Saskia....you are very bright for a woman of your age. In South Africa a woman of your age would have drank herself retarded by now.

Happy 20 + 11 Birfday to Me.

Awesome birthday weekend:

Friday Night

Happy Hour at Stingers for some magic and networking. Dinner at Copper Falls, a ridiculously yummy steakhouse where the owner picked out our steaks and the ribeye was like eating steak-flavored butter. So tender, so melt-in-your-mouth, so mmmmmmmm. Complimented by a fantastic Sticky Toffee Pudding dessert (you'd think I got out of the stupid singing at the table in a nice steakhouse but NO........) and a romantic run through a torrential rainstorm.

Saturday

Slept in till noon (what? shut it.). Intentions to hang out at the Margaritaville waterslide were rebuffed by the nasty rainclouds; instead spent the day being lazy in bed watching Youtube videos documenting the decline of a Pop Icon. Got moving early afternoon for a movie with Kip, chick flick called The Proposal (which was quite funny and showcased once again Betty White's unending humor). After the movie we checked out a very nice restaurant in Camana Bay called Abacus. Excellent atmosphere, saw our first "porn" on the island (a very tasteful photography book of nudes on display at the host area; seems the owner is from Europe, loves nude women, and would make the restaurant topless if he could get away with it) (he would be a gazillionaire if he could pull that of, by the way). After perusing the bookstore trying to find their copy of the naked chicks book bible, we wandered over to the dorms for yummy cake with Medi-Mike and Mr. Beau Beaus.

Sunday

Another lazy sleep-in day (shut it already, alright?). Watched the US get their asses handed to them in a football game they should have won, then yummy dinner at Yoshi (the best sushi on island) with classmates.

Despite the apparent laziness and lack of massive imbibing of libations, this weekend was everything I had hoped for and one of my best on island. Thank you to everyone for their birthday wishes, and thanks to Kip for an awesome 20+11! :)

PS - that quote in the heading is what we decided our South African physio prof would have said if he had been here for my birthday. Instead Kip said it in his best Dr. Roy voice. But it was like good ol' Roy was right there with us.

More Awesome Iguana Stuff

I'm pretty sure PETA is going to boycott my blog for this (wait'll they see Crab Kickin Soccer) but we've been dying to get video of the iguanas swimming and they don't seem to skinny dip for fun so we had to give this guy a little "push".

PS: No iguanas were injured during the making of this video.

PPS: And yes, those suckers can swim just fine.

Dear Professor:

Sure I'd love to move our exam up to Thursday giving us one day to cover all of respiratory and one day to cover all of renal and oh then take the exam the next day because who needs to study I certainly don't I have it all memorized the second you lecture on it.

Vet school's easy.

With many thanks,
Saskia

Hell. And not the fun kind.

While all of my friends at Ross are enjoying their three day Mid-Semester Break following their respective Hell Weeks, I am entering the fourth and most hellacious week of my Hell Month.

Short version for those who have not had the pleasure of listening to me whining complaining explaining neutrally and unbiasedly SMU's way of masochistically torturing us providing us with a efficient learning environment for Physiology 1.

Yes, I realize I've taken this course once before. No need to remind me of that Ron dad everyone.

Here's a short side-by-side comparison of Physio 1 at Ross vs. SMU.

Now, I realize that we just haven't found a full-time professor yet, and so the students will just have to be flexible (I'm really starting to hate that word) until that time comes. And I honestly think that Dr. Roy is a really good prof, he really does genuinely care about us, however he just isn't the right guy to be teaching this material in an expedited format. It almost upsets me more to have him teaching us now, because I can see very clearly that I am missing out on some very important material simply due to the fact that we're cramming 4 weeks of material into 4 days.

So to conclude, I'm sorry I've been rather taciturn on this blog lately, but we had a pretty major phys test last Friday (covered Cardio, Muscle, Senses, and a little Intravascular phys), we have an anatomy exam on Monday that everyone is playing catch up for due to phys (covers pelvic limb, abdomen, and male/female repro), Tuesday we have a makeup ORAL exam for phys to try and replace our grade from two weeks ago (the test that covered Neuro Phys, pretty much the entire class failed it so he's giving us a chance to replace that test grade...did I mention how much I hate ORAL tests?), and this Friday we have our last phys test (covers the rest of Intravascular, Renal, and Respiratory).

Basically I've been having a month-long panic attack.

Whoo-hoo.

Blame it on the moon....

Another physio exam down, another weekend of fun begins!

Completely irrelevant but still awesome pic of Mystic Dragon Capri Sun. Really yummy (tastes pretty much like Pacific Cooler)...

Took this awesome pic after a long day of particularly yucky dissection. Would make a great movie poster...

Kip riding "Gums"

Friday night we convened once again for our Cocktails at Sunset House. It was an interesting evening complete with random medical discussions and sacrilegious statements. To add to our motley crew, our physiology professor, Dr. Roy, and his wife joined us for libations and a little pipe smoking.

(Sherlock Holmes style, not Cheech and Chong Style. C'mon.)

A few highlights from the conversations:

Coconut IV bags: We mentioned our experience with coconut water to Dr. Roy. Travis brought up having seen a documentary on using coconuts as IV fluids when in survivor situations. Our token med student at the table jumped in right away discounting the possibility of creating the proper vacuum with a coconut unless you cut the top off, while others of us argued that a vacuum wasn't needed to administer fluids and I just sat there wondering how you would pierce the husk of the damn coconut in the first place and just how sanitary is coconut water when we've seen what it can do to your intestinal constitution?

Dr. Roy (on life in South Africa): We didn't want a new government! It's the rest of the world who forced it on us! And now we've got lots of crime and corruption. For heaven's sake, we now have a 500 Trillion Zimbabwe Dollar note that won't even buy a loaf a bread.

Mike (not sure where this came from but it was damn funny): I don't feel any guilt. Fuck him and his apple.

Mike and I up front; in back: Kip, Travis, and Paul.

Saturday night was the monthly Full Moon party. It seems each month there is a theme associated; this month's was a "Foam Moon Party" (catchy play on words, huh? I wonder how proud the guy who thought that one up was...). Something inspired Robin, Kip and I to check out some of the local clothing stores (boredom) and upon finding that they pretty much sell the same ghetto clothing that you would find at Rave or Wet Seal or in St. Kitts, we somehow came to the conclusion that we were going to do a GC version of Pimps N Hoes that night.

Seriously folks. I think there's something in the water here.

Anyhow, at a store called Crave Kip found an awesome 'shirt set' that sported satin trim on the collar and french cuffs, as well as a matching satin tie and pocket kerchief. The shirt is a deep maroon color, and the satin details are a funky pattern with yellows and peaches and some maroon. It was quite the pimptastic shirt.

Our next stop was a sketch shoe store on Eastern Ave that apparently sells way more clothes than shoes. It reminded me a lot of Karabana's in St. Kitts. They even had those awesome stretch pants with printed on pockets/belt loops/stitching to make them appear to be jeans when really they are just a horrible pair of plain ol' stretch pants.

At the 'shoe' store, I found my top for the evening, a tight-fitting rouched cotton halter with a plunging neckline. Robin found a cute little dress in an awesome teal color. And Kip found his pimptastic baby pink sunglasses and tiger striped pinky ring.

I shit you not.

Kip inspecting his Super Heroes mood ring.

We made one more stop, to a little boutique in a building that seems to be either falling apart around it or in progress of being built where I found the perfect chunky necklace to complete my outfit. By this point we were all starving, so we headed to Yoshi for some fantastic sushi.

They encourage you to play with your food at Yoshi.

After hanging out at the house for a bit, playing a round of Kings with Travis, we were suitably tanked and headed over to CJs.

The Reason for the Season.

PimpTastic.

If any of you are Foam Virgins, as I was, you will be mightily impressed by the giant inverted phallus spewing out suds all over people dancing in the sand. Yes, suds soaked sand.

Travis reliving his childhood.

This would be so much more creepy if it weren't for the giant suds tumor on his face.

Travis and Robin with Kip doing something abnormal.

Kip trying to hit on underage chicks outside of the women's restroom.

I'm pretty sure his drink was full when he ran in that time...

I have no idea.

I wasn't keen on getting a MRSA infection, so Kip had to dance me into the foam.

Midnight brings with it Last Call here on GC (which just seems sooooo unfair at a Full Moon party), so we decided to clean off our suds with a little midnight dip in the Caribbean. Because that makes total sense.

Somehow Kip managed to keep the sunglasses but lose the ring. Despite the fact that these Full Moon parties seem to invite Trouble (you know who you are), overall it was a great night out with friends. Can't wait till next month!