Tis the Night Before Classes

Tis the night before classes and all through the house, some ants were stirring but thank God not a mouse...lol

I'm heeeeeere!! Sorry for the delay been taking care of a lot of stuff since I arrived. Well I got here on August 28th(flew from Norfolk, VA to Charlotte to Puerto Rico to Antigua to Dominica)...left at 7 am, got there at 6pm..with delays and layovers. Then about a majority of my classmates and I luggage got lost....grrrr. We were told that it would most likely be delivered to the school on the following day (it did lol). Word of wisdom for everyone; always take a few changes of clothes and your necessities in your carryon...thank God I did. My landlord picked up my roomie and I from the housing office at Ross and took us to our apartment. Sooo happy my apartment looked like how it did from the pictures. YES!! The next week followed with a bunch of orientations, "scared straight" talks about passing and failing(gotta love those), and island tours. I took awesome tours to the native Carib Indians territory on the other side of the island, traveled to Emerald Pool where there's an awesome waterfall, and went on a canoe to travel down the set of where Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 movies were filmed :-). During this past week, I'm glad I made a gameplan of what i wanted to accomplish for each day. Went to the bank and opened up an account(everybody's on island time, so prepared to wait awhile), glad i got there early. This past Friday, I had checkin. I was glad that I had took care of everything so I was able to skip most of the stations during checkin. This blogg is gettin a lil long, so I'm just gonna post the answers to the most common questions that I've been getting since arriving.

1. How is it down there?
I really like it actually and I feel that I have adapted quite well. There are folks that complain about it, but I stick around positive people which is a good thing. The weather is hot and humid and we're in the rainy season, so it rains spontaneously for only a few minutes. So you carry an umbrella, bottled water and wear insect repellant as a perfume everyday lol. Cows are more common here than cats and dogs, so when you're walking they're always chillin on the side of the road. They're friendly and they dont bother you. But I'm not going to lie, I'm still scared of them lol But I've never seen a more beautiful place in my life. I am truly blessed to see the sights and sounds that I do every day here.
2. What do you eat?
Well food choices here are a lot differet than the US...the only fast food restaurants they have here are KFC and Subway lol. But I pretty much eat from the "Shacks" every day which is pretty much an outside food court for students..I am addicted to their juice which is from fresh fruit.There is a pizza joint and a lot of chinese restaurants here, like everywhere else in the world. But the food choices are pretty healthy and its not cooked in a lot of grease.
3. How do you pay for stuff?
Although they do take US currency here, it's better to just exchange it into Eastern Caribbean dollars..the exchange rate is 2.67. For example, if an item costs $2 American than it's actually $5.34 EC. People may try to rip you off when giving you back change for your US, so just exchange it from the beginning
4. What is the time difference?
We're on the same time as U.S Eastern Standard...the only difference is when the U.S "falls back" an hour, we stay the same.. The sun sets at around 6:00 pm and rises around 6:00am. So during the night, it feels a lot later than it is...just something im getting used to.

But thats it for now...I gotta rest up for my first day of classes tomorrow!!!Later gators!!

Reflecting

As yall can see, I took a few days off. To be honest, nothing huge happened. Reality is reeeally startin to set in, let's just say that. Saturday I went to a friend's baby shower. It was so awesome; everybody wore their big hats and sundresses :-). As I left, and began cruising the ocean strip with my hair blowing in the wind, I just thought "maan I'm going to miss this." I'm going to miss my friends soooo much. They've always had my back, always been there, never left my side...it just really hit me. Of course I went to church on Sunday and enjoyed a moving service. Got home and thought "maaan I'm going to miss my church." As much as I know that God will be with me allll the way over in Dominica, Im going to miss the folks that has always encouraged and prayed for me...my church family. The cool thing is that my dad has been getting cds of the sermon each Sunday so I can take them with me....a lil piece of home that will keep me connected. I hear that Ross has a lot of opportunities for students to practice and share their faith and im truly excited about that. Yesterday, it was back to my "to do" list. I called around to some shipping places to get their rates. Booooy is this getting expensive. It got a lil frusterating b/c some of the carriers dont have aaaany drop off places remotely close to me...no good. Today I was in luck! Amerijet has a dropoff place in Norfolk (10 min. away) and their rates are pretty good, so i think im gonna go with them! In addition, I found a 58 gallon barrel in Norfolk in Craig's list for $20!!! This was a bonus, b/c a lot of shipping companies dont carry supplies and a lot of the websites out there are expensive as all get out, ranging from $50-$100 a barrel! Two victories today! Yippee! Plus, my parents are coming with me so ill have three suitcases instead of one...maybe i can get my parents to put all their stuff in one carryon(maybe thats pushing it lol). But let me stop before i start getting teary eyed...been a lil emotional today...like I said, reality is starting to set in. But im still SMILING..CHEEEEEZE!lol

Until next time, be blessed and I love you all....

I Registered!!

Today, I achieved another milestone...I registered for my classes for first semester!!! All of us were sent an email two weeks ago saying that online registration would be today. Well somehow I thought that LAST Friday was the 17th...definately a false alarm, I like to blame it on puure excitement..give me a break lol. Well this morning, I woke up and went to work as usual. But today was different; I had both my email and my online Ross account up and running all day until it was 2:00pm(our time of registration). Oh yeeeah, I made suuure I was ready. It made me think about those huge registration days during undergrad at ODU. I used to be soo frantic to make sure I was up bright and early so I could get all the classes and times that I wanted. Well this time, I expected the same frenzy and frantic, and the complete opposite happened. I opened the Ross email at 2:00pm and it listed the CRN numbers that I was supposed to input into the registration boxes. The only step after that was to press submit and Voila! I'm "Web registered". I was surprised how easy it was!! The whole thing took me less than 2 minutes to do! But folks, here is my schedule for the Fall semester:

Dev/Microscopic Anatomy
Gross Anatomy I
Doctor, Patient, & Society I
Biochemistry & Genetics
Medical Physiology I

I have a sense of accomplishment because I'm registered as a medical student but also an ohhh crap feeling "I can't believe I'm about to do this" at the same time. Seeing those classes attached to myself is soooo exciting, let's just see if I'm still gonna be excited actually studying for them lol. On a sidenote, I want to thank all of you that has been tuning in to my blog, it really means a lot to me. I've been told that this site has already made an impact in people's lives, whether it's someone that's doing all they can to get in med school and has been encouraged by my words, or it's someone that is just hyped that I'm living out my dream. Like I said from the very beginning I promise to be honest with you all with my thoughts and feelings and that will never diminish.

Until next time, peace and blessings...

Thank God today ended as a high note!

Well guys today started off as a crappy day, I have to admit. I turned in my resignation letter today at my job. For the last three years, I have been working for a physical therapy office.I started as a physical therapy technician (assists the therapists with developing treatment programs for patients and work with patients on a one on one basis with their exercises). The job gave me awesome experience with patient care, not just in ways to treat, but how to establish a trust or confidante relationship with your patients. What a lot of people dont realize is that the spiritual, mental and physical body is alll connected, and should be treated in that manner. If a person's physical body is well, the more likely that an individual will feel that they can achieve their full potential in a variety of sectors(i.e family, work, community). For the past year and a half, I've been working as an office coordinator....and boooy did it give me a lot of insight on the behind the scenes of medicine(i.e. insurances, pharmaceutical companies, etc.). It was bittersweet when i submitted the letter, b/c I'm going to miss some aspects of the job but I know it's time to move on to what I know that I've been called to do. I got a lil teary eyed, b/c change is good but it can be scary at the same time. Well those tears dried up quick when another employee chewed me out for something that she should have done herself lol. What helped to make it alllll better?!My Blimey Limey from Tropical Smoothie....mmm good..man im gonna miss that when i leave. But whenever I have a bad day, I look at pics like the ones I posted. That's what I have to look forward to and there's no looking back!!

Until next time, love and happiness...

I Bought My First Book!!

Hi Friends!! Well I had another great day today! With my idle time at work lol I decided to change some things around on the site. I tried to make it more reader friendly so the format won't look like a jumbled mess. In the right column, I added a search engine so when it seems like I have an endless number of blogs, you can find the ones that you want easily. Since the search box is Google powered, you can search for things that's not on the site (i.e flight rates for when you guys come visit me lol). In addition, I have some of my favorite links posted. RUSM's website of course had to be listed and I also included some Ross student blogs. They have been a great resource for me so far in preparing myself what I'm getting myself into and you should check them out. Definately peep "Court the Caribbean med student", she's one of my future classmates and actually got me started on this thing. On the veeery bottom of my site is a place in which you can post comments and questions for me (* if you dont remember my two rules, then read the first blog). I reeeally want to hear from you guys! Today I thought I was supposed to meet up with a friend to see a movie but she deeeefinately reminded me that it's tomorrow. Oops! Instead, I went to Barnes and Noble and ventured to the Medical Reference section. My initial purpose was to try to price some of the books that I know I'm going to have to buy. But guess what, I couldn't resist, I bought one! I ended up leaving with "First Aid for the USMLE Step 1". For all of you that are not familiar with USMLE, basically it's part of the medical licensing requirements that I have to pass in order to get my MD. I take Step 1 after my second year and cannot continue into my clinical sciences(years 3 and 4) portion until I pass it. The book was actually on my recommended list of books to buy and I heard it's a MUST have. I must have read 2 hours worth as soon as I got back home. My mom was like "you're studying already?" and I looked at her like she was crazy and said "of course, I have to pass". Maybe I'm the crazy one lol. I've been told to relax for my last summer of freedom, but I just couldnt resist! Hopefully it'll benefit me! But I'm getting a little tired, but before I go I'll leave you with a quote from my new study resource lol "Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opporunity to learn."-Albert Einstein

Until next time, peace and love...

Ahead of the game..well maybe

Hey yall (*that's the southern girl for you)!lol Im starting to get used to this blogging thing.I know I got carried away with the other two postings. As you can probably tell I can get a little long winded, but I promise I'll get better. Today was a great day, nothing special happened. Well, I decided to look up some current medical articles and came across the American Academy of Pediatrics. I didnt realize its website had its own section for med students. I was pretty hyped and must have stayed on the site for a couple of hours. I didnt realize how many different specialties there were in the field..the sky is the limit. I got a high off all the information I found and the nervousness I have about this journey is starting to dwindle..thank God. I'm looking forward to Friday when I get to register! I was told that I was ahead of the game so I gotta keep up the momentum! Tomorrow Im going to post some links for Ross and some pictures as well so yall can get some insight of exactly where I'm going..it DOES exist! lol

Until next time, peace and blessings

An Enlightning Day

Well today started off pretty normal; woke up, went to work...u know, the regular routine. I was even able to schedule all the appointments that I needed to make before heading off to Ross. I gotta make sure those eyes and the rest of my body are in tick, top shape! Sidenote: in order for me to get more contacts, I HAVE to go every year which is a pain in the butt b/c i sit in the chair for 5 seconds. That was my venting for the day, sorry lol. Anyways, my dentist appointment went well today. I enjoy those visits, because I can say it is THAT practice that made up my mind that I wanted to practice medicine in an underserved area. It does make me nervous driving in the vincinity of the office because it's not in the best area. But I think thats the beauty of it. The office is like a candle in a dark room, small but radiates through its entire. The care that the staff provide is phenomenal and the practice is a positive force in a troubled community. The staff has known me my entire life and has been along with me on this journey; so it's extra special for them to see me come to this point. They hugged me and my dentist told me to study reeeally hard lol and to enjoy the adventure. He also told me that the good thing is that it's just "me" that I have to take care of, b/c in his day it was his wife, two kids aaand himself. And to think that at one time in my life I was bummed out b/c it didnt look like i was going to get married by the age of 25..lol..The Lord works in mysteeerious ways. He also told me that I'll make some friendships that will last forever..kinda think i already have. Went home and found out about the new Surgeon General Pic..wow what an inspiration..another reminder how important providing for the underserved is. Decided to check out and compare prices on my book list....what a doosey. I have compared three different resources and I'm STILL at a lost of what to buy and how to buy it.lol. I had to stop after 1.5 hours b/c i felt like I was going to lose it. But the good thing is, I'm not in this alone....:-) Today was a day of confirmation and I appreciate it.

Until next time, peace and blessings to you all...