I actually haven’t really blogged much just about school. Mostly because it seems rather boring to report about the 4 + hours of lecture I attended that day and the subsequent 4 + hours I spent in the study halls studying that lecture material. And also I feel as though most of our friends and family do not find learning about the detailed aspects of fibrous connective tissue or lymphatic drainage of the upper limb as entertaining and fascinating as I do. In fact, most people don’t have any idea what I just said, but that’s okay.
Anyways, I had my first big test yesterday. It was something that I was half excited to take primarily for the fact that I can finally get a good idea of how I am actually doing here. How well I am studying, how well I understand the material, etc. And they structured this quiz which compiled everything we have learned thus far in every class into one giant test that was not worth much of our grade to provide us with a good indication of how well we are doing. And while I am still waiting on the scores, I can now get a sense of where I stand. And I do think I did okay, but with midterms just 3 weeks away most of what I can think about is how much work I need to put in to not only fill in the gaps in the things I did not know on the test, but also to keep up with the 60 + more lectures we will have between now and the midterm (we learn A LOT in medical school).
I love what I am learning, I really do. It is fun to study it, but it is so exhausting and even if I could study 24 hours a day I could not physically go through all of the material that is given to us. So I am continuing to work through how to condense notes, how to study, how to learn everything I need to know in the few meager hours a day that I can study, and still do really well. And not having been in school for a while leaves me a bit out of practice of all of this. Although, I never worked this hard in undergrad anyways. Medical school makes UCI look like a breeze, and I went to a pretty darn good undergrad! But while medical school is a lot of work and a lot of information, the best part is how relevant everything I do study is and how we are finally done with pointless prereq classes, it is all just applicable clinical knowledge.
But moving on to the second part of this post – after the test, Tyler and I decided to go out to dinner last night. We decided to go to Sushi down in Grand Anse. It was pretty cloudy and was raining a little, but we didn’t think much of it and decided that it was probably on its way out anyways. We grabbed just my umbrella and left. About halfway though dinner, the rain picked up and it was raining so hard that we had to yell to hear each other over the sound of the rain falling on the roof. We waited it out for a while, but finally decided that we would just have to go for it and try to catch a bus home.
Another couple that we are friends with was eating nearby and were also doing the “how on earth do we get to the bus?” contemplation. Tyler and I decided that we would try and walk up the road to the supermarket where we could wait for the bus under the overhang and then run out when it came. Our friends decided to hang out by the restaurant and then run out when the saw the bus. So Tyler and I tried to make our way over to the mall but soon realized that the entire road was a one foot deep puddle of muddy water. We could not find a way across. Tyler saw the bus and had the idea that running in the middle of the road would be the best decision as it would flag the bus driver down and we could just run over to the other side of the road and get on the bus there. As we start running up the middle of the road, we see our friends dart across the street too in hopes of catching the bus.
As we are maneuvering around puddles and getting onto the sidewalk (which really wasn’t any less puddled with water) we see our friends neck deep in water flailing around. Well, sidewalks here in Grenada are bordered by about 3 or 4 foot ditches and it had rained so much, that they were completely full of water. The girl had accidentally run right off the sidewalk and into the ditch and her husband, thinking she was getting swept away, jumped in to help her. It was the funniest thing ever and they were both okay. The bus driver was laughing hysterically at the four Americans fighting the torrential Caribbean rain and very kindly allowed us, even our soaking wet friends, on the bus anyways and very gingerly drove us home.
Tyler and I were glad to see that our apartment withheld the rain. We have not had a storm quite that strong since we have been here. It is very strange though to realize that the best rain gear is really shorts and rubber flip flops because it is still so warm, it is just better to wear clothes that wont get wet and shoes that dry easily.
And that was pretty much our Monday, exciting right?
