Home Stretch

I am entering finals week and am so excited to be going home soon! I had my first final on Friday in anatomy and was thrilled to get an A. I have finals all of this week and then I'm packing up and getting off the island. I have been studying a lot and have been suffering from headaches everyday. I'm not sure if it's from constantly reading small print or from stress or if it's from the always changing weather. The pressure system here changes hourly and that tends to mess with my head. So I've been religiously taking Excedrin and keeping my caffeine levels high. It's not the greatest, but what can you do?

Last weekend three of the girls from my class and I went horseback riding. We found a flyer on the wall of the gym at school and contacted him in advance. His "stable" was down a dirt road that looks like it gets washed out all the time.  The stable was concrete walls which were divided into stall-like spaces. He has twenty horses, but only rents out eight of them. We were all pleasantly surprised that they all seemed to be well taken care of and were at an appropriate weight. He said he got a couple of them from Trinidad and one from St. Kitt's, but the rest were born here. He has one Thoroughbred stallion and three or four mares who he said are continuously pregnant. The SGU students come every year to castrate his babies because he said he can only handle one stallion at a time, so it looks like I will be seeing those horses again in a couple years.

We rode on trails near his property which eventually dead ended into the ocean. The horses were a little green (meaning they weren't very well trained) but we all knew how to ride so we were alright with it. When we got to the ocean, Annita's horse started pawing at the water. Just as I was saying, "Be careful, it looks like your horse wants to lay down," mine laid down in the sand and luckily I was able to hop off quickly before he rolled.  I hauled him up and climbed back on.  As soon as we turned around to go back to the stables, all of our horses perked up because they knew they were going home. My horse started acting up so badly and was all over the trail and it was all I could do to hold him back. Suddenly he burst into a canter and I couldn't get him to stop. I haven't been on a runaway horse in probably seven years and so needless to say it was a little nerve wracking. But luckily I was able to regain control of his head and we were able to finish our ride without much problem. Just as we got back to the stables my horse bucked really hard and almost kicked April's horse. He was such a brat! But we had lots of fun and it was nice just to be around horses. I can't wait to go home to my horse and hug him and thank him for being so good!

When we first got on the island, some of the professors at orientation told us that we will know when it's time to go home when everything about the island is driving us crazy. It's gotten to that point. I have been studying all day and decided to walk across the street to the grocery store to get a few things. There has been loud music going on all day and even with my windows closed I can hear it. It wound up being a huge group exercise class on the cricket field across the street from my apartment. There were probably 200 people doing aerobics together with three men on a stage leading it. Just as I got outside it was at the end of their class and an announcement came over the speakers. "Walking is good for you. To determine how fast you should walk, try using the talk test. You should be able to easily hold a conversation while walking. If you find that you are getting breathless, you are walking too fast. Try walking 20 minutes, three times a week. If you find that this is tiring, decrease the amount that you walk." They don't think you should become breathless? No wonder everything happens so slowly on the island!! It would be horrible to elevate your heart rate and breath hard! Grenada promotes laziness.

Then I was at the grocery store and had seven things in my basket. As I set my basket on the check stand to unload my groceries onto the conveyor belt, a Grenadian girl ran up and said, "Do you mind if I go ahead of you?" All so had was a box of tampons, so how could I say no to that? I told her it wasn't a problem. She went through and I had all of my groceries unloaded. Before the checker could advance the conveyor so that my groceries were next to her to check, a Grenadian man swoops in front of me and puts five things on the belt. I looked at him disbelievingly and he didn't say anything. I looked at the checker and she just started checking his order! I can't believe how rude the people are here! I understand that we are Americans so they think we don't belong here, but there's not reason to be rude. We support Grenada's economy. They should at least be thankful for that. I could have said something, but I was alone and didn't want to cause any problems. I am just very sick of that kind of stuff happening to me all the time.

Ten more days and I will be on a plane back to the great land of California. I can't wait! But until then, time to get back to studying.