Yay Agriculture!!!

So I have some very exciting news that I would love to share. Today we had a little 45 minute lecture regarding programs for students who are interested in pursuing a masters degree while working on a doctorate in veterinary medicine. This usually requires an additional $24,000 added to the overall 6-figure pothole of tuition debt and a sacrifice of three summers on the island. Though some of the degrees offered seem very tempting (marine science, wildlife science, public health, etc), I forbade myself from looking further into it. During the talk, the head of the research department had a random power point slide talking about the School of Veterinary Medicine Outreach Program. "Outreach" tends to be one of those trigger words that make me salivate comparable to "beer." Turns out SGU has a volunteer program geared towards educating schools and farmers on agriculture....holy shit that is what my Masters is in!! A few interested students and professors travel to different villages in Grenada and simply teach a class or seminar about veterinary medicine in agriculture. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. I gave my information to an elated professor and will hear from the coordinator of the Outreach program on Monday. I also sent an e-mail to my old grad adviser at Tech letting him know that I did not completely abandon the field of agricultural education...but merely brought it to my island.

Transitioning

It is pretty amazing how one week can make all the difference in the world. When I arrived here off the plane I was tired, angry, alone, and seriously doubting my decision to arrive. Now that I have met a few friends and have figured out where things are, I sleep better at night. Here is what has been going on the past few days...

Orientation wrapped up over the weekend with a large bazaar on campus, sponsoring several local businesses to come out and sell their wares. SGU gave each incoming freshman $30 EC (Eastern Caribbean) to spend on food and whatnot. I bought 5 bananas and 2 cucumbers for $7 which came out to not quite $3 in US. Beer and sammiches were also free through the University and it was quite the party.

Monday morning and the semester has begun!!! While all of the med students and upperclassmen vet students headed to class, the 1st term vet students were invited to a beach resort for a 2-day professionalism workshop. A study came out several years ago through the University of Washington that graduating veterinary students were very capable in medical knowledge and technical skills, but epically failed in people skills. Sooooo....SGU has started this workshop (first of many) to teach vet students how to work with people. Some of the future subjects in this term will be topics like grief counseling, informed consent, veterinary ethics, etc. For this workshop we talked about communication overall and did the corny team building exercises. Overall the experience was beneficial in getting to meet many more of my classmates and three free meals over a 2 day period. Here are some pictures of the resort we were at for this....yes that is me in a hammock.

So nice workshop was over on Tuesday afternoon and then Tuesday evening we had the White Coat Ceremony. The ceremony is supposed to signify the welcoming of new students into the medical profession, where we slip on a white doctor-looking coat and say the veterinarians' version of the Hippocratic Oath. Though SGU had good intentions to make this memorable ceremony for us, it was memorable in a way I am glad my parents did not waste the money to fly down and witness it. To start off the ceremony, we had SGU's first female Grenadian graduate make the initial introductions and give thanks to various people. Though Grenadians are a kind and wonderful people, I have not met a single one who willingly projects his/her voice from the default soft-spoken whisper; so if you put a microphone in front of Grenadian and throw her on stage, we do not have a very happy situation. Overall her public speaking skills were not bad and her seashell dress was awesome. The best part of the ceremony was the key note speaker- a veterinarian visiting from Auburn University. I really wish I had taped the whole thing because my description would not do his speech justice...he spent the ENTIRE monologue praising Auburn University. He began with a quote that he felt symbolized Auburn's spirit. He discussed how Auburn's vet school took wing and became a successful university in 1907, back when sugar was $0.05 a pound and bacon was $0.16. He focused 99.9999999% of his attention on how wonderful HIS school was. It got to the point that all of us were looking around mouthing "Are we going to Auburn now?" Even my anatomy professor this morning was making jokes about the key note speaker- it was very special. I did not have my camera on me last night, but pictures will be forthcoming for that.

Actual classes began for us this morning, on another evening I will try to go into more detail about them. I have procrastinated long enough tonight.

Getting Settled

Today was full day #2 at SGU. The morning started off at 8 am to catch a tour of the capital of Grenada, St. George. The town was completely decimated by hurricane Ivan in 2004, so honestly when you walk through the town it still looks like crap, but it gives the town an ancient classy Pompei kind of look I suppose. You cannot see it in this picture, but I swear to God that the entire city is on a 89.9 degree angle. The locals must have legs of steel to be able to navigate around town. By the end of our tour all of us were panting like dogs and wearing sweat-soaked clothing, it kind of sucked.

Our tour guides were Grenadian students at SGU and were very nice and helpful from the small phrases I could understand. If you have never heard a Grenadian talk...think of it as a Jamaican accent from Cool Runnings but with a British lilt and incorporated french words. In time, I am told, I will understand all of the various inflections and dialects of the locals and will be able to fully contribute to a conversation. I think the Grenadians enjoy the look of panic on my face when I cannot comprehend and tell their friends.

Being that Grenada is the major exporter of spices (especially nutmeg) in the world, everything revolves around the spice industry. As we walked around to various stores and the popular outdoor market, the smell of spices wafted in the gentle breeze until it found me and clung for dear life, I have been smelling like nutmeg all day. I will visit this market often to get fresh fish, vegetables, fruits, and of course spices. If you have any requests for fresh nutmeg or REAL vanilla just let me know. Christmas may come early for you.




So did you like Pirates of the Caribbean? Well here we go to Fort George.



Though the movie was not filmed here, the fort has a fascinating history and has been around in some form of fashion since 1649. The actual structure I walked around today was built between 1705 and 1710 and has been active in the Seven Years War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Grenadian Revolution, and the US-Caribbean Intervention. Our tour guides gave us a very heartfelt recount of the US-Caribbean Intervention of 1983 where the Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and his cabinet members (one of whom was pregnant) was taken to the very wall I happened to be leaning against at the time and was executed. When people of the city heard the shots, they ran up to the fort only to be gunned down. People in the town still have missing limbs and other bodily injuries from jumping off the fort's cliff to escape gunfire.






After an exhausting walk down from Fort George we walked through the city to get to the buses. I expected the waterfront of St. George's to be similar to the Inner harbor of Baltimore. I was completely and utterly blown away when I saw the busy city streets saddled by crystal blue water. I mean this water was so clear and full of large colorful fish that it looked like an aquarium instead of a bay full of commerce. I wish my camera could have taken better shots of the cichlids and pipefish that I saw, but here are some shots of the bay itself.

I hate Jamaica

Alright so getting a maximum of two hours of sleep last night, I arrive at the BWI airport by 6:30 for my 8:30 flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica. Flight goes fine and I spent the time talking to a Jamaican woman next to me who loved sharing stories about working on a sugar cane plantation in the 50's. So after we landed in Montego I had to sit on the plane for 55 minutes. The air conditioning unit was broken so they brought in an additional auxillary unit- also broken. Third time is a charm right? The third auxillary unit produced hot air. It got so hot in the plane that the windows fogged up on the inside and everyone truly believed we had died and gone to hell. So after the awful wait we flew from Montego Bay to Kingston...a smashing 20 minute ride. We landed in Kingston and had to sit on the plane for an additional 30 minutes-once again no air conditioning. When we were allowed to get off the plane, the airport had a 'special route' for students at St. George's. Get this...those awful people made us walk the entire length of the Kingston Airport, stand in a line to go through security, walk back to our original plane, and then go back towards security again- once again without any air conditioning. So my third plane was saturated with SGU students and parents ready to fly down to Grenada, but first we had to sit in the plane for an hour and a half -once again without air conditioning- because of baggage mixups.

FINALLY I am in Grenada!! Only to stand in line for another three hours-once again without air conditioning- for immigration and customs. So after 16 hours of sweating and waiting I am finally out of the airport atmosphere and managed to track down my dorm room. It took me 7 minutes to unpack and 'decorate' my room- I will take some pictures in the morning when the light is better. Tomorrow I register and will take a tour of the facilities. <3

Leavin' on a jet plane

So we are down to the final days before I leave the states. The plan is to drive up with my mom to Baltimore on Monday and fly out of BWI at an ungodly hour Tuesday morning. I have stored some winter clothes with my parents, all of my furniture was sold on Craigslist , and Matt adopted Riley (though he is still mine). AirJamaica allows two 50lb suitcases and a 30lb carry-on; I am considering myself quite lucky as other airliners only allow 70lbs between two suitcases or less. Linens, clothes, scrubs, and school supplies taking up most of the bag space, I am stuck with two picture frames and a Mexican coffee mug to personalize my future room. The real trick was trying to hide all of my electronics and pricey gadgets so I do not get charged at customs. The laptop I cannot get away with, as customs knows full well that if I am going to SGU then I definitely have one with me. My ipod is nestled safely in a vacuum sealed bag of clothes and all of my computer equipment is hiding for dear life in various regions of my multi-pocketed suitcases.

I’ve already spent a over 1K getting immunizations, plane tickets, and supplies- why should a couple more dollars make a difference? Well… I don’t have financial aid yet. The lending company SGU has been using for a long time backed out of their agreement at the beginning of the summer, the financial aid department has been scrambling to find new lenders for months. Well last Wednesday we finally got the happy e-mail of ‘zomg we have a company that will give you guys money!!!!’ That gave me less than 5 days to send in a loan application, get it approved, have money in my account, pay my school tuition, have the check clear and get a registration voucher. I don’t think so. So as of now I am flying down anyway and living on what I currently have in my bank account until the loan goes through. This sounds horrible, but thankfully all of my classmates are going through the same thing so my panic attack was not nearly as bad as it could have been.

Going to spend my last day in Virginia hanging out with Matt and the family. This will constitute a trip down to the docks so Riley can swim around and roll in mud, shooting range for some practice (shot my first groundhog on Wednesday), and the final shopping trip for crap I know I will not be able to purchase in Grenada. Take care and the next post will be on my island.