Recap of Break between 2nd and 3rd!
So my 2 week break on St. Kitts flew by and now I am fully into my 3rd semester.
Break included me being terribly sick for the first 4 days, but overall it was an amazing break! During break I was taking care of my old roommates dogs Sundae, Sphynx, and Smiley. They are good dogs, but definitely tested my patience over the break. Most of my days consisted of getting up to walk and feed the dogs, beaching it up with or without dogs, then walk and feed dogs, then out for the night. It was so weird to not have to worry about studying, it took a few days for me to get used to and by a few I mean like 2 hours :)
Some of my favorite parts over break were meeting new friends on the beach, Kim a female pilot and Jess a flight attendant for a private charter that I started talking to. They were on vacation and we started talking because I had Sphynx with me at the beach and they just couldn't resist her (she looks like a mini pitbull). Turned out we need some more people for our catamaran trip the next day so they joined in on the fun. Cat trip was great minus me getting sea sick (since i was sick to begin with), couldn't drink (because I was sick), couldn't eat (because I was sick)...so I pretty much sat on the front of the boat, drank water, and felt the sun and the breeze...got a a little burned, but went to port afterward...got some awesome sunglasses and detered numerous tourists from taking pictures
I was in bed for another 3 days then went to the Dr. then I was fine.
The rest of the break besides dealing with dogs I went to the beach pretty much everyday with Sarah and bunch of other friends and enjoyed the island life. At night I met up with friends, did a lot of drinking and dancing, met a ton of new people from the incoming class (it was their orientation week). A couple days I went on adventures snorkeling or hiking in the rain forest all in all it was a great break!
3rd Semester Recap!!
So after an amazing break it took me a few days to get into the swing of things luckily the first week of classes aren't too intense and really it is all about semester olympics. It is a school wide competition between all 7 semesters, the faculty, and the VIPs (significant others of students). The competition is not only based on winning kickball, volleyball, flag football, and soccer, as well as amt of people that showed up. It was cool to see that our class finally came together and really made a presence at the games, we ended up coming in 2nd over all which is awesome seeing that we have the fewest amt of guys in our class.
So the first half of third semester was pretty awesome I was rocking classes, getting my advanced open water SCUBA cert, learning how to do local nerve blocks, catching sea turtles, , assisting with an artificial reef research project, and just trying to get the most out of life while I am down here! Don't get me wrong classes were rough!
One of the biggest challenges of the semester was probably the fact that not only did we have most classes have multiple professors teaching different aspects, but almost every single one English was their second language. All of them are fantastic teachers (well most), but the accents definitely add an extra level to learning the already difficult material. So I trudged through the semester and I dealt with it. All the hard work paid off and I came out on top with my best GPA yet.
It is crazy how each semester you reinforce friendship, fall out of touch with friends, but gain new ones at the same time. End of 2nd semester I decided to move out of my place in Golf View and move into Horizons with my friend Beth. Beth is most definitely the best roommate ever. Not only is she an amazing environmental, vegan, Canadian but she is sooo clean! Definitely a step up from living with my two brothers Ryan and John who I love, but not the cleanest guys around. Usually who ever I live with I tend to settle at there level of cleanliness so Beth makes me keep on top of cleaning! As far a meeting new friends go my mid semester break trip to St. Marrten allowed me to get to know some pretty awesome people.
The 18 of us set sail on "D' Perfect Life" at 5am. The crew consisted of a father, his two sons, and his daughter that are all from Nevis. Trip took 4 hrs and the whole way there I slept on the bed down below. Woke up and we were in St. Maarten. After heading to the hotel, we checked in got some food than 10 of us grab a cab and headed to Ocean Explores Dive center for our shark dive! The shark dive was a completely life changing experience. As we descended to the dive site sharks were swimming off in the distance. The 10 of us settled to the bottom and took our place in a semi-circle formation. As Jeff (our guide) came into the middle the sharks started to swarm him. There were about 8 sharks total that ranged from 2 to 8 ft long! Jeff slowly pulled out small pieces of fish and would either let them go in mid water for a shark to come by and nab it or he would stick it on a metal rod, the shark would grab it and Jeff would bring the shark right over our heads. I got whipped in the face by a shark tale or two :) The really interesting thing was the couple of pieces of fish that he fed the sharks were all lion fish, which are a very invasive species of fish in the Caribbean. The way Jeff interacted with the sharks was absolutely mesmerizing they would rub against them, he would scratch them just like you would a dog and they responded so positively to him. Words cannot explain how amazing that dive was and it is definitely one of the coolest if not the coolest thing I have ever done. I have even more respect for those amazing animals especially after the dive while talking to our guides and seeing how passionate they are about shark conservation. It was how I felt after watching the amazing documentary Shark Water (http://www.sharkwater.com/). The rest of the trip cannot even compare to the dive, but it was still pretty amazing. Full of lots of great food, drinks, and fun at our Sonesta resort. That night we went out to dinner and then headed out to the capital Philipesburg to go dancing. Had a fabulous time with fabulous people. The rest of the weekend next day we just hung out at the beach and pool bar. We definitely got our fill of all inclusive food and drinks! Last day there we explored the boardwalk, got some McDonalds and did some shopping before we headed back on the boat. Ride back wasn't so fun. I got pretty sea sick, but all in all it was an amazing trip.
The second half of 3rd semester was an absolute blur. It was like we got back from break and it was like we jumped into warp speed. All the greatness of the first half of the semester quickly vanished. It was like all the professors were like " oh you guys are keeping up with the info well here is double that in a third of the time. Oh and by the way all that intro stuff doesn't matter, but you need to memorize everything from here on!" Going into finals I honestly thought I wasn't going to make it out alive.
The only good part of the second semester was the impromptu visit by friend Steve. I honestly saw that he posted he got a job in Florida on FB. I wrote "yay now you live even closer to St. Kitts! so you can come and visit!" Steve says " actually what are you doing before August 8th?" And with only 2 weeks to plan he came to visit 2 weeks before finals. Funny thing is Steve and I hadn't seen each other in almost a year. It was a crazy fun packed week. He got in on a Wednesday, we dropped his stuff off, headed to the Marriott for some tropical drinks, then ended the night at the Professor cook off. The next day while I was in class, Steve did his Discover SCUBA pool session at the Marriott then had delicious sushi in the rain and I unfortunately had to study for my clin path quiz I had the next day which I along with most of the class ended up failing anyway! haha Friday took my quiz than headed to pro divers who took us on two of the most incredible dives I have ever been on! Got an amazing pic of Steve and a sea turtle (you're welcome!!) we saw eels, eagle rays, lobsters, puffer fish, trumpet fish, sea turtles just to name a few! After the dives we headed to port for some fat tuesdays, johnny cakes and souvenir shopping then followed it up with some beach volley ball of course! Then a huge group of us headed to the movies to see bat man. Next day was beach day at Ship Wreck where Steve attempted to teach me how to do a back flip off the dock! Then out to a delicious dinner at Carambola's for Liz's bday, pregaming at a friends house and than headed to port for a party at Cloud 9. It was a phenomenal night, even though Steve couldn't party as hard as us Vet students do ;) Sunday we headed to obedience class than powder puff football then napped the rest of the day. Monday we ended up going on an early morning paddle board tour which turned from calm to a little rain, to what felt like a hurricane! It was crazy, but sooo fun (minus falling off my board and having to swim for what felt like forever to get back to it). Went to class for rest of the day and planned on going to the casino that night, but instead stayed in and Steve taught me how to play Texas hold'em (which thankfully we were not playing with real money since he cleaned me out!). Tues started out as a stormy day when I was in class, but turned into a beautiful afternoon out on Reggae beach which had some amazing snorkeling and delicious drinks. Steve's last day we went to class in the morning and then appealed to his artistic side and took him to Caribelle Batik where he got all artsy fartsy on me before I took him to the airport. It was a crazy jam packed week, but it was so awesome to finally have a visitor. I think I am a pretty good vacation planner so I hope it made everyone jealous so now they will com visit me :)
As soon as Steve left I pretty much sat in the Library and never moved until finals were over. I think they need to put in napping rooms so students that are pulling all nighters in the library have some place to lay down to at least get a power nap in! There were definitely times that I had small emotional meltdowns (about pharm especially) but I pushed through it and made it to 4th!!!
Alright I will finally post this so then I can start writing up about last break and 4th semester...slowly but surely
I was in bed for another 3 days then went to the Dr. then I was fine.
The rest of the break besides dealing with dogs I went to the beach pretty much everyday with Sarah and bunch of other friends and enjoyed the island life. At night I met up with friends, did a lot of drinking and dancing, met a ton of new people from the incoming class (it was their orientation week). A couple days I went on adventures snorkeling or hiking in the rain forest all in all it was a great break!
3rd Semester Recap!!
So after an amazing break it took me a few days to get into the swing of things luckily the first week of classes aren't too intense and really it is all about semester olympics. It is a school wide competition between all 7 semesters, the faculty, and the VIPs (significant others of students). The competition is not only based on winning kickball, volleyball, flag football, and soccer, as well as amt of people that showed up. It was cool to see that our class finally came together and really made a presence at the games, we ended up coming in 2nd over all which is awesome seeing that we have the fewest amt of guys in our class.
So the first half of third semester was pretty awesome I was rocking classes, getting my advanced open water SCUBA cert, learning how to do local nerve blocks, catching sea turtles, , assisting with an artificial reef research project, and just trying to get the most out of life while I am down here! Don't get me wrong classes were rough!
One of the biggest challenges of the semester was probably the fact that not only did we have most classes have multiple professors teaching different aspects, but almost every single one English was their second language. All of them are fantastic teachers (well most), but the accents definitely add an extra level to learning the already difficult material. So I trudged through the semester and I dealt with it. All the hard work paid off and I came out on top with my best GPA yet.
It is crazy how each semester you reinforce friendship, fall out of touch with friends, but gain new ones at the same time. End of 2nd semester I decided to move out of my place in Golf View and move into Horizons with my friend Beth. Beth is most definitely the best roommate ever. Not only is she an amazing environmental, vegan, Canadian but she is sooo clean! Definitely a step up from living with my two brothers Ryan and John who I love, but not the cleanest guys around. Usually who ever I live with I tend to settle at there level of cleanliness so Beth makes me keep on top of cleaning! As far a meeting new friends go my mid semester break trip to St. Marrten allowed me to get to know some pretty awesome people.
The 18 of us set sail on "D' Perfect Life" at 5am. The crew consisted of a father, his two sons, and his daughter that are all from Nevis. Trip took 4 hrs and the whole way there I slept on the bed down below. Woke up and we were in St. Maarten. After heading to the hotel, we checked in got some food than 10 of us grab a cab and headed to Ocean Explores Dive center for our shark dive! The shark dive was a completely life changing experience. As we descended to the dive site sharks were swimming off in the distance. The 10 of us settled to the bottom and took our place in a semi-circle formation. As Jeff (our guide) came into the middle the sharks started to swarm him. There were about 8 sharks total that ranged from 2 to 8 ft long! Jeff slowly pulled out small pieces of fish and would either let them go in mid water for a shark to come by and nab it or he would stick it on a metal rod, the shark would grab it and Jeff would bring the shark right over our heads. I got whipped in the face by a shark tale or two :) The really interesting thing was the couple of pieces of fish that he fed the sharks were all lion fish, which are a very invasive species of fish in the Caribbean. The way Jeff interacted with the sharks was absolutely mesmerizing they would rub against them, he would scratch them just like you would a dog and they responded so positively to him. Words cannot explain how amazing that dive was and it is definitely one of the coolest if not the coolest thing I have ever done. I have even more respect for those amazing animals especially after the dive while talking to our guides and seeing how passionate they are about shark conservation. It was how I felt after watching the amazing documentary Shark Water (http://www.sharkwater.com/). The rest of the trip cannot even compare to the dive, but it was still pretty amazing. Full of lots of great food, drinks, and fun at our Sonesta resort. That night we went out to dinner and then headed out to the capital Philipesburg to go dancing. Had a fabulous time with fabulous people. The rest of the weekend next day we just hung out at the beach and pool bar. We definitely got our fill of all inclusive food and drinks! Last day there we explored the boardwalk, got some McDonalds and did some shopping before we headed back on the boat. Ride back wasn't so fun. I got pretty sea sick, but all in all it was an amazing trip.
The second half of 3rd semester was an absolute blur. It was like we got back from break and it was like we jumped into warp speed. All the greatness of the first half of the semester quickly vanished. It was like all the professors were like " oh you guys are keeping up with the info well here is double that in a third of the time. Oh and by the way all that intro stuff doesn't matter, but you need to memorize everything from here on!" Going into finals I honestly thought I wasn't going to make it out alive.
The only good part of the second semester was the impromptu visit by friend Steve. I honestly saw that he posted he got a job in Florida on FB. I wrote "yay now you live even closer to St. Kitts! so you can come and visit!" Steve says " actually what are you doing before August 8th?" And with only 2 weeks to plan he came to visit 2 weeks before finals. Funny thing is Steve and I hadn't seen each other in almost a year. It was a crazy fun packed week. He got in on a Wednesday, we dropped his stuff off, headed to the Marriott for some tropical drinks, then ended the night at the Professor cook off. The next day while I was in class, Steve did his Discover SCUBA pool session at the Marriott then had delicious sushi in the rain and I unfortunately had to study for my clin path quiz I had the next day which I along with most of the class ended up failing anyway! haha Friday took my quiz than headed to pro divers who took us on two of the most incredible dives I have ever been on! Got an amazing pic of Steve and a sea turtle (you're welcome!!) we saw eels, eagle rays, lobsters, puffer fish, trumpet fish, sea turtles just to name a few! After the dives we headed to port for some fat tuesdays, johnny cakes and souvenir shopping then followed it up with some beach volley ball of course! Then a huge group of us headed to the movies to see bat man. Next day was beach day at Ship Wreck where Steve attempted to teach me how to do a back flip off the dock! Then out to a delicious dinner at Carambola's for Liz's bday, pregaming at a friends house and than headed to port for a party at Cloud 9. It was a phenomenal night, even though Steve couldn't party as hard as us Vet students do ;) Sunday we headed to obedience class than powder puff football then napped the rest of the day. Monday we ended up going on an early morning paddle board tour which turned from calm to a little rain, to what felt like a hurricane! It was crazy, but sooo fun (minus falling off my board and having to swim for what felt like forever to get back to it). Went to class for rest of the day and planned on going to the casino that night, but instead stayed in and Steve taught me how to play Texas hold'em (which thankfully we were not playing with real money since he cleaned me out!). Tues started out as a stormy day when I was in class, but turned into a beautiful afternoon out on Reggae beach which had some amazing snorkeling and delicious drinks. Steve's last day we went to class in the morning and then appealed to his artistic side and took him to Caribelle Batik where he got all artsy fartsy on me before I took him to the airport. It was a crazy jam packed week, but it was so awesome to finally have a visitor. I think I am a pretty good vacation planner so I hope it made everyone jealous so now they will com visit me :)
As soon as Steve left I pretty much sat in the Library and never moved until finals were over. I think they need to put in napping rooms so students that are pulling all nighters in the library have some place to lay down to at least get a power nap in! There were definitely times that I had small emotional meltdowns (about pharm especially) but I pushed through it and made it to 4th!!!
Alright I will finally post this so then I can start writing up about last break and 4th semester...slowly but surely
