Hike to the Bat Caves (A Photo Collage)

Longest Week EVAH!

Hehe. Had to play up the accent a little bit... but it doesn't change the fact that this was the longest week since I got down here. Part of it was just sheer exhaustion from the whole last month and a half... and part of it is, well, just having a hard time finding the motivation to study.

I spent at least an hour or so the other day chasing around a little baby gecko that lived in our kitchen (well, now the linen closet). His name is Jorge and Lindsey and I hope he grows up to eat the centipedes in the house. Cute little bugger, isn't he?

We're down another classmate. That now makes 2, from what I know of... and they were both out of my orientation group. Not fun. :/ We had a dinner for her the other night, and I have to admit it was good to get the group together again, although it wasn't for the best reason.


We started new units in almost all the classes this week, and I have to say that I quite like the nutrition instructor. He's very engaging, although a lot of his material is rather basic (I'm sorry if you read this!)... but I had a pretty good hold on the body scoring system and how to read labels and calculate the metabolic needs of pets from my experience at the animal hospital. Physiology is covering the cardiovascular system, and I just have to say I'm SO glad we didn't have to learn the clotting pathways in as much detail as Idexx taught it for their online CE course! Anatomy is... well... anatomy. Still working on the muscles of the pelvic limb (although we looked at the vertebral column today... and have another week before that test). Microanatomy/Histology... now that's currently the bane of my existence. We have that test Wednesday, so I'll be spending a rather significant chunk of time focusing on that this weekend.

Tomorrow morning, we have plans to go on a hike to the bat caves. I'll try to get a separate post up just for that as well, so I should head off to play a little catch-up with some class readings.

Until tomorrow!

Sorry guys... :S

Well... I forget where I found this before (so I can't give proper credit to the blog author that put this idea in my head)... but I'm sure you are all wondering "oh, come on... you're on an island. What could POSSIBLY be keeping you from actually writing in this like you said you would?" I can assure you--it's not all fun and games and enjoying daiquiris and margaritas on the beach every day... living on a nice tropical island for 2 1/2 years. It's 2 1/2 years of the HARDEST school I've ever been through (yes, almost as hard as organic chemistry! :P) while on a small piece of land entirely surrounded by water. It tends to escape the mind that I'm living on St. Kitts... an island that most people go to for a vacation.

As a matter of fact, I had to go down to the post office today in downtown Basseterre to get a package that my mom had sent to me. The traffic was SO bad from the cruise ship that came in that it took me nearly 30 minutes JUST to make the 10 minute drive to the city. I'm lucky I made it back to class on time... with 10 minutes to spare! Damn tourists! :P

I've made it a personal goal to come home skinny and tanned during the winter break... and well, I'm making progress on both fronts. Hehe. I've got a good ol' farmer's tan going on (because of walking between classes) and I'm down 13 pounds. I bet most of that is just from sweating out everything, but I like to think that part of it is from going to the gym regularly again. (It at least makes me feel a LITTLE better about a pulled bicep muscle.)

As for the classes... they're still piling on the information... and I regret to admit that the reason I didn't post on here for a while is that I didn't do so well on the first round of exams (until the Nutrition one we just had on Tuesday). I went into hardcore-overtime-mode to try to get caught up and get a better start on the units that we're currently covering. I feel like I'm in a much better point now than I was back then at least. I've adapted to how the classes are run, how the tests are set up, and most importantly, how I have to learn the material so that it actually sticks in my head so I can use it for practical purposes in the future.

All in all, nothing is overly new... just the usual repetitive cycle of waking up, going to classes, going home to study, (an occasional meal thrown in here and there), going to bed, and repeating it all over the next day. I do find at least one night a week to just do nothing and get out to enjoy the life on the island. "Learnin' and liming," they say.

... is the semester almost over yet? :P I need some mental break time.