What life has become...

Wow its been a while! Last time I posted was just before block 1 exams and all I want to recall about those two days is that I am done and I made it through.

After blocks we went out for dinner and swimming and just enjoyed not having 200 new slides to study from that day. Right as exams finished we also had our first Caribbean rainy season downpour and I don't think I have ever seen anything like it! It lasted about 10 minutes and then it was gone and we continued to enjoy the evening.

The next day we were right back to the grind and having finished lower limb we started on the upper limb, which thankfully, has many similarities to lower limb. Next up intrinsic muscles of the back and thorax.

My life here has become very routine and usually looks something like this:

6:45 Wake up
7:30 Leave for Class

Post Block Relaxation

8:00-10:00 Histology Starts
10:15-12:15 Gross Anatomy

12:15-1:00 Lunch

1:00 to 3:00 (OR 3:15 to 5:15*) Anatomy Lab
*depending on the week

Also on thursdays we have DPR (doctor patient relationship) for two hour in the alternate time to lab, the class is split in half for lab and DPR so we alternate times.

Then when I get home I usually try to get some studying in before making dinner. Then obviously more studying. Try to get to bed before 11:30 pm and get a decent nights sleep (apparently the key to survival here).

Contrary to popular belief there is time for fun in between trying to balance cramming the daily masses of information we are given and sleeping ... Mostly what you hear about when you are talking to someone in medical school is the hard work and how many hours they put into studying. Lots of times we will make dinner with each other (like homemade turkey lasagna YUM!) or spend time studying and drinking lots of Chai (Thanks R & A for this great addition! They make fabulous Chai from scratch and are teaching us the ways). Its important to take the time to get to know your peers and enjoy the people around you.

Time passes so strangely here because as of tomorrow I have officially been here one month but it feels like I have known the people here for so much longer.

Crabby Visitor

Hanging out at Scouts

Homemade lasagna with the boys

Block Weekend 1

Break time...

Its block weekend which essentially means the weekend before a huge test and I have no life. In case you don't know our semester is separated into 5 blocks with an exam at the end of each section (or block). For us first semesters our lab exam for block one will happen on monday morning and its a bell ringer. For those of you who have never heard of a bell ringer consider yourself lucky! Pretty much you have one minute at each station and you have to look at whatever structure they may have tagged on the cadaver or X-ray and figure out what it is and answer any question they ask about it. The questions range from what is it, to what does it do, to what muscle/nerve/vein has the opposite function to the structure that is tagged. These exams can be tough unless you really know your stuff (and we have "learned" the entire lower limb at this point), it means i'll be spending lots of extra hours in the lab this weekend. Then when your sixty seconds is up you move to the next spot and if you didn't figure it out in time then too bad because there's no going back. We had a mock exam thrown by the upper semester lab TA's (teaching assistants) which was great, it gave us all a chance to try out a bell ringer and become familiar with the feeling of being under pressure in the lab. I didn't do too poorly but thankfully I have a couple days to improve. Then after the bell ringer we have another two exams on tuesday for our histology lecture and anatomy lecture. Its going to be tough! Theres so much information for all of the classes but i'm definitely not alone.

Our class has a really great sense of community here because we are all far from home and we are all going through the exact same things. I've never been around a group of people who is this diverse and comes from so many different backgrounds but we are all united in a common goal... to get through this program. Its a very cool experience and I am very lucky to be around the people who are a part of this group!

 

I know that there are already plans in motion for some pretty cool post block activities (diving, hiking, swimming, not studying... for at least a day :) ) and so now I need to get back to studying so that I can enjoy those activities guilt free! I'll leave you with some pictures of a birthday cake I made for my fantastic new friend and classmate N.... I never want to make another cake without modern baking tools, we don't even have big mixing bowls, I had to use our large pot (never mind making the icing)... but it was well worth it and was pretty darn tasty!

Yes this is what the sunset looks like every night here...I pretty much live in the most beautiful place in the world (except for BC :)
)

First Week & White Coat Ceremony

So the first week of medical school is officially over and it was quite something! There were many new faces, all new professors, and an insane amount of information. Thankfully everyone (especially upper semesters) are very helpful and willing to take the time to help you out. There is a huge sense of community with this school because we are all far away from home and have to become each others support network.

We have classes everyday from 8 to 3 except on thursdays where we have it until 515. The classes are two hour blocks with a ten minute break halfway through. We also have 45 minutes for lunch, unless one of the professors happens to run late on lecture, which seems to happen often. So far classes are great and the classrooms have very comfy chairs and tons of screens so everyone can see the lecture slides. The rooms are usually very cold which is nice because it can get pretty sweltering and humid outside and it is much easier to concentrate in the cold.

Aside from lecture classes this week has also involved the first anatomy lab. I just want to say that it is quite an honour that we are given by the people who donate their bodies to further our education. I will never be able to thank this person or their families but the best I can do is honour them and work my hardest to learn from them. They are our greatest teachers and for them I have the utmost respect.


This has become quite a rigorous schedule and it starts pretty early. Luckily, however, getting up for class in time has posed no problem because I have a rooster that lives just outside my window (which is on the ground floor). He likes to wake us up at no later than 6 am, often he starts at 4 but I am usually still sleepy enough by that point to turn over and go back to sleep. Aside from our resident rooster (who I will try and catch a picture of later because he is very pretty) we also have various chickens and goats wandering around. It may be very different from Canada but it is starting to feel like home, goats and all. Also because we got our coffee from cafe luna who imports green coffee beans and then batch roasts to order, it is GREAT coffee!

Sept 2012 Class - 112 people, im dead center in the
bottom row

The end of first week culminated in a ceremony called the White Coat Ceremony where we all don our short white coats and repeat an oath as a class in the same form as the hippocratic oath in which we promise to conduct ourselves in a professional manor and respect the trust that is given to us by our future patients. We walk across the classroom in front of our teachers and peers and introduce ourselves and say a little bit about our backgrounds. We then are assisted into the white coat by one of our teachers.  It was very nice and it gave us a chance to get to know more of our classmates who we may not have had the chance to meet otherwise. There also happened to be a welcome back party where we got to meet the rest of the upper semesters. It was a very fun night!

Now I have lots of studying to do!

PS: I found a guava tree outside of my dorm and they are just starting to ripen! YUM! I wish I could put smell on here, it smells so good!

Before with N.

Grocery Wednesdays!

One of the things that I really didn't have much information on before coming to Saba was the availability and prices of food (specifically fruit and vegetables). There was so much hype about not being able to get any or that they would be super inhibitively expensive. Well they ARE available but thankfully they are only mildly more expensive. Definitely not so bad that you can't afford to eat properly!

The problem is, that they only come in on the boat on wednesdays so there is a crazy rush to get to the store after class ends on wednesdays.

If you know the shortcut you can beat the line but apparently i'm not very stealthy haha...

The store we go to is called my store and its a world of its own, maybe another time i'll get some pictures. At my store theres always lots of dry goods like rice and cereal but what fluctuates is the meat and produce. Another good thing about my store is that they will deliver if you buy enough. This is crucial since hauling all of this up the hill would be nearly impossible.

Anyways here's an example of what I bought today...

The haul includes some fruit and veggies such as apples and oranges (almost always available), lettuce (snatched quickly on wed), cucumber, tomato, cherries (yum!), zucchini, and peppers (the green ones are the cheapest!).

Protein this week was a bit more scarce (last week I scored a bunch of tilapia) this week I got some deli turkey, fake crab meat (not sure how i'll use it yet) and that tube in the front is ground turkey apparently (weird!) which i'm planning on making into either fajitas or pasta sauce. Luckily lentils and beans are pretty cheap here for some protein in between. Cheese is also surprisingly cheap here. I also got some snack foods for when i'm in study mode!

You can also apparently get some fresh fruit and veggies that are grown locally. I just missed mango season which, if you know how much I love mango, is very sad! Also there is a guy who has a small farmers market but he is away this week and he will be back next week. 

The rule of the island is take what you can get and don't get too attached because you may never see it again!





I am very lucky I got an oven because some of the best food I have made so far has been in the oven. For example last night (and lunch today) I had tilapia with cut up veggies covered in salsa and cheese and then baked. I love cooking in the oven because I don't have to sit and watch it cook, I can put on the timer and go back to studying. The only problem with being one of three quads that have an oven is that everyone else wants to use it, haha... our rule is as long as you do your own dishes!

Alright back to studying I go... any requests for pictures of something? Someone already asked me to put up more pictures of the campus...

Oh and also the restaurants here are AMAZING! Its like eating straight from a home kitchen, well they pretty much are home kitchens, theres nothing mass produced here! And when they run out they run out so you better get there early!

Last Day Of Freedom

Today was orientation day and it was fantastic! We got more acquainted with our class and saw everyone together for the first time (there is 112 of us!) and got a quick tour of the campus. Among the administrative stuff we also got a welcome and quick lessons on the rules of Saba from the police chief (I think?) he had a pretty strong accent but from what I understood he was very funny!

After all the talking we were treated to a pizza lunch and set free on The Bottom (the name of the town I live in) where we showed our new roommate A. around. We also got free pay as you go phones from the local wireless company Satel, they are about 100 years out of date but they have a flashlight function which i'm told is handy in case the power goes out.








I was also excited to order coffee from the local coffee shop that they get from fair-trade sources and then roast to order on the island. Yum! We have been drinking folgers for the last few days which has not been very good. (Starbucks family feel free to send me via, especially the new pumpkin spice one!!! or anniversary blend if C. doesn't drink it all)


We got home and played around with all the lectures we downloaded that morning and then had a quiet evening at home before classes start to make the most of our last day of freedom. There was an absolutely gorgeous sunset today and I cant help but fall deeper in love with this place. I have been told, however, that eventually the "honeymoon phase" will end... until then I will just enjoy.



I also have surrounded my study space with pictures of all the people I love and it makes me feel just that much closer to home. I am also lucky to have a great group of friends growing here.

Wish me luck for my first day of actual classes tomorrow!

Snorkelling Tent Reef

On the boat

Last  night we all went to a place called Scouts and got to mingle with most of the class who has now arrived as well as many upper semester students. It was a great time and I think our class is going to be a great one! I also tried the drink that the island is known for called Saba Spice which is rum based and it was delicious! Then we all walked back to the dorms and crashed because today we had a huge adventure!

Gorgeous schools of fish

Today we went to a place called tent reef and snorkelled with a dive company called Sea Saba. There were thirteen of us plus one diver who jumped onto the boat where we were briefed and set free. From the moment we jumped in we were surrounded by fish, this reef had one of the highest volumes of fish that i’ve ever seen. I was the first one in the water and my call of turtle quickly had everyone else jumping in as quickly as they could. This reef did not disappoint! We saw tons of fish including groupers, grey angelfish, barracuda, trumpetfish, tarpons, and many many other types of reef fish. We also saw about four turtles ranging from very tiny to adult, but megaturtle (a giant turtle that sometimes shows up) was elusive. We also saw tons of coral including my favourite (dendrogyra cylindrus) and it all looked very healthy which was great to see, the marine park is obviously working its magic. There was also a small caribbean stingray that cruised over the shallow sand beside the reef but the highlight of this snorkel for me was the Nurse Shark that I saw! This is the first shark I have ever seen on any of my dives/snorkels and it was awesome! It was just cruising along the bottom of the reef and then took a short detour up the reef closer to me before  heading back into the safety of the overhang. I got to follow it along the reef for about 5 minutes and I wish I could have seen more!

This was an amazing opportunity and I definitely recommend people at least try snorkeling here if not scuba diving and i’m pretty sure everyone had a great time! This was just a teaser and it is definitely time for me to strap on a tank and go deeper!

Grouper

R.

A.

Moi

Moon Jelly

Turtle

Can you see the shark?

The Ladder

The View from near the top of the ladder

This week has been full of people getting the things checked off their list before class starts. Hiking Mt. Scenery, Snorkeling, Scuba Diving, and this thing called The Ladder. So yesterday we did the ladder...

Here's a bit of history so you know why the ladder exists... Saba Island didn’t used to have a port and since its a very steep volcanic island they had to find a way to get supplies from the boats to the towns. The way they did this was carve roughly 800 stairs into the side of the cliff and they hauled everything up these stairs until the harbour was built. We decided to try and climb the stairs. 


As you head through town and ask for directions from the locals they laugh and shake their heads, this should have been a clue. 

You walk down the winding roads and eventually reach the sign that says the ladder. The first thing you notice is the jaw dropping view. Then after catching your breath you notice the crazy steps, they are uneven and more like two steps wide than one and you realize what an adventure you are in for. 

The top of the steps, these ones are actually
pretty even compared to the later ones.

Custom's House view

The descent was pretty easy but it got pretty slippery at some points when the steps were covered by the trees and there was moss. There was gorgeous greenery around the trail, lots of ferns and big leafy trees. There were also tons of little Saban lizards and a few land crabs.

Halfway down there was an old abandoned customs house which has a window that looks over the whole bay. Apparently from the customs house you can find the vanishing beach, sometimes there is a sandy beach but sometimes the sand has all washed away from the rocks. All of the rocks at the bottom were round volcanic rocks, it was a great free pedicure.

Customs House View: you can see diamond rock in the upper
right corner, which has amazing dives

We eventually reached the bottom and could let our shaky legs rest. It didn't take us long to start heading for the water. It was so clear and blue, you could see everything!

We went for a snorkel and saw so many fish! We were pretty far away from the reef and yet there was amazing diversity, even a barracuda just cruising the area. If more of us had gear we could have swam out to the reef, maybe next time if I can bring myself to challenge the ladder again.

Sign at the customs house telling about the history, the
picture is from 1934 I think.

Tomorrow a bunch of us are heading out with Sea Saba to go snorkel on the reef and I will definitely be bringing my waterproof camera.

Overall it was a major challenge but it was so worth it, what a beautiful eden and I get to live here. I can't wait to do some more exploring!

Anyways heres some more pictures... enjoy!