Pretty Pictures

T-13 days. *huddled in corner rocking self*

And that's all I'm going to say about my upcoming finals. I just wanted to post of a few pretty pictures. I'm really having fun with my camera lately. And it's a good distraction from my impending doom. I mean my impending tests. You know, doom. :pI'm really happy with how this came out. The tree had just a few blooms scattered around otherwise lifeless looking limbs. It was quite striking.

Finals are Coming

Finals are coming. It's no longer sorta far off but rather rushing up at a disturbingly fast past. We're talking T-19 days for biochemistry. Histology is following close on the heels of biochem with anatomy coming in a few days later for the killing blow. @.@

Here's what I've noticed about my relative cramming requirements time wise:

Junior High: cram for a test before the bell rang
High School: cram for a test the morning of
College: cram for a test the night before
Medical School: cram for a test a freaking month before and still be scrambling last second

>.>' And this is for term one. I get the feeling that it's going to turn into 'cram from day 1 and desperately hope you make it' for the next terms.

Ugh. I guess I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment since I just sat through two hours of pharynx and larynx. Oh man, can we say material dump? Our dear Dr.Burns lived up to his name and burned through thirty six pages of handouts and covered embryological development, anatomy, innervation, blood supply and a few diseases and how to give someone an emergency trach in two hours. @.@ Now it's probably going to take me another four to work through it all and make notecards and attempt memorization. And I still need to go back and memorize purine metabolism and eicosanoids and start studying histology... gyahhh!!!

And they gave out another massive packet for the next set of biochemistry lectures. >.>' Where anatomy and histology are kind of petering out when it comes to number of lectures biochemistry is plowing right on through. I think we have another fourteen or so before they finally stop. It's not hard. It's just allot! <-this sums up medical school so far

Yes, I'm complaining pointlessly and eating up valuable study time. But it was this or stare forlornly at the beach for the next hour feeling sorry for myself. The only downside to living in paradise is that I can't really enjoy it! I don't think I've been to the beach since my second week here.

Ok, interesting side note. The Summit of the Americas was from the 17-19th of this month in Trinidad and Tobago (very close to Grenada) so we've been treated to the really awesome site of military jets taking off from the airport (they've been using it as a kind of layover spot). Very cool. Almost like an airshow. ^_^ It was kind of amusing though to have lecture interrupted momentarily while we all listened to the unmistakable roar of a fighter jet roar by. The airport is extremely close to campus so we get a nice view. I attempted to take a picture but you can really only see a spec. The jet was essentially gone in the five seconds it took me to pull out my camera. Still, the picture is neat. If you squint you can see the plane right above the building.
Here's a blown up version of the spec that is the fighter jet: LOL Just in case you didn't believe me.Here are a few more pictures from my walk in the mornings to the shuttle stop (because I just keep taking them). I also saw this really nice hummingbird (didn't get my camera out in time though) the other day. I looked it up and it's apparently called a Crested Antillean Hummingbird. Here is a picture I found someone posted on flickr of one. Gorgeous yes?http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobhall106/2197329675

My new goal is to take a picture of one of these birds that is as wonderful as that one. I have two years. Hopefully that'll be enough time!

Here's a picture of the port on a cloudy day:Listening to: 鉄腕バーディー DECODE / 西洋 骨董 洋菓子店

Hey Guys

Hiya! I really should be studying anatomy right now (yes, that could essentially describe every waking second period of this term) but I finally have internet in my new wonderful place and wanted to post a few pictures. I've been here about a week now and I am so happy with my spontaneous decision to move! It's been wonderful! I will never live on campus again.

Here is the view from my balcony:
My first rainbow in the new place ( I took the pic three steps from my front door):
The kitchen/living area:
Here's the bedroom (with cable tv! I use the tv as a bookend though. But it's a nice thought!):
People take cruises to the place where I live. *smug* I have a direct view of the port from my balcony. It's fun to see the various cruise liners that come in day after day. They are especially pretty all lighted up at night with the city as the backdrop and the dead black of the night ocean framing them as they sail through the waters. That little walk to the shuttle stop has turned into an enjoyable part of my day and provides a great opportunity for me to take pictures of various flora and fauna as well as add to my collection of 'ocean framed by...' pictures. :)

I bring you:

The pure wonderful that is XKCD (a great online webcomic - read it! math puns abound)Caption: "Police reported three dozen cheerful bystanders, yet no one claims to have seen who did it"
http://xkcd.com/562/
You can't tell me you haven't wanted to do this at least once in your life. I'm always tempted to leave a little on the car's windshield instructing the drive to learn to park ass^&(*. Especially when it's in the employee parking lot and one idiot's parking job is the difference between covered parking and having to park on the roof in pouring rain. >.<

So, I've been consumed of thoughts of how great my housing is going to be for next term and finally cracked and decided to move in early. That way I can spend the last month of the term in my own place with a better view than SD6 (those of you that live in SD1- you know what I'm talking about).

The people there are incredibly nice to let me do this. I know, they are being compensated in the form of the entirety of my income tax (goodbye, you were wonderful for the four days I had you). But still, they only gave me one or two strange looks and the receptionist remembered me and they were amiable. ^_^ Little things make me happy.

I'll be in a one room suite type place. I'll take pictures tomorrow and try to post them as soon as I can. Beautiful ocean view (away from campus!) here I come!!

Listening to: 기억 (고윤하)

Mmm..Poison Cupcakes

I needed a study break so it's time for another blog entry! I've decided that I hate memorizing drugs and their actions. And pharmacology isn't until the second year. But, luckily for us (note: sarcasm), the biochemistry folks have started scattering them in among our material. And I don't like it since it makes the cupcake that is biochemistry more like a cupcake with poison sprinkles. Tasty until the cyanide* hits your system.

It's not as if you have to memorize that "streptomycin kills bacteria". No, you have to memorize that "streptomycin is an aminoglycoside antibiotic that acts by preventing binding of f-met-tRNAf to the P site of ribosomes and thus inhibits protein synthesis and is specific to prokaryotic ribosomes".

This is maybe not terribly complicated but when you start adding up the many drugs it gives me a headache. I'm starting to think that I should just buy a pharmacology textbook and start memorizing now and then maybe I'll have a chance of passing that class by the time we take it a few terms down the long basic sciences road. @.@

Since this served no purpose but for me to complain about having to memorize antibiotics that interfere with protein synthesis I'll leave you with a picture taken from the bus stop at the top of the hill.
*cyanide, by the way, kills you by acting on the electron transport chain; it binds to cytochrome c oxidase which prevents the transport of electrons to molecular oxygen, thus disrupting the mitochondria's ability to produce ATP (which is really bad for tissues like, say the heart and nervous system)

Housing - obtained

I've finally decided on housing! I'm essentially going to be living in a resort. Yup, a resort. Pretty amazing yes? It's a two bedroom room. There is a decent sized kitchen (with an oven!), one bathroom, a little sitting area and a spectacular view from the patio. (see below) The rooms are an ok size. Certainly bigger than I live in now and I'll have one all to myself. I plan to adopt a cat the moment I move in. ^_^ There is a pool (as you can see from our veranda view) and a restaurant on the grounds. I can't speak for it's quality since I haven't been there yet but it's kinda cool that it's there at all. The staff seems very nice and accommodating. They agreed to move out the big hotel beds and put in a twin bed as well as giving me a desk (no charge). The other nice thing is that I don't have to pay for electricity separate. Now, this doesn't seem like a big deal to those of us from the states but it's a vital point here in Grenada where almost all the electricity on the tiny island is supplied by a disel generator! Suffice to say, just by running an AC from a small portable unit and having your computer on most of the time electric bills here can get pretty crazy.
Here are pictures of the balcony and the view from the balcony.This is the view when you walk out of the hotel. The beach is the BBC beach and is one of the nicest on the island. Here's a front view of the hotel.It's a short five minute walk down the hill to the bus stop.Said walk is pretty scenic. :)Just a picture of some pretty flowers that caught my eye.

Apartment Search!

Well, I was totally unsuccessful in the housing lottery and instead of waiting around and hoping I get off the waitlist I've decided to be proactive and find a place to live myself. Basically, there are way too many students attending SGU for them to accommodate all of the people that want to live on campus. :( I was fairly annoyed at first about having to deal with moving off campus but I'm feeling much better about it now. There are definite pros and cons to living off campus. I'm (obviously) focusing on the pros at the moment. I get to live away from school so it’ll be more like ‘going home’ at the end of the day. I can have a pet! Walking around in Grenada makes me feel the environment just that much more. It’s easy to get caught up in the bubble that is campus life and forget that I’m living on a tropical island. It’s significantly cheaper so I’ll be saving a bit of money.

So I spent the day running around Grenada looking for a place to live. It was a nice break in routine (class, study, class, study, sleep, sleep, study, feel guilty for not studying, repeat) and reminded me once again how pretty the island really is. I think I've found a place but I have one more apartment to look at tomorrow. I will post again with more details and pictures of my chosen domicile for term 2 tomorrow hopefully. Here are a few pictures of the island's creatures that I took pictures of as we trekked around. We stopped at a nice resort restaurant on the way back from house hunting. It was on a dock and it was nice to watch the sun set over the ocean while chatting about housing options. All in all, a fairly productive and surprisingly relaxing day (except for the part where I almost had heat stroke :p).

I finally took a picture of a cow here in Grenada!

Here is a quick shot I took of an adorable snowy egret (Egretta thula). They're fairly ubiquitous around the island.
Just a random shot which we were looking around.I was really happy to get this picture of a Great Heron (Ardea alba) which is a protected species. For reference (if anyone cares) this bird is about twice a big as the snowy egret and has black legs instead of yellow. What? I'm a biology major and I like birds!Here are a few shots from the resturant that we ate at.