Coming soon...

3 and a ½ weeks to go before I leave Cuba for Malaysia. Extremely excited about seeing the family back home again but at the same time a melancholic feeling parting from great friends.

With 2^nd years parting ways to different provinces in Cuba to continue on with their 3rd year come September, lots of hugs, photo taking, and promises to travel to visit each other are made. Thankfully I still have a year more in Havana before heading of to where ever I get sent!

Next semester will see a whole set of new faces, but for the first time ELAM will be accepting self funded students. (All students here in ELAM are on scholarship either by the Cuban government or my their respective governments) Rumor has it that we're about to see around 500 private students from Angola and Brazil. It wouldn't be such a problem except that the old students are being moved to the more run down,stuffier dorms while the new (self funded) students are going to be given our old but in better condition dorms. Students are disgruntled because this reeks of capitalistic tendencies which Cuba proclaims to try to avoid. I guess like they say; it's impossible to achieve the ''Socialist Ideal' and all they can do is aspire to it, but meanwhile some things have got to give even if it means providing better lodging to the rich kids at our expense...

I guess we'll see if this preferential treatment continues next semester since rumors are abound about the possibility that they would be given a special canteen (comedor) with a selection to choose what they want to eat from instead of the 'take it or leave it' menu we have now...

All this aside, I'm looking forward to the newbies in September. Especially now that I'm a senior =D
I really think that studying in Cuba has molded me  into a more humane person and it's challenged the way I used  to look at medicine... it's hard to put in words, but that I'll try in my next post...
Till next time, LOVE!

It's been 6 months since I began my first year of my medical degree. Now in the 3rd quarter of the school year, my schedule is packed with lectures, labs, evaluations,clinic hours,P.E, studying,and trying to work out every other day!

I'm not going to lie, learning all this in Spanish isn't easy. A lot of the time it takes reading it about four or 5 times over to really understand what's going on. Usually I just read up difficult concepts in English beforehand to speed up the process. Fortunately there is a lot of additional medical literature and videos available in digital format that you can access from the schools database and from friends.

Some people back home think that since I'm here in Cuba, this Carribean hotspot, my life would be really interesting, full of parties, drinking, cigars and beach days...I wish...!

Granted the school atmosphere is a bit relaxed, if you want to do well, weekly partying and regular beach days do mess up your study schedule! Term breaks are pretty friggin awesome though =D

Anyways that's school.

On the social front, we held our annual  Asian Gala recently in school. It went pretty well albeit the really last minute rehearsals we held due to everyone's conflicting schedules! Say Opam Cuban Style? =D

My classmates this year are the best. I have a classmate from the USA who is THE most hilarious guy in our class! Love him to bits. The thing I love about chilling with him is that he has this really interesting world view and observations and we talk about the most random things. Put him together with my other really good friend from Sierra Leona and every conversation is just full of laughs!

During dinner at a recent 'girls night out' outing, a guy friend stops over and  he wants to know what we're up to, so after bowling over with laughter we tell him about the  topic of the day (guys) and he has one piece of advice. He says that guys are guys and if you want to have an actual long term relationship with a guy, (not just a one night stand, we(the girls) have to lay down the ground rules right from the beginning. Tell him what behavior you're willing to accept, and what you're not and then practice what you preach. Otherwise if he sees you're willing to put  up with his b.s he's not gonna stop. Basically a guy respects a wpman who  values herself enough to deserve the best.
 I guess to a certain degree this is true. God knows a lot of us girls put up with their nonsense coz we're afraid of losing him. Stuff like, not calling when they said they would, not opening the cab/restaurant door, and more... Ah well...that was a good night =D ( Aside from the fact that we might have come off as bitter haters =p) till the next time I have the inspiration to blog, Chaoito to whatever readers I have left <3

Oooh, for whoever is interested, I started the INSANITY workout and did it for a month but then I stoped coz my knees were getting injured from all the jumping. However, it did wonders for my cardio and now I can run a full 9km albeit not having run for the longest while=D  woohoo!