been a while, eh?

whats happened since september? second semester. it is a biatch and a half, what with four intense courses and all the exams that go with those, and the semester burden of dog-walking. bleh.

oh yeah, and i actually flunked a test, even if only just (literally by 2 points). it brings my average from a B+ to a C. i have a B in most of my other classes. its a lot tougher this go 'round. hopefully next semester will be a bit lighter. we start the down-ramp to finals this coming week. it starts with two quizzes this week, then a couple weeks off. then finals start. including lab finals, thats six tests back to back. gods help me.

bleh

school course load is a bitch, hardly any free time.

would be nice to chat to friends during that free time, esp unbidden. ya know, not ME having to IM first. but no that doesnt happen.

this is the friendship i foster in people. the "out of sight out of mind" kind. i apparently suck so the less time they have to spend interacting with me the better.

i am officially giving up on ever finding anyone who will care enough to actually think of me for more than a couple minutes while im sitting in fron of them.

men still suck

and i am still lonely. somethings never change.

son of a bitch.

first off let me say it was great to see everyone i did get to see. and a big huge thank you to all who hosted me while i was back home. love you all madly.

that said

why the hell can't the typical american male keep a simple promise? it wasnt a big deal, just one fucking phone call before i left. thats all. nope, not gonna happen now. while i can understand him wanting to spend as much time as he can with his daughter and be able to go out and do his own thing on his day off it was, again, only a phone call. an email or IM would have sufficed as well. but nothing. so yeah, a rather epic fail. if you cant even call how can i trust youd do something with a bit more meaning behind it. this all falls back to the "itll probably only be a hook up" but that was never spelled out either. so now i know. if i want to know where i stand i need to ask pointed direct questions and wait for the uncomfortable answer.

oh yeah and the guy (different one or hed definitely be wearing his scrotum as a hat) who was supposed to drive me to the airport has also apparently bailed, sans notice, the day before the flight.

i hate men.

good news / bad news

phew. lots of running about advancing behaviours this week. but i like it. its still relatively low-key and i am making my own schedule so i get to see everyone i need to see before next saturday.

good news: the dog and cat are going to be adopted by their foster parents. they grew real attached to them over the past four months so they didnt want to send them to Sterling Animal Shelter (http://www.sterlingshelter.org/homepage.htm) for fear they wouldnt be adopted together.

bad news: i might not get out to see them before i leave. im not sure if thats really that bad though (at least for them) i really dont want to cause any anxiety for them and i think maybe seeing me would be weird.

good news: my loan did get approved and i dont need a co-signer which is even better.

bad news: im not real sure when i get the refund check and i am down to less than 1000$ in the bank.

good news: i did meet up with the lovely guy i have had my eye on for about five years. and it was as wonderful as i had hoped it would be.

bad news: i leave on saturday and with his work schedule i can only reaaly see him one more time before then.

figures....

huh.

after sweating out finals (nutrition kicked my ass, and truly had me fearing i failed) and dealing with delays, bad weather, and shitty car rental places i FINALLY made it back to my mom's place.

and that meet up with the guy? yeah, probably not gonna happen. after being more than willing for the last couple of weeks the excuses are flowing like water: family functions; school reunions, injuries, baby, work... blah

i'm growing pretty disaffected bout the whole thing. it won't stop me from hooking up with him but i know it's not gonna lead to anything and that's sad. wonder what really is going on? sounds like he heard tales from someone. and that pisses me off.

and i did pass: an A, 2 B's, a B+ (in nutrition, down almost a grade level from grade before exam) and a pass. so i'm moving on to second semester. hopefully i can get my loans together. stupid fucking house.

buh

well its almost the end of first semester. i just finished packing up most of my stuff and will bring it to the new place tomorrow after class in the morning. yeah, the week before finals and i have classes still. eh, guess it could be worse.

oh, and the enormity of "im really 2000 miles away from all the people i care about" kinda hit me in the face this evening. a guy i have liked/admired/had a thing for for about 4 years now told me he kinda felt the same way. and he works nights, so it's tough to chat with him online since i am mostly in class when he is free. and while i wouldnt want him to get in trouble at work, its a tad frustrating. and i dont want to scare him off by seeming too eager, but i really enjoy the time we actually do get to spend together. i hope it works out, i really do, seeing as it took so long for us to finally get our acts together.

i doubt two weeks will be long enough to connect with everyone i want to see. i got the lab, mom, and my friends to see apart from wanting to spend all my free time with him. but i will have to work around his schedule anyhow, so i guess it'll be what it'll be.

guh

well today is full of suck. i havent felt this depressed in a real long time. it's one of those depressions where i wouldn't care if the world happened to just stop tomorrow.

this is particularly troubling since i have a test on monday and i really should be studying. but honestly, and since no one really reads this other than me i don't really have to worry about someone else finding out, i couldn't give less of a fuck about it right now. that's bad.

i just so sick of being alone all the damn time. i just wish there was one person out there i could go to when i feel like this and get some solace. but there's no one. at least no one who would actually care. i have people i could talk to, and they would say soothing things and it might work. but in my head i kinda have a feeling that those people are just saying things they think i want to hear. they don't really mean them. they just don't want some blubbering, old, fat loser hanging around them bringing down their property values.

and honestly if i hear one more 23 year old ingenue complain about how she can't decide whether or not to break up with her boyfriend back home or the guy she's managed to hook up with down here i will fucking kill them. or myself. i haven't really decided which would be ultimately more useful to society at large.

oh, and apparently i crack people up. not enough so they'd actually want to hang out with me or anything, but yeah... so i guess i'm a blubbering, old, fat, funny loser. maybe i should just sell tickets? at least then i could pay off my loans.

all this after having a pretty good week. funny that. all it took was a casual reference about some guy i thought was cute. when am i gonna learn to keep my fucking mouth shut? especially since i honestly wasn't looking for insights/info, i was just making a statement: "i think X is cute."

the response from the "you're wicked funny" crowd? a resounding, if toned down, "fat fucking chance". yeah... i'm popular enough to study with, but that's it.

maybe this was all a mistake. maybe my dream should have stayed in it's pipe. maybe i am gonna be alone for the rest of my fucking life, forced to watch the happiness of others without ever actually feeling it myself.

and maybe you don't care either. so i'll shut up now.

yikes

well since my last post i have pretty much had non-stop tests. i did very well in all of them, my lowest score being a B in PhysioI (when i quasi-complained about it the teacher looked at me and said "but you are doing very well", so yeah im a bit hard on myself).

my biggest accomplishment is bringing my AnatomyI score up. i got an A on this most recent test (much more reflective of how well i actually know the material) which bring me up to a high B for the class. if i can keep that up i will ace the course this semester.

still have an A average in Microanatomy, and i just got an A in Nutrition, bringing that class up to an A- or so. yeah, doing well overall. :)

still don't have a car, though i have tried a couple of test drives. i'm just not comfortable learning the left-handed shift driving at the same time i haveto remember to drive on the left side of the road. so i think, if i do get a car, that i will get a junky automatic first, get comfortable with that, and if it breaks down THEN i will get a manual. no problems there.

tomorrow is my 40th birthday. it's weird spending it down here with no family to cheer, but eh. i didnt get mych of a cheer from them anyhow. and my would-be boyfriend forgot it... so it can only be better.

hopefully i can swing into town this week sometime and pick my barnes and noble package up. i have some books that SHOULD have arrived already, so they may be stuck in customs or at the post office.

and now, back to getting caught up in AnatomyI reading assignments. i think its only about 150 pages, lol.

good/bad

good- finding a study group, finding off-campus housing, selling the house.

bad- one of our study group dropping out of school, off-campus housing won't allow pets, still not king

yeah, the only other student in my class that was older than me dropped out yesterday. said she couldnt take the physical aspect anymore. she was pretty unlucky from the start - she got a giardia infection almost right away. but class-wise she was doing real well. i hope she will re-think and come back next semester.

my new place next semester is right across the street from campus. in a brand new house, with brand new appliances and utensils, including a new clothes washer and dryer. i will need to set up electric and phone service for myself, though i may just sign up for a skype number. but yeah having a new grown up type place to live.

it sucks though that i won't be able to bring the dog down. meaning more than likely i will have to adopt him and the cat out to someone. so if anyone out there is looking for a dog, drop me a line to the gmail address. thanks :)

phew... well last week is pretty much a blur. it started when i woke up at 10am on sunday. but, i hear you think, that sounds pretty posh. but wait, it gets better. spent all day studying for a nutrition exam, as well as hitting some of my other subjects. then an overnight round in the emergnecy clinic. Six patients all of whom needed something done every hour or so. no sleep at all. not even a nap. the shift? oh from midnight to 8am.

my first class on monday? of course its at 8am. that was a damned silly question. then a class from 10 to noon, then 1 through to 3. and TA sessions until about 8pm to get ready for the test. finally got to bed around 930pm. for those keeping score thats nearly 36 hours no sleep.

but life moves on. i got a B in the nutrition exam. i am happy with that. tuesday proceeded as normal then i volunteered to walk dogs for the clinic on wednesday morning... 6am wednesday morning. i walked four befoer i said "no mas".

thursday i rested. a bunch of us went out to eat a place in bassettere that serves mainly local cuisine. i had curried conch with rice and blackbeans.

spent the remainder of the weekend studying Microanatomy and Gross Anatomy. Physiology is still mainly a review for me - hemostasis, hemtopoeisis, and a bit of blood dynamics. should be pretty good for next exam.

nutrition is finally gonna start to get interesting. we will be moving into actual feed methods for the different species soon, beef cattle being first. gotta say, feedstuffs and water are fairly dry (no real pun intended) subject matter and it took a lot of effort to memorize the facts. hopefully i will have it down for the next exam in a few weeks.

oh yeah, and my group kiboshed my paper. said it was too much physiology... feh. so now we are looking at a paper about dog arthritis in western canada... wheeee.

and soon to sleep. got to have dinner and maybe do another load of laundry tonight though.

wow... i found the video of one of my favorite songs. it always cheers me up. :)

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2a4uf_adrian-belew-oh-daddy_music

still studying nutrition.

deGaulle still dead

i'm still not king...

anatomy results in: 73/95 points... or about a 77% if she doesnt grade curve. bbye A average, lol. but i passed and am proud of that. the professor said that absolute grades arent as important as knowing how the material will "work" in the real world, where most of our actual knowlege will be picked up. my job is to graduate, and "a C makes a Vet". i just have to be able to more clearly get my knowlege on paper.

but now i am hip deep in studying nutrition, while trying to not get behind in studying the other three subjects.

go me!

so three tests down, one more to go in this first round of testing. still havent recieved my anatomy test results (though i know i passed, i dont think i did as well as my actual knowledge would indicate). and i am still sitting on an A average. i got a 92 in Physio, so that's good.

cardiac system is next, that won't be as easy i fear. but going into it with an A makes me feel better.

nutrition though... guh. what a dry subject. all memorization of facts you can easily look up. bleh. but im sure i can get it into my skull for the test. still havent figred out any good pnemonics for vitamins though.

i did give myself a treat and went out to the ocean in back of the dorms for an hour or so. i should do that more often, but its a pain to lug all my notes and such down there and back. i still think i will go to the movies this week, not sure which movie i will see though. guess i'll play it by ear.

and now it's nutrition that's getting to me. the vitamin deficiencies and overdoses specifically.

i especially love when an overdose of one ACTS like a deficiency of another. bleh.

hopefully i will get it all down in my head well enough for the test in a week.

i wish i had more spare time to just wander around the island. i would love to see the colonial outpost again and maybe hit the batik factory again. right now i have been kind of limited to the school and basseterre. i think i will take saturday morning off next weekend and go to the beach. i am not a real "tanning" type of person, but i think i should try to take as much advantage as i can. and maybe i will try to take in a movie on friday night. i hear "UP!" is good... or maybe "Dragged to Hell". itll depend on how i do on my tests, lol.

took a mock exam in anatomy this afternoon. it went well, i just have to make sure to read the questions carefully and be sure to give as much detail as i can when asked. other than that i did well. nothing was a surprize, that's good. and i knew the answers, which is better.

i just need to take it easy, stay calm, and trust i know the answer.

physiology needs a little bit more work. the adrenergic receptors ad the muscarinic receptors are for some reason eluding my attempts to memorize them. i need to make flip cards for them.

one down, another 11 to go. and a paper.

but i got an A on this one, so my confidence is a bit better now. tonight i am taking a break. back to studying tomorrow night.

guh.. i hate stoopid people

so, did you really need to snipe the washer AND dryer? really? i mean if youre short on cash, ask. i can front a load of laundry.

to "start the washer before looking in it", thus making my clothes extra wet and drippy, was a stupid cover-up (apologizing because you get caught is not the same as being sorry). THEN not offering to cover me for a dryer run is kinda childish but in the long run it would have been forgiven. but on top of THAT you then moved my now warm but still wet clothes from one dryer to the empty dryer next to it. that, dear student, is kind of asshole-ish and not easily shifted from my mind. im just saying.

i keep forgetting that the median age of the student body is 23 and that most of them have never lived outside their parents immediate influence. but still, common courtesy would seem to dictate that you leave other peoples (ie if its not YOURS it is someone elses) stuff alone. the totally ironic thing is that we just had a lecture on professionalism and courtesy YESTERDAY. am i the only one listening to this shit?

i feel a bit better about nutrition and microanatomy. i took some practice exams and did fairly well, so i think i have a grasp of those subjects now.

physiology is starting to get kinda gnarly. i SHOULD know the adrenergic receptors, especially the alphas since i worked with them for three years, but alas my brain did not retain them. so i will have to try to rebuild a working knowledge of them, and the cholenergics as well. i know i will build on it as i go so i really want to get it down quickly.

anatomy is fairly straightforward. just memorize everything... all of it... for dogs and horses... oh yeah and cows...

real doctors treat more than one species.

well, the coat now smells of formalin and phenol, but it is my first official doctor coat. all i need now is a leather gladstone bag and the transformation will be complete.

anyone know any good study techniques for physiology?

as this second weeks end and i am just finishing up my chores, i thought id write a few notes here to give a sort of progress report. i am caught up if not ahead on my reading for classes. i really need to make sure i stay on top of that since it could quickly spiral out of control. i fond spending a few hours each night does the trick for me, but YMMV.

shopping continues to be a logistics nightmare. our trip scheduled for 2pm ended up starting at about 3. we didnt get home until well after 5. but i found a store i like now, it even carries my haircolor!

i helped do the semester breakdown, clean, and rebuild of the school aviary this morning. we have a flock of lovebirds, a flock of cockatiels, three budgies, and a pair of amazons. none of these birds are actually used as in class demonstrations (we use chickens for that). the aviary apparently started off as a pair of each type of birds and breeding took care of the rest. (the amazons get adopted pretty quickly, though all these birds are technically available for adoptions). it was a fun experience, though a bit different for me. i have never really owned a bird as a pet so avian medicine is an elusive creature to me.

the only thing i am having trouble with, lifestyle adjusting-wise, are the ants. these little bastards are everywhere! though they succumb quickly to spray, i would rather not have DEET all over everything i own. but , eh, it's not a huge issue. not compared to the 5 inch long centipedes that actually hunt you down! or the scorpions... neither of which i have seen in vivo. yeesh.

i am getting to grips with the classes and am reaching a sort of understanding as to which teachers want what out of us as students. all except my microanatomy class. he has SO MUCH info to give us he kind of tends to go off on tangents, then refocuses and says "thats a detail you dont need to worry about." huh. well, which detail of the last 20 minutes speech was the one i don't need to worry about? i am gonna hit the studdy session tomorrow and see where i am and where i should be for the class from the TA. hopefully that will help settle my mind a bit. other than that things are going swimmingly.

i even dared to try and drive a left-hand shift manual car. i did get it to actually move, but between it's not having a floor under the driver's seat and the engine needing to "warm up" in a tropical rainforest i gave it a pass. another one will come my way eventually, maybe even one with an automatic transmission! i think remembering to drive on the right hand side will be enough to conquer without having to worry that my gimpy left hand hasnt got the right muscle memory.

welcome to the rainy season. localized downpours to commence in 3, 2,1... and theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere it is.

yikes

got a shuttle run done yesterday. went ok, except it got taken over by a woman from NYC (go fig) and we ended up doing a doctor visit as well, which got kinda tedious. so notes for next time: call the morning of the trip, about a hour before you need a ride; make sure people know it is only for shopping they have to get their own rides for other errands; take a head count (whoops).

also went to the Mr. RUSVM pageant last night. that was hilarious! our semester guy did pretty well, but the fourth semester guy rocked out loud! his "talent" was to recreate the Flashdance audition scene, including the water bucket sequence in the montage. you can probably see some of it on youtube by now. i know the old ones are there.

today is anatomy TA session and more wet lab work on Boomhauer.

is it wrong that we named our dissection dog in general, or that we named him Boomhauer. he is a pit cross, or looks like one at any rate. he is black and tri-colored with some flea-ticking. and he is ours for two semesters.

i love the smell of phenol in the morning.

semester olympics start today. gonna do my best to get to them, but i really need to make sure i get my classwork done first.

also trying to get a shuttle service started for first semester people without a car to be able to get to the shops on the weekends. i will need to talk with the housing office and the shuttle drivers to work something out.

but now it's time to finish getting ready for anatomy, i have large animal palpation this morning.

first day of classes

youch... yeah im not too sure how often i will be able to post here given the sheer work load i am looking at. i can tell right away that my problem course will most likely be physiology1, and that's mainly due to the teaching technique being so different from what i am used to. but if i buckle down i should be able to come to grips with it pretty quickly.

we had the white coat ceremony today as well. so now i feel like a more official vet med student than before, even with my gladstone bag and stethescope.

but now to homework and relaxing before bed. i MAY even try to power up WoW for an hour or so.

today is a free day. i can do all my prep work for the first day of classes tomorrow. i also have to fill out the paperwork for the sale of my house. hopefully the bank accepts the short sale and i dont have to keep going through the realty palaver.

went food shopping this morning to make sure i had everything ready for tomorrow. i will need to make up some sammies to bring with me to class.

the rest of today i think will be mostly cleaning and reading. maybe i'll pop in a movie or two. take it easy and rest up. i kind of almost pity the kids who went out drinking last night. tomorrow is gonna hit them hard i think.

today was schedule-less day. our group went to the beach behind the Marriott hotel. very nice place. i sat under a canopy since my burn is still a bit fresh. listened to some audio books and zoned out. we just got back now.

tonight we are going out to eat at a place called PJ's, a more formal restaurant. then we have a bonfire on the beach where most of the students attend as the unofficial start of the semester. tomorrow i shall rest.

last day of orientation. we had a lecture on cirriculum in the morning then off to the catamaran trip! we sailed out to a cove on st. nevis island and snorkelled for an hour. i saw a "dory" fish and snorted sea water up the snorkle. i also got stung by a baby jellyfish. it was weird, it stung a bit and left small welts but they didnt linger. we then went to a beach for a bit. the actual beach was kinda rocky but there was some pretty good beachcombing to be had.

and i got sunburned. and its pretty obvious that its because i missed some spots with the sunscreen. its not bad, i put alo on it and it feels fine now.

tonight we are going to see wolverine and then im gonna come back here to do laundry before bed.

not sure what we have planned for tomorrow if anything. i do have paperwork to fill out for the house so i may do that. gotta flee now!

yesterday was a long day. pretty much non-stop from 8am to damn near midnight. lectures all morning, lunch, then into town to set up our bank accounts. i finally got to pick up my packages from the post office. they arrived on monday so that was a total of 12 days from drop off to arrival.

toured the rest of the island with our driver. he's a hoot! then we went out to dinner and then to karaoke.

...

i said it was a long day, not a difficult one. thatll be monday. i'll try to post again tonight after the catamaran trip.

today our group went on a zip line ride! it was the first time i had ever done that, so that was totally cool. it cost 25$ though so i doubt i will be doing it again soon.

but i got a chance to upload some of my pictures from the first day of orientation. this is the quad outside the front of my dorm. it is super windy most mornings.

the next picture is from my window. that's the caribbean sea and saint nevis island in the distance. i also have some pictures of the flowers from around the island that i took on my excursions off campus. i am probably gonna post them to facebook to save bandwidth here though.



but one last picture i want to show is this. this is Wilbur. he is the mascot of Reggae Cove beach. they SAY he moves, but im not convinced. he just laid there all day while people came up and patted him and poked him and took pictures, lol. rough life apparently.

i took some videos on the zip lines. the endings are lame because i had to drop the camera to work the brake in the line. but the setting is wonderful.

orientation day 2

we had our welcome to St. Kitt's lecture today from a local businessman/politician Mr. Cook. very interesting talk about the history of the island and how that impacts what it's like to liver here today. my residence hall is named after the last leader of the Carib tribe, Tegreman. they were wiped out by the French and the British... estimated about 2000 to 4000 natives died and maybe 100 soldiers. nice, eh?

and i may have found a way to upload my pictures (my camera's USB cable is all corroded on one end so it would have been a while to get a replacement in). if i can i will post some here and probably twitpic. mainly sites around the island and in the residence area. we aren't allowed to take pictures on campus. but you'll get the drift.

also got a look at my class schedule... yikes. microanatomy five days a week, gross anatomy lab 4 days a week, nutrition and physiology both 3 days each, and other sessions as needed.

first day of orientation. it's weird, i woke up at about 6am and wasn't tired or anything. i never did that at home.

we signed up for our cell phone service, driver's license, student visa, bank account, and student ID today so far. still on the hedge about buying a car right away. it's a fair chunk of change to plop down on essentially a beater.

so far, everything is going pretty smoothly. and i only got a little sunburn when i went to the beach ;)

Ah, so THIS is what it's like, eh?

i woke up at 6am. and i mean i was actually awake not rolling over going "mmrghrhll" and falling back asleep.

it's breezy and warm now, not sure what the exact temp is but that's ok. my room looks out east over the ocean. i saw the sunrise this morning. first time for that too.

also the first time to hear donkeys braying for their breakfast. we have a small herd on campus and the farm isnt that far from the dorms. we have horses, cattle, and sheep too.

i DID take some pictures of my room, but my camera cable is shot, so it may be a while before i get those uploaded. i'll see if anyone else has a cable later today.

our schedule for today is a campus tour, an island tour, then heading to the beach. heh. i brought a bikini but im not sure if i will wear it first day out. and im not sure how long i will be able to maintain my 39 year goth paleness out here, even with SPF30. and i should probably keep my scars under wraps until they fade a bit. all that new skin is pretty fragile.

stuff is a bit more expensive here, even given the exchange of 1 US dollar = 2.7 east caribbean dollars. but they have to import everything here, except rum and banannas, those are cheap. example: an 8 roll pack of toilet paper is 45$EC, so that's 16.67$US. yeah... glad i brought one from home to start with.

i will blog again tonight once we are back for the night. tomorrow starts actual orientation week!