As promised, only a month late.......... :S

Howdy y'all!!!!!!

First off, my apologies for my tardiness.  I mean what is a blog if I do not update you on a regular basis?  Things just got kind of crazy and I let things go for a bit, then Boom!  Next thing you know over a month has passed by since my last real post.

I had midterms, a few crazy parties and now another set of midterms.  From this point on, Ill try and do my best to keep a weekly update of everything that has been going on, whether it be big or small.

So my my my where to start, a whole month of stuff to talk about, which in the end always makes it harder to talk about.  It is similar to talking to a friend once in awhile versus one you see on a daily basis.  The one on a daily basis you always have something to talk about, what you did, what you saw, who pissed you off, what oddities you saw traveling to and fro places.  Where as the friends you see once in awhile, it normally breaks down to: How have you been holding up? whats new? That's good, glad to hear everything is alright :P

Anyways I am digressing a little, although before I get back on track, I would just like to mention I am eating some Velveeta Cheese Shells and they are pretty awesome compared to the crappy Mac + Cheese I have been buying on this island.  The mac + cheese here sucks ass!!  Do not know why, the cheese and noodles just seem off.

Back to the topic at hand: What has been up with me for the last month?  Well as mentioned quickly at the beginning, studying studying and studying.  Although to be frank (Frank!!!! In Case you are reading this), I haven't been studying as much as I should have been.   I fell behind in my readings, and I am cramming a bit too much for my liking.  This is what happens when you decide to go out and party 5 days in one week :S  As much fun as that was, I do not think i will doing that again anytime soon, well at least not during the school semester ;)  Besides I need to give my great liver some time to recuperate before beating it down again :P

So in case any of your were wondering, I did relatively well for most of my midterms.  Although we just had our last one today, which was in Microanatomy.  The class is poorly structures so it is quite hard to follow and keep up properly, or I should say retain the information properly.   I think i did okay, but unfortunately I kind of blanked out on my lymphatic tissue, but I killed the blood cell questions, lymphocyte, eosinophil, basophil, metarubricyte, megakaryocyte.......hoooah! Who knew doing all of those blood smears as a technician would have made my life so much easier over here ;)

As for my other midterms, I passed my Anatomy exam, with a bit worse than a mark than on the last one, but I am not worried for the finals, although we do have a quiz tomorrow which is worth something like 8% of our grade.  Hopefully Ill get a 100% on that, but ideally I would be happy with a 90%.  Although I guess I should really be reviewing for that instead of typing this blog :P  I figure this is my study break for the moment ;)  The other two midterms I aced, in Nutrition I got A (90%+), but partially because the teacher had to throw out a couple of questions, and then in my Physiology exam, I killed it with a 95%.   Which is one of the reasons, i will most likely be TAing (becoming a teacher's assistant) the class next semester.  I always thought I love nutrition, but what i realized after doing generalized nutrition (which includes large animals.....boooooring), I love the physiology involved in nutrition more than the nutrition itself.  How molecules are broken down, absorbed, redistributed.  Thank you Dr. Naylor and the large animal team for showing me the way :P

Besides my exams, as mentioned I went to a few parties, one of them was a Full Moon party which was about a week ago.  Which overall was I would have to say, a relatively lame party, but the Full Moon was awesome!!!! Something I do not think most people got to appreciate as it was ridiculousy windy that day, which mean no one wanted to really go onto the beach to enjoy the evening. 

Full Mooooooooooon!!!!!!!

Part of the crew ;)

He didnt want to dance, we got him too :P

Ma friend :)

Some of the crazyness ;)

Then last weekend, I had my friends bday party on friday night, we went to eat at Rock Lobster, a pretty delicious restaurant.  I had a seared Grouper fish with red pepper sauce, quite delicious but not filling at all.  Although a couple of weeks before that, I got invited by the person who interviewed me in Toronto for a Canadian dinner.   The bill was on him, so I went nuts, a couple of entrées, with desert and for the main course, Surf & Turf.  Which I have to say it was delicious!!!!!  On a site note, the lobster over here just doesnt compare to the lobster back in Nova Scotia, it is a bit more tendinous I find, or "rubbery" I suppose, but still quite satisfying.   So after the bday supper, I went out for a couple of drinks, learned how to do some basic Salsa steps thanks to my friend (thank you Stephanie ;), unfortunately i did not really comprehend what I was doing until after we decided to stop.  As someone who has always been told i was quite a good dancer, it is frustrating not to be able to follow an easy 123 567 back and forth step.  Oh well, atleast I got the hang of it now and I am hoping to improve on that ;)  Then on Saturday, I got invited to another bday supper, but this time it was a BBQ on the beach (an actual BBQ!), with a bonfire.  I made some hamburger patties, which were absolutely delicious and we had a jolly good ole time.  Unfortunately I couldnt really take any pictures of the stars, but the sky was just absolutely magnificent!!!!!  So many stars and the night sky was sooo black, it was like the moon was hiding just for us.  Plus i got to eat some smores, mmmmmmm so delicious :)

The cool sand volcano that we made :)

The Birthday girl!

At least on both nights, I went home relatively early, which was good because I had my other project that I was involved in on Saturday morning at 7am called Turtle Watch!  Which is a conservation project involving mainly the Leatherback (LBs) turtles, but includes Hawksbills + Green turtles as well.  So every Saturday morning, I get to walk a long beach looking for brand new nests that were made by any turtles (at the moment a bit early in the season for anything but LBs.  Let me tell you though, I have learnt my lesson, because walking the beach in this hot climate when the Sun is just coming up while you are running on like 4 hrs sleep and partially hung over is NO fun, no fun at all.  So it was nice to walk the beach with a decent nights rest.  Let me tell you it is quite impressive how big LBs can become, I cannot wait to see one in person.  Hopefully soon they will allow me to do a Night watch, which is where all the real excitement is ;)

The other project that i am just starting to get involved in, is the Bat conservation study, which just seems absolutely amazing.  Get to go out at night, capture bats, mark them,measure them, get a small blood sample and identify the species.  Apparently they may have found a new species of bat!!!!  Which i just think is incredible!  So i am really looking forward to that.

A Leatherback Turtle Nest! :)

Lastly the other project I am involved in, which I have been involved in, more or less since the beginning of the semester.  Which is being a members of P.A.W.S and becoming an educator for the club.   We had a couple of visits to this one elementary school, where we taught 2nd graders about what it is to be kind, and then what it was to be kind to your animal and how to properly take care of them.  It was a really enriching experience and I cannot wait to take over the project next semester as I will be replacing the current education coordinator.

The Class + my fellow educators!

 

My Group! Posing!

Funny face time!

 Hmmmm I think that about covers the just of what has been happening over the last little while, perhaps with a few outings and parties deleted from all of this, but I guess I mentioned the more memorable and more recent ones.  Oh, although one last thing, we just played out last soccer game this past Sunday, we lost even though the other team was one player short, and I had a pair of brand new cleats :P  I think it threw us off, they had more open field and just move a lot more than we did.  But this coming Sunday, is out end of season tournament, so who knows maybe the underdogs (Lime Green) will win it all ;)  So wish us luck :)

So now it is on to studying for my final exams!!!!  Which run from the 18th of April to the 21st in case anyone was wondering, all back to back, so Ill have to be sure I am ontop of things for the next little while.  If possible Id like to get an A in all my finals.  I know I can, therefor I think I can, hmmm or does that expression go the other way around? :P

Thank you all for reading and I promise to try and do this every sunday or monday, or sooner if something really interesting comes.   Same bat time, same bat channel ;)

Jonathan =)