I love NCAA football season

It is the best time of the year in my mind. Despite the loss yesterday to MSU (and me not being able to watch the game), I was able to listen to the game and it was pretty exciting. One of my close friend here is from Iowa so we will be watching the Michigan vs Iowa game pretty closely. I think his team is favored, but anything can happen in college football. Our significant others (my wife/ his fiance') will be back in the U.S. that weekend for various things so we will be able to drink beer and watch football in peace. Too bad it is the weekend before our block exams. We won't be able to take too long of a break.

3rd Semester

Hi everyone
I haven't blogged anything in a real long time as you may have realized. It is not that nothing cool has happened. It is just that I have been uninterested in blogging it. It really did lose some of its appeal.
But for an update, it is 3rd semester. I am doing well on the island. I got really good grades last semester and I definitely had to work for them. I haven't gotten the final word yet but I am pretty sure I made the Dean's list (gpa above 87%). This is exciting to me because it was the goal I was shooting for and I am hoping to do even better next semester.
Julia is doing well. She doesn't really care for her job here, but she is toughing it out because it really helps with our bills and rent. She is excited about an internship she applied and was accepted for. It is in Key Largo, FL working with physically challenged children and dolphins. She will be working with the physical therapist there for one month. I will miss her when she goes, but it is not until March.
I will attach some photos from the previous semester.

Semester 2

We're back in St. Maarten. I know its been a while since I posted. That being said this will be an extra long post because we have lots of pictures. Our friends, Jana and Kyle, on their honeymoon came and visited us and we got to act like tourist once again. We went zip lining at the highest point in St. Maarten. Its actually pretty cool. There is a temperate rain forest in the hills and it gets about 1500 feet above sea level. Right as we started the course, which took almost two hours, it downpoured on us. It made walking across these tight rope bridges even more
interesting.



The next day we chartered a boat to Prickly Pear island, an island off the
coast of Anguilla (British West Indies). Normally (during high season) the beach is filled with tourist. However, since it was Sunday, cloudy and on low season we were the only ones on the beach. We were the only ones on the island. The snorkeling was amazing. It was like something on the Discovery Channel. We dove among this reef with a school of thousands of fish circling us and Barracuda and sea birds all around us trying to pick off straglers.

The friends are now gone and it back to reality. Julia went back to work and I went back to school. The material seems to be pretty easy right now, just there is alot of it.
Also today we got the inevitable letter.....Tuition.....get this...dun dun dun....is going UP. Well I definitely expected it to go up, but it still hurts. The hike adds about 10k to the final sum after 9.5 semesters of school.
But things could be worse. I could be going to one of the schools in the Caribbean (and there are a lot of them) that doesn't have U.S. federal loans. Students at those schools can't even get loans.
Finally, I celebrated my birthday....on a plane. It was fine with me. We went out to eat with our friends when we got here....and I'm a year closer to 30.

Happy Easter/ Coming home

The semester is wrapping up. Julia heads home on Tuesday and myself a week later after I am done with my two final exams. I don't have class at all this week so I have nothing to do but study for my exams. I will be very happy when this semester is over and I have two whole weeks to relax and see family and friends back home. Julia gets an extra week so hopefully she can get a majority of her shopping time done. The weather has been extremely hot and dry here. It hasn't rained in over a week and it is beginning to look pretty arid out. Luckily we have a gym at the school we can use to work out because you can't run for very long during the day (like more than 5 minutes) with out your skin feeling like its on fire. Most of the tourist have gone home so it is a little more bearable when you are shopping or driving around. Hope everyone is having a happy Easter and we look forward to seeing you when we get home.

Surfs up!

No, we didn't go surfing. But we could have. We went to the beach this weekend with some friends and waves were probably 8 feet at times. It was a perfect sunny day and it was especially unusual for this beach (Baie Rouge) because it is usually very calm. It was a lot of fun swimming and getting toppled by the waves and we spent a bit more time in the water than we usually do.




Later on that night Julia and I went to "Wine and Cheese Gala" at Dr. Acheley's home. It was a pretty nice event. She has a large piece of property on the bay and there were several tables spread out throughout the property with wines from different countries. There was also catered hor d'ouvres. There was a grammy nominated guitarist playing and a silent auction as well. Julia and I won (bought) 2 tickets for zip-lining on the island which we planned to use when Julia's friends come down for their honeymoon.

What a Week!

Solutions, the company that manages our apartment, told us that we did not have to move. They said that they didn't know where the leak was but that a plumber was going to put in new pipes bypassing it. After a little nagging, which I have become quite used to, they finally got the plumber out and with in two days....we had water.
Julia baked me a pizza that night (DiGiorno's---not delivery). It was a spinach, mushroom and cardboard pizza. It was a novel creation.



Later on that night, while at a friends, I got a call urging me to come home because we suddenly had a new pet. Meet Max. He is a 3inch arthropod that did not know how to swim very well.





It sure got Julia cleaning though....I think she scrubbed out all the cabinets.....

taste of the island

There are a few nice things about St. Maarten. One of them is the french pastries. We recently went to Marigot, the capital of the french side of the island. Although, I have not been to the french riviera, many people say it is very much like that part of France. It has a mall with a few clothing stores (very expensive) and there are lots of little shops and boutiques lining the streets. Above the city is Fort Louis (named after one of the more famous French monarchs). We took some stairs up to see the views. There isn't much preservation of it going on. One thing I have noticed on the island is that they don't really preserve anything. But there are some nice views and that appears to be what it's used for. We went with some good friends of ours (Josh and Danielle). After dinner we went to the famous "Sarafino's" pastry shop. The pictures highlight our trip.

"Water, water everywhere but n'ye a drop to drink"

to borrow from Samuel Coleridge this ironic and very appropriate verse. After complaining to several GEBE (the water and electric company) representatives we were told that we used all of that water so it was our problem. I literally had to explain to them how much water the bill had entailed. It was 300 dollars and was the equivalent of everyone on our entire floor coming over to take showers and use our toilet everyday for the last month. I tried explaining that this did not happen so there was obviously an error. After maneuvering up the ranks of supervision (and intelligence) we got to speak with the billing manager who looked at our bill and realized that it needed to be investigated.
Well it happens that.....get this....there is a leak in our pipes (imagine that). So the apartment management company shut off our water until it is fixed (when you know what start growing wings) and in the meantime we can use the open appartment next to us.
Any one of my weekly stories could be placed in the statement, " you know you are in St. Maarten when _____ "
For more enlightened thoughts about living in another country stay tuned.

Got water?

Water went out yesterday for about 8 hours. Luckily enough its back today. We were washing our hands with bottled water and contemplating if we were going to need to bathe in the pool the next day. Even more disturbing is the 300 dollar water bill we got this week. My neighbors average monthly water bill is 20 dollars, so needless to say we think there is an error. It is being investigated on "island time." But I certainly will be paying for it on "island time" as well.
Luckily enough we got temporary plates this week so we were able to put those on our car instead of the W's we were using (W for "waiting"). You see the St Maarten government makes you get new plates every year and changes the color. Somehow someone at the top must have forgotten and said "oh its that time again we better make some new plates." So despite being the same time every year, we have yet to see 2009 plates.
My second block of exams is next Monday so I have been studying hard. It is hard to do because it is very nice and sunny out everyday.
Hope everyone back home is surviving the hard economical climate. Obama and the "liberal" congress are getting you some help. The republicans, Fox News, and good ole Rush seem to think the system isn't broken and that we just need tax breaks. However the near 10% of the country without jobs may feel a little differently. Thank god change has come.

Last day of fun?

Well we just had Block 1 exam last monday but we have block 2 in about 2 weeks. Thus this was the last weekend I could do anything. Julia and I and some classmates went to the beach most of the day. I swam with my goggles out to a reef that was among the cliffs. It was pretty strong current and I got a little panicked a few times but I made it up on the shore to get some air. It is hard to explain but there was this little private beach which you could only get to by swimming around the side of the cliff. It provided me a little relief. After getting sufficient oxygen I swam back. I realized I probably should have taken some one with me. But I made it back safe and we had a great time at the beach. The spouses club had a potluck dinner tonight as well. We brought baked spaghetti and it must have been good because our pan was completely empty when we took it home.

Also we got a US PO box that sends mail to us. If you want it just email me at runningresearch2005@yahoo.com and I can send it to you.

Grades are back

I studied pretty hard and was rewarded. I got an 87.5 on my MCB I (genetics and biochemistry test) and a 85 on my anatomy test. Not quite as high as I wanted, but at least now I know how they are going to be written. Other news this week. Julia had an interview for a job at a clinic working as a Physical Therapist and was offered a job. She can decide her own schedule, so she will be figure that out and then start whenever she wants. This was quite a break through. It all came about from her chatting to different people online.
I am sure everyone out there knows how warm it is here so I won't rub that in anymore. Yesterday, we went out to dinner to a bar by the water and Julia was complaining that she was cold and had to get a coat. I reminded her that it was 71 degrees out.

Block I

The semester is divided into five blocks with a test at the end of each block. Block exams are always on a Monday. Our first block exam is this Monday (01/26), thus I have been studying really hard. We had a ten question quiz in my biochemistry and genetics course called MCB this week. I got a 90%. The mean was a 70%. So I am at least on the right track. I am not expecting the test will be anything really hard except in my case because I am shooting for a 90% (honors). So I am studying really hard. Julia got anatomy lab privileges so she was able to come into gross anatomy lab with me tonight and help quiz me on the cadavers.
Julia also got a potential job offer that came out of nowhere from someone she had been corresponding to online. They are just in the beginning stages of talks so this might not work out. Please everyone pray that she is able to get a job. Although I think Julia is starting to like having her days free. She had been going for walks and other activities with the spouses' club. I will post a pic of the spouses' club.

White Coat Ceremony

White Coat Ceremony was yesterday. It was definitely interesting. I am glad that I have had a white coat ceremony before so that I knew how they were supposed to go. The one we had yesterday was ok until they had one of the students from Alpha Phi Chi the honors fraternity give an address for 20-30 minutes. This is where a little editing from someone (anyone?) would have helped. This guy got up and proceeded to talk about beer and how much he liked beer and flippy cup (a drinking game) for about 30 minutes. People laughed but only because it felt awkard not too. Really it just fell inappropriate and I was thankful I didn't have any family at the ceremony.
This is just another reminder that I am surrounded by a bunch of 22-23 year olds. I will say most of my class is mature, but there are a few there that are not and still may make it through their classes. Heck, the guy who spoke yesterday was in the "honors society." So there's hope for me because if that guy can do it anyone can.
After White Coat there was an after-party at Bliss. Bliss is a local nightlub/bar. I had never been to it but it was very nice. All open air with a large dance floors, and leather couches in little cabana's with a pool and a great view of the ocean (although it was dark). More pictures are to come. One of the upper semester students has a professional camera and will be posting pictures online soon.

Today was christmas in St. Maarten for the Wilkins. We got our car and stuff we shipped (including a TV) , we got our internet installed, and we got our cable box and TV working (so now we have cable). This is a big adjustment. I have to catch up on a lot of stuff. Julia, however, will be alot less bored during the daytime while I'm at class. We got our skype phone activated so it works. We just need rechargeable batteries for it. Without it we have to keep it off most of the time. Once we get rechargeable batteries it will be on all the time and any one can call us.

Adjusting to "island time"

Well it is has been our first week in St. Maarten. It has certainly been an adjustment. Things move at a different pace down here. When we got here we were supposed to be moving in to Aventura Unit#502. Well, apparently that one got sold "last minute" which means it got sold last week and they forgot to tell us. We were switched to Unit 512 which doesn't have as nice of a view and a smaller fridge. Normally this would be a big deal in the U.S. and you could put up a big stink and get some compensation for your troubles. Oh, no , we have learned that in St. Maarten no one really cares. You get what you are given. So we moved into our place and went out and spents " a few dollars" picking up necessities like groceries, hygienic products, rugs, shelves, and hangers.
They have just about everything you could want on the island...just at 2-3 times the price.
The place has come around over the course of the week. We still don't have a TV (being shipped) and we don't have internet yet. The story of internet is another good example of "island time."
We signed a contract for it on Monday, were told someone would be by on Friday. On Friday, we called the person setting it up (he spoke broken french/english) and were told he would be around Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.
I will put up another post soon. We have posted some pics to show you our place.