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!

New Home!!

I am not homeless!!!! Thank god. Cathleen, Sundeep and I are moving into an apartment that currently has three third years in it. They will be leaving to do their rotations and won't need it anymore. It is amazing!! I couldn't be happier and the whole situation has worked out really well. The apartment is fully furnished and really cute!! It is a penthouse with a huge roof that is half covered. The guys that live there now won't be moving until July, but they let us move all of our stuff in early to make it easier for us. It was still a huge pain in the butt to move in the middle of finals week, but I would have had to pack and move down to the first floor even if we weren't moving out of here. It is comforting knowing that we are living in a place with wonderful landlords (that invited us out for dinner when we get back in Aug) and in a place where there are not problems. As it turns out, Steve O and his family lived in the apartments that we are moving to, just a few years ago. I know my phone photography skills leave much to be desired, but this is a little bit of an idea of what it looks like.

Bachelorette Party

The ladies and I threw my roommate Cathleen a bachelorette party last night. It was a success. We had so much fun! We had a limo, ate at a great restaurant on the ocean, danced our butts off and stayed out way too late. We played a scavenger hunt game where we had two teams and had to take pictures doing silly things like taking a picture with a cop, or kissing a guy on the cheek or my personal favorite, taking a picture of a shirtless man wearing the Travis mask (Travis is Cathleen's fiance). There are some really funny pics from the night, but most of them are under lock and key due to some inappropriate bachelorette memorabilia. Cathleen's fiance is here visiting (and to help us move) and all of our boys here took him out for a bachelor party of his own. They had a crazy night too. I thought I would share some of the ok pics. It is sad to think that this was the most fun we have had all semester and it is also our last day of fun. Now it is nose to the books.

Closer to home.

Ugh. I actually have news to report and most of it isn't exactly good news. My proficiency didn't go as planned. I didn't have my SOSH card (which we rarely use because it is for people who can't see the big E on the chart.) I was so flustered, but I borrowed one from Cathleen right at the beginning of the proficiency. It shook me up so bad that I never fully recovered. I passed, although I still don't know what my grade was. It should have been an easy A for me, instead I was shaking like a leaf the whole exam and struggled to give my instructions in Spanish because I couldn't calm my nerves. Awful experience. And worse because I know I am capable of doing everything correctly.

The other fun news is that our housing people are jerking us around again. They want to make us pay for the unused rooms in our apartments unless we want to move everything we own down two floors into another apartment. It wouldn't have been a big deal had they told us this when we moved in, but we were told that we could pay $100 a month to keep our stuff here when we were gone. Then we were told last week that we would have to pay the full $500 a month while we were gone. Now it is up to $1000/month while we are gone if we chose not to move all of our things into an apartment with everyone else who lives in our building. This is really just because they are going to let high schoolers live in our apartment while they are at NASA camp. I probably would have moved my things without complaint had we been given notice, but we are about to enter finals week and I don't have time to deal with all of this. I am leaving here on May 28th, my last final is on May 27th. Had she given us some notice I would have stayed longer to move after finals. It pissed Cathleen and I off enough that we are going to move out of the student housing. I'm sick of surprise roommates, not getting my mail when it arrives and getting jerked around.

Winding down

The school is finally winding down and I'm ready for it!! I have one last exam and Proficiency before we hit finals week. Proficiency is where we are tested on our ability to perform all of procedures that we have learned in Primary Eye Care. Basically it is all of the pretesting, which isn't really a problem for me. I don't think I would be as nervous about it if we didn't have to do it in Spanish. We have to take the patient's history (both medical and ocular). Even though we worked on it in Spanish class, it is 100 questions long and I'm worried I will miss something. We have to ask all of the questions that would be on a health history form, without the form. In real life, you fill out the form, we review it and ask any questions that require clarification. We also have to perform all of the procedures while giving instructions and explanations in Spanish. I'm sure I'll be fine, I know it all, I just don't want to blank under pressure. We also have a time constraint of 30 mins start to finish. In the real world, I would probably get fired if I consistently took 30 mins to do the tests that we are performing, but everything we do here is manual, nothing is automated, so it does actually take a lot longer than it should. Wish me luck!!

I apologize to all of you who read this for not writing more lately and probably only adding a few more posts before I go home. I honestly haven't been doing anything other than studying. It is hard to find something exciting to say about that. The rest of this month will only have 2 days of fun. One is this Saturday when I go to watch the Mosley vs. Pacquiao fight, and later this month for Cathleen's bachelorette party. If anything else exciting or noteworthy comes up, I'll be sure to post it, but seeing as the spot where I study in the corner of the couch is starting to get a butt dent, I'm not holding my breath!

Spring Break.

Elizabeth came to visit me on the 12th and stayed for a week. She has been to the island before, so I wanted to show her parts of the island that she hadn't seen yet. The night she flew in, we all went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Old San Juan. Many of my friends left on either Wednesday or Friday to go home for spring break and I wanted her to have a chance to meet them. On Wednesday, after class, Elizabeth and I dropped Cathleen off at the airport and went to Old San Juan and walked around the fortress. We also did a little bit of shopping. Thursday was IAUPR-School of Optometry's 30th anniversary. We didn't have class, but there were things going on all day. Elizabeth and I volunteered with some elementary school children in the morning and watched some of the performers that were going all day. When that was over, we went to Club Cabana where our class was having a fundraiser for our white coat ceremony. They gave us a portion of the profits from the night. They have really good wings.

Friday was the start of the real fun. After class (and Elizabeth's eye exam) we drove to Cabo Rojo. Cabo Rojo is the very Southwestern tip of Puerto Rico. We heard that it took about 2 1/2 hours to get there, which seemed like a long time for how far it was mileage wise. In the states I think we could have made it in an hour and a half. By the time we actually got to Cabo Rojo, we were wishing it only took 2 1/2 hours. It took us four hours to get there, partly due to terrential downpours, partly due to the fact that GPS sucks on this island because no one can decide whether to put it in English or in Spanish and end up mixing the two, and mostly because people drive slower here and have no concept of moving over to the right lane if the cars behind are moving faster. It also didn't seem to help that we were like our own distraction on the road. Cabo Rojo is a place where Puerto Ricans go to vacation and there are very few American tourists. I think that because we were so far away from San Juan, the locals all did a double take at us, even if that meant slowing down or speeding up to stare at us. I can't even tell you how many times it happened. You would have thought we had a giraffe in our car, not just a redhead. I really wish I could blend in a little more. I'm jealous of the girls here who have to open their mouth before it is apparent that they aren't Puerto Rican.

That was hardly the only excitement of the drive to Cabo Rojo. We realized that we had gotten off course and were looking for a place to turn around when Elizabeth nearly hit a chicken that had decided to cross the road. After a few profanities and a lot of laughing we found a place to pull over and reorient ourselves on the map. This guy came out of his house and walked across the street. Elizabeth was watching him intently as I looked at the map. All of a sudden she starts freaking out saying that she thought the guy was stalking one of the chickens on the side of the road. She thought he was going to kill it right in front of us. I looked up and watched him walking toward the chickens. He inched closer and closer to one of them and then --opened his mailbox. It was hilarious.

When we finally found our hotel, we were pleasantly surprised. It was beautiful. It is called the Boqueron Beach Resort in Boqueron, PR> We had the best room in the whole place. Top floor in the corner with a view of the ocean, the pool and the town. We loved our hotel and the Cabo Rojo area so much, we decided to stay for an extra day.

While in Cabo Rojo, we ate at this adorable restaurant called "Marena." The food was amazing. I had grilled tuna and tostones. Elizabeth had a burger, a mojito and one of those salads that is tomato, basil and mozzarella. After dinner we looked at all of the stuff that the stores and street vendors were selling. It was a cute little downtown area. They had many carts with clams and oysters, others with jewelry and hair things, and leather goods.

The next day we hung our by the pool for a bit. Elizabeth wanted to get tan enough to look like she had just come back to from the Caribbean. I hid in the shade and read a magazine. After we tried to go to the lighthouse, but they only allow a certain number of cars in and we were not one of the lucky ones. Instead we had lunch at a resort right next to the entrance to the park. It was part of the Bahia resort. It is easily the most breathtaking view from a restaurant I have ever seen...and the food was good there too. Elizabeth and I each had penne with shrimp. So good. If I ever go back, I might stay at that resort instead just because of the proximity to the lighthouse beach and that awesome restaurant. After lunch, Elizabeth and I headed to Buye Beach. It was also beautiful. The beaches were busier than I expected, but they were mainly full of high school kids who were on spring break, so I guess I should have expected it.

When we got back, we realized that Elizabeth had burned herself. She had tried to strategically place sunscreen, but all she managed to do was burn herself like an appaloosa. We both thought it was pretty funny, but we were much more careful about the sunscreen for the rest of the weekend. I didn't get burnt, but my freckles do look darker. I really hate it when that happens. I guess that means that Elizabeth wasn't the only appaloosa!

On Sunday we left the hotel early and went to the lighthouse beach. It was so amazing. We hiked around and looked in the tide pools. There were tons of sea urchins. The coast line was awesome. It is all limestone cliffs all cut out by the water. The beach itself was a little bay with beautiful white sand and a view of the cliffs and the lighthouse. If we had packed better shoes we could have hiked along more of the shore line.

On Monday Steve-O, Elizabeth and I went to Fajardo at 6:30 am to catch a ferry to Culebra. Once again, things did not go as planned. We got to Fajardo and got in line to buy tickets for the ferry. The line was forever and a day long. I can't explain why it would take so long to sell tickets for a ferry with a computer system, but apparently it does. We were not able to get tickets to Culebra because they sold out. They even added an extra ferry. So we waited for the ferry to Vieques. We waited and waited. Three hours in the line. We didn't even get on a ferry until 1 pm. Thank god Vieques was beautiful and Elizabeth was entertained by the local stray cat population. Steve-O dubbed her the "Crazy cat lady." When we finally got there, we went to a different beach that I went to the last time I was in Vieques. This time we went to the red beach. It was prettier than the one I went to the time before. I loved it. More white sand and perfectly blue water. The water was cooler than I expected, but it felt wonderful. After our fill of sun, we went back on the ferry to Fajardo. Steve-O took us to one of his Domino's for dinner. He made us a couple of pizza's and some wings. So good.

Elizabeth had to leave at five in the morning on Tuesday. I was sad to see her go. She says she wants to make it a yearly thing and I hope she means it. It was wonderful having her here. I just feel bad that I sent her home so tired. I wasn't expecting to run around as much as we did and the sun has a way of sucking the energy right out of you.

Since she left, spring break has not been nearly as exciting. Most of my closest friends aren't here anymore and the ones who are either already had plans or just are vegging out. I'm not going to lie, I am bored out of my mind. I have taken to watching old movies and studying for tests that are weeks away. I even got so bored I started organizing. We all know how bored I have to be for that to happen. Yikes. Hopefully someone will want to do something tomorrow. I need to socialize.