Lessons Learned from Midterms Week....

Ok so I was supposed to put this up beforeee that previous post about Sandblast but of course, I forgot...so here's a blog out of order

1) Midterm week sucks:
1 midterm per day for 5 days = distraught people


After a good week or so without doing anything other drinking gallons of coffee and pretty much living in the library,  everyone was on edge and people were flipping out on each other.  It didn't help that the Anatomy department threw us a curve ball and added a bunch more material 3 days before our midterm.  And then to make it better, we were tested on material that we were never taught.  So after all the midterms pretty much bitch slapped us all in the face, a few people "had a nervous breakdown" by the 4th day, two people straight up left the island before the midterm week was even over and one person threw up on our course director during the Anatomy exam (she swears it was food poisoning but we think it might have been nerves).  I'm surprised majority of us made it out alive.  Too bad this is nothing compared to the rest of the tests that we're all eventually going to have to take.   I guess this is why med students have a high rate of suicide and I guess that's why the school throws us parties and booze cruises with free alcohol so that we have some way to let it out.  

scaryyyy

2) We're not in Kansas anymore.So the school sponsored a booze cruise the day after midterms was over for us.  But somehow a lot of the local people ended up coming.  I wish I could have taken more pictures of the insanity that happened.  The booty shaking was insane - it was like their butt had a mind of its own and everything was pretty much like a huge orgy.  This is the only picture that I could take.  This was one of the tamer things I saw.  The rest is not appropriate for blogging.



3) Buying my little red poncho from CVS for $5 was the best thing I ever did before leaving NY:

It's rainy season and they call it that for a reason.  It will be sunny one minute and the next, it will be raining buckets of water. 

I'm just so cool

Umbrellas are no help as the rain falls in every which direction it wants - up, down, and sideways.  Sometimes, you can literally see the rain cloud making its way from the sea to the island.  It's pretty cool...until you get stuck in it.  In the beginning, when it would just drizzle for a few minutes at a time, people looked at me funny for wearing it.  But now, after weeks of intense storming, people are jealous of my awesome little red poncho because it covers my enormous book bag and protects my precious laptop, textbooks and notes.  And of course, I'm sure they're jealous of how great it looks on me haha.  

So thank you, little red poncho, for letting me venture out in the storms and letting me get to my spot in the library before anyone else can steal it.

4) During Rainy Season in the Caribbean, there is no "let's wait for the storm to pass":

a storm's a-comin!

During dinner the night before my Biochem midterm, we had seen lighting clouds out at sea.  But like I said, since it's rainy season, it really wasn't a big deal.  However, it just so happened to be my luck that this storm was the mother of all storms.  And it hit around 10pm while I was still in the library.  So we decided to "wait it out" because it literally rained so hard that it was just sheets of water and we couldn't really see the next building.  But then 10 mins into the rainstorm, the lightning started and it shook the entire building and it sounded like the entire island was getting struck.  

midnight during a lighting storm

The lighting storm was crazy and while it was awesome to watch from indoors, it was kinda scary since we didn't know if the power was going to go out from it.  Finally at 12:30am, the lightning stopped striking every 5 mins so we made a run for the bus stop.  But of course, the roads were all flooded and we were stuck on campus...until 2am.  Which was awesome since my Biochem midterm was at 8am and I needed to be back on campus at 7am.  And I wanted to shoot myself in the face the next morning cause I was so tired and that was not how I wanted to start off my midterm week.  Good thing I'm super human and managed to do decently well on little sleep.

5) Caribbean = Bigger bugs

It must be the warm temperature or something but the bugs here are a lot bigger than they are at home.  The stupid mosquitoes take more blood from me and they're fatter here.  The crickets are disturbingly more jumpier and larger.  And the cockroaches are bigger and crunchier sounding than at home.  And they

Baby roach - adults are 4x this

can sorta fly.  I hate them. I hate them with a passion.  We can't crush them cause if they're females, their eggs would go flying everywhere or we'd get it on our shoes and track them everywhere so we can only

catch them in a cup and throw them off our balcony.  But then they make this gross scraping sound against the cup when they try to get out.  I blame my roommate for leaving food out and attracting these bugs into our room in the first place.  She also keep turning off our AC, making our room nice and humid for bugs to want to play in.  Guess that's why Karma had a cockroach fall on her pillow while she was getting ready to sleep.  I don't have a good picture of these monster roaches because we're usually too busy trying to make sure it doesn't hide our in our luggage or something but I did manage to take a picture of this baby roach in a cup.

6) Unofficial Library friends are the new Real life friends.

So it turns out that there are other people who are just like me - always in the library in the same spot day in and day out.  I call them the "Usuals" and we've all pretty much sat in the same spots next to each other for the past two months.  We have never really spoken more than maybe like 5 words to each other and because we're all socially awkward and antisocial, we have never attempted to find out what each other names are or anything personal.  And we have a non-verbal understanding that we will look out for each other and protect our spots and our belongings from the "Others" (aka the random stragglers who only come in once in a while and think they can sit wherever they want).   And we also warn each other when there is an "Other" who may have a particularly weird smell sitting next to where we want to sit.  And best of all, there is no pressure to be real friends - if we see each other on campus outside the library and we just smile and say hello and move on.  Unofficial Library friends are perfect for my anti-social lifestyle.

There is one particular couple that I like from the Usuals.  They're short and blond and they hold hands sometimes while studying (at first I thought this was weird but now I think its cute).  We're not really allowed to have anything in the library besides water and security walks around to check but we all bring in snacks and coffee anyways cause we'd die without it.  And my little blond couple saved me from getting yelled at when I was eating my peanut butter sandwich at my cube.  And then another time, little blond boy ran after me after I left my eraser on my desk by accident right before my midterm.  How nice.  Little blond girl has also tried to share snacks with me.  I think she may feel bad for me because I look angry all the time. haha. 

6a) Strangers are also awesome: 

Like the old man who works in the bookstore.  He has a strong accent and half the time I have no idea what he's saying but he laughs so I laugh and somehow it makes my day better.  He also makes fun of me cause he can see me struggling up that damn hill every day.  And yesterday, we sang along to Bruno Mar's Marry You together when it came on the radio cause he remembered I had told him I liked him last week.  It was a nice fun little moment we shared together and it made me happy that he remembered what we talked about.

Also, on Monday, the bus driver gave me a banana and some guava that he had brought from his farm because he said I looked like I was having a bad day and maybe some fresh fruit would make me feel better.   Which was super nice because I wassss having a bad day and the fresh fruit didddd make me feel a little better.

Nice people make me happy.  See???? Who needs to be social and make friends when strangers care about me? hahaha