Stefanie & Tyler

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?

Last week is what I call my fake week of  medical school. Technically school had started. We had orientation lectures for most of the day along with a lot of other things. In all honesty, most of it considered in standing in really long lines for EVERYTHING (medical students are all overachievers so we all show up at the first possible moment we can do anything) and sitting through talks giving us information about school and living in Grenada that I felt like I already knew. I have never really liked orientations.

But, things were not all bad. We finally started making friends. The downside of us getting here so early was that we were here by ourselves. But once all the other students started coming back and the other first term students arrived, it became a happening place. SGU is so filled with diverse people that it has been great meeting so many people form other states and other countries. We pretty quickly got connected with some really cool people. We met a couple other young married couples (who as a plus were all Christian as well) who we really clicked with. We spent a lot of time hanging out with them and learning together our way around actually living here.

One of the best things about orientation is the school sponsored activities and tours that we could go on to see some of the local sights. By far our favorite was visiting the Grand Etang rain forest and the Annandale Falls. The Grenadian landscape is just so beautiful. And we lucked out because the hike is usually really, really muddy and when we went it had not rained much at all that day or the day before so it was fairly simple.

The local Grenadian students who were our orientation leaders pointed out things to us as we hiked. They kept making reference to the “Bottomless Lake” that we were not to swim in because we would certainly never come out. They were really just referring to a large swamp-like lake that had formed. It looked pretty gross, so the no swimming rule was not all that hard to hold to. We went on the hike with our couple friends that we met, and as was common of orientation week, met a bunch of other other people. The one nice thing about all of us first term medical students being in the same boat is everyone is eager to get to know one another and we are forming a tight-knit group already. Below are some other shots from the hike. The one on the right , I almost fell into the mud because I was laughing so hard at Tyler’s facial expression when I looked at the preview in my camera.

After hiking up in the rain forest we went over to the Annandale waterfall. It was one of the larger waterfalls on the island which is quite humorous considering how small it is compared to what we are used to. At the falls were these jumpers who put on this show that culminated in them jumping off the rocky cliffs into the water below. Afterwards we could all go for a brief swim before it was time to head back to campus.

The other main marker of that first “fake” week was celebrating my birthday. My birthday fell on a national holiday thanks to Carnival. We thought that this would be great, however, it really meant that everything was closed! This kind of spoiled Tyler’s big birthday surprise, but nevertheless, we still had a fun night. We went to a local restaurant (which was filled with a huge group of middle-aged scuba divers plus at least 50 SGU students) and had our VERY leisurely 5 hour dinner. It was a blast. The restaurant sat right on the water so we went early to enjoy a drink and the sunset over the bay.

This week was my first real week of school. Classes began and so did the workload. School started with a bang and we are all running a sprint marathon. I do not think I have ever spent so much time studying and  so much energy on my courses. But, it feels so good. I am so happy to be back in school and to be learning and to be challenged. It is certainly a lot of work, but I am honestly loving every minute of it. Even if I do have to get up at 6am and by 8pm my mind is reduced to sugar-free jello.

The start of the term kicked-off with the White Coat Ceremony where we were all officially and ceremoniously presented with our white coats. I wish we had some pictures of it, but my camera battery charger got fried due to a detergent explosion in our suitcase and Tyler was forced to sit in overflow seating anyways. But it was awesome and prestigious and I looked amazing in my white coat. 🙂

One week down – it feels so short and so long all at the same time. One down, 17 more to go and the term will be over and I will be that much closer to being a doctor.