I Guess It has been a while

Wow. I didn't realize it had been that long since I blogged. And to be honest, I probably shouldn't be blogging right now. I should be studying for a contact lens exam, yet here I am plucking away at my keyboard. I knew I didn't blog all semester, but I haven't blogged since November. Lots has happened since then. I'm not going to try and fill everyone in on all of that. Maybe just the recent stuff. This semester has been going really well. I honestly attribute that to having a better attitude than I did last semester. Last semester I was really negative and really let the stress of Optometry school get to me. I missed home a ton and really needed a reminder about why I was here. Going home over xmas break really made that better for me. It is amazing how it only takes one day back at May Vision Center to put it all back into perspective. I have also made a conscious effort to evaluate my view on life and not let negativity rub off on me. The most exciting thing that happened this semester is finding out that Nicole is having a baby girl!! I'm so excited it is ridiculous. Having a niece to spoil is going to be so much fun. I already have half a baby blanket done. I just hope I get it done in time for her shower. I chose one of the hardest patterns I have ever done with lots of color changes, so it is kind of slow going and is harder for me to multitask while I crochet, so it may not be quite done by her shower. They have decided on the name Charlotte Grace, which I also love. Jim and I want to nickname her Charlee. I think Nicole pretty much hates that idea, but we will see what happens when she gets here in August. I really hope she has the baby before I leave. I head back pretty much on her due date. For spring break some of my friends from school and I went to Florida. We stayed with my friend Liz's parents and with the friends of my other friend, Jason. It was a blast. Liz's family took us out on the boat to Elliot Key and showed us all around the Miami area. Then we went down to Orlando and hit up Disney. It was a super packed trip, but well worth it. We all needed a break for a little fun. I also threw in a pic of us at our "Eye Ball." It is the one with the glasses. It was at this amazing club/restaurant called Oceano's. It is right on the beach in Condado. Awesome food and easily one of my favorite places in San Juan.

I'm also really excited because my dad, my brother and my grandma are all coming down for my white coat ceremony in August. I'm already planning their visit. I am going to be showing them around the island for a week. It should be a blast!! And I always enjoy getting to spend time with them all. It will be especially special to have Grandma there. I hate that she lives so far away and that I don't get to see her much. She is such an amazing woman and it really means a lot to me that she is going to be there. Alright. Back to the grind. Oh wait, it is almost bedtime. So much for the productive weekend that I had planned out.

Culebra and the Catamaran

Yesterday was my favorite day in Puerto Rico all semester. We took a catamaran out of Fajardo to Culebra where we did some snorkeling and some sitting in the sand. It was a much needed day of relaxation. Culebra was beautiful and there were tons of awesome fish in the coral reef where we went snokeling. I was more than a little freaked out by the jelly fish. The guide told us they were just moon jelly fish and that even if we got stung by one that it would hurt less than a fire ant bite. Wish I would have known that before I was in the water and not when we were done snorkeling. There were actually quite a few of them. We also saw two stingrays. Jason took my camera and dove down to get the closeup of the one. It was really cool. I love having a waterproof camera here! So today is Thanksgiving. We are going to celebrate tomorrow at my friend Liz's house. Her husband is in the Coast Guard and had duty tonight. It will be our second Thanksgiving, thanks to the Canadians who wanted to celebrate in October when there Thanksgiving is. I'm so thankful to have a great group of friends/classmates. We have really formed our own little family here and it makes being away from family on the holidays just a little bit easier. I would be absolutely miserable here without them.

The Riggs Wedding

Sorry it took me so long to post about this, but I thought I would share a few pictures and try and update everyone on life here in PR and my little visit back home.

The most exciting news from this semester was Jim and Nicole's wedding. I flew home at the end of October for a weekend to be in the wedding. I was supposed to fly into Milwaukee on Thursday afternoon, but due to delays, I didn't get home until almost one in the morning. Stephen picked me up from the airport and it was so nice to catch up with him. I'm so lucky to have great friends.

Friday morning was pedicures with the aunts and a few cousins and then a last minute dress fitting. I had to have it taken in again!! I was pretty happy about that. Then we had a massage and went to set up the reception hall. After was the rehearsal dinner. I will say that there was not a dull minute with the wedding party. Definitely no shortage of personality there.

The wedding was perfect. It was outside at Devil's Head Resort. The weather was awesome. Even with my acclimation to the heat, I didn't even freeze too badly in our one strap dresses. I really loved our bridesmaid dresses. Nicole could not have looked more beautiful and it was amazing how smoothly everything went. Nicole was brought in on a horse drawn carriage with a team of four Percherons. The carriage even matched the colors of the wedding. It was an absolute fairy tale.

The reception was really fun too. I was so happy to see so many of the people that I miss from home. Chris and Terese and Kathy even drove up for the wedding. I was super nervous for my maid of honor speech, but it went smoother than I expected. I had to drink a couple glasses of wine first, but I made it through. I had a back up plan to just burst out sobbing if I started to fumble it up. Glad I didn't have to use it.

They also had a bounce house which was amazing. The whole wedding party went down it. It was really for the kids, but it was this giant slide. I think I had more fun on it than the kids.

My only complaint was that my visit was just too short. I've really missed home this semester and I had a super hard time leaving. My attitude since I got back really sucked too. The weekend reminded me how much life moves on even when I'm not there to see it. I know I'm moving forward in life by going to school, but it comes with the price of putting every other aspect of life on hold. That feeling and my crazy stress level this semester put me in a really bad funk. So bad that I didn't even wan to blog because it would just sound like me bitching. One night after I got back, dad called me to tell me that he wished I was with him at a Will Hoge show and I burst into tears. I didn't get out of it til this past weekend when I had a chance to breathe and go to the beach and a pitbull concert. I needed it.

I Finally Have Something To Say

For more that the last month I have been hulled away in my room studying. They are trying to test my mental endurance this year. I didn't write anything because it would have been the same post over and over and would have gone something like this, "I am once again studying tonight and will probably be getting up at 5 am to study some more. I really can't wait for the weekend so I can study some more, but actually get a full nights sleep and if I'm really lucky, I can go to the grocery store." So since it would sound like I was just whining about it, I didn't write anything.

This weekend really gave me something to write about though. Friday night we had a "Optometry around the world" where each class had to represent a country and cook food from that country. We were Canada. We made putene which is french fries with cheese and gravy and Caesars which are kind of like bloody mary's. The first years were Mexico and they all wore these cute little black mustaches. It was pretty funny. They also had a DJ and there was dancing and karaoke.

Yesterday was the real story. We went Zip lining at a place called Toro Verde (Green Bull) and it was really fun. The zip lines are some of the longest and highest in the world. We were really looking forward to doing this one called "The Beast" which was one where they put you in a different kind of harness and you go across superman style.

Everything was fine for most of it, other than the harnesses aren't terribly comfortable, until our last regular zip line. It was the longest of the 8 we went on at 2500 ft long and at least 400 ft high. Kerri went right before me and they told her that if she felt bumps in the line, she needed to take her breaking hand off of the wire so she would have enough speed to make it all the way across. When she took her breaking hand off the line, she twisted and was coming into the landing area with her back to the landing platform. This had happened on many of the other lines and no one had a problem. But this time Kerri turned her head to see when she was going to hit the break and ended up taking the wooded block covered in foam to the eye. We don't know if she actually had a concussion, but her pupils were still not the same size when we got home last night. What we do know is that we spent 10 hours at two different hospitals.

There was a physician on the tour with us who looked at her first and then the Toro Verde medic looked at her. The first hospital that we went to was small and they didn't have xray equipment supposedly. I didn't really object to going to a different hospital as Kerri and I both thought the doctor was stoned. His eyes were really red. Thank god two guys from Toro Verde stayed with us the whole time. Jeffrey was awesome. He translated some when we needed him to and he had us follow him to the hospital. Those mountain roads are crazy and not marked. We would have never made it without him.

We had an awesome guy named Calvin who did Kerri's CT scans at the next hospital. He let us look at the CT scans and showed us the fluid in her maxillary sinus. It was pretty crazy. Kerri said it made her day, which was a good thing because she was a hurting unit.

The reason that we were waiting for so long is because the radiologist wouldn't answer his phone, so there was no one to look at the scans for 7 hours. We don't even know for sure if it was the radiologist that ended up looking at them. We brought a set of film back to show some of our professors.

It was another 1 1/2 hours drive home so we finally pulled in at home at almost 3 am. It was crazy. We didn't get any pics of us in our gear because we were a bit preoccupied, but I have a nice pic of Kerri's shiner and a video of Toro Verde.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0RnO4kiDm4

Settled

Sorry I haven't posted yet. In true PR style, I just got internet today. We've supposedly had it for over a week, but nothing is ever that simple. The school's network blocks blogger.com, so I had to wait to make a post.

My trip back was fine. No big complaints other than getting up at three in the morning and then taking a tour of the airports in the US before getting back to my apartment at midnight. I flew from Madison to MKE, to Laguardia to Philly to PR. and it wasn't even cheap. Oh well, I made it.

After my first week of school, I am already a little stressed out. My classes are going to be challenge and more than that, it seems like we are always in class. Our Wednesdays are 12 hour days. It is just hard to maintain focus for that long, but you don't have a choice because we have so little time outside of class to study, so you really need to get something out of lecture. That is sometimes easier said than done. We have one professor that we think is Haitian who has a really thick accent. He is almost harder to understand than the professor who actually lectures to us in Spanish.

Other than that, all is fine here. Nothing newsy. I'll try and post some pics of my new apartment soon. And hopefully a new car. I'm in the process of shopping for one right now.

Texas and Back

I can't believe how many states I am visiting in such a short period of time. My flight to Texas wasn't exactly how the crow would do it. I flew to Philly first and then to Dallas. Two 4 hour flights. I stopped in O'Hare on the way home and now today, I will be driving to Nebraska. I was really glad to be back on the mainland. My family reunion was a blast. I saw a few cousins that I haven't seen since I was a kid and a few others that I may have never met before. We camped out on the family property and got caught up with everyone. Dad did a ton of fishing. I love to fish and would have had fun going with him, but they have water moccasin's and they freak me out. For some reason snakes scare me more when they are in the water. Brett rode around on his cousin's dirtbike and went to a waterpark one day. He also got a haircut and a cowboy hat. Dad gave him his cowboy boots and now Brett thinks he is a real cowboy. He still has a thing or two to learn about riding, but he just might get there.

The last night we were in Texas, we all stayed with Cat and her Dad. It was so good to see Cat, Steve, and Jill. I wish Laurie would have been there too. Laurie was on a business trip to Chicago. Dad and Steve hit it off and talked about cars most of the night. I wish we would have had more time, but we got stuck cleaning at the reunion (it was amazing how fast everyone disappeared when it came time to clean up) and Dad and I didn't want to leave Grandma and my great aunt to do all of it. Even if it was a short visit, it was wonderful. I miss my Catherine! I was struggling toward the end of the night. None of us had slept more than four hours the whole time we were in TX and it caught up to me. We were all talking and I kept doing the head bob. Somehow I managed to make it until about 1:30, but we were up to go to the airport at 4:40 am. I honestly don't remember taking off from Chicago to Milwaukee. I woke up as we landed. Dad was struggling to stay awake the whole drive home.

I only saw Wendy for about an hour when I got back. She was heading out for a horse show in Roscoe, IL. They will be there all weekend. I still haven't seen Dean at all. I think he went straight there after he was done with calls. Nicole is here all weekend taking care of the farm and working. Nicole, Jim, Brett and I went to go see Pirates of the Caribbean last night. It feels so good to be home. ...for a day anyway.

almost home

I can't say how much I wish I was home already. Finals week always sucks, but for some reason this one is worse. All I can think about is getting on that plane. Being gone a whole semester is far too long. I miss everyone like crazy and it seems like I'm so close to being done but have a ton left to do. My empty house is more than a little depressing too. Brett and I have a count down. Five days til I get to see little man. I made it four months, but the last week is the worst.


On a much better note, the proficiency that I thought I screwed up didn't really go that bad. 94.7%. I can live with that, it just felt much worse as it was happening.

Alright back to primary eye care. See you all soon!