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