The Nature Of The Beast

There are certain truths about life in Grenada. For instance, one’s expectations of what is “convenient” must shift for maximal adaptation. There are those among us, including myself from time to time, that either forget this fact, or never learned it in the first place. Case in point – summer storage.

The “well adjusted” perspective would realize that it is incredible that the school not only thought to provide us with it, but seems to have SOME sort of system in place with which we can in fact place belongings in between terms.

Then there is the “But, I’m still in America” perspective. This outlook is appalled at everything ranging from the sparse hours that are available to actually place your things in aforementioned storage location to the fact that there is a disclaimer stating that SGU is NOT responsible for any stolen or damaged items. Furthermore, they are enraged at the shear number of logistics they are being asked to undertake themselves in order to be moved out in the time and manner outlined by the housing office.

In the words of one of my favorite bloggers and fellow students, all I can say is, T.I.G.

The sooner you take it to heart, the better off you’ll feel.

P.S. - finals went beautifully, now all I have to do is take the PMSCE on Monday and I'll be home onThursday!!

Miss Manners

I know we’re all a tad stressed out heading in to the home stretch here, but I’m not completely sure how that needs to correlate with the state of affairs in Taylor Hall these days. To start with, when I arrived at this palatial hall of perfect cubicles and wireless internet this morning, it was looking much less than it’s usual pristine self. There was trash everywhere. Partially filled water bottles were strewn all around, candy wrappers, plastic bags, a sticky dried soda spill……At some point before 9:00 AM the cleaning staff came through. But, I honestly don’t think that they should be picking up our trash.

Cut to later this evening – same location. I left for an hour and change to eat and breathe a bit. But, knowing that I needed to keep my claim clear on my favorite spot, I, like most of us, left behind some items to make it obvious that this particular cubicle was spoken for. These items were not at all small and hard to notice. I left a sweatshirt hanging over the back of the chair, two books (one of them is approximately 4 inches thick and bright red – pretty hard to miss), and some notes. When I returned, in addition to what I had left there, I saw an empty backpack on top of the desk along with a huge stack of notes, an ID with attached keys, and a cell phone.

Perhaps I wasn’t clear – this is not the storage cubicle. I’ve been sitting in the SAME spot since 6:45 AM this morning. I asked out loud whose things they were only to discover that they belonged to the gentleman on my right. He reluctantly took back his things and assembled them at his OWN cubicle immediately adjacent to the one I had been using. I was shocked that there was absolutely no attempt at an apology. It was more a look of resentment for coming back and crowding his personal space even more in these anxious days of cramming.

So, to you in the red shirt on my right I say – I am sorry that your manners got left at your departure terminal. I do hope you find them soon.


Now, back to the male reproductive system. May "Red Shirt Guy" use it with caution.


Yes. Finals really do bring out the best in moi.

Free Flowing

Yes, I had a birthday.

I think the silence for the past (almost) two weeks has been a strange avoidance of public acknowledgement on my part – with an emphasis on MY PART. My friends and family definitely made sure that I knew that I was loved. Starting the Friday before the Wednesday that was my birthday with a gathering at one of my new favorite island spots for pizza (yeah, you read that right – p-i-z-z-a), live music, and happy hour. This was followed by dinner at Dodgey Dock, which is also becoming a favorite, on my actual birthday. One of my roommates for next term is a woman of many talents who made me a lucky crane (origami folks, she didn’t genetically engineer it) – it’s quite perfect actually. I’ve always been impressed with anyone that can do extremely complicated things with extremely uncomplicated paper.

Speaking of interesting hobbies, I am working on getting my PADI open water diving certification. I figure there’s no better time or place. The water here is absolutely beautiful and I hear there are some pretty amazing things to see in terms of critters and shipwrecks. There’s also an underwater sculpture garden.

So far, I’ve finished the theory part of the course and the confined pool dives. I ended up having to sign up alone since in a comedy of errors all those previously insisting that they were gung ho somehow managed to have a “good reason” why they couldn’t actually hand over the plastic when the time came. Okay, some of you really did have a good reason, but I can still gripe about it dammit.

Sigh.

BUT – it’s not so bad. I ended up meeting some really great first termers who I did the confined pool dive with (1.5 full days in the pool at the Calabash Hotel does wonders for the pruned skin look if you’re into that) and am very much looking forward to a first open water dive with them this coming Friday. We are going to the afore mentioned underwater sculpture garden, some place called Flamingo Bay, and a shipwreck called The Veronica – if you ask me it sounds like it was doomed from the start (apologies if your name is in fact Veronica).

I think the most amazing thing I learned during confined dive was what to do with a free flowing regulator. When I read about this in the manual you are given to read for the theory portion of the course, it didn’t really make sense. Then, when asked to execute it, I was utterly confused at first. The point is, if your regulator (the apparatus that you breathe out of while diving) begins to expel it’s oxygen continuously for some reason, you have to figure out how to manage to breathe from the air that is escaping like vital meds out of a ruptured IV bag. So, you tilt your head to the right, hold the right side of the regulator in your mouth and let the left side remain out. The air flows out through the left side from which you “sip” it. You would think that you’d end up with water in your lungs instead of air, but you actually can manage to only take in the air.

Frankly, I was dumbfounded. It took me a while to believe that I was actually going to get air in my lungs instead of water, so like the cautious child, I watched everyone else do it first before proceeding. Of course, once that’s over you’re almost out of air, so if it were anything other than a simulation I guess you’d have to pray that your dive buddy had enough for two.

Speaking of things flowing, we started pulmonary physiology today and it’s pretty fantastic that several of the basic principles lectured on today were covered in the dive manual.

Gotta love being inadvertently ahead – even if it’s only by a millisecond.


Hey, I never said I wasn’t neurotic.