I stand corrected!

Apparently Dominca, or the small island country to the north of us (Guadalupe... pronounced gwadaLOOP), does have at least 1 helicopter.  It flew over me today as I was cooling off in the ocean after my run.  :-)  I have to say, having the campus athletic center steps away from the ocean is kinda nice.  After running a very chilly few miles on the treadmill in air conditioning I always go hop in the ocean to warm up / cool off..... and by cool off mostly I mean work on my tan. Haha!  Seriously though, it feels great and it washes some of the sweat off my gym clothes.  Ew!
Today as I was in the ocean I was almost carried away by the HUGE waves.  Seriously!  I lost my footing and got dunked a few times.  I think they're so big because of Hurricane Sandy, which is like 2,000 miles away from us right now.  Crazy how something so far away can have an impact.  Oceans are BIG and waves are kind of creepy.  They NEVER stop coming!  Have you ever watched waves come in at night?  They move really fast!  Anyway, I hope people on the east coast stay safe.
I also tried to rescue a bee from drowning in the ocean today. It was an eventful 10 minute swim!  At first I thought it was dead but then I saw it moving.  I had my shirt in my hand so I scooped it up and blew on it until it dried off.  Then it tried to fly away but it must have been tired b/c it only got about 3 feet from me before it fell right back to the water.  I was done swimming so I picked it up again and took it up on shore where I set it down on some ruins to dry while I turned around to watch the waves crashing.  So weird for here because this ocean usually looks like a calm lake!  After just a few minutes that darn bee flew right to my feet and plopped down in the sand.  Just than a rather large wave came in and swept him out to sea.  I think he must have had a death wish.  I was kinda ticked after my efforts to save him.  Oh well, I tried.
Today was our last day of lecture before our test on Thursday.  Not gonna lie, I'm nervous.  I don't feel nearly as prepared as I want to.  I think many of us are starting to hit the wall.  It's not easy having your brain SERIOUSLY engaged for this many hours / day for this many days in a row.  Seriously.  I've never spent so much effort on learning - and that includes learning Russian on my mission which was DANG hard and took a lot of effort.  It really is amazing that we all chose to go through this.... because sometimes it feels a bit like torture :-)
I will be grateful someday I'm sure.  The good news is no class tomorrow or Wednesday so I'll have a LOT of time to study.  I think I should be ok.  I am excited for the next block though: Cardio and Respiratory Systems!  I LOVED the heart when I studied it at BYU.  Plus that means Christmas break is almost here.  Hooray!

PS - here's the sunset w/ those huge waves.

Usually the ocean is totally calm and about 3 feet lower than this dock.

The waves were knocking loose some of the planks even!

I got me a lil sum'm sum'm!

Yesterday I purchased this little gem from a local artist named Felix:

It may not be a masterpiece..... but I sort of love it.... a lot :-)

In other news we only have 2 more days of lecture material until the end of this block!  Our 3rd midterm is a week from tomorrow!  CRAZY!  But I like it a lot because that means we only have one more block until Christmas break.  Woohoo!  It's still weird to me that the weather is as warm as it is.... after all, the last day of October is a week from today!  How can it possibly be this warm out?!  It's probably even colder in AZ than it is here right now.... am I right on that?

This block of material has been interesting to say the least. Muscles + Blood and Lymph tissues and a few lectures on the Immune System.  The muscles part was great.  We covered that EXTENSIVELY in Exercise Science so I've got that down.  Blood and Lymph have been..... interesting.....??  It's some of the first material I've encountered that I haven't really studied in depth before so it's been harder to master.  Especially because there are lots of processes (blood clotting, the activation/maturation of white blood cells, etc.) that each involve 10 trillion proteins, all of which have names that are just a few letters + a few more numbers..... and the best part is the numbers aren't in order from lowest to highest in the order that they appear in the process.  Haha! It's been a doozy!  (How on earth do you spell that word?!)

Luckily we have Friday off, and then all of Monday and Tuesday to prepare.  Should be enough for me :-)  Hopefully we'll do something fun after the test on Thursday that I can post about.  Until then, see ya later.  Imma go bury myself in my laptop.

What's that sound?? And also the story of the worst/best morning I've ever had

Today while I was getting my fruit smoothie at the Shacks I heard a siren....  At first I thought it was someone's ringtone or something but a few seconds later 2 firetrucks rolled on by with lights flashing and sirens wailing.  And then I realized I hadn't heard a siren since I arrived on the island.  That's crazy right!?  That's something you hear multiple times / day back at home..... I mean, I've seen police trucks (not cars, pick-up trucks) and ambulances (minivans w/ the word ambulance stenciled on the side) driving around down here doing who know's what.  But they've never had their sirens on.  It was kind of weird!
I guess when the population of the entire island is about 76,000 people - and they're all spread out in hundreds of tiny villages and towns there aren't going to be many emergencies to respond to.  As for fires, people start fires outside all the time to burn trash or tree limbs and whatnot. It's so humid here that you won't see a wildfire in a million years.  The dry waste you want to get rid of burns and everything else is too wet to catch.  As for man made things, everything is made out of cinder blocks here so I don't even know what could have been burning in the first place.  It was funny because you could see everyone realizing they hadn't heard a siren in forever all at once.
Also, it got me thinking of what else I haven't seen/heard since I got here.  I came up with air traffic.  No airplanes overhead, or helicopters for that matter.  I used to hear life flight come in and out of UVRMC at least 10 times / day.  Not the case here.  I don't think there's even a single helicopter on the island....

In other news, this was my facebook status this morning:

"That awful feeling you get when class is starting and you realize your laptop - and therefore all your notes - is not in your backpack...... followed by a worse feeling when you realize it's not at your apartment..... or at campus security.....

followed by that wonderful feeling of having it found on the lecture podium at the front of the St. James Classroom TWELVE HOURS after you must have left it there when packing up last night.  #Godmustlovemealot! #worstandbestmorningever! #whatkindofidiotforgetstheirlaptop!?

SERIOUSLY!?!?!

Did that really happen to me? Yes, yes it did. ME! I happen to be proud of the fact that I know pretty much exactly where everything is. I always take a survey of a room whenever I enter to see what's where, after a while you memorize where everything is and can find it quickly - learned that little trick from a sister on my mission.
So here's the scoop. Last night I was packing up after a long evening of studying. I don't think I left it on the table b/c one of my buddies was right next to me and he surely would've noticed. I did however, try to go print something at the print station at the front of the classroom. Saw the printer was jammed so I just left for home. I didn't even open my backpack at home so naturally, I felt no need to check it this morning when I left for class. I got to class and went to pull it out..... no laptop.

WHAT!?

I was SERIOUSLY so confused. Also, I wanted to throw up a little bit. So of course I left class and walked home to look for it - even though I knew I didn't even open my backpack while I was home.... of course it wasn't there so I called campus security. Nope, no sign of it yet.

:-( 

Then I started wondering what could have happened - Did someone sneak up behind me and unbeknownst to me open my backpack and take it while I was walking home?! Not likely, I would've heard them! Plus I was using an umbrella because it was raining - which means the zipper to my backpack was covered. Did someone break into my apartment last night and come ALL THE WAY INTO MY ROOM without me noticing?! Doubt it. I'm not that heavy of a sleeper. Did I sleep walk and leave it somewhere? I guess it's possible.... Or did I really leave it where I studied last??
The St James was closed this morning b/c an upper semester was having an exam in there so all I could do was wait. Naturally, I made breakfast and watched some TV hahaha! Had to wait until the exam was finished to do anything.
Got to the St James right as the students were leaving. Looked around a bit, no laptop. Headed over to the security office. "No laptop, but let me make a quick phone call....-3 minutes later-.... Good news! The cleaning ladies put it on the lecture podium last night. It should be there still. Call us when you find it."

I AM THE LUCKIEST PERSON ALIVE!

I must have either left it on the chair next to me as I was packing up my bag or put it on top of the printing station right before heading for home. I STILL can't believe I did that. The super funny thing is, I was WAY more worried about my lost notes than my laptop. I totally would have thought it would be the other way around. Luckily everything was backed up on Monday (I think) so I only would have lost about a weeks worth of notes. But that's a LOT!

-sigh-

I'm glad no one stole it. I'm glad the cleaning ladies didn't take it either! I'm glad I got it back. You better believe I'll be triple checking my bag to be sure it's in there from now on. I'll also be backing up my notes every day on a little thumb drive. You can't be too careful!

Second Midterm is DONE!!

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted! I really had to buckle down for this set of material. It just took longer to master so I spent more time studying over the last 2 weeks. Hopefully it pays off! We should know our scores in the next few days but I feel like I did OK. Maybe not as great as the first one, but maybe better.....? It's hard to know - hahaha! As for actually taking the test? That went much better than last time. 92 questions in 2 hours, so longer than the first test. The first 20 questions took me a long time so after finishing them I felt like I was behind! Not a great way to start a test! However, by the half way point I was a bit ahead of the time and I actually finished 25 minutes early. I don't feel like i rushed though b/c all along I had been discounting every multiple choice option that I felt was wrong - just to be sure i really was sure of my answer. Of course there were those questions that I just didn't know, but I felt like mostly knew what was going on. Further confirmation that I am studying well. I LOVE that!
Anyway, if you finish with more than 10 minutes to spare you are allowed to leave early so that was nice to get out before the masses. I went to the grocery store and got some milk! That may not be a big deal for you but we never knew when the grocery store here is going to have milk. Haha! I got lucky. They also had some big beautiful heads of romaine lettuce! SCORE! I think I miss salad most of all here.  There just isn't any great lettuce.
Once I got home I vegged out in front of the TV for a while. Gosh that felt good! After being mentally exercising for 2-3 weeks straight it's been nice to be brainwashed a bit ;-)
At 1:00 I met some of the branch members to go to a place called Secret Beach. It was a pretty cool little beach! Only accessible by boat - or if you swim around. We had it mostly to ourselves which was nice because the beach right off of campus was swarmed with people who were consuming WAY to much alcohol. I'm sure they'll all be feeling SUPER for class tomorrow. Haha!  Anyway, here's some pictures of Secret Beach:

The boat ride over:

The beach looking north:

Looking south:

Some kayakers came and snorkeled nearby for a while

Can you see the sea creature in this one??

There were TONS of these tiny little guys everywhere!

Lots of great snorkeling too!

It sprinkled on us off and on for a bit while we were over at the beach but it was SO hot that it actually felt good.  It's so weird to me that it can be this warm in October. I can't seem to get used to it.

After we got back a bunch of us went out to eat to celebrate Travis's birthday which was actually on Monday.  Poor guy got 2 very unwelcome presents in the form of our histology and gross anatomy lab exams. The restaurant we went to is right across from the main gate to campus. It's actually pretty nice. Most places you buy food from here are pretty low key. You get the entree you ordered and that's it. No sides, no drink.... just your entree.  But at this place your food comes with rice and green beans and some sort of cabbage dish and a bunch of veggies. Kind of like being back in America. 

:-)

That always feels nice. I got some Thai curry chicken that was SO good! It had a bunch of fresh basil in it that really made it yummy! Hands down the best food I've had since getting over here!

Well.... it's hard to believe it's back to the grind tomorrow morning. I guess I better head to bed!