No More Grenada

I am happy to report that I was accepted as a transfer student into Oklahoma State School of Veterinary Medicine!  Although I will miss my close friends at SGU, Grenada just wasn't for me.  Good luck to all of you returning to term 4!  Kick butt and have a ting for me!  

Grenadian Thanksgiving

Missing Thanksgiving again this year has made me extremely homesick!  I miss the Daniels's annual family reunion, the lake house during November, and baking with my mom!  It is undoubtedly one of the hardest weeks for me to be here at SGU - no break from classes, no Thanksgiving decorations, and it is blistering hot outside; nothing resembles a normal Thanksgiving holiday!  

Fortunately, my friends and I are all in this together and we did not allow Grenada to get the better of us!  Yesterday, Angela and I spent hours in the kitchen baking, mixing, and talking about what our families were doing without us.  All of us pooled in money for a turkey that cost $55 US (the taxes here are INSANE) and I successfully roasted my first turkey ever!  It came out beautifully and tasted even better:   

Our friends Linnea and Hannah live on a beautiful bay and we gathered up all of our dishes: Au Gratin Potatoes, Sweet Potato Casserole, Pumpkin Pie, Stuffing, Green Beans, and Mr. Turkey, and went over to enjoy our Thanksgiving feast!

This Thanksgiving I am very thankful for the chance to follow my dreams and become a veterinarian, my amazing family, my wonderful friends in the USA, and the girls that allow me to complain, build me up, catch me when I fall, and steal study material from every day in Grenada.  I could not do this with out everyone's support and love!  Thank you!

Packing, cleaning and taking a quiz today in my preparation to go home for a wedding weekend!  I am so excited... I have missed home way too much.

There have been a lot of recent Grenadian frustrations the past two weeks.... Angela and I got in a car accident and were screamed at by 20 drunk Grenadians that ran out of the local bar to see the commotion.  The police officer that was in charge barely listened to our side of the story and we had to go through the school in order to get a fair judgement on the accident.  Also, the day to day issues have really started to frustrate me; I wanted to pick up my package that my mom had sent me and they couldn't make change for a $20.  They told me that I would have to come back with exact change after I had already made the sweaty hike and took the time to go there.  Luckily there was a random hot dog vendor across the road that gave me correct change so I could get my precious America care package.  Anything that is normal in the USA is hard here.  I am just sick and tired of it all.  I miss the effortless way we can run errands and how we live on a day to day basis in America!

New blogs to come... I have been absolutely dead since midterms and have been trying to catch up on sleep and get organized.

COMING HOME ON THURSDAY!!!!

AVMA Accredited

Today we learned whether or not SGU School of Veterinary Medicine was accredited by the AVMA.  Our site visit was last term and we have all been waiting impatiently for the results....

This is a very big deal.... to the school, it means global recognition and to me, it means no extra tests once I do get back to the USA and more opportunities to try and transfer.  There are only 28 AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) accredited schools for veterinary medicine in the United States, and 11 in other countries........It is wonderful to say that SGU SVM can now be added to that list!  We have been approved for accreditation.  

As you can imagine, it is a mad house and everyone is celebrating! 

September Highlights

Our first round of tests for term 3 is finally over and all I can say is....Thank God!  All I have been doing the past two weeks is studying in the library, going to lab, studying at home, going to class, and studying through the night......this of course caused me to crash for 2 full days to catch up on sleep.  I even had an infamous 17 hour "nap."  Exhausted. However, the tests are over and done with for now and I ended up on top of my classes!

We finally have a break until midterms and as tradition goes, our term boarded a sunset cruise and went to Fish Friday for local fish, food, and rum punch.    

These are the people that keep me sane in this jungle they call GRENADA

Angela, Sada and I have also had the time to help out at the SGU Small Animal Hospital which has been a great experience considering I have only worked at a corporate small animal hospital.  It is interesting to see how clinics differ in their procedures and equipment.  Although we are in a third world country, I found the SGU hospital to be very up to date.  Besides the tiny size, it is not very different from the one I worked at in Atlanta this summer.

Taking radiographs while volunteering at the hospital....looking a little rough though

I have been missing home way too much this month!  32 days until I am back for a long weekend... I hope it comes fast!

  

Chris Visits the Spice Island

     Finally, after a year of living in Grenada, I got Chris to come visit!!!   It was kind of a surprise and I only had about 3 days to plan his week, but we were lucky that he came when there were no cruise ships and we weren't over run by tourists!  Although I have lived here for what seems to be an eternity, I have not had the time to travel around the country and it was nice that we were able to experience it together!      

       Here are some of the things we were able to enjoy:

Hiking to Seven Sisters Waterfall - The hike was about 45 minutes each way.  It was very steep and muddy most of the time.  At the beginning, we passed through farm land where locals were growing guava, passion fruit, avocados, and pineapples.  Learning about the different plants and fruits was my favorite part about the hike.... did you know it takes 2 years for a pineapple to be fully grown?  Enjoy your pineapple people! 

Seven Sisters was beautiful!  There are seven waterfalls total.... below is a picture of the last two.  The top waterfall is 37 feet high!  There was a local that did a back flip off the top and then dove from the second.  Even though the water was murky from all the rain, I got in and tried not to freeze to death!

 The avocados here are HUGE!  Here is a tree packed full of them! 

Seven Sisters Waterfall

Our Beach - Almost every day before dinner, we would walk down my street to the beach and watch the sunset and collect sea glass.  I have a whole jar of sea glass just from our couple days on Point Salines beach.

Point Salines beach is the beach that runs below my condo.  Here we enjoyed watching local kids play cricket, picking up sea glass, laying in the hammocks, and eating at The Beach House.  

Trip to St. George's - I figured Chris needed to see Grenada's capitol and market place so we went and walked around the hustle and bustle of a busy Saturday.  I am still shocked that they sell fish and meat out doors on hot days.... it smells terrible, there are flies EVERYWHERE, and they cut the meat off with a machete....just too much for me!  The market had local fruits and spices.  Chris bought vanilla and cocoa balls from a local we had met who told us the history of Grenada.  I bartered with a man for a nutmeg bracelet and enjoyed a coconut water.

The streets of St. George's

Scuba Diving - It was wonderful to have a guest in town but I also had to go to class and couldn't ignore the fact that I was still in school!  That is why I decided to enlist Chris in scuba school while I was in class!  He went out about 4 days and became scuba certified... now we can scuba together! 

 Scuba boat for Scuba Certification

Turtle Racing - On Monday nights, The Owl has crab racing.  Unfortunately, the crabs had "gotten away" earlier in the day so we ended up with turtle racing, which I enjoyed more because I got to hold and play with some.  They put the turtles in the middle of a circle and you have to bet which one will leave the circle the fastest or which will leave the circle the slowest.  We won a couple but lost a couple as well...

The contenders 

Food - My favorite part about having Chris here was the fact that I had someone to go out to dinners with!  You forget as a student that there are nice places to go to....usually I am too busy to go around looking for local cuisine but I made it a priority to find good places to eat while he was here.  We went to the Beach House, had street meat from local chefs, bar-b-q from Deuce's, yellow fin tuna from Carib-Sushi, and pizza from Prickly Bay.  My hands-down favorite was Boots which is a restaurant ran by an older couple that cooks local dishes in their house!  We went to their house and there were tables and chairs on their front porch.  The wife served us little appetizers of local foods while Boots made the main meal.  It was delicious and extremely cute.  I would love to go there again!    

Menu at Boots

    I loved having Chris here and am already missing his company!  I hope you enjoy my rundown of our Grenada vacation!  

Miss you!

Grenada Bound

Right before I leave for Grenada, I like to spend a lot of time with my family! I won't get to see them for Thanksgiving so if I don't get quality time in before I leave, I get really homesick! Mom, Dad and I went to the beach for the day, baked peach cobbler, went to the movies and ATE! I think the thing I miss most when I am in Grenada is food... just having so many options every day is a blessing!!

After the much needed QT, Dad weighed my bags .... you can have two 50 pound bags and a carry on. I think I have made the bag weight only once since I have started attending vet school (4 months is a long time, people... I need this stuff!). I was overweight this time (again), but luckily they let us pass without a fee. We then got my last American meal of chips&dip with margaritas....our lives revolve around food! Then I said good-bye to my parents and headed off to Miami.

Once in Miami, it took me no time to find the other SGU students - all one needs to look for is the area with tons of service dogs! We hung out in the airport with the pups, got last minute Starbucks, and caught up on what we did this summer. Not everyone did the usual small animal hospital summer experience that I did and it was interesting to see how they had spent the last three months. Some worked in research with lab rats, a couple spent most of their summer nights on call taking care of horses with colic, and the rare few were so sick of animals after last year they did nothing vet related. About 4 hours after boarding on the plane, we finally landed in Grenada!

In my opinion, the hardest part about getting on the island is going through Grenada customs. There are only 2 lines (Miami airport has about 50), everyone has tons of luggage, and in Grenada, everything takes more time than normal. Since I am an impatient person, this doesn't work in my favor, but I think the island is helping me be more relaxed. Luckily, all my paper work was in order so it was a breeze. Angela (my roommate) and I grabbed a cab, headed home to our apt (pictures are on facebook), and have since been unpacking/getting organized.

Term 3 is here and we are already slammed with class and work! This semester I am taking Parasitology, Pharmacology II, Clinical Pathology, Physical Diagnosis II, Pathology, and Virology. Phew. Wish me luck! Miss you all already!!!

Here are some pics... but they are all out of order! I'm still learning this blogging thing....

The line for customs at Maurice Bishop International Airport.... epic fail

Jack! Ross's "service" dog headed to GND - I love his beard!

My luggage to go to Grenada.... sooo heavy!

Peach Cobbler made by mom and I