Earthquake

We just had an earthquake! I'm sitting here typing a report for school and my bed started shaking. I thought the dog was itching herself or rubbing on the bed so I hopped off the bed and realized the dog was still outside (I have the door open).

Then I looked and my door was shaking, so I walked out to my living room and my whole bookshelf-tv-stand thing was waving back and forth! THEN I started to get nervous (I do live at the foot of a volcano) and searched for my glasses. By the time I finally found them, the earthquake was way over.

Phones are currently down and I hear there is mass panic island wide (according to the girl that lives upstairs who just got home). The volcano is not currently spewing magma, but if it does, I'm going to high-tail it!

Yet another fun and exciting day in the life of Karla. Remember about this time last semester right before finals there was a hurricane. This might be too much nature for me to handle!

UPDATE from school: Here is some info from the United States Geological Survey regarding the earthquake today at 3:00pm. It was a 7.4 magnitude quake, and the closest island was Martinique. It looks like it happened out in the water. Details here.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Rudder is happily curled up next to me... shedding.

We had class on Wed, Thurs, and Fri. Went to a fancy restaurant downtown (Ballahoo) for a spur of the moment thanksgiving dinner. $25US/plate for one tiny slice of turkey, a quarter size of stuffing, and literally a handful of vegetables. Should have known better than to trust the British with Thanksgiving, but had good company.

I cut my hair earlier while watching tv. I'd been meaning to since the ends were so damaged that I couldn't get a brush thru the ends. I just started snipping with scissors and hope I did a good job. Sure swept up a lot of blonde knots.

Yesterday A&M beat the hell outta t.u. It's always a good season when we beat t.u.

Salty is in love with Rudder. He's twice her size with his belly the same height as her back. They are the black and tan duo... my pretend Rottweiler with my pretend Doberman. He's way smarter than her though; he follows my toe when I point to food I've dropped.

The malaria and dengue carrying mosquitoes are after me tonight. I put on plenty of OFF, but they are buzzing in mass around me. Well, to bed now.

Baby Goat

Found a baby goat... sorta.

I wanted a color change Del Sol bag that they were supposed to be handing out at the beach. I offered the guy in my physio class that lives up the road (Michael) to carpool with me (he got a coupon for a free bag too). He walks to my house and knock on my door to tell me there is a little white baby goat running around bleating. I say super.

We drive past the road where the goat was because I was told we needed to be at the beach at 6pm and it's getting late (sunset is at 6pm sharp). So I need to mention that this guy is from NYC and had not touched a pig or a cow... until he met me. I tell him the goat is fine, let's go. He guilts me into turning around, so we look at the goat. It's a baby goat alright. Still lively, let's leave it! I'm sure someone owns it and it's nanny goat is around the corner somewhere.

We go to beach. No color change bags. We stay for a while to make sure there are really no bags. We leave. I drop him off at his apt then pass by the goat on the way back to mine. I feel really bad for the goat since it's now like 10pm. The goat was starting to fade and cease to be alert so I scooped him up and walked over to the locals that cook on Friday nights.

"Is this you're goat?" I say, "No." they reply. Then I ask, "Know who he belongs to?" They say "No, but if you don't take him home he'll get eaten by dogs tonight." Way to make me feel bad! So I took him home.

I can't believe Salty didn't eat him! He tried to nurse off her too! He would not drink from a bottle, but only weighed 5kg or 11lbs. I ran a Mod McMasters on the goat feces and saw ~3100 epg coccidia and ~2250 epg Strongyloides papillosus (Threadworm). My parasit prof differentiated the Strongyloides L1 in egg from a developing Strongyle L1 in egg based on egg size and shell thickness. (You should have seen the little worm wiggling in the egg!!!) Even more exciting, goat had a pure Strongyloides infection with coccidial protozoa. Usually there are Strongyloides and Strongyles so a pure infection in a kid on the island is new information. Ah, at least I'm learning something.

I had Michael deworm the goat the 0.9mg ivermectin IM since he guilted me into keeping it in the first place. This was the first shot he'd ever given to an animal and I think they both squirmed! The goat started eating grass and forbs, which is good cuz it got him out of my bath tub. He looked healthy so I let him go with some other goats and he's roaming the hills somewhere. I had him for about a week.

Funny, Michael said his mother wouldn't even let them have a parakeet in the house (it was kept in their NY garage). He was utterly shocked that I didn't think twice about bringing a pooping, wormy, baby goat into my apt... and feeding it grass/hay inside too. I think when I grow up, the barn might as well be attached to the house so I can keep an eye on everything.

Car rolled off a cliff at school

Funny story. So I'm driving to school and I pick up this guy in my class that I see walking to school. We finish driving to school and I go to the parking lot, to park, duh.

He gives me flack for parking on a hill, about how the car could roll off a cliff or something, and what not. I'm like "oh come on, that would never happen!" Ross-mobiles, riiight.

So we go to school like normal, THEN (few hours later) whispers go around in class that someone's car rolled off the cliff at school... let me say that again: ROLLED OFF THE CLIFF AT SCHOOL. THE 50 FOOT CLIFF INTO THE OCEAN. Super.

Anyway, one car (not mine thank god), with a defective parking brake, decided to roll off the cliff. Seriously. It rolled out of it's parking spot, over the cliff, to the ocean. Crashed on the rocks below.

Good thing this is Ross and we're prepared for events like these. (Yet we're somehow not prepared for other things?) Apparently we have a car-picker-out-of-ocean machine that was able to pull the car back up the cliff, back into the parking lot.

The car still works too. Amazing.

These picts are courtesy of Midge in my class. They're so great! Capturing the beauty of the Caribbean and the jungle on the car. (Click to enlarge picts, 1st pict especially!!!)

Rolled off a cliff. Could that even happen at another vet school? Colorado perhaps? Oh, I think they drive real cars there. Cliff, hmmm. Only on St. Kitts. At least the weather is nice.

Break-in on Wed night

I have some distressing news.

Some guy broke into the upstairs apartment Wed ~11:30pm. The student's mom was home asleep with the dog in the back bedroom. Neither woke up. The guy stole some money and a cell phone then hid behind the porch and waited for the girl to come home. He demanded money and she said 'no' so he hit her and fled.

What's worse is that I was sitting outside watering the plants the entire time and didn't hear a thing! Salty barked, but I thought she was barking at another gigantic land crab that wandered into the yard.

We're all on high alert but we think it coincided with our landlord moving off island. He left Wed afternoon.

Glad I have Salty. She strikes fear in all the locals.

Here's a pict of my new (super expensive) dress. I saw it back in Aug before break and decided I needed it. It would have been nice to have my head in this pict, but I was talking and had my eyes shut, so not knowing when I'd wear it again, here it is. NO boob comments or I'll remove the pict.

Also this is the pony that is usually tethered out by my house, although I have not seen him lately.

Mid Semester Break 2

Seven weeks left til the semester is over. We just had our much needed three day weekend... celebrating the climax of the semester. I spent it on St. Maarten!!!
On Saturday my landlord highlighted my hair to make the super blonde ends match the super brunette roots. She did a great job blending it so it looks ‘naturally’ Caribbean highlighted.

Took the ferry to St. Maarten on Monday. We were told to be there between 5-5:30am… which means be up and frantically running around the house at 4-4:30am! A group of us had decided to go, but since we lived on other sides of the island, we car-pooled in pairs. This was not a good idea since the other half of ‘our group’ slept in and missed the boat!

The ferry left port at 6am sharp, after charging us $6US exit tax. Leaving the island was beautiful as the sun rose with Nevis behind us. I even was about to see Ross and my unfinished apt house!
(Remember if you click on the picts, they will appear much bigger in a new window.)

Then my nausea meds wore off… PUKE! It was pink cuz I’m a girl. Not really, the puke was pink cuz I ate watermelon for breakfast. I went downstairs and passed out, so I don’t remember any more of the trip until we were docked and everyone was already off the boat.

St. Maarten was so neat! The drive on the right side of the road! It was weird. They also had this great clean grocery store, and nothing looked moldy! So weird! We walked further and saw restaurants; lots of restaurants that served reasonably priced food! Excitement building! Rumor was that there was a McDonald’s on island.

We walked down the wrong road and ended up passing a string of plastic-smelling tacky clothes stores. We ventured and found a hardware store, which my friend later returned to purchase a small vacuum. Realizing how off the beaten path we had gotten, we headed toward the ocean front strip, where of course, the high dollar shops were located.

Then we saw it: McDonald’s! Oh how exciting! It’s been… April since I ate at McDonald’s, and Dec since my friend had. Ordered food, but they didn’t have the buffalo hot wing sauce, so I was a bit disappointed. No matter! Reasonably satisfied, we did the tourist thing and headed for the beach for a nap… after getting an alcoholic beverage. Yes, it was still morning.

With some time wasted, we toyed with the idea of visiting the French side of Saint Martin, but that never came to be. The side we landed on was the Dutch side, hence the weird spelling of Sint Maarten. Venturing into a few shops, I invested in some cool T-shirts, Cuban cigars, and a new white and blue bikini.

Time was inching closer to when we had to be back at the boat, so we started heading back. My friend ran in one last store to look at cookware, and I followed. It then occurred to me that they sold pillows and I needed pillows! I bought 2 super nice pillows for $8US each. A very good buy methinks.

Rushing for no reason now, we plunge into the long line to board the ferry. Not wanting a repeat of the trip coming, I claimed 4 chairs on the bottom deck and sprawled out with my new pillows. I don’t remember the ride back, but I was told that the sea was so rough that at least 3 waves covered the entire boat during the first 30 minutes. Everyone felt some degree of seasickness during that 3-hour trip.

Six hours on a ferry and six hours on St. Maarten didn’t quite equate, but all in all, it was a good trip.

Car Story

Survived the first round of exams! Woo-hoo. Also did stellar in Physio… the prof is known for making A students cry. (I made a B though.)

I think I’ve successfully learned how to cook. I totally love that I can get fresh real breadcrumbs here. Fried things never tasted so good! I donno why but I’d been craving dove stuffed with jalapeno and cream cheese, especially since they’re flying around here in mass. So I go to the store and settle for the next best thing: ye ole box of breast ‘frying chicken parts.’ I also bought a meat mallet to beat them with (tenderize). Thawed, I ripped the muscle from the bones and separated the pectoralis major and minor. The pectoralis minor makes for excellent chicken strips. The pectoralis major was pounded and then, in chicken cordon bleu form, some jalapeno strips were put in it. Then I took a wad of cream cheese and place it on top. The chicken breast was rolled up around said jalapeno and cream cheese, fastened with toothpicks and battered. I was able to make 7 and let them all bake in the oven at an unknown temperature for an unknown amount of time. Absolutely fabulous. I bought all the stuff for chicken cordon bleu and will make that in the next week or so.

Made mac and cheese to go with my jalapeno cream cheese stuffed chicken. With the botulism contaminated green beans from IGA, you would think I’d know better than to buy something on sale at IGA, but I bought pasta. Sigh, pasta plus chocolate colored pasta beetles. They float to the surface when you add water. I was very tempted to just pick them out and cook the pasta, like no big deal everything is contaminated with something, BUT since I had friends over, they out voted me and made me throw the pasta away. No one but me eats bugs I guess. I think this dates back to when I was 3 years old, sitting in the green chair, when my mom caught me eating a june bug. Crunchy.

So, car story that I had promised to tell: about 2 weeks ago I went to a friend’s house and my car started to smoke out the tail pipe. Never good, so I turn off car. Turn car on 15-20 min later and it’s still smoking. (This is the maroon one I bought for $1000US, while most cars that work are a lot more.) So I decide to park the car and come back when it’s light out. My island AAA is Ross security, so I call them and they pick me up to take me home. I decide to not check on my car (which I can’t lock) until after my test. (Imagine 3 or 4 days passing…) A friend drives me to my car after school. Only problem, car is GONE! I can’t even explain how my stomach was doing flip flops. I just couldn’t believe someone would steal my car, I mean why? It’s so ugly!

We started to search the road and finally found my car down the street and around the corner. Someone had just moved it (pfew). We’re on St. Kitts, that’s not so unusual. So I take the car to my Canadian mechanic at the Marriott and it was like a tiny valve cover thing in the engine that just needed to be replaced cuz the car had been sitting for a while. The local guy putting the car back together accidentally dropped the distributor cap (?) and broke it, so they had to order a new one and my car was MIA for about a week. The part they broke was free to me!

Next car story: so a friend of mine that now lives in the same building as me was living on the other side of the island. One morning she gets in her car and she hears a loud screech-boom-hiss and her car dies. She pops the hood and what does she find? A huge rat! In her engine! Half of it was over on one side, half on the other, and it’s heart had been ripped out of it’s chest was still beating like over on top of her battery. Eek huh!? This came up in conversation because I saw one of the large Kittitian rats get hit by a car the other day. Saw the same thing happen to a little mouse, but it ran off into the bushes rather than being grinded into the pavement like the giant land crabs typically are.