Community Action Day!

Yesterday Phi Chi and many of the other organizations on campus organized Community Action Day, an event that allows students to give back to the St. Maarten community by participating in one of a variety of projects which include: HIV screening, Diabetes screening, Alzheimer's screening, teaching breast self-exams, playing with the little kids from the ICAN orphanage, or the older kids from Crystal House. The day kicked off at 7:00 a.m. with a free breakfast for all the volunteers and also free T-shirts. Naturally my friend and I aren't morning people, and we managed to crawl into the rotunda at around 7:40 when pretty much all the T-shirts disappeared. My friend accepted the XXL shirt that was left and I did not, hence my not wearing a T-shirt in the above picture... but at least I was wearing green anyway. One of the coordinators did end up finding me a Small, so I was a happy camper in the end.

Seeing as I had already done HIV screening in a previous semester, I thought it would be more fun to spend the day at the beach playing with little kids from ICAN. The following are a few pictures I took for the day.

Aside from a bad sunburn, a few near-drowning experiences ( I realized I'm not a very good swimmer with children on my back) and a couple of wardrobe malfunctions (actually one girl just kept pulling down my bikini top when she was trying to catch me), it was a good day. The kids were very enthusiastic and had a great time at the beach. I got to meet some new people from the other classes and I was happy to spend the day with friends.

Related articles

• Getting Involved (medschoolcaribstyle.com)
• Community Action Day (caribbeanmedstudent.com)

Block II-Trending in the Right Direction

I figured out how to study for Micro, the Phys dept still sucks, and I'm actually decent at Path without having to do anything. At the end of the day though, it's still the same old story for me. Block II can be characterized as a daily struggle with procrastination and complacency, punctuated with a five day study freakout phase that always ultimately keeps me in the clear.  I did better in grades overall since I studied more, but I still need to go up from here. Today is the third day into block 3 and I'm doing something I have never done before, I'm getting ahead... for one class, but it is Med Micro, the class that's been taking roughly 90% of my time. It's also the class that students here can get 100s in. It's fair, you just have to memorize every last single detail about each virus, bacteria, and fungus. My flashcards have been working out pretty well for this class so far.  With a little more time, I'm convinced I could have scored perfection on this last exam. I'm aiming for the 100 for the next one. We'll see.

Med Micro:
Average- 84%
Me- 88%

Physiology:
Average-80%
Me- 86%

Pathology:
Average- 80%
Me- 77%