Second term thus far has been fab. It is so much better than first term by leaps and bounds. We have morning classes and small groups twice a week starting in three weeks, so I have so much more free time than last term. I have already developed a nasty nap habit where I take a minimum two hour nap. Daily.

Yet on the flipside, I have established a good gym routine where I get up early in the morning before class to work out. So far I've been able to make it four times a week, and I feel so much better physically, more than anything. It's not about vanity, it's about being healthy. And it's such a great stress reliever and way to start the day.

I am scared of Neuro this term, that I'm going to have a hard time with it. I am excited about everything else though - even Community and Preventative Medicine. I love learning about disease epidemiology and public health. 

Hopefully by the time I am established and practicing, this country will be offering universal health care. That would pretty much make my entire life. A healthy nation is a successful nation. The nation can't be healthy as a whole if its people are not going to the doctor because they can't pay for it. If there is anything the government should spend money on, it's that. Or at least once we get all of our problems fixed and we're out of the shithole Bush left us in. 

I didn't cry when Obama won, I didn't cry during his inauguration speech, but I cried when I saw Obama and his wife dance their first dance to Beyonce singing "At Last." True story.

I have decided that I am going to make the valiant effort of updating this thing more often. To talk about my experiences here at school. I brought an actual journal with me, but who am I kidding - I am a child of the LiveJournal generation, why bother writing the old fashioned way when you can have such luxuries as the backspace key. 

So I got here (here being Grenada, West Indies) in August of 2008: scared shitless, shy as always, and not looking forward to having a room mate for the first time in my life. Orientation week was like being in some sort of surreal universe; I couldn't believe that this was where I would be living for two years. I soon came to love it - love it! - and am now probably the happiest I've been, ever. I have made amazing friends, am studying material that I love and gives me a drive to study, and I get to do it on this peaceful, laid-back, beautiful little island. Every day I sent up a Thank You to whoever is up there that deemed me worthy enough of such an honor. I really mean that.

I don't miss my old job one bit. I was home for three weeks for Christmas and I saw seven shows in those three weeks. I am so impressed with myself. There are of course some things I didn't get to do (melissa, this means you, darling), and I regret it, but I will be home soon and will put said things at the top of my list.

We are doing parasitology now, as a brief 8-day one credit course, and all of the disgusting shit I learned from Para in undergrad is rearing its ugly head, this time with pictures way more graphic and detailed. All of you non-medically orientated folk should thank their lucky stars that they'll never have to see a prolapsed rectum in their life. Or what an Ascaris infection looks like coming out of the anus of an eight year old boy. And then of course they follow that slide up with a picture of the same organism coming out of his nostrils. 

There is a Thailand Selective that I am wrestling with - to go or not to go. Pros: It's in Thailand. It's working with Thai doctors and getting a small taste of international medicine and how it is administered in their country. Have I mentioned its in Thailand? Cons: It's only a measly eleven days long. And I won't be on my own time. And there's some sort of instability right now with their airports, horror stories of people getting plucked on their way out and murdered.

More cons than pros means I probably shouldn't go, eh? 

Blame my Canadian room mate for rubbing off on me and instilling "eh" into my vocabulary. I am doing the same, making her pronounce pasta the right way: "Pah-stah." 

That's it for now. I have two finals next week and I took a four hour nap today (shame on me), so I better get the books cracking.