Lola, L-O-L-A, Lola

So the Vet School here takes care of a few dogs and they roam around campus freely. The most popular breed is the pothound. There's one with a blue collar and his name is Brutus or Bruno. There's one with a green collar and I call her Limey since I'm so creative when naming pets :) But my FAVORITE one is Lola. She cheers me up when I'm not feeling 100% and I run around with her until she spots a cat or something. She's kind of ADD! Dogs and cats can roam anywhere in Grenada and she followed me and Ashley into our dorm :)

I'm Officially Ethical!

I got my first official grade: A!!! in Bioethics & The Professional: Medicine in Society I. Now I only have 3 classes. But they are really hard! We have 16 biochem lectures in the next 2 weeks before mid-terms. It's all packed in so it'll be a lot of memorizing and rewriting pathways. Back to Taylor Hall to study :)

My First Test!

We had our final exam for Bioethics on Monday and a lot of the questions were ambiguous. I think I did fine since I went to all of the lectures/small group discussions and actually studied. I heard that if more than 70% of the class gets a question wrong, the department has to take that question out of the scoring. The professor got 150 emails afterwards so she has a lot of work to do for grades!

We also took a Unified Quiz on Monday. It's kind a pre-assessment for Term 1 med students so we know if we're studying enough or studying the most effective way. We had 25 questions from Biochem, Anatomy, and Histology.

Biochem

Class avg: 65%, me: 76% (B)

Anatomy

Class avg: 70%, me: 84% (B)

Histology

Class avg: 70%, me: 96% (A)

For our school, getting below a C is failing. Therefore, a lot of people failed the Unified. I think I'm on the right track so I'll keep up the good work. I would love to get A's but I also have to keep my sanity! Midterms are in 2.5 weeks!!! Ok, back to the books :)

Go Grenada!

So Grenada has been an independent country for 35 years now. I think people celebrate and take it more seriously than Americans since it was so recent. A lot of people were alive when independence was granted from Britain. I think almost all stores were closed. Except KFC which had a sign with God Bless Grenada on it. You would never see anything like that in the US!

I got a slight sunburn on my shoulders yesterday from the beach. Bummer. A visiting anatomy professor (he co-wrote Before We Are Born--he's famous!) and his wife sat next to us at Grand Anse beach and we had a nice conversation. He commended us on taking a break from the studying! We read magazines and reviewed bioethics terms.

Today has been a huge study day as well. Very productive. The big unified quiz is a week from Monday so I better keep it up! I did take a few breaks to enjoy the weather (84 and sunny) and even had some ice cream in there :)

Update

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blogs lately. Classes have kicked up a notch, labs have started, and I've been worrying about a MN friend's bad news. She has to get surgery for a brain tumor. She is very positive though and will be just fine! It's just hard to deal with things when I'm so far away. I will see her this summer when she's all better.

Last weekend I took a selective in Complementary Medicine. It consisted of alternatives to treating ADHD with pharmaceuticals. Some approaches were: binaural beat sound (a noise that makes you concentrate better), nutrition, psychology/TV/sleep, and basically getting in touch with your feelings. It was quite interesting. I also attended a workshop on Hatha Yoga and Progessive Relaxation. Great tools for stress relief!

I also took a class to be an official CPR instructor for the American Heart Association. It is all video-led so it will not be too stressful. Also, medical students will be pretty easy to teach. Good times!

Tonight I am going to Bel-Air Home to tutor orphans and mentally disabled children. Tomorrow I plan to hit the beach (and bring some flashcards of course). I have a quiz in all my classes a week from Monday so I'd better hit the books hard!