING to get a vodka lime! Yeesh, I got half sober! Fortunately that was amended, so did a little dancing. Togas do nice things for men, by the way, and my eyes were popping out my head at the number of eligible Caesers. Rowl.
The bad thing about Stuart's (Stewart's?) is since they're attached to a resort, they kick you out at 1, so it was back to Banana's with Lane and Mel (Sej disappeared, which should have been difficult to do in a flaming red toga, but...), with Ryan in tow, an MPH student we adopted at the student store since he'd just gotten off the plane about an hour before meeting him. Welcome to SGU, Ryan! After securing more beer, Ryan escorted me home for the stretch from Banana's. Awww.
And so now I'm waking up and getting ready for class. But I passed, right!? Wahoo! As the title says.
I hadn't left the dorm since Friday night, really, and prior to that was pretty study oriented. On Saturday, it was ALL DAY. I was literally in my dorm room from wake until sleep with the exception of doing my laundry which involved walking 15 feet down the hall. Gah.
Sunday, I studied at the library, requiring a change of scenery, and on the way back, ran into the bazaar for the people running clinical rotations. I feel so WANTED!!! Well, not by California; I saw none of my peeps, but apparently, I'm catnip to New York and England.
I'm not the primary target since I'm only a first termer, but even in the midst of studying, it's not a bad idea to make connections early. These people will own you in your third and fourth year so good impressions are important as are "ins" with people.
So then it was back to the dorm for even MORE studying. Gah. Then, with a brief interruption for some high school shit I'm not sure why I was a part of, it was MORE studying, followed by sleep (I'm getting too darned old to pull study-all nighters), followed by another FOUR HOURS of morning study in the library, punctuated by that realization that I don't know anything! Eek!
As a great omen, it began POURING at about 1:35, just as we were making our way to the lecture halls for seating at 1:45. They check ids at the door and the wind here falls horizontally, and I was in the back of the line, so let me tell you how much fun *that* was.
By the time I got into Bell Hall, I was DRIPPING wet. I had to dry my hands and arms so I could take the test. Water was running down my face. What's also notable is that Bell Hall is wonderfully air conditioned. What wasn't so wonderful is that now, for the first time since I've been in the Caribbean, I have been COLD. Shivering freezing COLD, as one is when you drench them from tip to tails and put them under an air conditioner for two hours.
But anyway... did all the official test stuff with my heart leaping in my throat, opened the test booklet andddddddd.....
Hmm... not so bad. I know most of this stuff!
So I went through and felt pretty good, but it's a multiple choice test with 25 questions in each subject (Histology, Developmental Anatomy {composed of gross anatomy and embryology for a whopping 8 units of your grade}, and BIOCHEMISTRY, my white whale), which means even if you think you did well, one blip in subject matter, and you've got a 60. I prefer more choices on a test.
The results! I knew I hadn't done all that well in Histo because I'd skipped a bunch of middle guy (The one that woefully is NOT Dr. Paparo) lectures, and then hadn't read them through enough because... uh... it wasn't biochemistry.
72 in Histology. Which is passing!!
88 in Anatomy. Which is .5 points from an A!
80 in Biochem. I gotta B in biochem! I gotta B in biochem! Happy day!!!!!
Apparently the trick in biochem is to not attend half the lectures and dedicate 80 percent (a coincidence?) of your study time to it. Who knew?
Naturally, the culmination of our first test meant.... excuse for a party! I got out of the test at 3:40, and ran into some friends, so we made the mutual decision of going to Pearl's/Glover's to grab beers. Hey, as long as it's after 5 somewhere, right? Apparently, we weren't the sole people failing our clinical skills seminar, because we ran into, probably half the class, most of whom were already well on their way to intoxication. I felt so behind. David bought me a couple of beers, and I introduced him to Piton. Ah, Piton...
We all made plans to meet at Banana's for dinner, did so, and enjoyed some painfully bad service, but good food. Ah, Caribbean life. Joie didn't come though. Come with us next time, Joie!
So we walked back from Banana's (as a group this time!) and I had EVERY intention of going to my dorm, maybe putting in a LEETLE bit of study time, and then going to bed, since I had a lab this morning...
Toga parties are fun... right? I've now been to my first toga party, though I regrettably wasn't wearing a toga.
Sej, on the other hand, takes toga parties VERY seriously and had someone run into town to get her special toga and rope material, which combined with her bitchin' sandals to make one hell of an outfit. I felt so unhip in my cargo pants, despite the fact that the models dancing in the Gap commercials assured me that they were Crazy! Sexy! Cool!
We grabbed an airport shuttle (shrug) to Stuart's, which is a beautiful resort bar, but damn, bring your own alcohol! I was leaning over the counter for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, TRYING to get a vodka lime! Yeesh, I got half sober! Fortunately that was amended, so did a little dancing. Togas do nice things for men, by the way, and my eyes were popping out my head at the number of eligible Caesers. Rowl.
The bad thing about Stuart's (Stewart's?) is since they're attached to a resort, they kick you out at 1, so it was back to Banana's with Lane and Mel (Sej disappeared, which should have been difficult to do in a flaming red toga, but...), with Ryan in tow, an MPH student we adopted at the student store since he'd just gotten off the plane about an hour before meeting him. Welcome to SGU, Ryan! After securing more beer, Ryan escorted me home for the stretch from Banana's. Awww.
And so now I'm waking up and getting ready for class. But I passed, right!? Wahoo! As the title says.
Feb 3, 2007
Oh, hypocrisy...
The following is a list of the school sponsored, approved events involving alcohol since I've been here *off the top of my head*, meaning I'm probably leaving out three, four, or fifteen:
-The Rhum Runner cruise to meet/carry your classmates. Rum was FREE. Water was not.
-Student Government sponsored party the night before the Dean's Convocation
-Stoplight party at Aquarium
-MONDAY night party for the upper termers to celebrate their genetics final. First termers, in an invitation extended at the beginning of lecture, were more than welcome.
-Party at De Big Fish for something that involved dressing like an animal, I think.
-Party at Aquarium by the Caribbean Students Association.
And I think there's actually been about two others, and then there's something coming up where "responsible drinking is encouraged". Monday begins our third week of classes.
On top of this, they sell a good variety of spirits at the student store located in the student center, including Carib, Piton, Smirnoff Ice and a host of others.
Now... I like parties just fine. I like celebratory occasions, and as you know even like to get some variety of hammered on occasion (though not with Jager!). I don't mind the large variety of parties offered because it means I never have to make the decision "ooh, I really should study, but I don't want to miss that party" because there's a party virtually every night, thus I can catch the next one.
All of that is *fine*.
What is NOT fine is a TWO HOUR MANDATORY drug seminar again brought to you, I believe, by the Clinical Skills department, in which we were treated as squalling idiots with a *particular* focus on alcohol abuse, including a sermon by a speaker that I can only describe as yelling at us for forty minutes not only about alcohol, and quite laughably, the environments and cofactors that *create* alcoholics, but inexplicably about premarital sex and his political views that *we* should force all the smokers to the black sand beach and nowhere else on campus and *we* should vote for legislation when we're doctors imposing higher taxes and greater bans on tobacco and alcohol.
Yeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhh... screw you hypocritical self-righteous assclowns... that was my general impression.
Also fun was that it was also mandatory for vet students who were primarily ignored except for one speaker who apparently was defensive about such a thing and mentioned that the vet students had to learn all the same stuff but on multiple species, something that I appreciate but do NOT enjoy having a Friday afternoon dedicated to listening about. Two hours guys. You know what else was two hours today? Biochemistry. This created a rather significant "importance" gap because I was torn between medical school level work and fifth grade "Dare to say 'No'" campaigns, though I can honestly say that in fifth grade, they treated us with a touch more respect. But what was notable about having the vet students is that the lecture hall doesn't seat that many people, so they got to spend their two hours (since the med students had just had lecture in Bell Hall and had seats reserved) sitting in the aisles. Poor vet students.
We get it. Doctors have a higher incidence of drug use, largely due to stress and availability. We get that many of these problems begin in medical school with the stressors, and they particularly emphasized how stressed med students never feel like they had enough time. I wish I'd had partaken in a beer before class because it would have made me feel more mellow so with those statements I wouldn't have felt compelled to run forward and strangle the speakers.
Yes, as a med student, I do feel pressed for time, which is why I resent having it encroached upon by this sort of self indulgent bullshit.
Plus, the naivity of thinking that somehow these doctors that are going to turn to drug abuse are going to be changed from this path by a two hour mandatory seminar is nearly unimaginable. But the hypocrisy of it, complete with questionaire with things like "Have you consumed enough alcohol to be intoxicated in the last 12 months?" Absolutely. At two of your parties. Do I have a problem, yet? Should I seek counseling? The mind boggles.
Oh, and apparently marajuana is illegal in Grenada. Who knew? Wait... everyone did.
Whew! Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Now, to emulate my biochem professor, to change thought trails, here's a picture of a pretty building:
Since Joie helped me so much with biochem and I needed the anatomy review because I'm kind of useless with the muscles of the forearm and hand, we studied a bit for anatomy and then headed off to wet lab for review. They have really great hours so that you can wander off to lab in scrubs at 8 at night to get some review in with the upper termers. I re-met Tommy, whom I didn't recognize at first (despite the fact that he is quite... well made) because I saw him totally out of context after running into him at the culmination of a SGU sponsored party after which I went to a semi-sponsored weird late night BBQ and met him, but to be fair, he was NOT wearing scrubs at the time. Great tutor though since my brain had the off switch activated and I couldn't differentiate the thenar muscles for anything.
On the way back (at 10), we had our first proper Caribbean downpour, and in the short run from lab to dorm, I looked like I'd been dunked in a swimming pool. BTW, in the Caribbean, there is the light pleasant "Why am I wet when the sky is blue?" gentle rain one tends to associate with the tropics, and then there is the torrential sideways howling wind rains that one from California, such as myself, tends to associate with a *hurricane*, though according to my Trini (Tobagan?) roommate, "Oh, this isn't a storm". Good gods.
There was apparently a party in the letter dorms (there are the superdorms (SD1 etc) and the letter dorms, which largely consists of married people and upper termers), which I didn't attend, but the party came back to SD1 because the letter dorms ran out of beer. Essentially, everyone was celebrating the end of the drug awareness seminar, including one chick who got a 7 out of 7 on the "Do you have a problem with alcohol?" test and got trashed to celebrate. Heh heh, I like her. I wish I remembered her name... I'm not sure she can remember her name. Considering one of the questions involved having a drug/alcohol related sex encounter you regretted, I do want to hear that story! I got 1/7, and felt disappointed. I hate failing tests. I would have gotten drunk to commemorate my lack of alcoholic tendencies, but I have an advisor meeting in the morning at the University Club, and I failed the question about missing responsibilities because I was getting wasted and continued said regrettably responsible behavior. Tsk. At Sandblast (huge drunken university sponsored bash after midterms), I intend to bump my score from 1 to 6. I don't want to go full 7 because I'd hate to show off.
In the interim, look! I finally found a native monkey!
You can tell he's a native because of the Grenadian flag earring. Yea, okay, but we don't have any monkeys on campus (damn school) and all the ones in Grand Etang seem to have bugged off, so there ya go.
-The Rhum Runner cruise to meet/carry your classmates. Rum was FREE. Water was not.
-Student Government sponsored party the night before the Dean's Convocation
-Stoplight party at Aquarium
-MONDAY night party for the upper termers to celebrate their genetics final. First termers, in an invitation extended at the beginning of lecture, were more than welcome.
-Party at De Big Fish for something that involved dressing like an animal, I think.
-Party at Aquarium by the Caribbean Students Association.
And I think there's actually been about two others, and then there's something coming up where "responsible drinking is encouraged". Monday begins our third week of classes.
On top of this, they sell a good variety of spirits at the student store located in the student center, including Carib, Piton, Smirnoff Ice and a host of others.
Now... I like parties just fine. I like celebratory occasions, and as you know even like to get some variety of hammered on occasion (though not with Jager!). I don't mind the large variety of parties offered because it means I never have to make the decision "ooh, I really should study, but I don't want to miss that party" because there's a party virtually every night, thus I can catch the next one.
All of that is *fine*.
What is NOT fine is a TWO HOUR MANDATORY drug seminar again brought to you, I believe, by the Clinical Skills department, in which we were treated as squalling idiots with a *particular* focus on alcohol abuse, including a sermon by a speaker that I can only describe as yelling at us for forty minutes not only about alcohol, and quite laughably, the environments and cofactors that *create* alcoholics, but inexplicably about premarital sex and his political views that *we* should force all the smokers to the black sand beach and nowhere else on campus and *we* should vote for legislation when we're doctors imposing higher taxes and greater bans on tobacco and alcohol.
Yeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhh... screw you hypocritical self-righteous assclowns... that was my general impression.
Also fun was that it was also mandatory for vet students who were primarily ignored except for one speaker who apparently was defensive about such a thing and mentioned that the vet students had to learn all the same stuff but on multiple species, something that I appreciate but do NOT enjoy having a Friday afternoon dedicated to listening about. Two hours guys. You know what else was two hours today? Biochemistry. This created a rather significant "importance" gap because I was torn between medical school level work and fifth grade "Dare to say 'No'" campaigns, though I can honestly say that in fifth grade, they treated us with a touch more respect. But what was notable about having the vet students is that the lecture hall doesn't seat that many people, so they got to spend their two hours (since the med students had just had lecture in Bell Hall and had seats reserved) sitting in the aisles. Poor vet students.
We get it. Doctors have a higher incidence of drug use, largely due to stress and availability. We get that many of these problems begin in medical school with the stressors, and they particularly emphasized how stressed med students never feel like they had enough time. I wish I'd had partaken in a beer before class because it would have made me feel more mellow so with those statements I wouldn't have felt compelled to run forward and strangle the speakers.
Yes, as a med student, I do feel pressed for time, which is why I resent having it encroached upon by this sort of self indulgent bullshit.
Plus, the naivity of thinking that somehow these doctors that are going to turn to drug abuse are going to be changed from this path by a two hour mandatory seminar is nearly unimaginable. But the hypocrisy of it, complete with questionaire with things like "Have you consumed enough alcohol to be intoxicated in the last 12 months?" Absolutely. At two of your parties. Do I have a problem, yet? Should I seek counseling? The mind boggles.
Oh, and apparently marajuana is illegal in Grenada. Who knew? Wait... everyone did.
Whew! Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Now, to emulate my biochem professor, to change thought trails, here's a picture of a pretty building:
Since Joie helped me so much with biochem and I needed the anatomy review because I'm kind of useless with the muscles of the forearm and hand, we studied a bit for anatomy and then headed off to wet lab for review. They have really great hours so that you can wander off to lab in scrubs at 8 at night to get some review in with the upper termers. I re-met Tommy, whom I didn't recognize at first (despite the fact that he is quite... well made) because I saw him totally out of context after running into him at the culmination of a SGU sponsored party after which I went to a semi-sponsored weird late night BBQ and met him, but to be fair, he was NOT wearing scrubs at the time. Great tutor though since my brain had the off switch activated and I couldn't differentiate the thenar muscles for anything.
On the way back (at 10), we had our first proper Caribbean downpour, and in the short run from lab to dorm, I looked like I'd been dunked in a swimming pool. BTW, in the Caribbean, there is the light pleasant "Why am I wet when the sky is blue?" gentle rain one tends to associate with the tropics, and then there is the torrential sideways howling wind rains that one from California, such as myself, tends to associate with a *hurricane*, though according to my Trini (Tobagan?) roommate, "Oh, this isn't a storm". Good gods.
There was apparently a party in the letter dorms (there are the superdorms (SD1 etc) and the letter dorms, which largely consists of married people and upper termers), which I didn't attend, but the party came back to SD1 because the letter dorms ran out of beer. Essentially, everyone was celebrating the end of the drug awareness seminar, including one chick who got a 7 out of 7 on the "Do you have a problem with alcohol?" test and got trashed to celebrate. Heh heh, I like her. I wish I remembered her name... I'm not sure she can remember her name. Considering one of the questions involved having a drug/alcohol related sex encounter you regretted, I do want to hear that story! I got 1/7, and felt disappointed. I hate failing tests. I would have gotten drunk to commemorate my lack of alcoholic tendencies, but I have an advisor meeting in the morning at the University Club, and I failed the question about missing responsibilities because I was getting wasted and continued said regrettably responsible behavior. Tsk. At Sandblast (huge drunken university sponsored bash after midterms), I intend to bump my score from 1 to 6. I don't want to go full 7 because I'd hate to show off.
In the interim, look! I finally found a native monkey!
You can tell he's a native because of the Grenadian flag earring. Yea, okay, but we don't have any monkeys on campus (damn school) and all the ones in Grand Etang seem to have bugged off, so there ya go.
Jan 13, 2007
Drunken Swedes!!!
Yea!!! My first drunken blog!
Okay, first of all, to all concerned friends and family, I was still with it enough to not get into the unmarked car with the guy claiming to be a taxi, and he finally got bored with my drunken conversation of "but you aren't a taxi... cuz you don't have a sign!" and he finally said "Okay, lady" and drove off and got a REAL taxi that took me RIGHT to my dorm.
Hmmm... so verdict is, I like Banana's! That's the local club, known for having good food and a solemn atmosphere in the early evening and part-ay in the late night, and I can spell it "part-ay" because they were playing circa late 80s-early 90s music, thus, when the vocalist screeched "everybody dance now!", I obeyed wholeheartedly...
But my Swedish sailor friends... not students, sailors, namely, introduced me to Jager shots, which introduced me to staggering into my dorm laughing, much to the amusement of my sober roommate. Haven't been to a bash like that in a LONG time; I can tell you that.
Earlier earlier earlier, since I'm blog mad right now, and my probably-evil roommate has advised me that blogging drunk is the absolute best thing I could do... (just kidding J'Leise)
This morning was the orientation cruise, otherwise known as yet another drunken bash, but one that started earlier in the morning, and one in which I retained some degree of sobriety AND go to met 5W from valuemd. Rock on! It rained intermittedly (sp?) but not for the swimming time, during which I met an awesome chick named Laurie that's interested in the sort of humanitarian stuff that makes me feel like a bad person even though I'm also interested in humanitarian stuff... don't ask me.
But lots of swimming!
This was the Rhum Runner cruise. The original Rhum Runner is underwater, which should have concerned me, but I can swim so as our commander in chimp said, bring it on.
Nice thing was, the rum was free; the water cost money. I saw this as a good omen. On the way back, it rained like the proverbial mutha, thus while everyone else, soaking wet from swimming, charged downstairs to avoid apparently getting more wet, I jumped on the front like a psuedo Kate Winslet, pumped my arms in the air and yelled "woo!" despite not being particularly drunk at such a stage (unlike now). This prompted an excellent conversation with a brilliantly good specimen of maleness from Botswana who mentioned not being able to swim, which makes him braver than I am.
Soaked and freezing, I boarded the late buses back to campus after a heated salsa number with one of the boat crew. I emphasize again that I was not drunk at that point.
And yes, Saora, I met tons of people on said cruise, and it rawwwwked! In the 90s high school spelling sense of the word! Great people.
Coming back, I ran into.... my parents! Turns out they didn't have enough buses for the Grenville nutmeg factory tour, which I'd really wanted to do but it overlapped with my drunk rum cruise, thus they waited for us and I got to do it. I'll post more nutmeg pictures later, but I'm too lazy to hook up my own camera. Ha!
On the nutmeg bus, I met none other than ModernDayGilligan, the tour guide, also distinguished as having the best valuemd handle ever! Sweet! Thanks to him, I got all my souveniers back after stupidly forgetting them, but we did get to follow the nutmeg tour with another waterfall tour, leading me to take this picture with mom's camera since I was too chicken to drag mine into the rain:
Because naturally, it started pouring. I am SO going back to that waterfall (Concord) though, because it's frigging gorgeous and has like fifty different stages. Niiiiiice.
After that was dinner at Banana's (mmm lobster) followed by... well, drunken antics with my new friends!
And now to bed. Full day tomorrow. I'm going to be starting this med school bit soon, eh?
Okay, first of all, to all concerned friends and family, I was still with it enough to not get into the unmarked car with the guy claiming to be a taxi, and he finally got bored with my drunken conversation of "but you aren't a taxi... cuz you don't have a sign!" and he finally said "Okay, lady" and drove off and got a REAL taxi that took me RIGHT to my dorm.
Hmmm... so verdict is, I like Banana's! That's the local club, known for having good food and a solemn atmosphere in the early evening and part-ay in the late night, and I can spell it "part-ay" because they were playing circa late 80s-early 90s music, thus, when the vocalist screeched "everybody dance now!", I obeyed wholeheartedly...
But my Swedish sailor friends... not students, sailors, namely, introduced me to Jager shots, which introduced me to staggering into my dorm laughing, much to the amusement of my sober roommate. Haven't been to a bash like that in a LONG time; I can tell you that.
Earlier earlier earlier, since I'm blog mad right now, and my probably-evil roommate has advised me that blogging drunk is the absolute best thing I could do... (just kidding J'Leise)
This morning was the orientation cruise, otherwise known as yet another drunken bash, but one that started earlier in the morning, and one in which I retained some degree of sobriety AND go to met 5W from valuemd. Rock on! It rained intermittedly (sp?) but not for the swimming time, during which I met an awesome chick named Laurie that's interested in the sort of humanitarian stuff that makes me feel like a bad person even though I'm also interested in humanitarian stuff... don't ask me.
But lots of swimming!
This was the Rhum Runner cruise. The original Rhum Runner is underwater, which should have concerned me, but I can swim so as our commander in chimp said, bring it on.
Nice thing was, the rum was free; the water cost money. I saw this as a good omen. On the way back, it rained like the proverbial mutha, thus while everyone else, soaking wet from swimming, charged downstairs to avoid apparently getting more wet, I jumped on the front like a psuedo Kate Winslet, pumped my arms in the air and yelled "woo!" despite not being particularly drunk at such a stage (unlike now). This prompted an excellent conversation with a brilliantly good specimen of maleness from Botswana who mentioned not being able to swim, which makes him braver than I am.
Soaked and freezing, I boarded the late buses back to campus after a heated salsa number with one of the boat crew. I emphasize again that I was not drunk at that point.
And yes, Saora, I met tons of people on said cruise, and it rawwwwked! In the 90s high school spelling sense of the word! Great people.
Coming back, I ran into.... my parents! Turns out they didn't have enough buses for the Grenville nutmeg factory tour, which I'd really wanted to do but it overlapped with my drunk rum cruise, thus they waited for us and I got to do it. I'll post more nutmeg pictures later, but I'm too lazy to hook up my own camera. Ha!
On the nutmeg bus, I met none other than ModernDayGilligan, the tour guide, also distinguished as having the best valuemd handle ever! Sweet! Thanks to him, I got all my souveniers back after stupidly forgetting them, but we did get to follow the nutmeg tour with another waterfall tour, leading me to take this picture with mom's camera since I was too chicken to drag mine into the rain:
Because naturally, it started pouring. I am SO going back to that waterfall (Concord) though, because it's frigging gorgeous and has like fifty different stages. Niiiiiice.
After that was dinner at Banana's (mmm lobster) followed by... well, drunken antics with my new friends!
And now to bed. Full day tomorrow. I'm going to be starting this med school bit soon, eh?
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