Here Goes Nothing.

Well, Monday begins finals week. My biggest two finals are first. Monday is Anatomy and Wednesday is Physiology. Those are really the only two I am worried about. Cumulative finals are insane especially with the level of detail we are expected to know. My strategy is to study as much as I can and still get my sleep. It is just an enormous amount of material. Between the two classes I have to know every organ, muscle, artery, vein, and nerve in the body, how they work and how they are connected. The brain is the hardest because all of the nuclei sound the same. I struggle with the inferolateral geniculate and the inferomedial geniculate kind of stuff. I guess my job is just to study my butt off and put down everything that stuck onto that exam.

I shouldn't even complain. I don't have it nearly as bad as Molly's 8 hour exam that was 100% of her grade from last year. That is insane pressure.

I will be flying home on Dec 11th!!! I can't wait. I miss everyone soooo much. Puerto Rico is amazing, fun, and beautiful, but I haven't seen much of it lately. I haven't had the opportunity to leave our little campus except for a little x-mas shopping. I think that is just adding to my being antsy about getting home. It is going to be quite a temperature shock. Right now it is 80 degrees and sunny. I hope Nicole doesn't forget to bring my coat when she picks me up from the airport!

I better get back to at least 8 hours of studying today!

A Few More Differences

I learned something interesting this week about Puerto Rico. I think it might be a perfect place for Anna Moeller to move to. Most people here do not use peanut butter. Our Spanish prof told us that peanut butter and pickles are two things that just never caught on here. Apparently we shipped them a whole bunch of peanut butter for the school lunch programs and they didn't know what to do with it. Adriana (my prof.) said that the first time they shipped it to the school she was in elementary school and they used an ice cream scoop and just put a glob of it on everyone's plate. When no one ate it, they then put it in a glass and filled it with milk. Still not a hit. Haha. I like peanut butter, but that is just nasty. I guess that explains why I went through the isles at Sam's four times and couldn't find any. At least they sell it at the normal grocery stores.

Another thing that is different from home is funerals. Our campus is on the top of a hill that overlooks a ginormous cemetery. There are a whole bunch of trees so, unless you live in one of the dorms that faces the cemetery or go on the roof, you can't see it. For the longest time, Cathleen and I would hear music and could never figure out where it was coming from. It always sounded like there were speakers in the dense row of trees behind the school. It was always this upbeat reggaeton that made Cathleen and I wonder what celebration we were missing. When we first got here we tried to figure it out and after a couple of weeks someone told us that it was coming from funerals in the cemetery. At first I thought it was really bizarre music for a funeral, but the more I think about it, it makes it seem like they are celebrating life rather than playing sad stuff, that makes you even more depressed than you are in that kind of situation.

I really wish that Puerto Rico had a better English newspaper. There is only one that I know of and it sucks. http://www.prdailysun.com/ I feel detached from the politics and some of puerto rican culture just because I can't fully understand everything in a Spanish newspaper. Jim, if you get sick of Rice Lake, I know an island that could use your help Hahaha.

Craziness

I haven't posted in a while, because I haven't really done anything worth writing about. Last night was the first time I have left the "compound" in two weeks unless you count when I walked to Sam's Club for milk and bagels. I have been studying my butt off. I'm drained, exhausted and already starting to study for finals. I am so ready to be home.

Yesterday we had an exam in Optics, which is my favorite class. I won't bore you with a ton of details, but part of what we were tested on was labeling optical systems. Our optics tutor does a great job of going over every type of question Dr. Morales could ask us, so I usually go to his reviews before an exam. Our tutor told us a "short cut" for labeling optical systems, and it seemed to make sense. One of my friends asked Dr. Morales about it in class and he said that he wasn't sure if it worked in all cases, but when we used it for all of the examples in our book, they all worked. Our exam was only 25 questions long and questions 7-18 were on this optical system. I did the problem the long way (not using the "shortcut" our tutor gave us) and didn't have any problems. Unfortunately, about 35 of my classmates used the short cut and it didn't work on this optical system. Every single on of those questions were related. If you got the first question wrong, you got them all wrong. It has turned into a fiasco because our tutor (who is a second year student) took the blame for it and now our professor doesn't know what to do. There is going to be a big meeting about it with the Dean of Students, our prof, our class president and the tutor. Basically, if the grades were to stand, 35-40 people in my class would have failed that exam. I'm glad I did it the long way so no matter what happens, it doesn't really effect me.

So this is officially my first holiday without my family. I thought that we were going to do a big Thanksgiving dinner here, but Dr. Cabello who was going to set it up has been gone due to some family issues. My friends and I were so wrapped up in exams and studying that we never had time to get stuff together for it. Last night we decided that we were going to put something together, but our dinner will be on Saturday. Most of my Canadian friends weren't able to go home for Thanksgiving either. Canadian Thanksgiving is in October so this really isn't a holiday for them anyway. It will be nice to have a dinner with all of them, but I would really like to be with my family. A semester is a really long time to be away. Most of the time I am too busy to be homesick, but today is a little harder than most. I really wish I was in Kathy's kitchen right now helping get everything ready while my uncles watch football and my cousins chase each other around the house...and I really want some of Wendy's sweet potatoes and Donna's homemade noodles. Maybe I'll ask for both when I go home. At least it is 78degrees outside and doesn't feel like Thanksgiving, that will make it easier to spend the day studying anatomy.

Food and Culture.

I have been trying really hard to get more in touch with Puerto Rican culture lately. It is easy to hide behind the gates of our school and not ever get a feel for where we are living. I have decided that every trip to the grocery store I am going to buy some food that I have never heard of and try to learn how to cook with it. This week I bought a Chayote. I cooked it and stuffed it with rice, beef, seasoning and cheese (as directed by my Spanish teacher). I really liked it. It is in the squash family, but is located next to the root vegestables at the grocery store. It is almost like a cross between a squash and a potato. I'm sure that some of my foods won't be that exotic to some of you, but to me they are still "mystery food".

The food isn't the only different thing about the grocery store. First off, everything (except alcohol) is way more expensive than home. Seafood is even more expensive. I still haven't figured that one out. The cuts of meat also aren't the same. They aren't unrecognizable, but they aren't like home. They eat a lot of this really thinly cut steak here. (Skirt steak maybe? I'm not really sure.) They also fry everything. It is extremely hard to go out to eat anything authentic and not have it fried in some way. Because it is so humid, most of the fresh produce goes bad really quickly. I think that is why they have so much processed food here. It is hard to eat right here unless you have the ability to go to the grocery store at least once a week (which I do not).

Another interesting fact about Puerto Rican culture is that they are a people who take pride in how they look. Except for the exceedingly poor, everyone is always done up. Women do their hair, dress up, and wear stilettos all the time. I swear 90% of women here don't even know what sensible shoes are. Fat, skinny, young, old...they still are wearing crazy shoes that I would have classified at home as "stripper heels." They dress like this in the grocery store, at work, and when they go out. I could never last 8 hours in the shoes they wear. As a whole, women wear things that are tighter and smaller than at home too. This is true even if you aren't a size two. Our Spanish teacher is a native Puerto Rican and fills us in on things that we may have a hard time picking up on. One of those things is that Puerto Rican men typically do not like skinny women. They don't like really fat women either, but they aren't interested if you don't have curves. The crazy amount of upkeep isn't reserved for women. The younger generation of me wax everything and they pluck their eyebrows. Everyone is incredibly manicured. It is sort of bizarre. Oh and rat-tails are in style on men. Cathleen nicknamed this one popular hair style the mo-rat because it is a cross between a mohawk and a rat-tail. I would take a picture, but I don't know how without being rude. I'll work on that for a future post.

As for school, it is still going well. I had one test that didn't go as well as I would have liked in anatomy, but I will be okay. It was just frustrating because I worked my butt of and panicked a little when I got the exam. She basically had us list every tiny detail she taught us. Ick and some of the nuclei of the brain sound so similar they are really hard to keep straight. Ugh. I'll keep plugging away.

Life outside of school is still great too. I am so lucky to have a great group of friends. We all get along super well and look out for each other. We went for another visit to La Placita for Krista's birthday on Friday. It was a blast. I danced so much that the back of my leg was sore on Saturday. We are also picking up on some Spanish by getting out. La Placita is all locals and a great atmosphere. I am picking up some Latin dance moves too...and no, I won't bust them out at home. We are starting to recognize some of the music too. Reggaeton grows on you pretty quickly. I will put a link to a couple of the songs that we hear all the time. They aren't the best lyrics, but they are catchy.

Danza Kuduro

Pasame la botella

Another good weekend.

This past weekend was pretty awesome. My friend Jason flew in and we visited some places that have been on my list of things to see. First off, we went to El Yunque, which is the sub-tropical rain forest here on the island. We did some hiking in the park and climbed up to El Morro Tower which had a spectacular view. We also did a day trip to Vieques, which is a relatively large island off the Eastern coast of Puerto Rico. My friend Krista and her boyfriend, Colin, also came with us. Vieques was beautiful! We really wanted to go to Culebra, but the ferry tickets sold out before we got there (which was a little frustrating because we left at 6 am to get to the ferry). It ended up being a great day anyway. We spent the day at Sun Bay Beach. There were an alarming number of wild horses running free on the island. There was a large herd of them at the beach and even more along the sides of the road. It is common to see wild dogs all over the island, but this is the first time I have seen loose livestock of any kind. After lots of sun (and layers of sunscreen), we took the ferry back to Fajardo and had some local cuisine.


I had a chicken mofongo. Mofongo is a very common dish here and it is made many different ways. It is mashed plantains (either tostones which are unripe plantains that taste sort of like potatoes or maduros which are ripe plaintains that are sweet) with some sort of meat in the middle. It is served in a large wooden goblet lined with the plantains with the meat in the middle. It is really good. I've had it with mahi mahi and chicken. The restaurant we went to prepared all the meat on the grill first and it was amazing.

Then we went on a night kayaking expedition in Bio Bay. This was my favorite thing that I have done since I have been to Puerto Rico. There are pics of it online, but none of them capture how cool it really was. We kayaked for a few miles through a channel that was completely covered by mangrove trees. It opened up into a large bay. The bay is home to these tiny microorganisms that are bioluminescent. Every time our paddles, hands or feet touched the water, the water would start to glow a pale blue. It was like Avatar when they walked through the forest. Krista and I were splashing each other and it was like throwing tiny drops of light. Unfortunately, they do not allow swimming in the bay anymore. The sunscreen/bug spray/body oils of people were starting to affect the microorganisms. It is something that can't really be described or captured on camera. Puerto Rico has three places on the island that are home to the dioflagellates that produce the glow. There are only 5 places in the world where you can see this. Clearly I hijacked the pic, but we couldn't bring our cameras because we got wet in the kayaks.

Missing home.

So this weekend was really nice. Cathleen's fiance came to visit and it was great finally getting to meet him!! They spent most of the weekend off on their own excursions, but the three of us went to Old San Juan on Friday. I played official photographer for their save the date photos at the beach. We found a new favorite beach too. It is called Escambron and it is beautiful. The tropical storms were causing some decent sized waves, so we even saw surfers for the first time since we have been here. For some reason it is really hard to find a map that shows the beach even though it is run by a branch of the National Parks Service. Oh well, I liked it partially because there weren't that many people there. The pictures turned out really cute!! I think the hard part is going to be choosing which one to use.

We also went to El Castillo de San Cristobol. The pics above are from the visit. It is very similar to El Castillo de Morro that we went to when I first moved to Puerto Rico on our class trip, but just a mile or so down the road. I actually liked El Castillo de San Cristobol more. Both were built in the 1630s and haven't really changed all that much. They were used to protect the harbor and the city. It was crazy how many soldiers lived there. A ton of them died from various diseases that happen when you shove too many people into a small area. One of my favorite things was the dungeon. It was kind of creepy, but not as big or deep into the fort as you might think. It was sort of like a long, narrow holding cell. There were a few drawings of ships on the wall that were thought to be of Spanish ship captains who were awaiting their executions for mutiny. (That is the top pic.)

Although it was a great weekend and Cathleen enjoyed Travis' visit, dropping him off at the airport was still pretty tough for her. I think a little bit of that rubbed off on me today. I'm missing home. Most days I'm just fine, but today I really want to be on a trail ride with Nicole and Wendy just enjoying the pretty colors of fall (I appreciate them more now that I know I won't get to see them.) Or helping Brett with his homework--which is so much easier in person than over the phone. Or at wine night with Nicole and Dani. Or watching Millionaire Matchmaker with Elizabeth (its a guilty pleasure--I know its shallow.) Or Packer Football with either Dad or Dean.Or catching up with Anna and Molly which usually involves cheese curds. Or taking the bikes out and then watching UFC with Wade, Kate and Dillon. Or going to Parfrey's Glen with Geoff. I guess this is the hard part about living on a tropical island. It has its perks, but it will never be home.

Rincon!

We finally have a break in exams. This month only has one exam. It is next week and it is optics. To reward ourselves for studying so hard and not having a weekend, we rented cars and a beach house and went to Rincon, PR on the far West Coast of the island. It was super cheap because it was the off season and the beach house was amazing. We spent most of the time at the beach or just hanging out on our rooftop patio. I wish we could have seen more, but we really needed to relax and that is exactly what we did.

Cathleen's fiance is coming today. He is coming a day early to surprise her and she is going to freak out. It is payback for her surprising him last month. I will be nice to meet him and put a face to all the stories I hear. It should be another good weekend.

Visitors!

Sorry it has once again been far too long since I have updated my blog. For some reason I have not been able to open the blogger website. Every time I have tried it tells me the connection has been reset and the problem seems to only be with this one website.

A ton has happened since my last blog. First off...school is going great. I've had a ton of exams and have gotten really good grades on all of them. On two of them, I beat the class average by more than 20 points. (I think I'm aloud to brag a little because I've been working my butt off.)

This past weekend (thurs-sun) my cousin, Matt came to visit. He is in the army and was home on leave from Iraq. He has been there for the last nine months and will be going back again on the 25th. It has been a year or two since I have seen him and I knew it was going to be a good weekend because he is a character (yeah my family is full of them). I took him to Old San Juan where we walked along the edge of the fortress that was built about 400 years ago. It is beautiful and we had a rip tide warning so the waves were crashing up over the edge of the walking path. We also went to the beach near the Isla Verde area. The waves were crazy big and standing in knee deep water would have knocked me down. The next day we got in the car and just drove. We didn't have any plan or direction, just drove wherever we felt like going. It ended up being a little longer roadtrip than we planned and thanks to Matt's GPS feature on his phone we did make it home (no thanks to the mislabeled map in our car). The whole roadtrip was spent winding around the mountains. The roads were crazy narrow and that didn't motivate people to slow down a bit. Matt started getting a little car sick from trying to read the map as the roads were snaking and his ears were popping. We stopped several times to take pictures out of the car window(see above). We were in pretty rural parts and it was nice to see what Puerto Rico really is, not just the San Juan side of the island. We had a blast until it started raining. Then the water just started pouring and it was like driving through creeks that were rushing across the road. Matt kept telling me that we would be fine, but as soon as we got home, he was telling everyone that he thought that the water was going to move our car sideways. The water wasn't that deep but it was moving pretty quickly. Some of the town we went through were pretty cool. I made Matt roll up his window when we were driving through one of the larger towns. Apparently listening to George Strait with your windows down gives away that you are not a local. Hahaha. We got stared at a lot.

The next night we took him to the El San Juan Hotel. The hotel has a casino (I still have never gambled) and a club and this really awesome open area where they have two bars in the middle and a live salsa band. People go to dance and some of the people are really good. Its fun just watching everyone dance. We have a couple classmates that know how to salsa and they promised to teach the rest of us!!

Overall, Matt had fun which was much deserved. I just wanted him to have a little fun before he had to go back. I was so happy to have him, and sad to see him leave. I'm going to worry about him until he is safely and permanently back in Louisiana. He claims that when he gets back from Iraq, he is gonna visit again.

Lots of Love,
Nik

First off, just wanted to brag a little because my first two exams for Optometry school went really well!! I have plenty more exams to go, but that was definitely a good start. Optics is next, which is my favorite class so far.

I just found out that my cousin Matt is coming to visit me this weekend. He is home on leave from Iraq and is more than deserving of a vacation. He is going to fly in on Thurs and out on Sunday. It worked out pretty well because all of my hardest exams will be done with by then and I will actually have a chance to show him around the island. (Not that I really know where to go yet. I still haven't been here all that long myself.) Either way, it should be a great time!!! It has been a year or two since I have seen him which is much too long. I wish his brother, Cody could come too.

P.S. Are the Packers or the Eagles going to have a team left after this season opener? Easy on the injuries, it is only the first game of the season. Yikes!

Guninea Pigs.

I'm not going to lie. I've been pretty boring lately and I figured that no one except Anna M. would really be interested in knowing what I'm studying. (Mainly Physiology and Anatomy), so I really don't have all that much of an update. Books. School. and a little bit of beach time.

We were recently paired with both a Second Year and a Third Year. As it turns out, not only are we the newbies, but we are also the guinea pigs. Both of my "buddies" seem really nice. My second year is named Abbie and my third year is the third year class president, Gabriel. Gabriel was a little disappointed that I was an emmetrope (I don't need to wear glasses), so I promised that he could practice on my friends and family when they come visit. I guess that means that I won't be the only guinea pig. Haha. It is actually really important to have the chance to practice and I hope that someone would do the same for me when I am a second and third year. It still amazes me how helpful all of the second and third years have been. Almost everyone that I have talked to has offered any help and/or advice that I could possibly need.

Cathleen (the blonde one in all my pics) went home this weekend to surprise her fiance. We had this elaborate plan to get him to go to the airport thinking he was picking up Cathleen's parent's friends and it actually worked. She said he was so excited he almost passed out. I'm so happy it went as planned. It was sort of weird not having her here. We have been pretty inseparable since we got here. (and no Cat, I'm not replacing you). We will all be glad to have her back and not just because we can't watch another episode of Dexter without her. Hahaha.

Only three more power points on the respiratory system to go!!!

Homework and Hurricanes

Not that I'm complaining, I realize that hurricanes can be quite serious and all, but Earl was a disappointment. We never lost power, we hardly saw rain, and the whole next day (with classes cancelled) was all blue and sunny skies. The storm wouldn't even have been bad enough to make the direct TV satelite signal break up at home. In case there is another one, know that I live in a large cement building 20 mins away by car from the shore. I'm about as safe as I can be on this island. The worst part about Earl is that he did damage to the island that we were going to visit over our long weekend (Culebra--look it up it is supposedly one of Travel Channel's top 10 beaches in the world).

School is going well so far. It is intense, but thanks to all of Dr. May's warnings, I was prepared for that. I still think it is kind of weird not having to go to work on a daily basis. I think that contributes to my feeling that this whole experience is more like going to camp than going to grad school.

Brett is about to start middle school. I've been pretty good about not being too homesick, but I really wish I could be there for his first day of school. I can't believe how fast he has grown up. When I'm done with this whole experience, he is going to be driving. I'm not going to be ready for that. The good news is that Dad bought him a cell phone, and even though I think he is too young, I love that he texts me almost everyday. I'm not sure if it is because he misses me, or whether he just likes using his new phone, but I'll take it either way.

My hermit crab is still alive and well. Cathleen found him a bigger shell and we put it in his container. I thought it might take him weeks to upgrade, but he made the big move within a couple of hours. I'll have to take a new picture. His claw is also growing and for some reason has turned bright blue. We named him Corona, because he made the trip home with us in a Corona bottle.

Elizabeth sent me a care package that came yesterday. I was so excited!!! I love surprises and I knew that Elizabeth would send me random things that are very Elizabeth and would make me smile. It took a long time for it to actually arrive, but I ate the cookies in the box anyway...and they were still good! I have the flip flops that were in the box on right now.

Off to class!

Critters

Well, this has been the week of critters. One good, one bad. Last weekend at the beach I found a hermit crab which made a trip home in an empty, salt water rinsed bottle of Corona. I’ve managed to keep him alive thus far. Apparently they eat a little bit of everything. I mainly feed him fruits and veggies, but he eats some meat too. Eventually I’ll have to move him out of his tupperwear container and into a real home, but he seems fine for now. He is our unofficial mascot. I’m not really sure what I am going to do with him when I come home for x-mas break, but I think I might have to smuggle him into the continental US. We’ll see what happens.

The other critter, not so welcome in my apartment. A Cockroach. Ick. Cathleen, my roommate and best friend down here, has been complaining about them since we moved in. Her dad saw one in the stairwell when they were brining all her stuff in and she has seen two more. None of the rest of us had seen any until this morning when one crawled underneath my door. Most of you know that I took entomology and typically don’t get too worked up over bugs, but cockroaches are big and ugly. We already told the housing lady about it a week ago, but like everything here, it hasn’t been taken care of yet. I guess they are gonna come and spray or something. We also have the tiniest little ants by our kitchen sink that I have ever seen. I put out ant traps and we clean the counter, but they don’t seem to go away. I wonder what will happen first, getting internet or taking care of the bugs.

We now have a final count on my class-50. The last one arrived late last week. She is from Kansas and is a Badger Fan!!!! It is going to be an interesting four years for sure. We keep talking about how life here is kind of like “The Real World.” They just took all of us from different walks of live, re-planted us on a tropical island, and put us in school. Almost all of my class lives in dorms, which isn’t true of the classes above us. Less than half of the 2nd years live in the dorms and even fewer third years. With this few classmates and the fact that we live in what can only be described as a compound (our campus is surrounded with razor wire and has two guards posted at each gate and another 2 guards full time just for the optometry part of campus), it is going to be interesting how everything plays out. I’m sure there will be plenty of drama, because everyone is in everyone else’s business all the time, but I also think we are going to come out of this being really close.
Back to hours worth of studying.

Beaches and Libraries!

I want to start off by apologizing for not being better at this whole blogging thing. I still don't have internet in my room which is making this very difficult. They told me we were going to have it by Aug 15th, but like everything else here, you can't set your watch by it. I'm still hoping sometime this month, but it could realisitically be another month.

So much has happened and changed since my last blog. I'll try to do a quick recap. First off, I no longer only have one roommate. We came home from a group trip to the mall to find two more people in our apartment without any warning. Cathleen and I were stunned to say the least and more than a little bit pissed off because we were told we were the only two people in the apartment and we had already paid to furnish everything. We realize that it isn't our roommates faults, but it was still pretty frustrating. Our class also grew from the 27 at orientation to 50. The last person just found out she got in on Monday. She is so behind and doesn't even know it yet. I feel bad for her. Our class is really close which is amazing because we all come from such different backgrounds. We have people from Kuait, Somolia, India, Canada, both coasts, and a whole bunch scattered in between.

Classes started on the 11th and since that point we have basically been living and breathing Anatomy. Most of our teachers read straight off their slides, which makes it a little dry, but everyone speaks decent English. We had our Spanish professor quit on us before school even started and he has since been replaced. We have only had one Spanish class so far, and I think it is going to be good for me. I thought that I was going to be way behind everyone else on my spanish knowlege, but as it turns out, our class has more experience with French than Spanish and I have taken more Spanish than almost everyone. Public Health is just review so far. We did mean, median and mode last class. I'm pretty sure my brother did that in 5th grade math. Physiology is interesting, but our Prof keeps making us do group presentations and we all get more out of class when he lectures. Optics is still pretty basic right now too, but I think it is going to be my favorite class. We are also taking the Profession of Optometry. I haven't really formed an opinion on that one yet.

We have been studying hard and have been rewarding ourselves with excursions on the weekends. Last week we went to a club called Brava in the Waldorff hotel in San Juan with some of the second years. The week before that, the second years took us to Senor Frogs (we were the only ones there, but it was really fun) and yesterday we went to the Bacardi factory and to a beach called Punta Salinas. It was beautiful and a very welcome break.

Alright, back to Anatomy and writing a 2 page paper on the azygos vein.

I live in Puerto Rico?

Well, so far so good. I ended up only having one roomate. Her name is Cathleen and she is from a small town about an hour from Lincoln, Nebraska. We have really hit it off and I think we will do just fine as roommates. We have a really interesting class of students. We are the first class ever to not have a Puerto Rican (although they tell us we may still have one coming) and we have three students from Canada, at least three from India, one from Pakistan, and one from Kuait. It is pretty crazy how well we have been getting along. So far we know about 30 kids from our class, they tell us there could be more coming, but we aren't so sure. Of the 30, we had 25 all get together, rent a bus and go to Isla Verde for the day. I think we are going to be a really close knit group which is going to be great because they don't grade on a curve here so we can all help each other out.

We have had a lot of time to kill because we had a two day orientation and a field trip to Old San Juan, but our classes don't start until the 11th, so we have just been getting to know each other. We have a really cool rooftop that overlooks a huge part of the island. The D and C dorms have connecting roofs, so we all meet out there at night, talk, laugh, listen to music and make fun of each other's dialects.

Puerto D.C.?

Yesterday went as well as it could have. We got up at 3 am and went to the airport, got right on our plane and then found our gate to get on our plane from O'Hare to San Juan. United overbooked our flight and offered us $600 in flight vouchers, First Class to D.C. Dulles, the stay at the Marriott, and then first class from Dulles to San Juan first thing this morning. It was perfect. I wouldn't have been able to get into my dorm until today anyway and now I will have a free flight home for X-mas. They even threw in dinner vouchers.

I've always followed the Lombardi principle of "when you make it in the end zone pretend like you have been there before." At the risk of being discovered as a first time first class flier, I took a pic of Wendy on our Boeing 777. The seats completely turned into beds, we had our own T.V., and I couldn't have touched the person next to me if I tried.

Today hasn't been as perfect. The flight was fine. We were in first class again, but we were spoiled from the day before. Once we got to the airport, we found my luggage and went to look for our rental car. Apparently the order didn't go through. We waited a long time to get our car. That really seemed to be the theme of the day. Once we got the rental car we got extremely lost trying to find our hotel. Then we managed to find my school (which is exactly how it looks in the pics on their website) and we waited three hours to get the keys. Then we had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant that we are pretty sure we could never find again if we wanted to, and proceeded to get lost on our way back to our hotel.

Part of the problem is that the streets aren't all labeled, the street signs are in spanish (which I am doing fairly well with), and our GPS won't process some of the street names. It has really been an adventure. We finally got back to the hotel at 9:50 pm. Wendy and I were both so tired and frustrated that we started laughing hysterically, mostly so we didn't cry. Wendy has already threatened to ditch me tomorrow because she doesn't want to drive here anymore. I don't really blame her because not only were we lost, we were surrounded by people who had complete disregard for the street lights/signs. Oh well, tomorrow is a new day and we will figure this city out.

Today wasn't all bad. Everyone was extremely friendly and I was the first person to get to my dorm. There are only 3 of us in a four bedroom dorm. The other two girls that I live with are from Nebraska and North Carolina. Because I was the first one there, I go the biggest bedroom with the biggest closet. It is pretty amazing. I'll post pics as soon as I get set up. As of current, I haven't really taken many pics because I've spent all of my time navigating. I'll try to take some pics and post a few more blogs this week about the whole process.

In the Red

So as of about seven this evening, I am officially in debt for the first time in my life. $50,000 for just the first year. Go big or go home I guess. The scariest part is that they gave me a estimated salary calculator and they recommend that I don't take out more than $60,000 total. I'm clearly not the only one who has had to take out student loans for optometry school, but they did a good job scaring me. Ick. At least all of my applications for financial aid are done.

On a much brighter note Dad threw me a going away party on Saturday. It was sooo much fun!! All of the family was us from the Milwaukee/Racine area and Nicole invited some of my friends. I was so glad that I got to see everyone one last time. Anna even drove all the way from Elkhorn and everyone with dogs brought them. Dad grilled for everyone and quite a few people brought a ridiculous amount of food. Dad and Brett were up until midnight for the last couple of nights trying to get ready for the party. Dad is in the process of remodeling the house and until the middle of the week was sleeping in the living room while the drywall was being redone in the bedrooms. It was incredibly sweet of everyone involved to go through the trouble (and the expense) of throwing me the party!!

Seven Days

****Disclaimer: My spelling and grammar may make all of my former English teachers grimace. Please refrain from trying to correct me. I will do my best, but I am really more worried about my grammar in my second language right now*****



I have exactly seven days left on the mainland. I'm still not sure that the reality of how quickly August 1st is approaching has really hit me. I still have way too much packing/organizing/putting away stuff left to do. Its amazing how 50 lbs of stuff doesn't amount to that much. It is such a trade off because I have to get all of this stuff done, but I really just want to be able to spend my last week with my friends and family. I am going to miss everyone so much.

I'm really and truly excited about all that is about to happen. It is pretty amazing that I am about to move to one of the most beautiful places in the world to go to school and when I am done, I am going to have my dream job. I just wish I could bring everyone with me. Since I can't, I really going to try to enlist the help of everyone who is important to me. I think I will feel a whole lot less homesick if I feel like I am still in the loop. Optometry school is going to be intense, so please don't ever feel neglected. My education is my main focus for the next four year and I promise to not be as self-centered when it is all over. Moral of the story, please read this and comment, and call me (even if I can't always talk) and email me and text me.

I am so glad that Wendy is moving me down to school. I think it is part of what is keeping me from entirely freaking me out. Just her being there will give me a week to transition. I know she will help me get everything set up so that it feels like home. I have had apartments where I never took the time to nest, and I just never felt settled. I am really going to need this to feel like a home to me. This first week is going to be an adventure in itself. I'm sure I'm about to get a really good idea of how little Spanish I really know. Shopping in Spanish for items I don't have words for is going to be comical. At least Wendy will be right by my side....probably laughing at me.

Hopefully this last week here will help me get a few things worked out so I can feel a little comfortable with the situation. I wish I could say that I know exactly what I am getting myself into, but I don't. At the current moment, I don't even know what my new address is going to be. I don't know anything about my soon to be roommates (including their names) and I still have to sit down with Dad this weekend and figure out what my best option is for financial aid (which they tell me won't go through til mid Sept). Ugh.

Well, I will keep you all updated.

Lots of love,
Nikki