Support turtles in St. Kitts!

We have an organization on St. Kitts that was started by a Ross student a while ago called St. Kitts Sea Turtle Monitoring Network.  If you go to this website or download the search toolbar and use it as your usual search engine, any charity that you choose (based in the US) can receive $0.01 for every thing you search.  I highly recommend choosing the St. Kitts Sea Turtle Monitoring Network as your charity.  The Leatherback Sea Turtle, Green Sea Turtle, and Hawksbill Sea Turtles will thank you :)  They are the three sea turtles that nest on the beaches on St. Kitts (there was one other species that they recently found nesting on a beach, but I don't think it's confirmed yet that they live here) and they are all endangered.  I am trying to get more involved with the actual program next semester so you should get involved too by donating a penny every time you search.  You don't pay anything and you are on the internet all day anyway. :)

Here's an easy way to raise money for your favorite cause. Just start using Yahoo! powered GoodSearch.com as your search engine and they'll donate about a penny to your favorite cause every time you do a search!

In addition, do all of your shopping through their online shopping mall, GoodShop.com, where you can shop at more than 2,400 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will go to the charity or school of your choice. You pay the same price as you normally would, but a donation goes to your cause!

You can also enroll in the GoodDining program. Eat at over 10,000 participating restaurants nationwide and you can earn up to 6% of every dollar spent on the meal as a donation for your charity or school.

Here's the web site — http://www.goodsearch.com. You can also read about GoodSearch in the NY Times, Oprah Magazine, CNN, ABC News and the Wall Street Journal.

Turtleneck and chain, sippin' on a light beer

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone!  I had to study for an anatomy quiz last night, so I will actually be having a potluck dinner with some friends tonight instead.  So my Thanksgiving has yet to come :)
As much as everyone was talking about Thanksgiving this year (which seemed like it was more than usual for whatever reason), it seemed like not many people were actually thankful for much.  I just kept seeing complaints that people "had" to do stuff they didn't want to do, or they weren't able to do whatever they wanted.  Seriously, buck up.  Try being thankful that you are able to get an education or that you are able to spend every day on a gorgeous island.  Or maybe just thankful that you get to try new things, like making your first Thanksgiving dinner in a toaster oven.  I'm not real sentimental, but I actually recognize the amazing things in my life every day (more than I say out loud).  It just really gets to me that people spend more time complaining than realizing that their life is not that bad.
On another note, I'll be coming home soon!  My plane leaves on December 19th, but I don't get back to Michigan until December 20th (I had to have an overnight layover in Miami both ways) and then I'll be home until January 3rd.  I'm a little nervous about coming home because I'm really getting used to wearing very lightweight clothes and going back to Michigan means I'll be wearing about 10 extra pounds of clothes, haha!  I don't think I'll be able to leave the couch because my clothes will feel so heavy.  Also, I've lost about 15 pounds since I've been here (yay!) and I'm going to say that a good chunk of that is because there's no fast food here (there's a Subway, but I haven't eaten there...it's SUPER expensive).  And now that I know that I'm going home, I've been craving McDonald's fries like no other.  I'm very excited for it, but I might just gain back those 15 pounds over the 2 weeks I'll be home...
I also really want to go to the Detroit Zoo when I get home.  I hear there have been some awesome changes since this summer.  I never got to see the finished lion exhibit before I left, so I do want to see that (even though the lions probably won't be out), and then we are also getting two orphaned Grizzly Bear cubs!  Our polar bear from Denver went back recently too :( so he is back home in his new habitat.
More grades!  I got a B on my nutrition exam (WAY better than I thought I would do...that one was tough) and an A on my microanatomy exam (only 3 questions wrong!).  I just took an anatomy quiz and I think that went really well too (maybe only 1 question wrong?).  Next up are final exams and I definitely need to get my ass in gear because all of them are cumulative except for one.
Tonight after dinner, I'm going to try to get some of my friends to go out with me.  I haven't gone out in like, 2 weekends so I really need to go dancing :)  We might go to Bamboo, which is almost like a nightclub, or maybe it's what they call a nightclub in St. Kitts lol.  Saturday, a few friends and I are going to Caribelle Batik to get some Christmas presents or just fun presents for Katie :)  We will also be going to Port Zante, which has all of the tourist shops.  They have some really cool stuff and again, I'll probably be looking for Christmas presents.  Check out the link for Caribelle Batik if you get a chance, they make some awesome stuff right there in the shop.  It's all handmade batik, which is a wax dyeing process.
Saturday night: my semester is hosting a beer pong tournament...yes, a drinking tournament. Something I never thought I'd be a part of at an institution of higher education, but I also didn't think I'd go to a place where I could see vervet monkeys outside of my classes.  I'm really bad at beer pong but one of my friends wants to play and his wife is out of town, so we are partners now.  We'll see how that works out.  Being bad at beer pong when your entire class is watching you=not my idea of fun.  But it will be over quickly :)
I wish I had some more exciting stuff to write, but I don't.  I've been studying like my life depends on it, which seems like what I say every time I post.  It's about to get worse though, with finals coming up.  So I wouldn't expect my next post until December 16th at the earliest lol.  Wish me luck!

When all you gotta keep is strong, move along.

Like I said, you don't get better sunsets than in St. Kitts.  And if you think you do, you're wrong.

So, stuff I've been doing...
I never updated about the VIDA trip.  For those of you who have never heard of VIDA (there are chapters everywhere, and not just vet schools), it's basically a club where we go around providing services to people in the community that are in financial need.  Obviously, since we are a vet school, we provide vet services.  It's through a vet on the island and he chooses families that he believes really care about their pets, but just can't afford routine care.  So the clinic I participated in, we went around to a few houses and helped the families out!  There was a lot of tick removal, flea treatment, and basic physical exams.  I learned a TON, considering I've just started vet school and I haven't learned that much yet (in terms of actually caring for pets), so I was shown how to do an entire exam, including respiratory rates, pulse/heart rates (which are two different things.  Did you know that?), palpation of internal organs (I haven't learned that in anatomy yet), drawing blood and doing various SNAP tests.  I attempted a cephalic blood draw, but I was unsuccessful.  But in my defense, a) I'm a first semester.  I don't know anything yet and b) the dog I tried to draw blood on was in REALLY poor condition and his blood pressure was pretty darn low.
So anyway, I learned so much on this trip and overall, it was a great experience.  It was a huge culture shock, though.  In the US, people consider animals to be a family member, which is what I'm used to and of course, I think of PD and Leo as my babies.  But here, it's totally different.  The dogs are almost all outdoor dogs, which would be fine, except that a lot of owners decide that they don't even want to buy pet food for their animals.  We saw one dog in TERRIBLE condition (like, Animal Cops bad) and we asked the owners when the last time he ate was and they said they didn't know.  So we asked what kind of food he usually got, they said they weren't sure.  Sometimes they gave him rice....What?!  Sometimes?  Rice?!  So when we got the dog food out, he scarfed it down.  It was so sad.  And he was so glad just to get some attention.  Then the family's "other" dog came hopping down the street, and I say hopping because THIS DOG HAS HAD A BROKEN LEG FOR ALMOST TWO WEEKS.  Look, vets are understanding people.  If you can't afford to fix the leg, surrender the dog to us and we'll fix it and you don't have to pay for it.  But you can't just let a dog suffer with a broken leg for almost 2 weeks.  Again, that dog was super sweet, but obviously in pain.  So these are just examples of how some people treat their dogs here.  
And let me say that not all dog owners on St. Kitts are that extreme.  They do all pretty much leave their dogs outside and not many of them buy manufactured dog food.  But the dogs typically stay around their houses and the owners make better homemade meals for them (throw in some vegetables and protein and it's not a big deal.  At least the dog won't be starving).  We went to another house where the owner had 3 dogs that were chained up outside (booooo) but at least they all had some shelter and the shelters and dogs were set up in the shade.  He had bowls of food and clean water nearby each of them too.  The dogs were all very friendly and looked well taken care of.  I'm not crazy about leaving them outside (especially in the Caribbean heat), but this owner is at least taking steps to make sure they are comfortable.  
Again, these are just cultural differences too.  If these dogs/owners had grown up in the US, I'm sure that they would have been just as pampered as all of our dogs.  It's just very different from what I'm used to.  I do have to say, I'm glad that my babies were born in the US.

Look at that faaaaace.

Um...and that face.  Well, I like him anyway.

Something else exciting!  I got to go to a World Cup qualifying game!  It was St. Kitts v. Canada, which was slightly more exciting than it would have been with other countries, because I have a connection to Canada.  I drank a Carib, danced to steel drums, and got mashed in with all of the locals behind the goal.  At one point, I separated from my friends and just pushed along with all of the other Kittitians.  I felt like such a local, cheering for our country!  There was no score, and I don't totally know what that means in terms of World Cup qualifiers (I think they get points for a win, a tie, or a lose but I'm not sure), but I had so much fun.

Not a great picture, but I WAS THERE.  This is when I was jammin' with the locals.  Never forget 11/11/11.

I'm in the process of looking for a car.  So far I've driven two, I'm driving two more today, one more on Wednesday and another later in the week.  I hope I find one that I like enough to buy.  I'm sick of car hunting.  The two I saw yesterday were pretty decent.  The cars here are not nice, and I'm always going to pay more than I should for a car down here, but it's something I'll have to deal with.  The first one was in fairly good condition, but I didn't love the way it drove (really touchy brakes and no power steering, which is different for me).  The second car drove really well, but it had a few more problems than the first (and it cost $1500 more than the first).  One that I'm seeing today sounds really good and it has a great price and the same goes for the one that I'm seeing on Wednesday.  I really hope one of them works out.

Study time.  See ya.

There's a fire starting in my heart, reaching a fever pitch and it's bringing me out of the dark

Let's start with the things I love about St. Kitts:

1.  The Caribbean Sea - yeah, this is kind of a given, but it seriously never gets old to look outside of your window and see a gorgeous body of water.  There are days when the water seriously shimmers.  I can't believe I get to see it every day.

2.  Seeing monkeys in the morning.  This is my week to walk the dogs in the kennels on campus and as a result, I've been up super early every day this week (not to mention, I've been taking two showers a day since I get amazingly sweaty.  I think my body is making up for all the time that I didn't sweat), I get to see some vervet monkeys running around campus.  It's adorable.  Also, the campus kittens are really cute too.

Vervet monk monk.

3.  The sunsets.  Man, you don't get better sunsets than down here.  I can't even explain it.  Sadly, every time I've seen the most gorgeous ones, I haven't had a camera with me.

4.  Right after the sunsets, the moon.  I don't know why, but it is so much brighter down here.  I don't think we even need streetlights (yes we do) because it lights up the entire sky.  It's like looking at a really dim sun.

5.  The locals - people go to different places and they say, "Everyone here is so nice!"  but trust me, they aren't as nice as people from St. Kitts.  Yeah, we get the occasional pissy waitress (at Shiggidy Shack) but people generally love everyone else.  You can tell the locals from the non-locals (students, tourists) because if you walk towards a local, they make eye contact and say, "Hello!  Good morning!"  (and they do say both hello and good morning for some reason).  If you walk towards a non-local, they start texting on their phone, checking their watch or finding something really interesting to look at on the ground.  You guys suck.

6.  All of the buildings are different colors.  If you saw these colors in other cities, you would think it's super ugly.  But here, it just works.  There is a big purple church that you pass right before you get to campus, I'm living in salmon-y colored apartments (which are actually kind of ugly though), we went to a VERY pink house on the VIDA trip (more on that later), etc.  It's so fun.

Holy pink house, Batman!

7.  Wilbur the pig.  Wilbur lives at Reggae beach and he is famous around the entire island (granted, the island is tiny, but he's still a big deal).  Google "Wilbur the pig, St Kitts" and you get SOOOO many results, but they are all him.  Here's one.  I'm pretty sure there is also a book about him, but I can't find it right now.  Anyway, since Wilbur is so famous, they feature him in a lot of island art, like postcards, tiles, pictures, and stuff like that.  I'll definitely be buying one of those before I leave.

He spends most of his time in the shade.  He's 700 lbs.  Deal with it.

And just to make an even number of "Loves" before I have to go, here's one more.

8.  The donkeys on campus :)  Donkeys are freaking adorable.  I went up to some of them this morning before dog walking and pet them and 5 of them came up to me looking for attention and it was so sweet.  Also, 2 of them in the pen were playing/wrestling like dogs.  So cute.

Whoops!  Time to go!  Busy Saturday!  Don't worry, I have more stories for you, friends.  Just sit tight and antici....

...pate.

Who do you think you are, running around leaving scars?

I got an A on my second physio exam and a B on my second microanatomy exam :)


And now I can't get ANY motivation to study for my anatomy exam...this sucks.  It's on Friday.


Also, I don't think my family or my pets are coming down in December.  Which sucks a lot more.