I survived!!!

"I am not telling you it is going to be easy, I am telling you it will be worth it"

First semester of med school is done!!!  At times, I thought I would never make it.  Between the extremely sick multiple times, the electricity problems, the brown water, and the "hissing" guys, I was convinced I was not going to survive.  Yet here I am. I kept repeating that quote and kept working as hard as I could, so hopefully it paid off.  I had my comprehensive final this morning, a three and a half hour exam that covered an entire semester's worth of material in great detail. But now I am free!  I might have aged ten years in the past three months but all that matters is that I stuck with it.  Many thanks to all my mentors and friends who provided me with invaluable support throughout this ordeal.

Tomorrow (well tonight), I head to the airport at 4 am to start my epic journey home.  I go from Dominica  to Antigua, to San Juan  to Charlotte and finally to Buffalo.  I was going to bring people souvenirs but because of my extremely tight flight schedule, I decided to not check a bag.  I am only bringing a purse and backpack (finally learned how to pack light!)  The weather should be an interesting change.  Right now it has been "cold" here in Dominica, meaning around 85 degrees.  I actually get cold at 85!!! Basically I am going to freeze when I get back to Buffalo.  My parents said they were going to bring my wonderful poofy jacket and socks! (I am going to be that cool person rocking Birkenstocks with socks...I know everyone is jealous of my fashion sense) Yay for fantastic parents.

Heading back to the states is beyond exciting for numerous reason. Here are some of my main reasons why I am psyched to come home...

• I get to drive! And not only do I get to drive, I get to drive on our side on the road. Not this scary left-sided stuff.
• I get to have legit coffee without rationing it...aka when I hit the San Juan airport, I am finding the Starbucks.  Peppermint Mochas in red cups better watch out!
• I can have fresh vegetables and I don't have to worry about getting food poisoning from restaurant food.  I also don't have to worry if my ground beef is in fact ground goat. 
• Non-reggae Christmas music and hopefully a cold weather Christmas.

and finally.....I get to see all my fantastic family and friends and my dog!  Cannot wait.  I know this sounds cliche but I never really knew what I had until it was gone. I never thought I would be the homesick person but now that studying is done and I am waiting for the bus, I realize how much I miss Buffalo, Ithaca and all my amazing people.

Here is a pretty amazing mashup of all current popular songs that fits my mood right now. Enjoy! 

Hurricane Season is Over

The beginning of December marks the end of hurricane season, which will hopefully mean no more wading through giant potholes to get to campus. It also means we got a hilarious email from the school.   The main point of the email was to say that "we have been spared from the ravages and fury of Mother Nature" (aka no hurricane actually hit the island). The best part of the email was when the school's disaster team started talking about what other natural disasters we could face: 

"While we are officially out of the hurricane season, hurricanes are not the only hazard we are prone to here in the Nature Island.  While we do have a hurricane season, we do not have a season for other hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flooding, etc.  as such, these can occur at any time with or without warning."

VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS!!!!!  Only in Dominica would you get an email saying that by the way we might have a volcano erupt any day.  I started laughing when I read this email because all I could think of was the Jimmy Buffet song about volcanoes (click for the song) .  He is basically singing a song about not knowing were to go if the volcano goes (my thoughts exactly when I read the email).

I wish Dominican life was more like his Cheeseburger in Paradise song (cheeseburger song).  Seriously, there is no good beef on the island.  I never thought that I would crave a steak. But steak and broccoli are the two foods that I really, really want! Once I bought ground beef at the grocery store without looking closely at the label.  While I was eating it, I thought it tasted funny.  Later when I went back to the store, I actually read the label and realized it was "Fresh Ground Local Meat."  Basically it means that it was goat (or at least I hope it was goat and not more guinea pig). Needless to say, I haven't bought that again!

10 more days and I am back in the states!  Can't believe how fast time has flown by down here. Hopefully I will get a white Christmas.

A Dominican Ambulance Story

Disclaimer--I have changed the name/patient info in this post to keep it Hippa-compatible.  It is based on a true story though. 

Let me preface this past by saying that I have tendency to be what people in EMS call a "black-cloud." This means that when I am on shift, I tend to get a lot of calls and/or fairly serious calls. Of course, this held true when I was working my last shift of the semester.  While I was studying in the morning, I had a nagging inkling that I should charge my phone but of course I didn't. (This came back to haunt me around midnight.) After a quite first 5 hours of my shift the phone rings and my adventure starts.

At 4pm the phone rings and I have a panicked person saying they someone was hurt from playing sports.  So I call security and have them head over to the health clinic to pick me up and then we go off to pick up that patient.  We successfully get back to the clinic and start to examine the patient.  Soon I realize they have a dislocation.  The supervisor and the doctor come to the clinic and we rest the dislocation but soon realize that there might be a possible fracture.  Which means a road trip to Roseau, the capital,  in a Dominican ambulance. We had to to go to Roseau because the hospital there has the only working X-ray machine. Since I was the low-man on the totem pole, I was chosen to go with the patient.  (Thankfully the doctor gave me motion sickness medicine. Of curse the medicine didn't kick until we were 10 minutes away from the hospital).

Ambulance Journey: I walk outside the clinic and see an ambulance which looks a lot like the ones from the 1970s.  The ceiling was so low that my head touched when I was sitting on the bench in the back. ( By the way, the bench was made out of plywood held onto the side of the vehicle by a hinges.)  We got loaded up and headed on down the road.  Going lights and sirens confirmed the fact that I do not like the roads here.  At one point, I was worried that I was going to throw up on my patient because I was so carsick.  I was practically green because I was so nauseous. My poor patient was in tons of pain from all the potholes, so we made quite the team.  My favorite part of the drive was when we got stuck on a one-lane bridge because of parade (all I could see out the windows was a car covered in balloons, tons of people, and of course the odd smattering of goats).

Hospital: Whew. After an hour ride, we arrived at the hospital's Casualty Unit (aka the ER).  I consider it a successful journey because I didn't throw up on the patient and my patient didn't pass out from pain.

7pm--We are able to go to our "room."  Normal ERs have individuals rooms for the patients, this hospital had one small room sectioned off into 5ft squares by curtains.

7:45pm--We go to Xray waiting area.  I realize my phone battery is basically dead.

8pm--X rays finally get taken.  We are told to go stand in the hallway and wait for the doctor to see us.

8:15--A guy comes in covered in stab wounds with his head wrapped in a bloody sheet.  (I am beginning to realize we are going to have a long night ahead of us). We are still standing in the hallway.  One of the other patients standing there with us almost faints because of the stabbing victim.  I call the doctor back at Ross to let them know we are going to be a while.

8:45--Still standing in the hallway.  We hearing screaming from outside.  From the level of screaming, I figured this person was going to have something seriously wrong with them. Nope, it turns out they just wanted to be seen faster.  Of course it worked.  I turn my phone off to conserve battery but now the Ross Doctor can't contact us.

9:00--Still waiting and standing.  I don't know how my poor patient is surviving this ordeal. The pain must have been awful.

9:30--Go in to see the doctor.  The doctor said "well, its broken." (Now the patient and I had already looked at the X-ray. We knew it was broken.  A clear, obvious fracture straight through the bone.)  And then she asked the dreaded words..."Are those the only X-rays you had taken? You were supposed to get two others."

9:40--So we had back to X-ray.  The X-ray techs were changing shifts so we wait.  While waiting, I had a crazy guy mumbling to himself on one side of me and on the other side was a super sketchy police officer who kept hitting on me. At least there were chairs in the X-ray waiting area.

10--Get the X-rays done.  My patient is given more pain meds.

10:30--See the doctor.  She says that the patient has to come back on Monday for more x-rays and to see the head of causality unit. We ask if the orthopedic doctor will be there.  She said he might be there. If not, the patient will have to come back in 2 weeks to see the orthopedic doctor.  In the meantime, the patient was told to wear the improvised sling that I had put on earlier in the evening (it was made out of a triangle piece of fabric and an ace wrap).

11:00--Talk to the nurses about heading home and their response was "well, you have to wait for the other patient from  Portsmouth to be seen. Then the ambulance is going to take the two of you back with that patient and with his nurse".  I ask the nurses if there is any water or vending machines. (I hadn't eaten since 10am and neither my patient nor I had anything to drink.)  We were told there weren't any vending machines but they gave us a glass of tap water for us to share. We were then told to stand and wait for the other patient to be done.

11:45--Still waiting and standing. Creepy police officer comes back and gives me his number. He then goes on and on about how I can stay at his apartment whenever I come back to Roseau.  He wanted my number (There was absolutely NO way that was going to happen.) I told him that if he needed to reach me he could call security on campus.  Needless to say he wasn't too happy with that option.

Midnight--Crazy frustrated by this point in time.  I go to ask the nurses if there is a taxi to take us back.  They said our only option was the ambulance and told me to go back and wait in the hall.  They then closed to the door on us so we were stuck standing in this empty hallway.  I find an old gurney for my patient to sit on.

12:30am--Turn my phone on to try to make one last attempt to get us home ASAP--I call campus security to see if they have any idea how to get us back.  They said they couldn't come because they only had one patrol car running that night.  So we wait some more.  Remember, this whole time I am standing.  The nurses still refused to acknowledge our presence.

1:30--We FINALLY start the trip head back to campus but the ambulance situation is less then ideal.  The patient from the knife fight is in the stretcher, my patient and I are squished on the plywood bench (The nurse got the comfy front seat).  At least the drive back was relatively quick (I think I dozed off a couple times between hitting speed bumps.)

Back on campus: We get back to campus around 2:30 and I send my patient home with security   Of course, when my first patient left, I have a new one come in.  Thankfully that call was done within an hour and I could finally go home.  I got back to my apartment around 4am and blissfully fell asleep.

Moral of the story:  Always charge your phone and never ever say the q-word while on shift. Also, never turn down the chance for an adventure.  While the experience was fairly awful while we were going through it, I now have a great story to tell people and there isn't anything I like more than an entertaining story. 

Scrappy the Wonder Dog!

After his antics today, Scrappy has earned his own blog post!  When I first arrived on the island in August and was showing Amelia and Carter around campus, we had a local dog become attached to us. He would follow us around.  I didn't think much of the whole thing besides that the dog really liked being petted.

As the semester has progressed, I noticed that the dog was EVERYWHERE on campus.  Always prancing around like he was on a very important mission and always going up to groups of people. Almost like he was checking up on the students to make sure they were ok.  One time even even made it up the huge hill to De Champs (the local restaurant/hotel/bar that a lot of students hang out at).  He sat down with a group of students while they had dinner.  It was then that I learned the dog's name....Scrappy. It turns out he has many nicknames as well. One of my personal favorites is Scrappy-doodle.

Scrappy is the perfect name for this dog. When I looked up "scrappy" in the dictionary, I found at that there are two parts to the definition. The first part is that scrappy applies to something that "consists of disorganized, untidy or incomplete parts" and the second part described scrappy as "determined, augmentative  and pugnacious." The first part fits because the dog is clearly a mutt (hence the disorganized parts). The second part  (determined) fits because he is always on a mission and he sometimes gets mad when you stop petting him.

Scrappy has been known to come into study rooms with students.  He will sit with them for the whole time they are studying and never leaves until they pack up their stuff.  Today, he reached a new level.  He decided to come to class with the first semester students.

Scrappy going to class. Note how excited he is--the tongue is out and tail is mid-wave. 

Imagine this scene, a classroom filled with students who are there for a mandatory lecture.  All of a sudden a dog comes trotting in, down the main aisle. Of course he looks extremely proud to be inside (I personally think he likes the air conditioning and loves being in large crowds of people).  When people try to usher him to the back of the room, he starts running through the rows.  Once people stop trying to catch him, he walks back to the main aisle and just stands there wagging his tail.  Finally someone catches him and brings him outside.  A couple of minutes go by and voila! There's scrappy again! He managed to get back inside.  This probably happened two or three times until finally Scrappy got the message that he needed to stay outside.

That all happened today. Scrappy the wonder dog decided he wanted to take a class and decided that since all the action was inside, he needed to be inside as well. After all, it is his job to make sure everyone is alright.

Dominican Advertising

Advertising in Dominica is unlike anything I have ever seen before.  There aren't any normal billboards, only the occasional hand-painted ads on the sides of local bars.  There also seems to be minimal printed ads because I don't think there is a printed newspaper (or I have yet to see one). What they love to do is drive around with a pickup truck that has a huge megaphone strapped on top and yell out the advertisements.

I have heard it a couple of times advertising the local market and various Lime (the phone company) deals.  Today it has reached a new level.  Apparently the little bar right next to my apartment decided it needed more business, so they got the megaphone truck guy to help them out.  He has been yelling out garbled slogans about cheap beer and how everyone should come on down.  For a while he kept doing laps around the short block that I live on.  Definitely not conducive to a Saturday of studying but at least it exposes me to different advertising methods!

Here is a video of what it was like, just click on the link (except the guy was talking in English not Chinese and the truck is a really old, beaten down pick-up). megaphone truck video  I tried to get an actual picture  but that didn't work out. Once they saw me trying to take a picture, they started calling out to me by the megaphone.

Med Student Hypochondriac Instance #1

I have this slight coffee addiction that sometimes means I am only living off of coffee.  Not such a good idea but generally I get away with it.  Today was a different story though! 

We are currently on the cardiovascular module and are learning about heart murmurs, abnormal heart sounds and other cardiovascular pathologies.  One of the things we had to do for our block grade was learn how to take a blood pressure and pulse.  Both of which I absolutely rocked, special thanks to my 4 years of EMS service.  What wasn't so great about the experience, was being used as an example of a tachycardia (that means my resting heart rate was above 100. It was only 110 but still not a good thing!).  

I had been feeling kinda out of it all day so I knew something was up. Of course since I was having heart palpitations and a fast heart rate, I jump to worst-case scenario mode and think that I have one of the obscure cardiac anomalies. I was almost to the point of going to the health clinic, which means I really was not feeling well. And then I realized.....I had not drunk any water for the past two-ish days!!! Due to my lovely studying and lack of sleep, I have only been drinking coffee! Which is unbelievably stupid, especially when you live in a place where the average temperature is 85 degrees.  I had gotten myself so dehydrated that it was affecting my heart.  

So after chugging 3 liters of water, I am back to normal.  No more heart palpitations, no more fast heart rate and no more thinking I have a rare congenital heart defect!  Major sigh of relief.  My new study plan is to drink a bottle of water for each lecture I am going through.  That should keep me decently hydrated. 

Lesson Learned:  Coffee does not equal water! Also that med students will all become hypochondriacs at some point during the med school process.  

My Birthday in Dominica

Hey everyone! Sorry that it has been so long since my last post.  I have had a crazy, very intense past couple of weeks and am just finding some free time now to post. 

I figured I would write about how my birthday went in Dominica.  Overall, it was pretty awesome even though the actual day was kind of rough (I had a 4 hour gross anatomy dissection as well as 4 hours of lecture).  On the Saturday after my birthday, I went out to brunch with some of my friends here.  It was nice to have real food and to actually socialize with people.  And it was special because my parents surprised me with a cake! I had told them how sad I was that I didn't have a cake for my birthday and how sad I was the I didn't have people from home to celebrate with.  They spoke with the restaurant and had them bake me a cake--so even 3000 miles away from home, it felt like my parents were there with me.  It made the homesickness not as bad!

My cake and the super intense "candle",

The knife to cut the cake.
Only in med school would the knife be a plastic saw.

Came home to this note on my fridge from my maid.  

I also got my first package and mail.  One of my EMS friends sent me the amazing hazelnut coffee from CTB because she knew I had run out and that I am absolutely obsessed with it.  My parents, siblings (Amelia and Carter) and aunt each sent me cards, which I am now using as wall decorations in my bedroom.  

The Ants and the M&Ms

Before coming down here, I made a list of things that I would miss most.  Of course topping that list was coffee. A close second was peanut M&Ms.  So I packed both of these things.  The coffee I have been consistently drinking throughout my time here but the M&Ms I have been saving for a special occasion.  I figured my birthday was just the special occasion I had been waiting for (I had to exercise a lot of self-control to not eat them for the two months--I made it through multiple stressful study sessions, etc without eating them.  Such self-control!!!)

I opened the bag last night and I had a couple of them as a birthday-cake substitute.  I then closed the bag (or I thought I closed the bag) and put it back in the cupboard.  I went to have a couple more of them today and was met by a very nasty shock.  After eating some, I felt multiple crawling sensations on my arm.  I looked down and I had over 20 ants crawling on me.  I then looked in the M&M bag and almost shrieked. The bag was writhing with ants (......ok well maybe that is an exaggeration but there were a whole lot of ants in there, munching on my precious M&Ms.)  Just imagine that....you are about to eat something that you are super excited for, something that is a "hot commodity" and you discover it is covered in bugs.  Not a good feeling!

The "nomed" on M&M.  I guess they don't like peanuts because all the destroyed M&Ms where like this.  And  for the record...the M&Ms were in tact yesterday when I opened the bag, which means this is not a shipping injury.  It is an ant injury.  The black spots are where they started eating through at new spots. 

Needless to say, the ants have finally exacted their revenge for my ants traps and for my spraying bleach on their entrances to my apartment.  I had told my mom a couple of weeks ago that I had a nightmare in which the ants had grown into giants and had come to take their revenge on me.  I guess I should be thankful that the ants didn't grow in size and that they just ate my M&Ms.

Right now the tally is.....Rachael 1: Ants 1.  Who will come out victor?  That remains to be seen. I am building information against my enemy and so far have learned that ants like chocolate but don't particularly like peanuts.

Dive-bombing Lizards

I was walking out of my apartment today when I noticed a lizard scurry across the stairs in front of me.  I didn't really think anything of it, so I continued walking down the stairs.  The stairs wrap around so I eventually came to a spot directly below where the lizard was. The lizard then dive-bombs me.  Not exactly sure what it was trying to do, but it definitely jumped/fell off the wall and almost landed on me. At least the lizard was super cute! 

The lizard on a different day (I think it was in a better mood  then)

On a more positive note, I think I am becoming more accepted by the locals, or at least by the locals at the grocery store.  I have noticed that only certain people are offered a shopper's club card (generally not students) but today they asked me if I wanted one!!  I think it helps that the store's bouncer likes me a lot and always stops to ask me how my day is going/offers to help me carry my groceries home. One of the cashiers is also very friendly. Today she asked me what I was doing to celebrate my birthday and told me that I should study in the IGA so she could hang out with me. After being on the island for two months, I am finally semi-accepted by the locals.  (Yay for the small victories).    

Dominica Bowling....

While waiting for our Small Group Learning (SGL) instructor to arrive today, my SGL group started talking about how living in Dominica has been so far.  One of the things that we all agreed upon was that the cows are scary!  (I heard that a new baby cow was born yesterday.  I wonder if the same concept applies to momma cows as momma bears?  I think for now I will just treat the cows as bears and avoid them  at all possible costs!!!) 

Another thing that we talked about was the lack of things to do.  There are tons of nature activities like hiking, diving and snorkeling but after you can't do those things as your sole form of entertainment. There are no "rainy day activities"-- no shopping malls, limited books stores and libraries, no movie theaters, and very limited restaurants.   The only night/rainy day activities are drinking at one of the numerous local bars or watching bad-signal TV.

So we decided that for a fun activity, we needed to develop Dominica Bowling.  Here is how Dominica Bowling would work...

• The pins would be Kubali Bottles (The beer produced on the island that resembles a Henigken). 
• We would use a coconut for the bowling ball.  
• Instead of a bowling alley, we would use the really long dock that is right by campus.
• We would keep score by tally marks in the sand.
• Resetting of the pins would be a little difficult because both the ball and pins would be headed straight into the Caribbean Sea but we figured that would give the divers something to do....they can be our manual pin resetters!

Needless to say we are all going a little stir crazy here on the island but who knows....Dominica-style bowling could be the next big craze! 

Dominica Laundry---The story of the homeless clothes

Do you remember the scene from Forest Gump, where Tom Hanks says the famous quote of "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get."

This quote pretty much sums up the laundry experience here in Dominica. There are no laundromats and the significant majority of apartments do not have laundry machines on site. Which means we have to give our laundry to laundry service.  My maid does my laundry for me which  makes everything a lot easier (no arranging pickup times).  Instead I can just leave the laundry bag in my front room on the cleaning days. I am sure most of you having green-tinged thoughts of jealousy right now but hang on....

Having your laundry done by someone else is amazing for the sole reason that it gives you time to do other things like study and sleep (especially since a lot of the laundry here is done by hand).

However, you get random articles of clothing back in your laundry (like a random pair of boxers, or someone's Banana Republic tshirt).  This morning while I was on my way out of my apartment, my maid stopped me while holding a bag of "homeless" articles of clothing.  She basically wanted to know if any of the tshirts, underwear, socks, etc were mine.  Thankfully I haven't lost any clothes through this delightful laundry process  and have only acquired a few bleach stains on my clothes (They seriously like bleach here!)

Also another hazard of someone doing your laundry for you is that they can take a very important article of clothes at a very bad time...aka my green Anatomy scrubs.  On Monday morning I was pulling stuff together for the day and I was trying to find my designated green scrubs for anatomy. I looked everywhere for them--in my closest, under my bed, in the couch, etc. I knew that I had laid them out on the chair the night before.  My maid must have thought they needed cleaning so she took them from under my dissection kit and placed them in the laundry. NOT GOOD!! Thank goodness I had an extra pair or I would have been in loads of trouble (I would not have been able to take my anatomy practical...major eek!)

So in summary, having your laundry done is nice and time-saving but it also comes with the hazards of bleach stains, homeless clothes and MIA articles of clothes.

Sequestering and Exams

Hey everybody!! Sorry for the long delay between posts, I had a crazy exam schedule.  Monday I had a histology practical and an anatomy practical and then today I had a comprehensive exam.

So the one really crazy thing about tests here at Ross is the process sequestering.  When I initially heard that we were going to be sequestered for our histology and anatomy practicals, I was sooo confused.  But then because of my amazing last name and the fact that it starts with K, I didn't have to be sequestered.  The middle of the alphabet really lucked out.  I didn't have to take my histology practical until 9am (instead of 8am) and I was able to walk right into the practical without having to be sequestered in a classroom for 4 hours.  For the poor people who were sequestered, they were pretty much kept under constant guard (seriously, there were 2 security guards outside the door checking IDs and ensuring that only the proper people got into the classroom).

We, the non-sequestered, did have to stand outside in the 90 degree, extremely humid weather for about half an hour while the rooms were reset.  I have to tell you that nothing adds more to the "enjoyable" exam experience like sweating profusely the 30 minutes before an exam. Everyone had visible beads of sweat on their foreheads.  You knew it was bad because we were excited to walk into the cadaver lab.  Even though it smells awful, the air conditioning was AMAZINNNGG! I have to say standing outside in the heat made me extremely jealous of all the lovely fall weather you guys are experiencing back at home!  

Pretty much how I felt when I was waiting for my anatomy practical. 

So thankful that those three exams are over because it meant I had this afternoon free. No classes, no assignments, and no academic thought necessary.  I spent the afternoon catching up on sleep (awesome nap in my hammock!) and then watching the Netflix that comes from some Latin American country.  The Netflix plays on my iPad but not my computer. Everything has Spanish subtitles and I have to actively choose English as the primary language (just one of the strange nuances of living down here).

Not my hammock but I have pretty much the same setup and I see palm trees from my balcony. 

 

Are you in the 14%?

Time for a fun science fact of the day.....

While studying the anatomy of the forearm and hand, I came across a nifty little muscle that I wanted to share with everyone.  It is called the "palmaris longus" and goes from your elbow region to your palm.  What I thought was really cool about this muscle is that around 14% of the population is missing it!!

There is an easy test to see if you have the muscle or not...
1.  take your thumb and pinki tips and bring them together
2.  flex your wrist slightly (move it towards your elbow)

If you have the muscle, you should see a little cord standing up in the middle of the inside of your wrist.  The reason why this happens is because the tendon that connects the palmaris longus muscle to where it inserts on the plam, does not go through the carpal tunnel.

That little cord thing in the middle means that you have this muscle.

 It turns out that I am one of the 14%! I don't have the palmaris longus muscle.  There aren't any negative affects associated with absence of this muscle, so no worries if you are like me and missing it!

Running out of electricty

My wall unit. If you notice in the top right of the little screen, there is a tiny face.  When I have electricity it  smiles, but when I get too low, it gets unhappy (like this morning). 

This morning I woke up to beep, beep, beep.  At first I thought it was my upstairs neighbors alarm clock going off.  So I calmly got ready.  Then I stepped out to the kitchen and realized the beeping was in fact coming from my electric box on the wall (picture above...) So I figured today would be a good day to write about my lovely electricity experience down here.

We have a pay-as-you-go system, which means you put a certain amount on your account at one time.  In order to put money on my account, I have to go to either the IGA or to the Housing Department on campus.  The worst part of it is that the IGA sometimes runs out of electricity.  Yup, that's right....the store runs out of electricity!  From what I gathered, the various electricity brokers (such as the IGA) are given a specific allowance of electricity per week that they can give out (Think of it as ration cards from wartime). This can pose a major, major problem. It can result in blank stares and a "come back on Monday" when you go on the weekend to buy electricity. I had this happen to me once and I will never make that mistake again!!  (One of my classmates kept going back to IGA and they didn't have electricity for 4 days in a row. )

So here are the steps to get electricity...
1. go to IGA/Housing
2. wait in line (can take up to 30 minutes at IGA depending on what time of day you go)
3.  ask the cashier to add money to your electric account (sometimes they will tell you that you waited in the "wrong" line because that register can't do electricity...I know this is a lie because I have bought electricity at each and every register.  I sometimes think they are just lazy/don't want to go through all the steps to give me my electricity lol)

The numbers I have to enter into the machine. I have been asking them to write out for me because  too many times, I couldn't read the printed numbers

4.  get the the 20 digit code that then needs to be entered in the wall unit back in the apartment
5. enter the code (hope you do it right the first time so you don't have to re-enter all the numbers.  Sometime you have to kind of guess the numbers on the printed receipt because the ink isn't so great)
6. Voila! You have electricity and your little guy on the monitor is back to his normal smiley face!

Positive of this electric system:
I. I am much more aware of how much electricity I use.  It has made me turn lights off, not leave extraneous things running, etc.
II.  You budget your electricity and then work within your budget.
III.  I have a smiley face on my wall :)

Negatives of this system:
I. I CAN RUN OUT OF ELECTRICITY! MAJOR PROBLEM!!  (People, there is no room for error here)
II.  Electricity in Dominica is really really expensive.  I spent around 100 USD on electric last month and that was me rationing it a lot more than I would have in the states.
III.  It takes quite a bit of my precious time to "top off" my account.

Well hopefully everyone now understands what I mean when I say  "I run out of electricity".  Just part of the lovely Dominica experience.

Happy Belated National Coffee Day!

During one of my study breaks yesterday, I came to the happy discovery that today is National Coffee Day!!  Who knew there was such a thing.  To celebrate my new favorite day in September, I drank the last of my hazelnut flavored coffee from CTB. Mhmmmm it smelled absolutely delicious.  I actually brought some of this to the clinic this past Wednesday and everyone was SOOOO jealous of my amazing smelling coffee.

In order for you to fully understand my addiction to coffee, here is is a picture of my current coffee horde.  When I came down to visit Dominica in June, the first thing I scoped out was the coffee situation and found it to be horrific.  Hence me shipping coffee in my barrel and having my Dad bring down some more Starbucks when he visits.  These all resulted in my accumulation of a glorious amount of my liquid crack!  (It should last me the whole semester....)

I <3 coffee

Now back in the States, many places give out free coffee. I wish, wish, wish they had that traditional here in Dominica. Instead I had to satisfy my desire for free coffee by reading about coffee traditions....here is a neat article I cam across (Coffee around the world ).

My Typical Day

I figured I would write a post about my typical day so that everyone can get a feel for what a "day in the life of a med student" is like.  Be forewarned.....if you did not like the movie  Groundhog Day, you might not like this post.  My life strongly resembles this movie...take the below schedule and apply it to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with slight variations on Saturday/Sunday (aka no class on those days).

Here we go....

6am:  Wake up (sometimes I will snooze until 6:30/6:45 which means I don't have time to shower.  I know Megan and Claire used to absolutely love my habit of snoozing for an inordinate amount of time).

7am: Make my coffee, find something to eat for breakfast.  I strongly dislike breakfast so it is always  chore to find something to eat.  If I don't have anything, I am absolutely starving by the time I get done with classes for the day.

7:30am:  Trudge to class (generally it is already 80 degrees).  Sometimes I am lucky and the shuttle drivers take pity on me and pick me up.  One positive of the walk is that I have a gorgeous view of the rain forest covered mountains.

8am-Noon: Class.  Sometimes we get lucky and start at 9 or 10 but sometimes we go from 8am to 2pm.

Noon to 1:  Lunch/Nap in my hammock

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have either anatomy lab or just a lab demo.  If I have the actual lab, I can be in the lab until 5 or 6pm.

Once I am done with all my required parts of the day, its time to review the lectures and make a study product.  We are supposed to take between an hour and two hours to make the study product per each hour of lecture.  After making the product, you have to review material from past lectures and preview the next day's lectures.  So basically I am doing something academic almost every waking hour.  I don't let myself go to bed until I finish all the lecture material from that day (This hasn't caused any major problems.  I have been able to go to bed around midnight each night which is decent).

The weekends I have a little more free time because I am not getting any new information.  (This why I always video chat everyone on Saturday or Sunday!!)

So now you know my typical day.  I know you are all probably EXTREMELY jealous of my exciting life lol.  I just tell myself I am always chugging along to the goal of becoming an MD and that eventually I will accomplish my life-long goal.

Diabetes Clinic

After 4 straight weeks of extremely intense classes without any breaks, I was starting to lose my mind with the overwhelming amount of material.  So when the chance came to volunteer at a diabetes clinic right in Portsmouth, I jumped on it. I desperately needed to have patient contact to remind me why I am here.  

Diabetes is a major problem here on the island due to the increased super-processed "Westernized" food-(i.e. doritios, chicken nuggets, etc) and because the lifestyle is starting to become more sedentary. This clinic provides invaluable routine care to the known diabetics on this portion of the island.  It checks their blood sugars, checks for edema, and most importantly checks for any ulcers or lesions on their feet.  This allows for early detection of foot problems which hopefully will reduce the need for amputations later in life.

The Diabetes Clinic was definitely an eye-opening experience and really showed me 3rd World medicine.  I will never take the US healthcare system for granted.  When we pulled up the hospital, the first thing I saw was a large open double-door into the main hospital ward.  There were no rooms or beds, just cots with signs overhead saying "Female 1, Male 13, etc).  Walking into the hospital proved to be more of a shock.  The only waiting room consisted of long wooden benches that resembled church pews.  There were already 30 or so people already there at 8am.  We walked to the room we were going to do interviews and I was even MORE surprised!  The room was the hospital's old X-ray room which was approximately 5ft by 7ft, still had the old Xray equipment in it, and had lots of shipping boxes.  There were no patient records kept at the hospital and there certainly weren't any fancy-smanschy electronic records like we are used to. Instead, the patients keep their own records in the marbled composition notebooks that they bring each time they come to see the doctor. (All the patients clutch these notebooks for dear life because they know how important they are. The patients also seemed to be proud of their notebooks.)  We also did not have running water in our exam room because the only running water in the hospital was in the restroom and the doctor's room.

The set-up of the clinic worked so 3 of us students were in the old X-ray room doing the initial interview and blood glucose level, while the other 3 students were in with the Doctor, listening to her patient assessments. It was exciting to work one-on-one with the patients and have them call you Doctor.  I am extremely grateful for all of my EMS experience because not only was I comfortable with the patients but I could do blood pressures, blood glucose levels, and could take a basic history.  After today, I feel rejuvenated and excited again.  So all-in-all, it was a great experience!

Channeling my inner John Nash? (aka the crazy things med school makes you do)

Do you remember the scene in A Beautiful Mind, where John Nash is writing out his theories on his window?    I guess eccentrically smart (we will go with that label for this analogy) people use their walls, bathrooms, windows,etc to write out problems and search for the potential solutions.

Well tonight, after perhaps one too many cups of coffee coupled with too little sleep, I decided to try to write on my refrigerator (after all it feels basically the same as my whiteboard). After testing a small section and realizing that it easily erases, my life was forever changed!  Now I have a huge whiteboard that will help remind me of the key ideas I am supposed to be learning!  Granted if anyone walked into my apartment, I am sure they would be quite concerned about my mental sanity.  I wish I could be fly on the wall when my maid sees it on Wednesday! I am sure there will be some gasps and head-shaking.

John Nash writing on the windows

My refrigerator

You know you are a med student when...

1. Your friday and saturday nights are spent coloring anatomy pictures

2. You get excited for the weekend not because of the fun plans you have, but because you aren't getting any new material for two days.

3.  Your YouTube experience consists of looking up songs about glycolysis and the brachial plexus rather than music videos

4. Your kitchen/living room is filled with flashcards and notebooks

5.  You don't have coffee books on your table, you have biochemisty and anatomy textboks

6.  You wake up at 6am every day and consider sleeping in until 9am a luxury

7.  Your main drink of choice is coffee (well for me this is not a new development)

8.  Your "social life" consists of group study sessions

9.  Everything has a mneumonic associated with it (and generally, the dirtier the mneumonic, the easier it is to remember)

10. You get frustrated with medical shows because all you can focus on is all the inaccuracies

11. You're really frightened by the thought of some of your classmates becoming doctors.

12. You use extremely long words in your normal, every day conversations

13.  You "treat" yourself by going to sleep at 10pm instead of midnight or 1am.

Hypothetical Situation 1: What to do if you are chased by a bull

Today in my biochemistry class, my professor was entertaining us with a story from his nine years of living on Dominica. This is kind of how the story went....

"This one time I was walking home from campus on the lizard trail, when I came face-to-face with a giant bull.  And I made the mistake of making eye contact with the bull.  This set the bull off and it started chasing me.  My only option was to climb a tree, so I climbed a tree and waited until the bull ran off."

This had the entire class in absolute hysterics and I am sure many of us were thinking that this would never actually happen to in our lives.  But then, as I was leaving the Annex (where 1st semester students take their classes), I heard a giant MOOOOOO!!  I kept walking thinking that someone was just fooling around and being an idiot.  Then I heard it again....MOOOOO!!  I walk farther along the sidewalk and bam, there is a giant bull standing on the other side of a rain forest outcropping.  This bull had giant horns and thankfully was tied up.

Picture me as the guy in the tree.  Picture the tree a Palm tree.  Then you will have a picture of me running with the bulls in Dominica.  

However it got me thinking, what would I do if I got chased by a bull? First off I am going to avoid eye contact by all means possible. Second if a bull starts chasing me, I am going to run like hell to either a sturdy tree or to a nearby building and take shelter. Because in all honesty, there is no way I am going to use my "quick catlike reflexes" to jump aboard the bull and ride it like a professional bull rider would (even though this crossed my mind for a brief second). So in this hopefully hypothetical-only situation, I am going to find the nearest tree (ideally not a palm tree but instead one with lots of limbs and a thick trunk) and climb it!

If for some reason this happens, I can cross off one of the 1000 Things You Should Do Before You Die because I think running with the bulls is one of them.  While I know it is supposed to be in Italy, I figured running with the bulls in Dominica would be more than sufficient.   

 

"Open Chest"

Yesterday we had our first patient interaction!  We had a video conference with a patient who was in Roseau and had the opportunity to ask the patient questions regarding chief complaint.  During the course of the interview, the patient stated that she had suffered an episode of "open chest" when she was a child.  Now you say this to a room of brand-new med students and you couple it with a chief complaint of chest pain, you should expect the entire room to gasp and automatically draw the conclusion that the patient had an open chest surgery.  Nope!  Not at all! When my fellow students started asking the patient questions about the surgery and what exactly happened with it, the patient was utterly confused!

It turns out that "open chest" is a saying here in Dominica that means chest tightness/pain and is generally given to symptoms that are diagnosed as Costochondritis (which is basically a painful inflammation of the cartilage that connects your ribs to your sternum). Needless to say this condition does not have quite the same severity that open heart surgery has.  Once our teacher explained that "open chest" was not in fact open heart surgery but rather the painful inflammation, we were mildly embarrassed.  I think that this experience taught me that whenever my patient's say a phrase that I am not familiar with, I will ask them to elaborate.  This way I will understand exactly what they are trying to tell me and that I will not include faulty information their history.  I am definitely learning a lot about how culture factors into medical practice.

First Med School Test Done!!!

Survived my first med school exam and I have to say it was not nearly as bad as I expected.  It was nice to take a test where your studying actually pays off!  While I studied my butt off, it was worth it.  I had a general idea on what the questions were asking and there weren't any moments of total confusion (unlike my experience with Orgo...).   I don't think I got a perfect score on the test but I am confident that I passed with a room to spare.  Of course during the test, it starts monsooning. Horizontal rain and thunder so intense that it shook the building.  Thankfully I love thunderstorms so this didn't faze me, but some people were definitely distracted by the weather. 

After the exam I went on a hunt to find frozen chicken breasts with my friend Lisa.  It is a rarity to have boneless, frozen chicken breasts, so when you find them you need to stock up!  The IGA for example won't have a new shipment of frozen foods until the beginning of October.  The rain made our adventure to find frozen chicken breasts particularly exciting (Amelia, you will be happy to know I didn't get swept away even though I did get absolutely soaked).  We got the chicken breasts and then headed up to campus to the coffee shop.  I have decided that this coffee shop will be my new guilty pleasure on the island.  I had such a good chai latte!  Almost CTB quality :) So overall it was a good day.  I survived my first exam, found frozen chicken breasts, and found a fantastic coffee shop.  

How much can you handle?

This past Sunday/Monday were my two worst days on the island so far.  I was fighting a very bad sinus infection that not only gave me a 100 degree fever, but also resulted in such bad sinus pressure that my eyes and teeth were hurting too.  Since I had been spending time during the week studying and doing various other activities, I was out of groceries and was almost out of electricity.  This was a very bad combination.  I went to the IGA and realized they didn't have any normal food (only pigs feet, smoked fish, various canned goods, etc) and they had somehow ran out of electricity.  So Sunday night needless to say I was not in a very good mood (thank goodness I had my roomies to video chat with or I would have been even more stressed out).

I finally gave in and started the antibiotics (which I definitely should have started early. I was just being stubborn).  So after a really bad night of constantly waking up (I was worried that my electricity had shut off in the middle of the night and therefore my alarm was not going to go off), I head to class.  This is when the infamous centipede-crawling on me episode occurred.  Clearly this made me even more happy (please note the sarcasm).  I finally went to the store after class, get restocked on electricity and bought some groceries.  Also the antibiotics started doing their job so I could finally breathe again.  At one point during this awful series of events, I was about ready to throw in the towel.  Thankfully I took some deep breaths, realized that this was just life in Dominica, and settled back into studying.

What I realized from this instance was that if you just keep trudging along, you can get through pretty much anything.  If I can survive being really sick, having disgusting bugs crawling on me, and scrounging for groceries, all the while studying, then I can survive pretty much anything!  The saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" definitely applied to the beginning of my week.   But now, here I am, on Friday night, feeling much better and now have a wonderful, entertaining story to tell everyone.  So I learned I can handle a whole lot and still get through it. 

Where is Dominica?

When I started telling people that I was going to school in Dominica, many said "O, isn't that by Haiti?" Nope that would be the Dominican Republic.  If you look at the picture below, Dominica is circled in Red.

 We are actually closer to South America than North America but we are still in the same time zone as all of you people on the east coast (thank goodness because it makes video-chatting that much easier).  One main difference is that in Dominica, there is no daylight savings time.  

We have daylight from about 6am to 6:30pm every day and the weather is pretty much 93 degrees (of course with humidity it generally feels over 100 degrees).  When it rains, it REALLY rains!  The other night it sounded like there was a waterfall outside my room because the rain was so intense.  

I hate centipedes/millipedes

I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate these vile centipedes/millipede things that are all over the place.  Not only do they freak me out on my way to class (I keep thinking that one is going to come and bite me because I am only wearing flip flops) but one was crawling on me in class today!!!  BLECCHH.  Of course I was sitting in the front row so I couldn't get up and shriek because I didn't want to make a major scene. ( Inside I was screaming like it was the end of the world!)  So my class on gene expression got that much better because I was stuck envisioning all sorts of creepy crawlies on my back for the rest of class. After flicking it off my neck (yes the nasty creature had some how crawled all the way up my back onto my neck without someone telling me there was a bug on me....whatever happened to good Samaritans!!)  I then trapped it beneath my water bottle on the floor where it stayed until the break which is when I smushed it with the Nalgene.  Needless to say, I am becoming quite adept at killing bugs/not screaming whenever I see them.

I found this on the internet and I think it sums up my experiences today fairly well...Ross Insect Repellent.  While I haven't gotten to the point of throwing knives, my Nalgene seems to make a wonderful club to go "all caveman style" on the bugs.

First week of classes

Survived the first week of classes!  And man was it a lot of material.  During orientation they had given us a pancake analogy (each day we are expected to eat three pancakes and all the pancakes have to be eaten before the mini.  If you don't eat all your pancakes for that day, they roll over to the next and eventually you will be stuck eating twenty pancakes...aka stay on your studying so you don't have to learn 10 lectures before the mini).  I have been following my study schedule and it has been extremely useful keeping me on track.  I have finished each lecture material the day that I get it and I am getting six hours of sleep each night. Getting sleep is really important for me because I turn into a grumpy person when I don't have sleep/coffee.

Right now the material is kind of a review from the stuff that I learned at Cornell but it has more clinical correlations.  I am in LOVE with the clinical correlations.  Generally they provide the little extra oomph that I need to get the lightbulb moment. Since I am able to spend so much time studying, (no distractions...everyone will be so proud of me!), I can actually get a solid grasp on the subject matter the first time I review it.

This week has made me realize that being in med school means that I am not going to have a life whatsoever. Last night I stayed up until 1:30, not because I was partying and getting schwasty, but because I was studying the superficial and deep back muscles (now that's a good time if I ever knew one lol). Any "extra" time that I have is either spent sleeping or it is spent talking to people back in the states.  I can say that all my amazing friends/family and their video chats have been the shining moments in the bleak hours of studying.

My study area...yay colored pencils making everything better :)

White Coat Ceremony

Now it finally feels real.  As soon as I got the white coat, I truly felt like I was in medical school and that eventually, if I put in enough hard work, I would make it.  It used to seem like I was endlessly trudging towards an unobtainable goal.  Now I know it will happen!

The white coat ceremony was a very nice affair.  We had the Prime Minster, the President as well as some of the other Ministers of Dominica as well as high-up representatives from the school.  My favorite part of the ceremony (besides getting the actual coat) was when the honor guard came marching in to pick up the flags without any sort of warning.  We were all sitting there and then BAM, six military personnel came walking in with guns.  It kinda freaked me out at first until I realized what they were doing.  I also really enjoyed hearing Dominica's national anthem being sung.

Getting my white coat!

My Dad made it down for the White Coat which I really appreciated.  Since it was such a major day, I loved the fact that he was there supporting me.  He ended up staying for a week and bought me some much needed supplies (aka a bookshelf, a printer that has a scanner attached, and more colored pencils!).

  

Dad and I at the White Coat Ceremony  

During the ceremony they had us all read the physician's prayer which was pretty moving (even for me who is not particularly religious)...

"O God, Let my mind be ever clear and enlightened. 

BY the bedside of the patient, let no alien thought deflect it

Let everything that experience and scholarship have taught it

be present in it, and hinder it not in its tranquil work.  

For great and noble are those scientific judgments 

that serve the purpose of preserving 

the health and lives of Thy creatures.

Keep far from me, the delusion that I can accomplish all things.

Give me the strength, the will, and the opportunity

To amplify my knowledge, which yesterday

I would not have dreamt of,

For the Art is great, but the human mind presses untiringly.

In the patient, let me ever see only the man.

Thou all-Bountiful One, has chosen me 

to watch over the life and death of Thy Creatures.

I prepare myself now for my calling. 

Stand Thou by me in this great task, so that it may prosper.

For without Thine aid, man prospers not even in the smallest things."

Cocoa Tea

Holy cow!  I am never drinking regular hot chocolate again!  When I went to the market, I saw these strange sticks that kind of looked like weird cigars.  I asked the lady what they were and she told me they were Cocoa Sticks and that Dominicans use it to make Cocoa Tea (pronounced "kako").

I made this tonight and it was so amazing.  Probably the best hot chocolate I have ever had.  You make this
tea" with condensed milk, coconut milk, almond extract, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and of course the cocoa stick.  While it took awhile to boil (you need to make sure the cocoa stick melts all the way), it was worth it. My apartment smelled like heaven.  The mixture of coconut, vanilla, and chocolate was delightful.  

Cocoa Stick

The ingredients (I didn't use any set quantities,
just kind of made it to taste)

Add the cocoa stick to the pot of condensed milk,coconut milk, vanilla essence and almond essence.
 I then boiled it for about 30 minutes until I made sure the cocoa dissolved.  You are supposed to
add cinnamon but I currently don't have in my apartment. I am definitely going to have to get s
ome and try making this again.  

Wooo me and the cocoa tea! Clearly the humidity makes my hair
go super frizzy (french braids are my best friend)

Final product! 

I am going to bring some cocoa sticks back during Christmas time and make this for everyone back in the states. Let me know if you want me to bring this back for you.

 Here is a link for a native Dominican's thoughts on cocoa tea http://www.jennifervalerie.com/2009/07/recipe-for-hot-cocoa-dominican-style.html

My new favorite things

I have discovered that I am in love with the most random things here in Dominica.  Things that I used to take for granted have become my new favorite things.

1. Tupperware/Rubbermaid containers--They are FANTASTIC!  After waging a constant battle with ants my first night, I decided that the ants weren't going to win.  So the next day I went to the store and bought a Chinese bootleg version of tupperware and guess what!  No ants the following morning. So I have basically outsmarted the ants.  Occasionally I will see one small one wandering forlornly across my counter searching for a crumb but no more ant trains.  Lesson learned--tupperware + clorox cleanups= no ants.

2. Zipolocs--Not only are they great for my war against ants but they provide cheap waterproofing.  A quart -sized one is my dry bag for my little camera and a gallon-sized one is the dry bag for my iPad.  With the random, intense rainstorms we get down here, ziplocs are essential for quick, non-bulky waterproofing.

3. Black Leggings--It is hot here (almost Dante's Inferno hot--I guess my Western New York blood isn't used to constant humid heat).  Because of this heat and humidity, I would choose to wear as few clothes as possible.  Unfortunately this is not socially acceptable (example--when videochatting my old roommates, I was wearing a questionable outfit of a tank top and sarong.  Megan's statement of "What are you wearing" made me realize that this outfit was not going to fly).  Hence the black leggings, they are cool enough and decently socially acceptable but they also provide more warmth than shorts. Now you might be asking, why is she talking about warmth? She was just complaining about the heat down there...well the classrooms are super air conditioned.  I am talking Ice Station Zebra level of coldness.  So I wear a tunic and leggings to class and then throw on a sweatshirt after the air conditioning cools me down.  Black leggings= Dominica's version of skinny jeans.

4. Education--During one of the optional orientation lectures on the food of Dominica, the lecturer was giving a brief synopsis of the island's history.  When she grew up in Portsmouth (the city that the school is located in), the area consisted of sugarcane fields and a few houses.  She spoke about how special it was to own a book and how she had to leave the island and go to boarding school in order to get a high-school level of education.  She credited Ross with "civilizing the island" and bringing education to the island's people.   The state-of-the art equipment at Ross (the 6 simulation dummies for example) show how far this island has progressed in the past 50 odd years. I never truly realized before how amazing it is to be able to read and to have quality education readily accessible and have a new found respect for my parents who always said that an education was the best thing they could give me.  It definitely has a way of opening doors and exposing you to a way of life that would not be possible without it.

Trafalgar Falls

On our island tour we hiked to Trafalgar Falls which is an amazing set of waterfalls.  The hike to the vantage point wasn't bad at all, some ups and downs but it probably only took 10 minutes.

The path through the rain forest

Amelia and Carter at the falls

Trafalgar Falls...absolutely gorgeous!

The really fun part was scrambling up the boulders to get to the pools at the base of the waterfalls.  

The boulder field. It was so refreshing to climb through the water. 

Carter and I in the boulder field

Unfortunately the camera did not make it all the way to the base of the waterfall.  I was too worried that it would get smashed, get wet or destroyed by some combination of the two.  It was so much fun climbing but it made me grateful that I am decently flexible from all my yoga.  There were definitely times were I had one leg bent so my knee was basically to my shoulder.  Once we got the base of the waterfall, there was a crystal clear pool of wonderfully cool water.  It was deep enough that you could actually go swimming in it!  Getting down was somewhat painful because I was only wearing a bathing suit.  It resulted in lots of brush burns on my legs. 

After hiking back down from the pool, we went swimming in a sulfur stream which was warmer than air temperature.  Because Dominica is a volcanic island, there are a lot of sulfur springs, streams, etc.  The locals believe in the medicinal quality of them and go soak whenever they have any bruises, strains, arthritis, etc.  I thought it was a little strange to go swimming in water that smelled like rotten eggs but I must admit that my brush burns felt a whole lot better!  

I would strongly recommend this hike to any one who comes to Dominica.  Not only was it absolutely gorgeous, but it was tons of fun as well!

Tropical Storm Isaac

Living in Buffalo I had snow days, cold days and living in Ithaca I learned that school could close for flooding.  Here, in Dominica, I learned school closes for hurricanes/tropical storms.  I was supposed to spend Wednesday doing all of my random errands around campus (going to the bank, going to the IT department and seeing people I met during my last visit).  Needless to say Tropical Storm Isaac put a damper in my plans.  After getting an email saying the school was closed for the day and a text message from Lime (one of the two phone providers down here) that advised everyone to stay inside for the day,  the three of us spent the day in my apartment.

We got cabin fever around 1pm and decided we would venture to the James store which is located just down the street.   We made it there safe and sound and discovered the store is a crazy mix of Walmart, the Dollar Store, and a store from China town.  One of my favorite things from the store was the only notebook they had.....a notebook whose cover consisted of Obama's face hovering over the White House.  I am really glad I shipped all my school supplies down in my barrel (anyone who knows me knows how persnickety I am about my school supplies/highlighters, etc).

After the James store, we ventured into the IGA which is right across the street from me.  When we got there, the entire building was locked and there was a big crowd standing outside pushing to get inside.  I followed three local people who decided to sneak in the exit of the store.  This worked out well and I was able to buy some hurricane "essentials"--more water, some Rum mixers, and a chocolate bar.  While waiting for me outside, Amelia and Carter started talking to people.  The main take-away from their conversation was that we "HAD" to fill the tub up with water because the island's water might be shut off due to the storm.  So we had a bathtub filled with water for the next two days because we weren't sure if/when the water would be shut off.

The funniest part of this entire storm was that we never, ever got good weather.  The entire day was gorgeous! No major rain and only small clouds in the sky.  I was kind of bummed because I wanted a really good thunderstorm.  O well.  At least the next time I will know what I need to do to survive a Dominica tropical storm/hurricane. The main thing I will remember is that the weather stations are always a day off...the weather hits the island generally a day ahead of schedule (I swear the storms might be the only thing that runs on time on the island though).

Eventually I will post a picture of our filled washtub along with some pictures of my apartment.  Still getting things settled.

Made It!

Safely arrived in Dominica after only about 18 hours traveling (from time leaving my house in Buffalo to arriving at 3am, I arrived to Campus at 7pm).  Some major shout-outs go to the amazing Amelia and Carter who helped me lug my extremely strangely packed bags through the airport and into my apartment. Also, US Airways was amazing.  When the lady at the front desk realized I was heading to school and desperately needed my bags to get there, she made sure the bags were checked all the way through to Dominica.  If she hadn't done this, I would have had to pick up my bags, recheck them and go back through security in San Juan (of course this would have all had to be done in my 40 minute layover).  So you can see why I was so excited that she did this for me.

Plane flight went well.  No delays, only slight turbulence.  The only semi-strange thing was our "layover" in Antigua on the supposedly direct flight from San Juan to Dominica.  This direct flight was actually a 2-leg flight with a weird stop in Antigua which included going through a lame attempt at security (Their level of intensity varied from passenger to passenger...some passengers got through with two entire bottles of water, while others got pulled aside for interogation because they had packages of tea and a wireless router. Because...ya know...that tea and router are dangerous things! Especially immune-boast tea which this was).  After passing through security, we were held in a seating area which was surrounded by lots of little shops.  Then we had to walk SUPERR far out onto the tarmac to an entirely different plane.  Yup, a different plane!  Basically don't trust LIAT (the Caribbean airline when they tell you that it will be a direct flight...expect to change planes at least once).

We arrived in Dominica just as it was getting dark so unfortunately Amelia and Carter weren't able to experience the gorgeous scenery. But they did get to experience the night-time version of the roads...the roads that have the oncoming traffic blazing straight towards you).  Before getting in the car, the driver warned us that "If you feel sick, tap on the roof and I will pull over...You do your business, and we start driving again."(I really hope there is a story behind this statement!)   After the 50 minute drive, we arrived safe and sound with ALL of our bags!

Ross had a nice welcome meeting in which they gave us dinner.  Everyone was thrilled to get food because many, like me, hadn't really eaten anything all day because they had been traveling since early morning.  At this meeting all the new students received welcome bags which included a binder with orientation week details, a USB, a pen and of course the extremely important umbrella!

Today I had an IT orientation to get my computer all ready to go for the wireless internet on campus (super intense...you need to have a specific anti-virus and there is a gazillion steps you have to go through).  So worth it though! I now can print from my laptop, can access all the lecture vides online, and get all of the files I need to download.  The orientation also meant I didn't have go out in the TORRENTIAL downpour (I am talking sideways rain here that is so intense you can't see far out inside of you).

Speaking of torrential rain, tropical storm is coming through tomorrow!  I am excited because it means a massive thunderstorm.  Hopefully my Dad will get in safe and sound and won't get stuck in San Juan.  We have loaded up on water and crackers in case we lose power or can't get outside for some reason.

Alright thats it for now.  Wanted to give everyone a brief description of whats been going on so far and wanted to let everyone we got here safely.  Let me know what you think/what questions y'all have!