Friday, August 31, 2007

God I am going to miss Grenada


My classmates can smell change in the air and they can’t wait to go home.

But as I sit on my desk to look out over Mourne Rouge Bay from my seat at my desk, wondering if I can squeeze a dive in I know I will miss it here.

Today I started my clinical medicine class and spent the morning in the office of an Internal Medicine doc. I worked with 3 other students, we took a history, presented to the doctor and gave our impressions. It felt good. Oddly the patient was almost exactly my age, had a host of problems.. and so the challenge was figuring out where to start.

I have been fighting off some sort of sinus infection, started having a little self pity party that morning about how hard it can be to be a medical student (at my age). It would make a better more believable story perhaps if I told you I took that history , saw what my life and my health could be at this point and realized how lucky I am. That is not what happened. What happened is I got lost in the work, the patient, my fellow students, the wisdom of the doctor who I was working with, and I forgot about the ache in my head and the weight of lectures un-reviewed, drugs to memorize.   And it felt good, felt right, felt like I was stepping into myself in a way that I have been longing to do for a very long time.

All the discontent came back of course, almost as soon as I got back in the van to go to campus. We had some really good lectures today (more on that later) and I just got sulky again. I tried to give myself a little break, watch a movie, and I got crankier. But sitting here at my desk, looking at the sunset, and bearing witness to my up and down day has settled me into myself, my scratchy throat, my Neurology notes and the beautiful beautiful Caribbean night, my sense of purpose and rightness has returned and I move on.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Still Catching up from summer

So I came home to the states to find that almost everyone was talking about a movie called Once, and that of course my always in the know friends Michael, Sylvia and Gina had not only seen and heard of the musicians featured in the film but were planning on going to see them just before I left.
And so it came to pass that I was able to see Glen Hansard & Marketa Iglova in the intimate setting of the Noe valley ministry on a cold and foggy San Francisco evening.
The night started with an inexpensive and excellent meal at a Ethiopian restaurant on Valencia and a quick trip to the pirate store. (Glass eyes on sale, scurvy 1//2 off.. and all to support a writers project housed in the back of the store)I had never heard Hansard & Iglova before, nor had I seen the movie and I could not imagine a more perfect introduction to their music. It was just the two of them, Iglova on piano and Hansard on acoustic guitar and they were engaging, humble and skilled. The music was magical.. Hansard even invited one of the younger concert goers on stage to dance while he sang a silly song about Bananas that he wrote for his niece.

Hansard and Iglova stayed after the concert and signed CDs.. Once had yet to be released in Euroope and they seemed a little stunned by their new found fame and by the size of the venues that promoters had been offering to have them play in. If you want a treat I recommend that you all go out and buy their CD the Swell Season today

Monday, August 20, 2007

Part of What I wrote to Kristi

But perhaps interesting to all ?!.......

What is new is the new place. I have moved back to the Grand Anse area into a hotel where a lot of my friends live. I have a studio.. a hotel room with a small kitchen but I do overlook the lovely Caribbean. I am sitting on a friend's porch at the moment, stealing wireless because he has a direct line of sight to a local hotel that has a unprotected network.
The place is smaller than my old one, but the location is much nicer.. 5 minute walk to the beach and an ocean view from my room.. Less isolated too, I know all my neighbors. And a pool The pool is quite lovely, even if a rat drowned in it the other day. (It was fished out and extra chlorine added... all is well)

I am having a hard time kick starting my semester. Generally the teaching faculty seems much better, the pathology department was just awful, but pathphysiology seems much better (I have no idea why they split it like that). Pharmacology group this am was great.

Shade seems to be doing fine at my Mom's although the second chemo hit her harder, she didn't eat for a day. I am and am not looking forward to going back to the states.. I have built up quite a nice support network of friends here and we are all going to be cast to the four winds... ANd I will be doing my Kaplan cource in NYC starting in January.. somehow finding a place for me and my little chemo dog. Then, if I am on schedule, I will take step one around the middle of March and start clinical the middle of April. Intellectually I know I'll be fine. But this rainy evening it just feels like too much big scary change. I certainly have worked through several levels of desire to see new things and meet new people and live new places. I am hungry for something I can call a home.

Monday, August 13, 2007

More Updates from the land of sweat




Although I am sitting waiting for my first class to start of my last term in Greada, I am just getting around to posting the super cool photos I took of Mendocino. Currently Shade is touring the area with my Mom. I had a lovely short trip there this summer. Mom and I went up for a couple of days and then we were joined by Michael and Sylvia, at which point we discovered Michael disturbing tendency to hog all the utensils for himself.
We had several fine meals and some great and some not so great wine tasting experience. Navaroro vinyards was great as always, but it was more than a little sad to see the wine tour limo outside. The Anderson Valley sure has changed.

My new favorite is a small Vinyard named Claudia Spring Excellent Pinot Noir.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Update: Back in Greneda Safe and sound

So I still have some catch up posts from this summer to put up but for now the news is:

I arrived safe and sound in Greneda last tuesday.
I will be moving to the Greneda Grand View next tuesday where no fewer than 10 of my friends will be living. It has a pool and I can run the AC all the time and looks like this:
http://www.grenadagrandview.com/rooms.htm

Shade seems to be handling her chemo just fine. This report came from my Mom today:
Shade had her second treatment and all is well. A
little spit up this a.m. and maybe a little tired, but
in good spirits and good appetite and full of
woo-woo-woo's. So all is well.
We will go up to Mendocino this week so won't be
around tomorrow.

More post to follow about my california summer adventures and continuing Grenada adventures.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Day at the ball game...






My friends Michael and Sylvia arranged for me to get some quality baseball time at the phone park in San Francisco... on summer of love tee shirt give away day no less... The tee shirt was ugly as sin, but hey, free swag is free swag. We started the day in a great little breakfast plate where Syvia and I shared a plate of Crab Cakes and eggs,... God I love San Francisco. As you can see it was a beautiful day, clear and warm. The giants lost in the 12th inning (jumbo economy size baseball), because their whole payroll is tied up with a certain now infamous player who broke a record a day or two ago. He hit no homers that day, but we enjoyed the day and the game immensely.