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 =)

Finally! Pictures of my living quarters ;)

Sorry for the delay between now and this post, I didnt realize close to three weeks have passed by already.  Have been ridiculously busy, meaning not much time for myself and when I did have some free time, I was preoccupied with normal day to to day chores, or just to darn tired to do much of anything.

Hopefully i can write up a little something for this weekend, and fill you in on all the wonderful things that have been happening.  Until then, here are the pictures of my lovely home :)

My beautiful back door.

Washer + Dryer room

My lovely starfruit tree!

Mmmmm starfruit!

The vegetable garden that I get to used & look Banana plants!

Nice picture of my backyard + the two types of Mango trees! Delicious!

One of the many lizards that live on + around my house.

Another view of my backyard + the clotheslines.

A Noni fruit, smells horrible but amazing properties! look it up ;)

Mango's!!!!!!!! Although Im competing against the fruit bats that visit every night :P

Coconut tree!

Coconuts!!! one of the two varieties that grow here.

Closer pic of the coconuts! :)

Back view of my backyard, a very nice! :)

A picture of the rain collecting device, I find it super cool!

Then.....the family of dogs in my backyard!!!!!

(all of them tick infested! :S)

Miss thang - poor thing always getting beaten on! :(

Dopey

Bastard

Scrappy

Cutie pie = so sweet

little basard

This occurred a couple of weeks ago

Woke up in the morning + caterpillars everywhere

 Yes a different caterpillar :)

 Caterpillar #1 safely transplanted

 Caterpillar #2 transplanted

The rest, oh well unfortunately the ants got to them....cycle of life! :)

Phew! 3 exams done, 3 weeks before the next round of 5! :S

Wow! Crazy, has it already been 10 days since my last post?

Where does the time go, honestly i do not know.  Oh I know into studying and fixing my car, haha.  So unfortunately this last week and a half is a bit of a blurr to me, so this posting may not be as complete as my usual ones, but Ill try my best.

Although by popular request i will post the pictures of my home shortly after posting so everyone may enjoy the lovely environment I am living in.  I also realized that I never posted the pictures of my Catamaran trip, so i will post a couple of those right now, since well, most of them are just of a bunch of random people and pretty much the same 5 just kept showing up, along with a couple of nice coastline pics, but overall perhaps not my best picture day.  Im sure you can forgive me, considering I was on a boat and was getting soaked by waves that were crashing over the front of it, but still it was a very enjoyable experience that left me relatively nice and burnt.  Not to mention I thoroughly enjoyed my snorkeling experience, even though my camera does not take underwater pictures.  Personally I did not even realize they had cameras that could take video and pictures above and below the water for so cheap, and good photos at that, for pretty much the same price I paid for my camera, which I think takes relatively nice pictures but not as nice as I would like.  Heck for an extra 25$ I could have had one that went underwater.  Oh well, live and learn.

So without further ado, here is my Catamaran pics (which occurred in the first week of school.....oops a bit behind schedule :P)

Cool Ass Sail Boat

Pelican on a Dock

The mast of our boat

Tug Boat! Got to love em!

Coast line of St. Kitts

One of the two other boats with us.

Crew Setting up the sails

Sail starting to go up

Heave!

Ho!

Yay! Sail is Up! Good work boys! :)

I swear there was a fish there :S

Cool shipwrecked boat, got to Snorkel there!

Big ass boat! The picture does not do it justice.

Coast line of Nevis.

Tequila firebombs or something, darn strong.

Thin Mamma island dog!

Her puppy, awww :)

Speaking of adventures, I am going to be going Hiking up Mt. Liamuiga this saturday, which I am very excited about, although may be saying that when I am done with the hike and every part of my body is aching.  It is a mountain that rises 3800 feet above Sea Level, and we will be climing up 2000 of those feet, they call it a "challenging" hike.  So that should be fun for someone who hasnt really done to much hard physical labour in a while.  Still there will be some awesome pictures I am sure and Ill be sure to post them shortly afterwards, hopefully within a couple of days :)

So as for exams, well as I mentioned, I studied my butt off, although not as well as I should have, which goes to show you, you put in what you get out, no wait, you get out what you put in :P  Anyways, jokes aside, I did relatively well, but no where close to my standards, but I was pretty much above the average in all of my classes besides my first exam which was the Microanatomy exam, which i spoke about in a previous blog.  As for my other three exams, which were Physiology, Anatomy and Nutrition, I got an A, a B+ and a B respectively.  Which is pretty decent, but I could have done better, but i wont be to hard on myself, as the recurring proverb is over here:  What do you call the guy who got a C.......................A veterinarian! =D  So atleast I am on my way to be a vet, but still it is more of a personal thing, I have high standards for myself and I expect myself to perform.  I guess this means going out a bit less on the weekends, and making sure Im actually up to date on my readings.  Less booze, more books! :)

FYI, just so you are aware of the grading scheme over here, it is:
A = Excellent 90% or higher
B+ = Very good 87 - 89%
B = Good 80 - 86%
C+ = Average 77 - 79%
C = Passing 70 - 76%
F = Failing 69% or lower

So a pretty basic grading scheme, but like they have always told us, KISS (Keep It Simple Silly, I know some of you may know it another way, but still I never enjoyed the other word associated with the final letter). 


Still I do not like to be associated with Passing / Average or just Good.  No offense to any of my fellow colleagues who may read this from time to time, but to me anything in the C range is unacceptable, and if I can get a B, then I can damn sure get a B+.

Anyways, thanks y'all for reading, and sorry about the lack of details in regards to what has been going on in the last 10 days, but to be honest, it has been pretty much school and a couple of nights out, along with some physical activities (not those kind for those people with their minds in the gutter, hmmm or maybe just mine is :P), which including softball and soccer, which may be a reason why I felt a little behind, because I was just so darn tired after soccer, and well saturday was my day to clean up my house and do errands.

Like I said live and learn and a little more concentrated effort on my part and I should be able to get those As I am aiming for or at the very least those B+ ;)

Ill post again soon, when Im done with my mountain Hike :)

Jonathan =D
PS: Any charitable donations are always appreciated, its tough being a student ;)

One communications lab + one birthday party + one weekend of studying = one interesting week.

So another interesting week in vet school, although sunday is not done yet, I am hoping this sunday is relatively sane :P

Although in a few hours I do get to go visit the "zoo" finally.  As I mentioned in my last post, there were some complications involved in going to the zoo last weekend, so I never had the chance to get the rounds and see what I need to do to feed the animal and what not.   So I am going with a couple of friends today, that way i can be independent for next sunday when I need to go on my own.  Although most likely I will not be waiting until 11am to be going to the zoo as my friends are.  A tad late for me, but you know ladies, I guess they need there beauty rest.  Im more of an early riser, as I woke up at 7am this morning to make myself a delicious omelette along with some coffee and nice cool refreshing glass of OJ.  Mmmmm deliciouso ;) 

I figure in the future, be at the zoo for like 8h30-9h00 that way I could go to school and get a good start on the day with some studying.  I guess we will see how that pans out, because who knows what a saturday night will be like over here, I chose not to go out this saturday, or stay out too late on friday unlike some of my friends who are making it kind of a religious thing now.  Which i can totally understand the need to decompress, but staying out to (sorry if I offend anyone) some crappy bars until 3am every friday just seems a bit odd.  I know it is more the miggling with your colleague, and of course the drunken stupidness helps, but after doing it for the first three weekends, I think I am more or less over it.  Who knows maybe it because in Montreal, I could go to a different club/bur/pub every day of the week and probably still not have done every place in the entire year.  Over here, you have the Strip, which is pretty much where all the bars are located on the side of the beach, but pretty much only two of them are of any interest as the other ones are just swarmed by locals, who are worse then the predators (or creepers as my friends call them) back home.  Hence the same reason not to head to downtown Basseterre, where there are a couple of clubs apparently, but who wants to harassed all night.  Okay, fair enough I am a guy, and I have not been harassed as of yet, one of the advantages of being a man, not to mention one of the advantages of being a man at vet school on a Caribbean island where the girls easily outnumber you 4:1; but on the flip side, the school is so small, that word passes quickly.  Heck one of my friends who was sick in bed, found out I had a good time by the time she woke up in the morning, how is that even possible?  So one needs to be careful and precarious about what the do on this island.  Me personally, I have always said girls and schooling can be a bit problematic, they are a distraction and can just add unneeded stress to your already difficult and heavy course load.  Sure a fling once in a while would be nice and fun, but then it would have to literally be that, a fling and in my personal experience there is always one party who cannot handle that, me being one of them.  I realized awhile ago, I get to emotionally attached and not sure if I can do the "f**k+done" routine.  Some are quite good at it, me, not so much.  Who knows though, maybe in a few months that could change, but at the moment I am enjoying the company of one person, we just hang out and chill, she has a great sense of humour and we just seem to get along very well, although there are many complications surrounding her.  Hmmm why do the ones with problems always seem to draw me in, my first long term relationship the girl was still living with the guy when she met me, the one after that, had emotional imbalances and was seeing professional help, and now this one, well I will not get into online, but once again the mind is filled with emotional stress and complications.   I see things simply and never try and think to far down the road, you like me now, I like you now, that is all that matters.   I guess to each their own as I can totally understand the perspectives of others and why they may feel a certain way, but if the mind is clouded or unsure, then a decision can normally be found relatively quickly if you just thought about it for a bit.  Like I said for now I am enjoying myself and that is what really matters, I feel comfortable, something I have not felt in awhile.

Anyways it was my friends birthday on friday night, so we went to have supper at this nice little restaurant and actually the food was quite good.  I had a redsnapper fillet (Mmmmm very tasty) which was quite delicious, although perhaps a little on the dry side, and a bit of lemon zest or something would have been nice.  Overall the meal was excellent, although I arrived like 30mins late as I was baking my friend a cake; an upside down pineapple cake.  Which I think turned out nicely, Ill have to let them tell me if they find it delicious though ;)  So I arrived a bit late, which was not so bad as one of our friends, who arrived 2hrs late, slightly tipsy at that.  Which i just found a bit funny as he told us to order him something because he was on his way, so in the end we had to wait for him to eat as they only brought him his food when he got there (which is acceptable).  Either way it takes like 30mins to get and pay for your bills over here, so I guess waiting a little bit was not really waiting in the end :P  One of my other friends, became quite tipsy during the meal as she was sipping on a rum concauction that she brought in her water bottle, the waitress who was named Jolie (I told her it stood for pretty, she had never known that, I think she took a liking to me after that), found this quite amusing, actually she found out entire group a bit amusing I think hehe.  What can I say, we are just pretty darn awesome! :)

After the restaurant we mosied on down to the strip which was a short little walk away from the restaurant.  Of course in a span of a couple of hours the place was filled with students from Ross and within a couple of hours after that most people were very tipsy, some even too tipsy, or I guess you could say drunk :P  It is interesting to watch the interactions of others, I have always enjoyed doing that when on public transport or what not, but here to watch how people interact differently when out and about as they try and decompress from the long week makes it even more interesting.  I am sure Dr. Phil could give me a few interesting quidbits about how the human mind works.  One girl gets drunks and then constantly flirts with locals (something they told us never to do!), another friend flirting with a friend who they normally say are nasty as he flirts with everyone, another girl surprisingly flirting with someone I did not think she was interested in, other just being calm and reserved, others letting loose on the dance floor. 

Which leads me into my last topic in this blog, the human psyche and human interactions, or "communications" as the school would like to call it.  Earlier in the week, we had another communications lab, which is pretty much where they make you sit down and interact with the teachers in various scenarios.  They showed us this ridiculous video in class, where  an experienced vet just pretty ran towards a dog, overbearing on the animal, so of course the animal acted aggressively, then the flip side is always totally a different thing.  Reminded me of those infomercials where they would spill a mess "ever have this happen to you" and they would just spread the dirt around with a nasty mop, and then take out a new invention/improvement that would solve all of your problems.  Kind of funny.  Anyways, then they arranged us into groups and provided a scenario, where one of the teachers was a client with an animal who had fleas and we had to discuss with the client, showing various "qualities" that they were looking for.  Such as: empathy, reflective statements, acknowledging the client (with head agreements, verbal okays and mmmhms, or body language and so on).  Which is what they made us do with a video as well, where they had us do a video with our classmates and pretty much recorded ourselves doing the exact same thing, and then grading ourselves on how we did on those aspects.

I think these labs are actually quite nice, although a bit discomforting, especially when you do not really have a real patient or client, i think it would be easier to interact with a teacher if you had an animal in front of you and they were actually coming in for an appointment.  I can understand why they are doing this, as it can only help us for the future and make us more comfortable when we do finally have to see clients.  Some of it is a bit over the top, I have never seen a vet confirm and reiterate herself so many times, once at the beginning then throughout the conversation, then once again to confirm the plan at the end, and then one last summary before the client leaves.   Although apparently they have studies showing that all these things improve client compliance and hence improve income generated for the clinic.  I just find it a bit over the top and unnatural, I guess hence why they are trying to burn it into our brain starting in these early semesters.  If i can Ill post the video of the mock consultation I did earlier on, and you can rate me yourself :P  Although I know i missed a couple of key points that they wanted, such as reiterating the plan and reflecting a bit more with the client, but overall I think I did an excellent job.  Atleast my clients have always appreciated me and found me very receptive and I think that is partially because I already touch most of the points they wanted.

Anyways that is my wrap up for this week, I'm off to learn some anatomy, then the zoo, then to school for a microanatomy TA session (which I hope clarifies some things), then an Anatomy tutor session where I get to run through a mock exam, then finally some soccer and then if I am lucky supper ;)

Thanks y'all reading!

Jonathan =D
PS: remember if you ever can, I have a nice little DONATE button on the side bar, anything is appreciated as Ill explain my financial dilemmas in my next posting, the burden of being a Canadian resident and going to the school down here :S