Century/2

Yikes. It's officially official: I am not a good blogger.

In my mind, a good blogger is defined as someone who can blog at least twice a week, no problem. If I were a good blogger, I should have probably at least three times as many posts by now. But regardless, I have finally hit the half century mark for blogs (hence my title; no riddles this time). And with this post, I'll mark the end of our time on Dominica; so the next time you see me blogging, it will be from the states! But I'm getting ahead of myself. There are a lot of things that have been going on.

Firstly, in case you missed the news, Melissa officially passed her fourth semester, making her a legitimate 3rd-year medical student! Right now she's gearing up to take the Comp on Friday, which is a test Ross makes everyone take before they leave so they can see where they are study-wise for the USMLE Step 1 class. Also, Ross provided a test prep class these last few weeks that Melissa has been taking. I'm amazed that she's been able to keep studying as much as she has; the temptation is definitely there to take it easy and blow off the Comp, and I know that historically a lot of students do just that. But since Melissa's doing so much work now, she'll be able to enjoy the weeks around Christmas and New Year's much more.

But after that, she's gonna crack down! So before 5th semester, which starts in late February, we're going to stay in Ohio with my parents, and while we're there, Melissa will be back in super study mode. As in, we're going to have my family sign contracts indicating that they will not bother Melissa while she's studying unless it's an emergency. And so I'll be a bouncer of sorts, but a nice one.

In Rosco news, check out what he did a couple weeks ago!

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Honestly, I'm surprised that pillow lasted as long as it did. But as soon as he got one little hole in it, the pillow was a goner. And fyi, that first picture was basically what we walked into when we came home from dinner. He looked so proud of himself. But in the end (heh), all that came out of it (hehe) was that the fluff that he ingested gave him a little constipation for a couple days. Sorry, I'm a little immature sometimes.

Something else that happened this last month was the fourth semester banquet! It's always held at the historical Fort Shirley, which is a couple miles north of campus. Melissa was on the planning committee, so you can be sure that everything went swimmingly! The food was excellent, the weather cooperated, and the emcees didn't swear at all (well, this one guy came up to try and settle people down before dinner, and let an f-bomb slip, but he wasn't supposed to be on the mic...). All in all, of the two banquets I've been to, this one was by far the best.

Melissa with her friends Sarah (left) and Kara

Non sequitur: today there has been a crap-ton of rain. Seriously, it has been raining hard all day. Some places down near campus are flooding! It never floods here! So it's been a little crazy, but I guess the island just wanted to leave us with one last memory before we all leave. Just as long as there isn't any of this nonsense next Monday! Well, the next time I talk to you all, I'll be significantly closer!  Hope you're all getting festive and ready for the holidays!

Take care!

Eric

FADSOFASTE (Or a reflection on how often I use parentheses)

For once, I'm not going to title this one until after I've written the post. Fun fact: I have always titled my posts before I start writing, because usually I have a pretty solid idea about what to say. But today, let's see where the post goes, and I'll title it at the end. Let's hope the title that you've already read, but I haven't thought up yet, makes sense. That's kind of crazy to think about, huh? o_O

As you may or may not know (side note: has there ever been a character written named Mayor Maynott? I feel like there's some potential there...), the island of Dominica doesn't "celebrate" Daylight Savings Time, meaning that I'm now a further hour ahead of you than I have been. Apologies especially to my West Coast peeps; we're basically a meal apart now (as in, I could be having dinner when you're having lunch, and so on). It is nice that the sun is still up at 5:15 pm now. So, pros and cons I guess.

Did anybody catch the lunar eclipse yesterday? I heard there were a couple good times to catch it, but I was either asleep to see it or it was too overcast to see it. All I got out of it was the humbling realization that I forgot the difference between Lunar and Solar eclipses. It's a problem.

So, I've been working at the prep school for 2 (or 3? It runs together) full weeks now, and PHEW! Middle school is exhausting! In the time I've been there, we've been introduced to the new principal, we celebrated Creole day with students from a local school, I subbed once for the Language Arts teacher, and of course, the annual Halloween costume parade/trick-or-treat. And today was a national holiday, so I have the day off. Just enough of a break to recuperate for this week!

On a note related to work, the Standardized Patient program is still going strong. I've got one more round of cases to 'perform' this month. And for once, my case doesn't involve insane amounts of pain/writhing around (as you may remember, my last two cases have had me at 8 and 10 on the pain scale. Pretty serious stuff). It is still very interesting, and as much as I'd like to divulge all the nitty gritties, I think I should avoid it, just in case any students are out there reading. No cheating, guys.

For transparency's sake, I should let you know that I've actually thought up a title for this post. My bad. I can't help myself sometimes! So at this point, the title is there, now I just need to 'fulfill' it. If you catch my drift. Which you might not. It's not super important. But I did want to talk a little about how much I use parentheses when I write. It's an addiction. I have 2 theories about why I use them so frequently (getting meta here). It's either because A) I use "asides" a lot when I'm having conversations in real life, and parentheses get the right tone when I try to type those sorts of stories; or B) because all the algebra/calculus I've taken got me in the habit when I was working on functions that used parentheses, brackets, etc. Probably the first, but part of me wants to believe it's because of math, unlikely as that may be.

And now on to newsy-type things about Melissa! She's got one more week of class, and then takes a test next Monday, and her final the Monday after that. And once that's done, she starts the review course to get her ready for the "Comp" (aka Are-You-Ready-For-The-Step test). I know that some people have a really hard time with the comp, but Melissa's been doing practice questions for a long time, and she works hard to retain information. She's gonna be fine, no doubt.

So, in closing, I hope you figured out my pseudo-cryptic title. Not to be that guy, but it should be pretty straightforward if you're observant. Also, the pup is still doing fine. We decided that his birthday should be veteran's day (Nov. 11th), arbitrarily. I need to figure out what to do for him...hm... I'll try to remember to post next week after his birthday!

Take care! (Figure it out yet?)

Eric