Saturday, October 30, 2010

86th to 91th days Just missed a Tropical Storm

After the 4-day weekend, I was a little behind. I didn't use my 4-day weekend to my advantage. Instead of being ahead, I got a bit behind. So to catch-up, I had to sacrifice 2 days of pre-reading and some hours of sleep. By Friday, I was fully caught up and ready to go. Normally people use the weekend to catch up, I plan to use the weekend to review.

On a side note, after I came out of class on Friday, there was a bit of panic from students. Apparently, SGU sent everyone an email giving a warning about a Tropical Storm will hit Grenada. I didn't even know about it until someone told me. Then, I checked online, and we would be hit by the corner of a TS called Tomas. The email also said they'd be shutting the water off and most likely the electricity won't work either. So everyone was buying water bottles like crazy and flashlights. I refilled my 1 water bottle. In my house, we have 2 water tanks, that's only for us, so there's no problems. As for the electricity, can't do anything about that, will have to study using paper notes. I had a flashlight from Canada, but it had no batteries. All the stores, including the grocery store were already closed by the time I finished class, so there was nothing more I could do. My cellphone would be my flashlight as it already is when I come back late in the night.

So the storm was supposed to hit us Today (saturday) at 2 pm. It's 12:17 pm right now and the latest storm tracking says that it will miss us completely. It's not even raining here, bright and sunny day. So all that panic for nothing. Good thing I didn't panic.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

the 4-day weekend

On Thursday, I completed all my anatomy and biochem notes. On Friday, I studied Anatomy, but I also completed my ultrasound notes. On Saturday, I completely finished re-reviewing my notes and started doing questions. I have 30 more questions and I'm done with Anatomy.






















On Sunday, I had an island tour trip planned with some friends. I had to wake up at 6:30 am and meet them at 8:15 am for the trip to start. This island tour was similar to the island tour organized by the school, but better! It was a very thorough tour, and I got to visit many more places that I've never seen before. They took us to many beaches, 1 restaurant, some waterfalls, a rum factory where we actually got to sample 5 different flavors of rum.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

69th to 81th days

Nothing much has been going on. The lectures are continuing as normal. The past 2 weeks, I have not had any anatomy labs, which is a good thing and bad thing. It's good because I don't have to wake up at 6:30 am, change into my scrubs and go to the lab for 4 hours and then class. It's bad because I'm not getting as much practice.

We did have a special lab this week that involved examining a robot patient. From a BME's point-of-view, this was great. Though when I got there, it was just a dummy that has been programmed to say yes or no, most of the visceral structures can't be seen and there's a microphone inside that simulates the heart beat, breathing, etc. I thought the design would be a little bit more complicated, but what can you do. I think there are some universities with a very complex robot body that can mimic some symptoms.

It's also a 4-day weekend because Friday and Monday is a holiday. What are my plans? Study and study. Ok, I do have an island tour planned on Sunday, but I can cancel that if I really need to. Though, I'm pretty much ahead in all subjects, but I need to continue reviewing so that everything sticks in my head!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

61th to 68th days

The week after the midterms, I continued studying so as to not fall behind. On Friday, there was a talent show where students of various talents performed and people watched for free. One of my friends did a guitar solo and my roomate was is in the "Cardiac Arrest" team. This team is a hip-hop dance group. All the talents were pretty good. I could've performed, but I don't have time to practice any of my talents except medicine.

On Saturday, there was a huge party on the beach, called "Sandblast". This party is the biggest party and only happens once per term. I went and had fun. I met some friends and there were free banana boat rides. There was also some shows. Afterwards, I was in a "good shape" to be able to walk back home with no problems. I couldn't say the same for my friends who were in "bad shape" or worse.

I'm keeping up with all the new material and reviewing my notes meanwhile. My favorite tv show now has officially become, "House". This is what I watch while I'm eating. In undergrad, I never watched House because I had no medical knowledge to be able to understand the episodes. However, now it seems to be a great show that I'd recommend to anyone with a medical interest. The main doctor, Dr. House also reminds me of someone in the family!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

50th to 60th days - Lots of studying and midterms are over!!

I haven't posted anything for 10 days and that's because I've been busy studying! All my midterms are finished - Biochemistry, Histology, and Anatomy. After a lot of late nights in the library with many thunderstorms and running in the rain, it's over! Overall, I think I did pretty well, but I'll wait until my scores come out. Anatomy, by far was the toughest of them all, as expected. It was also the one that I studied the hardest though.

After the long exam, I got some food and went home. Then, in the night, I went out with some friends to "Fish Friday". Basically we take a taxi to the city where there are some streets that sell all types of fish varieties including fish fries, cakes, kebab, shrimp, lobster with noodles. It was good and I had some ice-cream after.

The next day, I went to the beach, did my grocery shopping, laundry, cleaned my room, went to school for a wii tournament, and then finally for dinner, I went with some friends for street meat.