Sabaoke

Tonight was the first weekend after our 2nd block exams and much like the first exam weekend, it was quite an adventure. While 1st block was quite a bit more depressing, my fellow classmates and I still took advantage of tonight and spent it as a typical Caribbean vacation night. Fifteen of us took a terrifying cab ride up and around the island up to a stunning little hotel located further north of campus, and fuck was it a roller coaster getting there. Right before we actually arrived to the hotel we had to drive up an unbelievably steep hill; it was literally like a 35 degree incline. We had to get some acceleration into a rolling start because the cab was too overweight (the shit-mobile that it was didn't help at all either). Anyways, we arrive at the restaurant/hotel to be greeted by the owners with a beautiful balcony overlooking the eastern side of the island, a nice pool in the center, and the stars calmly relaxing up above. A friend and I split some quality Merlot as neither of us has had any wine in nearly three months and fuck was it satisfying. With a small portioned filet mignon and a tiramisu for dessert, it was a dinner none of us would get to enjoy again for at least another month. Dinner ending only at 10pm, we still had the entire night in front of us; we all ended up heading down to Scout's Place, a decently sized bar with sabaoke (the island's version of karaoke), and met up with a handful of other students and started a long road into the night. The locals along with plenty of first and third semesters took hand of the mics as they sang some tunes for the rest of the bar. Shockingly I stood up there with three other buddies as we shouted out the lyrics to Californication. Three hours and countless drinks later, we headed over to another bar called Guido's, and yeah it's pretty ghetto in there. Loud music, a dance floor, and some bright blinking lights were all we needed to finish the night off.

There most likely won't be another night like this at least until the end of the month, which is quite upsetting. We all get along very well together as we can all relate to each other's suffering and it's rare that everyone gets to spend an alcoholic filled journey with one another. Like high school and college, after these two years of basic sciences, we all head our separate ways, and so what time we do spend together is treasured quite a bit, although not everyone may realize it (also considering that 114% of the students are Canadian, they're pretty far away from me and each other). With Halloween approaching, I'm interested in seeing what creative costumes some of us are able to conjure up; should be an amusing month.

October

It honestly feels like I've been here for a year now, that's how slow time passes here, but unfortunately it's only been a month. It's a depressing thought of having to spend October way down here int he middle of fucking nowhere; fall is my favorite season of year and it also happens to be the month of my birthday, yet I don't get to experience or enjoy the benefits. Seeing your breath for the first time with the leaves gradually shifting colors just makes you feel like a necessary change is finally approaching. Simply knowing that you'll see the same scenery over and over again for the two year stay just isn't very satisfying. I've always been someone who hated being exposed to the same shit time and time again, which makes this whole experience all the more interesting - how the fuck did I end up here? I hope a crunchy brown leaf finds its way here somehow.

I briefly read through my previous posts and realized that not once have I had something good to say about this island, other than the view, and thought I'd enlighten you guys with the wonderful parts of this little volcano.

1. The air conditioner has a remote.

That's it.

Furthermore, today was the day of our 2nd block exams, After the exam, all the tension that's been built up for the past three weeks have been lifted. Too bad that of the last four weeks of sunny weather, today was the one day it rained all day. Apparently another hurricane formed on top of us, and while we completely avoided the storm, we still got hit by the rain (and fuck was it a lot of rain). With the elevation of our dorm being so high, we're pretty much covered by clouds when it rains here; it got to the point where we couldn't even see down the street from the balcony of our dorm.

On a completely random note, I fucking hate the fact that obnoxious idiots with  absolutely no education or any ability to speak proper English work the dorms. I understand that idiots manage to inhabit more places than they should, but for once I wish they could've hired English affluent people to work in a dorm full of medical students; this is an English speaking school/island after all. I accidentally left a $40 pen in my scrubs when I was throwing them in the laundry, so I later go down to ask the people working the laundry machines if they had seen a pen, they did and they set it aside somewhere, but they don't remember where and didn't want to bother looking for it (at least that's what I think they said, bitches). Obviously I shouldn't have been so careless with the pen, but for anyone who keeps track of things I lose, I've lost one thing in the last six years, which was that SAME fucking pen I re-bought; shits cursed.

The Big Leagues

My name was called today along with the other half of the class as the professor handed us a piece of paper. Wondering what the fuck it was I open it up to see the first line reading, 'You have been chosen at random for a drug screening.' I laugh a bit then continue to wonder why the fuck this school administers drug tests - since when is medical school a professional sport? I mentioned before how the professors purposefully make the first semester exams significantly harder to weed out as many possible students, I'm assuming that these drug screens are just another game this school likes to throw at the students to fail us out. I can understand that the school would not want their students to be using drugs while on the island, but honestly who the fuck cares? It's unlikely that anyone using the enormous list of study aid drugs, adderall (any others? nope), would be taking advantage of it to the point where they're cheating in their studies, let alone making it into medical school in the first place had they been abusing drugs. Any other drugs are most likely going to be used for recreational purposes. The fact that they also look for traces of marijuana is just mind boggling. I also find it amusing that the drug screening is administered EXACTLY one month since we've first arrived on this island. Let the toxins flush out of our systems from our wild youth and acceptance celebrations. It's possible that since we're on foreign soil, they would want students to avoid any mishaps with the locals and all two police officers, but if you've seen this island I'm pretty sure everyone here is on drugs. If that is the case however, then it is slightly more reasonable, but they could've used other means than to surprise us all with stupid shit like this. With the big Dr. Auction party just this past Saturday, nearly all those present at the party were called for the screening with the exception of a few students who weren't there. But more likely of the cases, I've heard that these 'random' screenings aren't so random. They are usually sent out only once, at this point of the semester, and are directed towards those who are currently failing (with 74% of our class failing, the school is going to have a lot of piss to look through), not because they think the drugs are affecting their studies, but rather because they do not want to kick out the ones who may be doing drugs but are also doing well - where the fuck are the ethics in that? Missing your appointment for the screening also means that you are 'assumed' to be positive and your action will be taken 'very seriously.' The school warns us for a dozen different inappropriate actions all leading to a 'very serious' consequence. Just fucking say we will be kicked out instead of beating around the bush with your overly sized ego covered stick.

That's another reason why I absolutely hate this school; they're so unbelievably strict on nearly every single matter when it comes to not only student's rights, but also on matters like attendance, internet usage, etc. You wonder why this school in particular has such an amazing USMLE step 1 performance, well it's because they do not let students pass unless they are guaranteed to pass it. You could waste two agonizing years and $75,000+, all to fail your 5th semester classes or the NBME (exam required to be allowed to take the USMLE step 1). But don't get me wrong, this school definitely prepares the students (who go on to make it) the best for the upcoming USMLEs and performance in the future medical field, But the struggle through this school's academic praise is in no way worth it compared to other schools. I just found out too that my school teaches us extra shit that other medical schools don't even touch. SGU, another Caribbean medical school part of 'the big four' had twenty students fail out the first semester out of 500; we've already had over fifteen students of ninety-seven drop out after only one fucking exam.

I've got nothing to worry about concerning this randomized drug screen test, and apparently since it's to be only once a semester, happy drugging to all.

Doctor's auction

Once a year there's an event at our school called the doctor's auction where a bunch of random shit are auctioned off; anything from the professor's time to student baked food. All I have to say is that it was a very fun night (not because of the auction). Some of my friends auctioned themselves off selling their own time or teaching piano lessons etc. There were a lot of massages being auctioned (no happy endings were included as they mentioned) as well as miscellaneous things such as scuba diving lessons, internet cards, dinner and drinks to restaurants, dates with girls and guys. Apparently last year, one of the professor's rastafarian hats sold for $400 while he himself sold for $1,200.

There were at least a hundred students there which was pretty good for a tiny fucking bar on the side of the road. It was a good night to network with the older semester students and I continued to meet some more people in my class. If you've ever wondered whether a doctor smokes or not or why they smoke for that matter, you haven't been to medical school. Roughly a quarter of the students here smoke, while some picked it up after the first block exams.

Other than the auctioning portion of the night, I got to enjoy a lot of beers, shots, and mixed drinks. I haven't had this much to drink even in college - let's just say I was drunk enough to actually start dancing with everyone else, which doesn't happen very often. Walking back at 2am was a fucking blast. There was no point taking a cab back to the dorm because it was literally a five minute walk down the hill, but these roads are such shit that I was tripping all over the place. It was a perfect night for a walk though with a cool breeze flowing through and the stars peeking their faces out from behind the clouds (I managed to see the moon for the first fucking time since I've been here). I ran into a friend who was still awake and after talking to her for a bit, I said I should stop talking because I probably sound like an idiot not having been this drunk in a long while, then someone mentioned that I'm functionally drunk, so I continued to blabber on about the whatever something I think I was talking about. I felt a little sick going to bed, but the greatest part of drinking too much is that you just pass out, no need of 'trying' to fall asleep. I haven't been hung over since high school, and waking up I had no idea if I was actually going to have a hangover. You always wake up fine, but the minute you sit up it hits you like the Super Star Destroyer hit the Death Star... very explosively. So I tell Neil to watch because I was probably going to fall over as soon as I stand up from the bed, but luckily I didn't fall, I just tripped over flat ground into a door.

Firsts.

There have now been a few things that I've done on this island that I either haven't had the chance to do at home or never got around to doing (or forced to do).

I went for a run for the first time the other day up around the island. And when I say 'went' for a run, it was about a quarter mile before i said, fuck this, and turned around. I knew the run was going to be difficult for a few reasons. One being that I haven't done any cardio in at least two months now, but mostly because I was running up a ridiculously steep incline - this is the same road hitch hiked along, and let's just say it didn't seem as steep in a car. I'd guess the incline was around 15-20 degrees the entire run (srsly), after a quarter mile of looping around the face of the mountain, I was already several hundred feet above from where I started. Several cars passed by while I was suffering through the run and then up came a car with this fat white kid with a Jew fro lounging on the back of a rusted pickup truck staring at me like I was an idiot, and while running up this road might've appeared like a stupid decision, that look coming from an obese 13 yr old with a pig face and the dressing fashion of some southern white trash's trashcan that got mauled by a bear raises the question of who's the real idiot. The next day I was walking back to my dorm from the convenient store near the foot of the mountain and realized just how high I actually got, then said to myself, 'I'm awesome.'

Another first that I haven't done in awhile was drinking soda. I may have had beer, Redbull, and other carbonated drinks somewhere along the road, but no coke or sprite, etc. I would've liked to have kept avoiding those drinks, but living on this island severely limits the choices given to you for beverages - and plenty of other shit. I managed to stay hidden from soda for nearly 4 months, but it finally found me. Going down to my stomach was rough, I don't remember coke and sprite having such a burning sensation, but I guess when you're out of the soda drinking business for a few months it sneaks up on you and fucks you in the throat.

So I'm pretty sure none of the locals on this island have ever heard of a haircut - or a shower for that fact. I've been around the town a few times now and never saw a barber or a hairdresser shit thing, so I took it upon myself to grab a pair of scissors and go at it Han style, solo. I ended up spending a good 2 hours in front of a tiny fucking mirror cutting an area of hair  I CAN'T FUCKING SEE. And looking at the back of your head requires 2 mirrors, but oh wait this island is too cheap to sell mirrors (I actually haven't looked but it's a safe assumption). So I used a little piece of reflective metal and well... I think it worked, haven't heard anyone ask wtf is up with my hair. I'll probably just end up growing it out like I always do during the semester.

I've also gone to every class so far (except 1 because of drinking too much and staying up way too late after the first block exams (plenty of others joined me for that one so no worries)) for the first time in awhile. But that's just due to the fact that we have fucking attendance in class. While it is reasonable that they don't want students missing class and failing out (failing out more easily that is ), 8 out of 10 people I've talked to don't even pay attention in class. The profs go way too fast and in too much detail to fully be able to keep up with them (and it's stupid to ask to go slower because we WILL fall behind and have class over the weekends). It's better to zone out during their lectures and learn the thing on your own in class. It's also quite difficult, for me at least, to pay attention when I'm falling asleep at my desk. That extra 2 hours of sleep I'd gain from skipping histo lectures would do me wonders for anatomy because I actually do listen to that shit. During my last semester at Umass, I went to a grand total of one lecture for my sociology class.

I also started doing my physical therapy exercises for my herniated disc for the first time in half a year. Since getting my third lumbar epidural steroid injection in June, my active 'fix my back' motive kind of went to shit since the pain was alleviated to some extent. But obviously there is no place here where I can really get another injection, and sitting for the majority of the day studying and listening to lecture is the worst fucking thing I can do my back right now; I need to delay the onset of pain again for as long as possible before returning to the states. I've always hated relying on medicine and drugs to relieve pain and to get rid of colds etc, but knowing that this herniated disc will never heal on its own is pretty depressing. Physical therapy will help but it's no solution, so I've started wondering if I should take a more invasive view on this whole ordeal. My doc recommended my other getting injections into the articular facet joints (for those of you who know some anatomy, these are structures on the lamina of the vertebrae which articulate with the adjacent superior and inferior vertebrae) or I can burn the sensory nerves (sensory nerves would probably be a better fix, and don't worry about spinal injuries because your spinal cord ends at L2 and this would be at the L4-L5 junction (I've already forgotten some of the spinal section and I'm much too lazy to go read it up, but the L4 nerve root (branches to dorsal rami at the level of T11) is still responsible for general somatic afferent and efferent (GSA - GSE) signals, so there could be risks involved. I honestly don't know enough about it to assume anything, but it helps to know a little bit.)) (*edit* - The sciatic nerve has root values from L4,5,S1,2,3 and so fucking this up will pretty much fuck over my legs; there are nearly 30 innervations from this nerve responsible for posterior and lateral parts of my legs). Anyways, I've drifted from the main topic of this post, but you guys now know that even on an island with such little to do and with plenty of studying to do, I've still got other shit to think about (like how the fuck am I going to watch the season premiere of House and How I Met Your Mother tonight? FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU)

Another first, missing tv shows. Anyone who knows me knows that tv shows are the most important part of the day to me. This is absolute torture and I want to burn, destroy, and flush this island into the sea for making me writhe in pain while 20 million viewers enjoy some of my favorite shows and 1 dedicated viewer ISN'T viewing.

imagination is more important than knowledge

I've come to realize lately that I've been having more and more ideas of shit I want to write and just do when I get back home. On the days where I have some time off, I find myself writing quite often, not just the blog, but also more short stories, adding a few extra paragraphs to Faint, the book I started last year, and just concepts for other stories I'd like to one day start if I get out of here alive. When I think about it, I probably shouldn't even be writing, let alone write these blogs, as I should probably spend the time studying, but I love to write and personally find it more important than med school because simply put, I enjoy it more, and the brief chances I get of doing what I love is what keeps me going on this rock.

With the unusual changes in lifestyle from my norm, my general condition, hygiene, diet, health, sanity, etc, has been declining. To make up for that, I've decided on a few things I'm going to do first thing when I land back on flat, non-erupting, internet friendly, food worthy, population dense, water running, technology rich, snow covered ground.

1. Turn the faucet on and keep it running for the next week. I need to waste the water I've been conserving somehow right?
2. Lock myself in a movie theater and catch up on every single movie I've been missing for the past 4 months.
3. Sell all the low priced alcohol I bought here to stupid high school kids to make back the money spent for med school.
4. Eat 4 months worth of missed meals.
5. Go to the gym and work out for 6 weeks straight non-stop without rest.
6. Take all my pent up anger and beat the fuck out of the first bird I see.
7. Open a Taco Bell back on the island and make bank. Seriously, I found myself saying I want taco bell more often than I said I hate this place. True story.
8. Find a Taco Bell and drain the state of taco shells.
9. Burn every textbook within a mile of my house
And finally.
10. Sleep. There's nothing I love more in this world than my fantastically soft, pillow covered bed.

and the results are in...

The last 2 weeks have been hell for everyone in my class for the first block exams. Not knowing what to expect for the exams in regards to questions, format, and approximate length it would take for each individual student. I was pretty sure going into this the range I would score. I was also pretty confident that our class was going to do pretty well overall because there are honestly some intelligent and very capable people here. Well it's nice to know that I was completely wrong in predicting the outcome of our classes average.

73% failed.

Of the 102 students in our Anatomy class, several of which are from the semester before us retaking the course, 74 students failed the exam.

I was probably the 10th person to be finished with the exam so I got to see a lot of my fellow classmates walk out the door. Some shouted fuck, others walked out with shrugged shoulders mouthing wtf was that?, others with tears running down their face. All I can say is that there were very very few people that weren't showing some sign of suicidal thoughts. Within an hour of the end of the exam, nearly everyone in my dorm was wielding a beer in their hand trying to cheer up. Me and a few others went out to get some lunch to try and brighten up the day while simultaneously blur the day with the cheapest alcohol on the planet. A .750 of vodka back in Amherst was around $17-18?. Fucking $8 for a liter here. This miserable island just got a little better.

I got to spend the majority of the day actually getting to know the rest of my class which I've been wanting to do for the few weeks I've been here now. In times of stress here we all just tend to socialize and come to be friends with one another, although I'm sure that the fact that about 95% of the class was drunk tonight helped the process. I stopped by my friend's room and tried to cheer him up with some pizza and a beer. It's just tough to imagine so many people down and unbelievably upset at once, but you just gotta stay optimistic and stick together. And get fucked up. Regardless, having been late to the school because of Hurricane Fuck, it was time for some overdue meet and greet with the dorm mates. Drinking and talking tonight with the others was probably the best night I've had in a long while, except for the scary encounter me and one other had with this fucking crazy local. This guy, Michael, somehow came to talking with me and 7 others. Must have been in his 40s and just overall bad condition, hygiene, health, sanity. Anyways, 5 of the others ended up getting a ride to some house while we were supposed to follow, but that didn't happen. Michael starts talking about some random shit and having us answer some questions about fucking pointless things. I may have been drunk, but I was sober enough to realize that this was not where I wanted to be; with that in mind I was definitely ready to either run or save my buddy... and then run. Some time later we end up getting back with a near horror story to tell the others and continued our drinking with the clock now approaching 11. No one cared about the 9 hours of lecture we have tomorrow and just enjoyed this day as if it were a vacation in the Caribbean.

On another note, I just finished watching the season finale for both Entourage and True Blood tonight and must say I fucking hate these writers. No one likes cliff hangers and the fact that HBO had 2 HUGE cliff hangers for both these shows just makes me want to cry myself to sleep, but no need to cry about the tv shows because we're all too busy crying about our failed exams; what a glorious day it's been today. I'm almost certain people are getting to know me as the guy who shouts and curses at the top of his lung from day to night in his room, and I can't help but laugh because I really do (mostly from trying to download 600mb files going at 20kb/s which is about 7 hours of expensive internet, then it disconnecting and losing my progress). For instance, just last night I finished studying after a grueling day of solid work. Spent about $8 worth of internet downloading Entourage and finally winding down for the night to relax, the fucking file was corrupted. It's the shit like this that I can't stand on this rock.

Fuck passing Med School, I just want my internet.