Exams done with, its Miller time! Well at least for 2 weeks :)

As my lovely title says, exams are done with! Phew what a relief that is, I have to say I am not one who stresses much normally, but that exam final week, definitely put some tension through the shoulder and neck muscles.   I think i was popping tylenol every other day just to avoid getting a major headache.   It is done and over with and I am soooooo happy, even more so to say, that i passed all of my classes with relatively good grades.  Unfortunately it seems I lost my A in Physiology, which is quite the surprise to me considering I thought I did fairly well on that exam, or as I said to some, I killed that exam.  I am curious to see if the final notes get curved slightly hopefully bringing my marks back up to an A.  I am not counting on anything, but that would be nice considering the marks currently out are tentative marks until the professors finish looking over everything to make sure all is kosher and what not.  As for my other classes, well I went down two grades in Nutrition, going from an A to a B, but that final exam was rough and was worth quite a bit so I am not surprised.  In Anatomy I maintained my B and in Micro, well I passed, which is what I was aiming for, so yay for that! :) 

This first semester was definitely an interesting one and overall definitely an enjoyable one.  I look forward to the start of the next semester.  One thing I did learn, is to try and keep on top of things a little better, that way the next exam finals week will not feel so overwhelming.   A bit more studying on a daily basis and I should be just A-Ok! :)  

On to, what I am going to do during the break, which I have to say, I am not sure whether I will be bored out of my mind or thankful that I can enjoy two weeks on a tropical island without any stress of school running through my brain.  At the moment, unfortunately I am leaning slightly to bored out of my mind, but I am hoping that will change as I plan on keeping myself busy.  I will be working at the school clinic, 7 shifts over the next two weeks, the first one starting tomorrow morning.  That is all dependent on the case load the clinic has because if there are no sick amnimals (yes I did right amnimals) then unfortunately no point in me coming in to work.   Which I am assuming means not getting paid either which would kind of suck. :S 

Other than that, I will be feeding the school horses a couple of times, which should be a lot of fun, I get to take them in, feed them their oat bags, clean there feet  and in the process get some experience working with horses and getting to know them a little better.  Especially since in later semesters we will be working with them a little more intimately, why not make friends with them now ;)  I will also be hopefully going for my scuba license during this break, which is something I have always wanted to, apparently I should be able to get it before the end of the break, which would be totally amazing as I would love to go scubaing, considering there are so many amazing things to see around this island, I would be silly not to get my scuba license over here.  Much better than getting it back home where you would do your training in a pool and perhaps go into the Fleuve Sainte-Laurent, which is unfortunately to say, a disgusting river that I do not think I would very much appreciate.  

So hopefully all of these things will keep me busy enough, in between these activities I plan on working on my tan and perhaps actually going to the gym once or twice to try and burn some of these extra calories I have around my waist line.  Although going to the gym is always a hard one :P

That's about it for now, so what do you think, will be busy enough over these two weeks? or just insanely bored?  Ill try and keep you updated so you can make a better judgment for yourself ;)

Thanks Y'all for reading.

Jonathan =)

Wow what a weekend.......

Just like the title says, what an amazing weekend! :)

Before any weekend, is always the week.  In regards to my week, I have to say it was a pretty laid back week, it was spent pretty much catching up on my work as I promised myself I would do, although it came at the loss of certain class time, but in the grand scheme of things it was well worth it, because not only did I catch up, I am actually ahead now.  Although this is also partly because I got quite a bit of work done sunday evening and unfortunately I got woken up this morning at 4am and could not fall back asleep, so I decided to make myself  a delicious breakfast: nice size western style omelette, a hashbrown, coffee, and some sliced starfruit....delish ;)  Plus I didnt have to be in class til about 9h30, which gave me close to 4 hrs of study time.  Even though it was a nuisance to be up so early and being tired most of the day, it was nice to be that productive and actually be caught up on most of your classes.  Now i can just dedicate myself to learning the information rather than worrying about retyping notes or stressing that I have not looked over anything.  

Speaking of looking over information, we had a mini-quiz in anatomy which was worth 8% of our total grade, i was hoping for a 90%, I got a 90.9%, so pretty much on the ball, although a 100% would have been all that much better as I am hoping to finish with an A in Anatomy.  Actually I hoping to finish with an A in all of my classes except for Microanatomy, which realistically I do not think is really possible.  Even if I got 100% I think the best I could do would be a B, so oh well for that, but lets not concentrate on the negative, lets concentrate on how well I will do in the other classes.  This does not mean that i wouldnt appreciate a 100% in Microanatomy though ;)

So finally to my weekend, so it all started with Friday night (obviously), where unexpectantly I  was allowed to take part in a night turtle watch, something that i was not really expecting as usually they do not allow first semesters to take part in the night watches.  The shift was from 20h00-06h00, so for all of you who can do math, that is a 10hr shift.  What is involved in turtle watch: pretty much walk the length of the beach keeping your eyes out for any turtles coming to beack, take a 30minute pow wow break and then do it again.  Initially I was quite excited, by like midnight, was getting tired, by like 1h30 I was saying to myself, why did I sign up for such a crazy shift.   My legs were burning, my back was sore, I was really tired, I scraped the shit out of my toe on a giant log, and then boom!  There she blows!!  Okay so no one actually said that, it was more like "we have spotted a Leatherback coming to nest".   Boy I have never so quickly regain my energy, the adrenaline kicked in and i was sprinting up the beach to meet up with the other group.  I have to say, upon seeing this massive 900lb female turtle digging her nest and laying her eggs, I was like "wow this was totally worth it".  We then proceeded to take a blood sample, a cloaca sample (a fecal sample), checked if she was tagger, took her measurements (shell size: 117cm wide / 157cm long), and implanted her with a microchip for future reference.  Although all I really got to do was watch and take measurement, apparently in the future I will be able to do everything as well, as our leader + instructor would like to train everyone to be able to do all the skills necessary.  Which is totally amazing!!! So I cannot wait to do my first blood draw on a sea turtle, it will be an experience for sure. 

So we counted a total of 122eggs, not to mention right before the leatherback sitting on our beach, there was a leatherback spotted at another beach (near Ziggy's = the party bar for most students on the strip) where apparently they have not been seen in over 8-9 years.  Unfortunately people were parading around taking pictures and bothering the turtle, so they sent a massive Kittitian over there along with one of the head scientist and a armed police officer to take care of things.  Apparently one man was arrested for threatening a girl who was trying to keep everyone back, but from that nest (which needed to be relocated) we collected 107 eggs (I believe) and brought them to their nice new home on our beach.   Momma turtle was allowed to safely return to her watery home, without any more annoyances from students or locals.  Although shame on any students who were disrupting her, tsk tsk tsk.

Back (shell) of a leatherback :)

Pointing to where the microchip should be implanted.

Implantation of microchip.

Head of the turtle (quite impressive how large she was).

That was my Friday evening, I got home, took a shower and passed out till about 9h30, then cleaned a bit of my house and went to school to study and to check on my the little kittens that I helped save as they were being put up for adoption.  Two of the four kittens got adopted with most likely a third, the fourth, Chester the Molester is still up for grabs unfortunately including Mamma cat (Gaby Abby), although I am still not sure if her foster momma is going to keep her.  So we will find out, but at least three of the kittens have good homes now.  It is always hard to say goodbye, but it makes you feel warm inside when you know you've done a good thing and that you helped socialize your foster animals to a point that is acceptable for most. (hint hint) ;)

Gabby Abby + her little kittens :)

After studying for a few hours, it was Night Cat Trip.  We were celebrating four birthday's that night, so it was sure to be a crazy night.  Which indeed it was, especially considering that on a Night Cat trip, you get as much alcohol as you want while on the boat, you travel for about an hour and half to another island (Nevis), party over there for a couple of hours, which involved more drinking and a bone fire. Then another hour and half trip back to Saint Kitts.  Obviously everyone on the way there and on the island were having a jolly good ole time, on the way back.....hmmmm not so good for some.  Boats + Waves = slow rocking motion = puking off the side of the boat for a few :P  One of them I will forever have in my memory, as he did so just as we said "Hey!!! How you doing?" and then blah! haha.  It was actually quite funny.  Unfortunately my camera with all the BRAND NEW batteries I brought to this island were all dead, which meant I got like 3 pics out of each pair, I brought 3 pairs.  It just totally sucked ass!!  Not sure if it is the humidity, or passing through multiple x-ray scanners, but all of my batteries are dead, such a shame :(

So we finally get back to the island at a little over midnight, some people still actually had it in them to go and party at the strip, not I, I called it quits.  Went home and slept the night away.  Woke up in the morning, has someone make me some delicious eggs in a hole or whatever they call it, but it is buttery + eggy mmmm :P  I then proceeded to go and play a Soccer Tournament at 1pm when the temperature outside was just hitting +30oC (this is without humidity factored in, yay bring on the summer :S).   Unfortunately even though it was a really tight game for the first half, they just had players who were a bit better at the short quick sprint and it payed off for them in the second half as myself and my entire team started to slow down.  Although i did score one pretty ass goal assisted beautiful by one of my players ;)  So even though we lost in the first round, it was an excellent season and I look very much forward to the next season.

On a side not, even though this doesnt have to do with the weekend, i got sworn in today as New Class Representative along with one of my other fellow classmates.  Next semester should be quite interesting, lets hope I am not stretching myself a little too thin, but if I feel that way then I can always drop one of my extra-curricular activities, at the moment, I think I can handle it :)   As new class rep, i did however put forward a motion to get a new fridge up in this badboy, because one of the current fridges is falling apart, the other one is way too small and both of them are always ridiculously full!! When I say ridiculously full, I mean f***ing ridiculously full!!! :P  Also, this Friday, we are having a special treat at school for our last bake sale: Johnny Cakes!!!!!! So delicious, the best way i can describe it is like a deep fried doughnut cut open filled with some lettuce + amazing BBQ chicken (not to mention the hot sauce, so good)!  For anyone in my family, it is like les beignes de mami que on mange pour les fetes.  It is just pure deliciousness and has become pretty much a Friday tradition for me.  So lets hope they sell like hot cakes, or should I say like Johnny Cakes (ha ha ha) this Friday ;)

Mmmmmmmm....!! :)

Anyhoo, that is the just of the week, and my most amazing weekend, hope y'all enjoyed the picture, sorry the quality is not the best, but we are not allowed to use white light and well they were taking with my Ipod.

Thanks for reading.
Jonathan =D