The Eye Ball

The EYE Ball was so much fun!! It is pretty much exactly what we anticipated. First we had dinner and then a short awards ceremony followed by dancing and mingling. Miss Krista was my "date" for the EYE Ball. Most of our friends had their significant others but Krista's boyfriend couldn't make it, so it worked out pretty well. Krista also won an award for highest GPA in our class. We call her Kristapedia because of her crazy photographic memory. (It kind of embarrasses her.) She is one of my favorites down here. She is just as sweet as can be. Liz's husband, Oscar was really fun too. He is an amazing dancer and watching them together was too cute. They have a five year old named Alex. I threaten to kidnap him all the time. Oscar finally got his transfer (he is in the Coastguard) from Miami so their little family can be together. I'm so happy for them. I couldn't imagine having to be so far away from my child. Luckily the tickets from here to Miami are pretty cheap and Liz goes home often.

I am so looking forward to Elizabeth's visit. I've been missing home the last few weeks more than ever and I think her visit will help, or at least make me forget that I am homesick for a little while. I really don't have too long now. Two months to the day until my last final of the semester!! Back to reality...Pharm and Ocular Anatomy.

Short and Sweet.

This week is back to reality. Two exams. One tomorrow and one on Friday. Then one a week until spring break. I don't really mind one exam a week. That is manageable. We do have Ocular Anatomy next Friday and then Pharmacology on Monday. That will be a bit rough. Pharmacology is the most challenging class for me. Our professor tries really hard and knows his stuff, but he tries to make his tests intentionally tricky. The problem comes in when you add a slight language barrier. It isn't an issue in class, because if we aren't quite sure, we just ask him to answer the question in a different way. Exams are different. We haven't had a test yet that didn't have double negatives or grammatical errors. They really throw me off. Sometimes I get hung up on questions that are meant to be straight forward, but I start thinking that he is trying to trick me. It is a bit frustrating because even if I know the material really well, I don't always get the answer right...or the grade that I want. Not to mention we have two classes with this professor this semester and one last semester. I can't complain too much. I got a B in his class last semester and that is where I am at now, but I want an A!!!

The third years have us freaking out a little too. They took the board exam last week and said it was not what they expected at all. Last year a whole bunch of students from the optometry school in Boston were caught cheating on the board exam. They had access to questions from previous board exams and some of them are repeated. They ended up redoing the entire exam, and even the distribution of questions was not the same. We are told that about 30% of the exam is optics...not true anymore. They also had many more questions on basic anatomy. There were a few students that took last years exam and this years exam and said the new board exam is way more difficult than it has even been in the past. That isn't exactly what we wanted to hear.

I woke up yesterday with my first cold of the year. Not thrilled about it. Especially now that exams are about to be in full swing again. Sleep and water, sleep and water. (And Wendy, you can tell Dean that I am taking my vitamins. )

Our Eyeball dance is on Friday. We are all pretty excited about it. Cathleen's fiance is flying down for it and so are most of my friend's significant others. Krista's boyfriend couldn't fly down from Canada, so we decided we will be each other's date. We know it is dorky, but we love to get dressed up. I'll take lots of pictures.

Taberna Lupulo

I have to vent a minute. Last night we went out for dinner at a place called Taberna Lupulo for one of my classmates birthdays. The only thing that we knew about it, was that it supposedly had 120 types of beer on tap. If there is one thing that I have learned in Puerto Rico, it is that you should always be prepared for anything. First off, there were 15 of us and the place had 5 four person tables. We had no idea it was going to be that small. Also, I'm not sure people in Puerto Rico know what "on tap" means. I have never seen beer on tap anywhere on the island. Apparently it is really hard to get kegs, so all beer is served in bottles. Even if you order a pitcher, they just fill the pitcher with bottles or cans. Taberna Lupulo was no exception. Like any good Wisconsin girl, I really miss Spotted Cow and Honey Weiss. Medalla, Heinekin and an occasional Corona are no replacement for anything that Leinenkugel's or Capital Brewery make. I was super excited for the prospect of having good beer. They handed us menus and they did have 120 types of beer, but not a single one was from Wisconsin (or Canada). We talked to one of the guys who did the ordering and he said that they have a hard time getting Canadian beer because of issues with importing it. I asked him why they didn't have any Wisconsin beers and he told me that it was easier to get beer from the coasts (which would have made sense if they didn't have Goose Island from Chicago). AND THEN HE SAID, "Wisconsin is starting to get into making better beer. They have some new microbreweries that are finally putting out decent beer." Does he not realize that we have a history so deep in beer that we have a baseball team named after it? I mean really, Wisconsin has been brewing beer since before some of the west coast states were states. He is just lucky the coconut crusted chicken wrap with mango sauce was good and so was the company. (Even though I'm complaining, it was still a fun night. The waiter just rubbed me the wrong way. Don't knock my state or my beer.)

P.S. I still want a Spotted Cow.

Rincon Again!!

This weekend was one hell of an adventure from start to finish. We found out on Thursday that Steve-O wouldn't be able to get the keys for the beach house and we already had all of the food bought for the weekend for all 12 people. Cathleen, Krista, and I went into crazy beach house hunting mode. We called so many places, but because it is the busy season, most places were either booked or out of our price range. We ended up settling for the only place that we could find with one day's notice. It claimed to house 7, but it was a 2 bedroom with 1 double bed in each room and a futon. I would say that using the futon, it could comfortable hold 4-6. We had 12 people. We had brought three air mattresses, one double and two twins. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to work, but there were two hammocks and a lot of lawn furniture that were made into makeshift beds. I was really glad that I brought my bed, because we all know how pleasant I can be when I don't sleep well. The good new is that it was right on the ocean. It was an amazing view and the ocean waves were so loud.

The beach house itself was really cute. It reminded us more of something you would find on a lake, than the beach. The funny thing was that it was on this row of mansions. It was sandwiched between two huge stucco houses with private pools. When I was looking online, some of the places like the ones next to our little cottage were going for over $1000/night. I don't remember exactly what we paid for our house but each of us paid $35 which covered both nights. I guess that is 12*35, I just don't feel like doing the math. Either way, it wasn't that expensive.

Saturday morning we got up and met up with our surf instructors. Nine of us tried surfing. Jason had been quite a few times before and Krista had taken lessons with the group that taught us. I was a little scared. I'm not an outstanding swimmer by any means and some of the waves were above my head. For some reason, my fear went away once I was in the water. I was using a board that was made of plastic and some of the my friends were on boards that were more foam like. Mine was harder to balance on and I think that I wasn't scared anymore because I was concentrating too hard at staying on...and because our instructor told us that there were two rules of surfing "keep your mouth shut because swallowing water is how you drown and no panicking." I think it is safe to say that no one will be asking me to star in the sequel to "Blue Crush" but I did almost get up a few times. It is much harder than it looks, and much more tiring. Twice I got stuck in a long series of waves that just keep pushing you back. The trick is to paddle straight into the waves. It was super tiring. There is a good reason that surfers are so in shape.

After surfing, we went home and had some lunch. I took a little cat nap in the hammock and then we all went to Tamboo Tavern for a few drinks with our surf instructors. Roger who own the company is Brazilian, and Nago, the one who taught me was Puerto Rican. He had been surfing all of his life, but surprisingly, it isn't his first love. He is also a boxer. He was telling us that he boxed and played baseball for the University of Puerto Rico. It seemed kind of crazy to me, but he had his Master's in Business Administration. I think that part of the reason that someone with a masters is a surf instructor in Puerto Rico is because there aren't many opportunities here. A woman who sold us shoes at Aldo told us that she had gotten her master's from IAUPR, granted I don't know what in, but someone with a Master's shouldn't be selling shoes at the mall.

Sunday was a lazy day. None of us moved until 10 am. And when I did move, I realized I hurt in places I didn't know I could hurt. I had gotten sun burnt at the beach in weird places like the back of one of my calves and places that got uncovered when my tank top got stretched out surfing and the surf board bruised my knees and hips. My armpits killed, but not nearly as much as my abs. I had to use my hands to sit up they hurt so bad. They still hurt today, but it was good for me. We made breakfast together and then cleaned out the house. We went for a walk on the beach and Jason cracked open some coconuts for us. It was a great day to relax. Just what we needed after last month.

In other new here, I started training for a 5k. I know that most people can run a 5K no problem, but I can't so this is going to be a challenge for me. We thought we had a race picked out for May 1st, but then we realized we have a test the next day and proficiencies start that same week. I hope we find another one, but either way, this will be good for me. I may need some help with motivation. I really don't like running all that much.

Elizabeth is going to come and visit me in April!!! I can't wait for her to come down. It will be so nice to have one of my close friends around. I'm already trying to plan out things I want to show her.