Narnia in the Caribbean.

My first Saturday as a 1st semester vet student. What to do? Celebrate completing my first week without jumping on a plane to go home? Hit the beach? Drink lots of beer and go cow tipping? Or maybe wander around at the port until I found myself in the duty free shop where I can pick myself up a nice bottle of Lime Rum…
Sadly, I did none of these things. I spent my day in a cramp study room on the third floor of Tegreman Hall looking at slides of cells and writing more notes about the digestive system of monogastric animals and ruminants. After about 6 hours, I received a text from one of the Cristin’s, who had the fabulous idea of taking a study break walkabout with the other Kristin and me.
Since we only see a portion of the campus during classes, we decided to check out the other side where the 6th & 7th semester students spend a lot of their time. Along the way we saw a very intriguing sign:

It reads: Stairway to the Sea

Of course, this was way more exciting than looking at a bunch of closed up buildings, so away we went. We stepped through the narrow break in the vegetation below the sign, and found a crude stairway winding down the side of the cliff.

Mystery stairs...

Along the path we saw two swings, set amongst the trees. Not sure if they were mere decoration or if at some time the bushes and trees were cut back more, but now it would be rather difficult to get a good arc going…you would end up in the trees.

Kind of a cool idea, but a little too dicey for me.

As we reached the bottom of the path, the ocean became louder and louder. There was just as narrow an opening at the bottom as at the top, creating this sort of mysterious feeling over moving through to another world. The bottom opened up onto a wooden gazebo built right on the rocks at the oceanfront. It was indeed another world. You can stand on that gazebo and not see a single sight all around you that portends of any human inhabitants. Oh, but we did see some goats. They popped out of the trees, walked down the rocks a bit, and then went back into the trees.

The doorway to heaven!

Wouldn't even think that just up that cliff is a vet school.

Nicely designed, wouldn't last two seconds in a hurricane.

The sign they're looking at said the stairway and gazebo were sponsored by Hill's pet food co.

We stayed down there for quite some time, watching the sun change the sky to fabulous shades of pink and orange. The tide crept in slowly, occasionally spraying us with mist when it hit the rocks just so. We’ve decided that this will be our happy place. Our non-study, private getaway from campus (especially since we have no cars to actually get away from campus). We may even hold fermented beverage nights there, complete with pizza from Dominos (they deliver) or some cooked buffet we make on our 2 burner stove-tops.

The students leaving an offering for what can only be the Study God.

Gorgeous sunset.

Everyone needs a happy place, and now we found ours.

This totally beats wine from a box.

Classes today were good, except the last one of the day (anatomy lecture). The lecturer was a verrrrrryyyy slllooooooowwww [mature] maaannn whhhoo spoooke verrrrrryy slooooowly and in a very monotone voice.
So we girls forsook our initial plans to migrate to the library this evening in exchange for an impromptu girl's wine night a la St. Kitts.
Since we didn't want to actually go anywhere, but it was too nice an evening to spend drinking in one of our rooms, we decided to smuggle some 'fermented grape juice product' onto the outdoor patio overlooking the ocean that is lovingly called The Wedge (due to it's wedge shape, which is due to it being shoved between two dorm buildings built at odd angles to each other). I say smuggle because it is policy to allow alcoholic beverages to be consumed in one's room only. On a campus of students who are an average of 25 years old. That's sad.
We each brought some snacks and drinking receptacles (ceramic mugs) and had ourselves a lovely relaxing few hours rehashing the unbearable 2 hours in anatomy lecture. The fun stuff, not the learning stuff.

The cheapest Merlot at IGA.....................$18.99EC.

Borrowed bottle opener from beer pong junkies.......$0.00.

Recycled plastic water bottle to smuggle the "juice" in............$0.00

Bag full of goodies for girl's night....................$25EC

Having to pretend you're drinking juice when you're 30 years old........................PRICELESS.

We enjoyed our girl's night of smuggled wine and delectable desserts. It was a nice night out, breezy and warm, with the sound of the ocean just steps from the dorms.
Then I went back to my room, drank some water and spent 4 hours in the study room working on nutrition notes. Ironic, isn't it? Me, in nutrition class. Ha! And yes, despite the 1.5ish glasses of wine I had, I can still tell you verbatim what was in those notes. But don't ask unless you really want to know. I'll give you a hint...it had to do with having more than one stomach, and how you digest your food with them. Yum.
Very tired now, and my left hand is in progress of falling off. Off to bed. Good night kids.

Party on Dude!

Just one more thought for the night, dedicated to my good friend and inspiration, JoAnne.
Quote from Nature Magazine: On the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts, some vervet monkeys have developed an taste for tropical drinks. About one monkey in seven here prefers a spiked drink to pure fruit juice. Some researchers speculate that a taste for alcohol may give monkeys a survival advantage. The alcohol in slightly fermented fruit kills off disease organisms.



Photo taken from Nature website.

Don't worry JoAnne, the monkeys here are always working very hard to keep themselves free of diseases. I'll let you know if I catch one trying to swing home post-binder.

Mmmmm...Hamburger Helper.

As you must know by now, I love meat.
I also love that quintessential staple of the American home cooked meal: Hamburger Helper. I grew up on Cheeseburger Macaroni (Thanks, dad!) and its leftovers.
When I came here, I truly worried that I would be forced to start eating those other parts of the food pyramid in order to survive. But I'm happy to tell you all that I am not living in a third world country, we do have a grocery store (2 in fact), and they do indeed carry Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni. Of course, in the goal of eating cheap, I went with the generic version that is marginally less yummy...but it's yummy nonetheless.

Isn't it glorious?

Where do I get meat, you ask? Well, the grocery stores are very expensive and not of great quality. I admit there was some concern that I would have to make the HH minus the hamburger.
But then that all-knowing being who sits up there snickering at our silly lives found it in his/her heart to bestow upon me an angel in the form of Emmanuel. More specifically, Emmanuel Juicy Beef, Ltd. The manager, Bryan Baptiste, is my new best friend (sorry Lora). I even have his cell number in case I need any emergency meat deliveries. This is start of a beautiful friendship.

This is staying in my wallet. I'll treasure it more than my passport. (sorry mom)

This is the beautiful 1 pound of yummy goodness.

Our mini-fridges come equipt with the smallest freezer available. Notice the meat is conveniently packaged flat. This guy is all about making student's lives better.

And so I sign off a happy girl this evening. And as a parting gesture, for those who are interested, I took a shot of my cupboard for your entertainment. Notice the large amount of starches. And the beanie weanies in a can. I almost cried in the grocery isle when I found those. Wonder how the Kittitians would have reacted to that. I hope all of you are having as wonderful a night as I am, and that you are blessed by that great being in the sky as well.

A lot of trees died to torture us with notes.

Had a fabulous lecture in animal nutrition today. Not a particularly scintillating topic, however the lecturer is very invigorating - and he has to be at 8 am.
Today was the first day of anatomy. I really cannot take that smell (vicks vapo is in my future). It was so much nauseating as it was brain & eye burning. We were assigned our dogs (mine does not resemble anyone we've owned in the past so I'm good), and a box of bones to study. Yikes. We start cutting tomorrow, should be interesting as the bodies are frozen.
My lab group is comprised of the two (C/K)ristins another girl and two guys. One of the two guys didn't show to class, seems the evening's festivities were too much for him to respect his fellow classmates by showing up. Not a good start.
I can still taste the smell of the formalin. Ick.
So far classes are going pretty well, but I just simply cannot believe how much material we cover each day. It's all interesting, and I know now why I had to take those organic chem and biochem courses, but it's a lot.

This is the stack of notes we were handed on the first day in classes. Yes, it's equal to about a ream and a half of paper in the states.

Since luggage space was at a premium, I decided to leave the binders to buy at the "school" bookstore. After spending a small fortune, my papers are now hole punched, organized, and even divided into sections.

This is what a small fortune looks like. I believe the St. Kitts Mafia runs the store.