There Are Worse Things...

I must say there are worse things than going to medical school on a tropical island, especially being from Montreal, where winter sucks much worse than for most major cities out there (see picture). We have actually been spoiled here with the weather this year as the temperature has hovered around 10C until just recently. Thats above freezing until the middle of December! Totally unheard of. But of course, winter had to rear its ugly head and ruin it for everyone, dumping a good foot of snow on us in a period of about 4 hours. Good times. I was actually really frustrated while driving during this particularly shitty storm, but one little thought put a smile right back on my face. It was when I thought of picture number 2 of this post, which I had seen a few days before. It is a picture of Batibou beach, which is where much of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was filmed. I just pictured all the snow and slush and the crappy gray sky turning into crystal blue waters and sunshine, and all was well. Sure I'll be studying for most of the day and living in the 3rd world won't be a picnic, but at least I won't be freezing my ass off in 2 feet of snow during my free time. Oh hell no. I'll be drinking rum out of a fucking coconut on the beach. This beach RIGHT here.

Getting to Dominica...

Who knew that the hardest part about med school would be GETTING to the damn campus? SO much needs to get done, none of which is made any easier by the TWO airlines that go down there. See, I have dog that needs to get down there and apparently the planes are so tiny that he is literally too big to get on or he might (and this is a direct quote from the airline) "un-balance the whole airplane". The dog is 120 lbs people... thats what my girlfriend weighs. Are you telling me SHE can't come either because SHE's going to throw the balance of the plane off? What about me? I weigh like 220 lbs.. My plane is gonna be fucked!

In the end, I have to send him through a shipping company the day after I leave so that I can pick him up once he arrives. Now the really fun and expensive part is getting him an import permit from the vet in Dominica. I have to get ALL his shots boosted, a rabies titer even though he has a recent rabies vaccine, fecal tests, a physical, heart-worm tests + meds... All in all, it is actually costing me more to make sure HE is healthy than getting all my medical stuff taken care of!

THEN we need to talk about the weight restrictions on my luggage. The airline that I am taking down limits my baggage weight to 70 lbs, with no bag weighing more than 50 lbs. There is no paying extra to get more down, no exceptions. So now I have to figure out what I'm going to need the most on the island before I know much about it and decide what makes the cut and what doesn't. Its actually tougher than you would think! Should I save more space for food? Take less clothing down, and replace that with books? Bring my PS3? Have anything shipped down at HUGE personal cost? (Let's all remember I'm on loans for med school, I'd rather owe as little as possible after this...) Not to mention the book situation. I've been getting advice from everywhere as to what books I should/should not get and sometimes the advice is the complete opposite of what I had been hearing previously... Now I really don't want to get everything they "recommend" on the book list as that would cost me a fortune, not to mention way too much bag space... But now I'm also stuck trying to figure out how to optimize my book list. Meh.. if worse comes to worst, I guess I can just buy this stuff at a premium on the island!

Woo! Leaving December 28th by the way! See you in the Caribbean.