Springfield and the Boards

I feel like every time I write a new post, I am apologizing for how long it has been since the last time I wrote. I would like to say that is going to change....but I know myself well enough to know that isn't true. So here is a blanket statement for all future blog posts, "Sorry it has taken me so long to write."

I am back in the States for the foreseeable future. I have very mixed emotions about this. I was ready to be done with Curacao, but would move back to the Dominican Republic in a heartbeat. I have enjoyed being in the States for the last four weeks, but can't help but feel that my "unique factor" has gone down a bit since I am no longer living abroad. Either way, it feels good to finally be almost done with step 1 of medical school. It has been a really long road with roadblocks and detours, but I have persevered and am now studying for my first set of boards.

As I said, I left Curacao 4 weeks ago. I was more or less told not to come back to the country after they saw that I had never completed my residency paperwork, but I was not planning on moving back there. What kind of plot twist would that be if I ended up moving back there. :( The trip itself was uneventful, but I did have a 10 hour layover in Miami. Thankfully I have two sets of great friends. One set kept me company for a while before they had to catch their plane and then the other set gave me a pass to the Admirals Club. That was an amazing experience! If there was an admiral's club like thing outside the airport, I would sign up in a heart beat. I was so comfortable and they had really yummy chocolate chip cookies, coffee, showers, power outlets...basically everything you could want for a layover.

I had a wonderful three week vacation back at my parent's. I got to see a couple friends, spend time with Libby, and recharge for the next step of my education. I love visiting my family. It always reminds me how incredibly blessed I am to be part of such an awesome group! Unfortunately, Kristian couldn't be there because of work, but I did get to see him around the New Year.

I have been in Springfield for a little over a week so far. Studying is grueling, but I am remembering so much. It is amazing how our brain just files away the information and we can retrieve it, usually with some difficulty, at a later date! We have had one tornado warning (I had forgotten this was in tornado alley). It was a rather terrifying experience because of two factors: I am terrified of tornados and I am rather claustrophobic. Here is the story:

It was 2:30am and I was sleeping deeply, enjoying the few hours of sleep I get a night, when all of a sudden I was awoken (miraculously, because I sleep like the dead) by the tornado siren. My roommate was still awake and we went and hid in the bathroom. As the wind started to pick up, we realized that there was a huge window in the bathroom and that the closet in my room might be safer. As we were hiding in the closet, I started to feel like I was going to pass out as the walls started to close in around me. To calm myself, I decided to reorder my "fear of natural disasters" list:

#1 the earth opening up and swallowing me

#2 tornados

#3 earthquakes

#4 tsunamis

#5 lightening storms 

#6 flash floods

#7 volcano

#8 hurricane

with others like hail falling in the bottom part somewhere. After about a half an hour, the sirens turned off and we worked on getting back to sleep. I'm hoping for a light tornado season this year. 

Alright, back to studying. I'm sure I'll write again in another six months or so :)

At my sister's soccer game where it was 23 degrees in May

It was also snowing. 

Stopped to visit Bridget, one my friends since 6th grade

At a soccer game with Danielle and Nathan

My baby!!

Still friends after almost 30 years! It was great to see Kelsea and her growing family.

Last day in Curacao.

Happy New Years!

I know it has been a long time since I have written anything, but it has been a really long semester. I worked really hard this semester and thankfully, all that hard work paid off! I was most excited that I passed my neurology final. It was super hard and for some reason, it just didn't come that easily for me. But I passed and that is all that matters!

Not much has happened over this break, but it has been super relaxing. I spent Christmas here by myself. I was doing okay until I broke my computer and that basically started a sad snowball of emotion. But then I got to FaceTime with my family and it was all good again!

New Years here is amazing. They set off tons of fireworks. It is not an exaggeration when I say there were continuous fireworks for over two hours here. I'm staying on top of a hill, so I was able to see tons. The dogs I'm watching were not thrilled. I spent quite a bit of time trying to convince them we were not under siege.

I had to buy a new computer today. It was so sad. The computer I had was amazing, but it finally decided it was not going to put up with my abuse any longer. After surviving being dropped several times and being soaked with water twice, no one could blame it. So now I can post all the pictures I wanted to before the computer stopped working.

In Punda at the Curacao sign

At Farewell with a Christmas tree

With friends from my class

Here are some pictures of the school. I can't remember if I uploaded these already and I'm too lazy to see if I already did.

Computer lab

Library

Hallway

One of our classrooms

 The school is pretty small, so there is not much to show!

Lunch break while studying for finals

White coat ceremony 

At Knip beach. The water is really that color. It is so pretty!

Wine and cheese tasting with Stacey. So amazing. Totally worth it. If you are in Curacao, this is a must

My companions for Christmas break 

Fireworks on the beach at the Hilton

That is it for now. I hope everyone had a really great Christmas and New Years!

First Month of School

We are on week 4 of classes and things are going well. I have been doing well in all my classes and miraculously staying on top of everything. Evidently, the semester I am in is the hardest because the classes are all pretty challenging. But since there is nothing to do on the island without a car, I have ample time to study. I did join the gym at the nearby Hilton because they gave us a great deal as students, and it includes the beach. This means that I have a great way to deal with the stress of medical school.

I don't have too much to say because I literally do the same thing everyday, go to the gym, go to school and study then go home and study. This Friday is a holiday, so I am hoping to take a day off and actually do something fun, but we have midterms in three weeks, so I'm not sure if i will be able to.

Since I am staying at Christmas break, I am making plans to do a lot of cool things including going to the beach, dune buggy rides off road, and climb a mountain. But until I have more to tell you guys, I will try to keep this updated with pictures and maybe some sleep deprived musings!

Sleep deprived selfie! Still smiling

What I do every night

Here are some pictures of the school. It is small, so there is not much to show. But despite the size, it is really nice. I am really impressed with the quality, not only of the school, but also the education here. When it rains, the building doesn't flood. There are no mosquitoes. There is air-conditioning. The classrooms are not so loud that it gives you a headache. This is not a step up from UCE, it is a like a giant pogo stick jump up from UCE!

Computer room area

Library 

Hallway

One of the classrooms

Week 1 in Curacao

I have been in Curacao for over a week now. I've met a bunch of people now, all of them are nice. It's an interesting environment because everyone has spent time out of their home country. I don't remember if I mentioned in my other post that here when you ask people where they are from, it usually goes something like, "I'm coming from New York, but I'm from Korea" or "I'm from Michigan, but I'm coming form Grand Cayman." At our orientation, there were eight people sitting at our table and we had eight countries (Cameroon, the UK, South Korea, Nepal, India, the US, Somalia, and South Africa) and 15 languages represented. It was pretty amazing!

I spent the last couple days before class started, I just passing the time. I read Gone Girl, went to the beach twice, went exploring, went to Starbucks, and went shopping. Enjoying the last of my freedom until December.

Classes started on Tuesday. I will include pictures of the school in a following blog post because I keep forgetting to take pictures while I'm there. Too busy doing schooly stuff! So far everything is great. The classes look like classrooms from this century. The air-conditioning is working. There are no floods in the classrooms when it rains. The teachers show up...and on time...and lecture. Basically, it is an actually medical school.

I have four classes: neuro science, behavioral science, micro/immuno, and path I. All the classes are two hours long, so I have back to back classes, with a lunch break. It makes it a lot easier to study before and after school, rather than having to fit in a hour of studying here and there, I actually get quality studying done during the day. We wear scrubs to class every day, except Fridays. I love that. So easy to get dressed in the morning. I have actually decided to wears scrubs everyday unless I have a presentation on a Friday.

I am feeling more comfortable here. I still like the Dominican Republic more, but there is so much more to there and things are more accessible. I want to learn the bus system here so that I can get around better, but I live within walking distance of the Punda, which has a lot of stores, Starbucks, Denny's, and the grocery store.

Today is my birthday. It was a little hard emotionally, but really it just felt like any other day. I gave myself the gift of sleeping in and then went to Starbucks and bought a piece of 7 layer almond cake. I did a little window shopping and then went home to finish studying some stuff. I don't mind. I just would like to eventually spend one of my birthdays with my family.

I have to get back to studying, but enjoy some more pictures and let me know if you want to know anything specific. 

This is the building I live in

Pretty path by the ocean

The ocean. Not sure why I took this picture  

Most of Curacao is rather desert like, but there are some nice green areas

Cacti!

Typical street

Colorful strip mall 

Much more organized way of building things 

This was outside a Cosco-type store. Just wandering around like he owned the place

A view of Punda from a tall bridge

Another view of Punda

And another

The harbor which is in the middle of the city

Just some colorful stores

Day 1: Punda

Today I went to a place called the Punda. It is the touristy area here in Willemstad. There are a lot of shops and colorful buildings. I walked around for quite a while and nothing really caught my eye. But I took some pictures.

This is the road ned to the my apartment building.

I am not entirely sure what this is, but it was pretty!

A panoramic view of the Punda

This is the view of the Punda. There are so many colorful buildings here. 

This was by far the coolest thing that I saw today. I was told to walk until I saw the bridge and then cross it and I would be in Punda. I was walking and passed this thing and thought, kind of looks like a floating bridge, but is not across anything, so I kept walking. Then I heard a horn and turned around it was moving back across the water. This is basically like the lift bridge in Duluth, but instead of lifting, it moves out of the way. There is a motor on one side and it pushes the bridge back across the water.

Here is the bridge being pushed back across the water. 

This was the boat that it made room for. 

Bridge all the way across

While walking across the bridge, you feel a little drunk because the bridge moves with the waves and the wind, so it is really hard to walk in a straight line.

All the buildings are pretty colorful in this part of the town.

Even stores like Tommy Hilfiger are in cool old buildings. 

The police station

I'm pretty sure this is like the White House or parliament or something governmental.

No country is complete with a McDonalds. There is also a Subway, Starbucks, and KFC.

This is some outdoor market. It might be the floating market of people from Venezuela selling their goods here. I just know that it is a little expensive because of all the tourists.

Dominican Embassy 

As I said, the money has been an issue. Here are the coins that I have collected so far, with a penny on the bottom for scale. The silver coins feel like fake money. Here, the currency is the Guilder or Florin. $1US is worth 1.8 guilders. The biggest coin is 5 guilders and the other copper colored one is 1. The little silver coins are 25 c, 5 c and 1 c. They act as the cents part of the price. 

I just got back from the grocery store and in order to figure out how much the price was and if it was a good price, I had to first convert to dollars and then into pesos (considering I have shopped for the last 3 years in the DR). Things are a little bit more expensive here compared to the States, but only slightly more expensive than the DR. I bought a yogurt here for 1.65 guilders = 0.92 US dollars = 39 pesos. Not as bad as I thought it would be. 

I have found really no trouble with the language like I thought I would. People here either speak Spanish or English and sometimes both. Although, I don't think I would want to live here if I did not speak Spanish. Most of my conversations start like this: "English? Español?" 

The place where I am living is a little dingy on the inside, but I feel completely spoiled because for the first time in 3 years, I have not only a microwave, but also air-conditioning and hot water. I had "hot" water a couple times in the DR, but this is so hot I had to turn the cold water on in order to avoid being burned. I guess some people at the school consider this 3rd world living, but I am so thankful for the accommodations! Last year I lived in an apartment that only had running water three days a week. Living in a true 3rd world country really puts things into perspective. When we were on our way from the airport yesterday, there was another new student and I casually said, "I hope the dorms have hot water." Her face went white! I found it super funny. She did not! I am just very thankful.