Advertisement
Well, another week and a half or so has gone by and I have now been in Dominica for about a month. It's weird to think that a month has gone by already, but at the same time, my concept of time is lost. Yesterday feels like ten years ago.
Soooo... what have I been up to? Needless to say, I have been extremely busy. I have been in class, at meetings, studying, playing soccer, and.... I think that's about it. Classes are going well and I did my first dissection this past week - my group dissected the suboccipital triangle in the back of the head. Essentially, if you feel the back of your head for a little bony structure and then move your fingers down to your spine, that's where we dissected. How was it? AWESOME!!!!! Wicked cool. I did some cutting myself and it can be very difficult to figure out what is what. Even some of the teachers who've looked at the stuff for years aren't sure what we're looking at. And it's kind of difficult because when you're dissecting, everything is in it's original state, which means that nothing is really a separate entity - everything is held together by something, and of course, you never see that something in the text books. This may be kind of a poor description, but consider that you have an orange in front of you - peel and all. Now, if someone were to take a picture of an orange all nicely peeled and sliced, you might think to yourself, okay, that seems pretty easy. Until you start peeling the orange yourself and find that some of the bits of the peel get stuck to the inside of the orange and that there are seeds inside that you have to take out and weird stringy things that hold some of the slices together. But without peeling an orange yourself, you would never know. So that's kind of what it's like when you dissect. You look at pictures and everything is nice and clean cut and then you get in there yourself and you're like... umm... what is there and where am I? Other than that, I have Gross Anatomy TA sessions twice a week, which are VERY good. I also have PACE meetings where we have practice quizzes and stuff and every Friday for two hours I have PBL. PBL is problem based learning and essentially you go in a room with about 6-7 students and one teacher and the teacher presents a case to you and you have to act like a doctor and figure out what's wrong with the patient. Now, this sounds really exciting, but my experience this past week was that it's not quite as fun as I had hoped. It was just kind of tedious with the whole group setting and people arguing about what categories which bits of information should go into. I mean, I don't really think that's important - I think the important part is that you know what's happening and move on from there, not whether something belongs under the "data" category or the "analysis" category. Other than that, I have been playing soccer. I play for one coed team and one women's team. We're not all that great - there are varying levels of experience - but it's a lot of fun. On Saturday we played after it rained all day and we were a MESS. I have some post-game pictures of myself that I will load after I get some more pix.
So you might be thinking that... I live in the caribbean, what a wonderful place to pretend to study. LOL I haven't been to the beach or the pool since my parents left, which I think is going on two weeks now. ALL I do is go to class, study, and have an occasional soccer game. That's it. No beach, no pool, no tanning. Disappointing, I know. Oh and let me talk about the food situation here. It SUCKS. Royally. It seems like you can either eat junk food, Subway, really expensive food, or fruit. So I'm finding that it's hard to find things to eat because I don't want to eat junk food like chinese and pizza all the time, but I also don't want to have to wait for a little more of a pricey meal. Not to mention that we don't have grocery stores here like we do in the US. The stores here are akin to a not-as-well-stocked 7-11. And you have to visit all three to get SOME of the things you want, then go somewhere else to pay ridiculous amounts for cheese to make your bologna and cheese sandwich, then STILL go somewhere else to get your over-priced produce UNLESS you take a trip to market once a week on Saturdays. Are you getting annoyed yet, cause I am! So... I am still trying to figure out this food situation.
Having said that, my neighbors and I have been yearning for a nice, American meal. So we planned a trip to go to an upscale dining restaurant in Roseau because money is no object when you're HUNGRY!!! jk - kinda, not really. So we hired a guy to drive us out to Roseau, which is an hour away. Then we went to dinner at this amazing place, The Fort Young Hotel Waterfront Restaurant. I have not seen amenities in Dominica like they had - it was gorgeous. What did I eat? STEAK!!! Yes, a $36 american steak. I was going for it. Was it good? Oh you can't believe how good it was. My mouth is watering at the thought. And for those of you who don't know, I am NOT a steak/meat person at all, so this is saying A LOT. I also ended with a mango passion cheesecake with cherry drizzle on the top. Oh, god, even the name sounds amazing. It was worth EVERY penny. But I can't talk about this dinner experience without telling you about our rides to and from!!! So, I had called a cab driver who had given a friend and I a free ride one time. If someone is really nice to you, you get their name and you use them again in the future, otherwise you use A1-taxi service which is WAY overpriced. So James pulls up in a pickup truck. Now, we had 6 people, for which he could sit four. Before you have a heart attack, Mum and Dad, NO I did not sit in the back and YES I did wear my seatbelt. But two people DID ride in the back of the pickup. So, our driver was 20 minutes late to pick us up and then had to stop at get a Monster energy drink on the way.... No, I'm not kidding. Then, we were off and he explained to us that he would be driving fast, but safe (this is an oxymoron - there is no such thing here!). So we're driving (fast) along the ups and downs and twists and turns and he decides he needs some music. So he turns to my neighbor Adam, who is sitting in the front seat, and asks him to locate some CDs and put one in. So Adam is trying to find the CDs and finally gets them and our driver decides to help Adam find the CD he wants.... and forgets to watch the road. Swerve #1. "Sorry about that." What does he choose? BACKSTREET BOYS!!!!!!!! hahahahahahahahahahahah Yes, I'm serious. Now, there are three of us girls sitting in the back part of the cab and Adam sitting in the front seat and we are just cracking up at this. Not only does he play BSB, but he SINGS BSB, and well, none of us could help ourselves - we had a little karaoke of BSB on the way. No, not just ONE way, BOTH ways. There AND back. Oh, he also explained that there are no rules in Dominica - so yes, you can drink and drive, but don't get caught in an accident. Because then you will hear the law. So anyways, there were times when our driver said "okay, now I'm going to drive safe," which I find completely interesting. lol I can't help but laugh at the thought. So, we made it there and back safe and sound and it was a REALLY great trip. Will we use the driver again? Most definitely. Although I definitely plan to look into renting a car. Yes, near-death experience and all.
Some asides -
Mum - yes, the donkey is still out there on the side of the road, he hasn't moved too far, but is no longer in the bend. Now he's a little ways up the road a bit. He looks happier.... kinda. Dad and Chad, your Land Rover is still for sale. The corn-cooker was not out last night.
Well, it's time for me to return to some Histology - connective tissue, anyone?? Pri, Lenie, Devang, Jess?? :P I would run away screaming, too.
As much as I've been enjoying myself here, I can't help but to think about home every day. I miss everyone and wish you could all be here to experience all of these things with me. I really am having quite the time.
I hope everyone is well!
~Brooke
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0581s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
jessy
non-member comment
so just
stick with the subway and fruit diet, and the soccer games, and you'll lose a few pounds in no time. can't believe you ate steak, for 36 bucks o_o..... i'll ask you about histo in a couple months. let's do a review session then :D you tell a great story. glad to hear you're enjoying it :)