A car for every purse and purpose

Hello lovely people of the internet!

It's GlitterThoughtz coming to you from the beautiful island of st.kitts.

I wanted to take today and talk about something that I wish I would have been more informed about when I first came to Ross. Now there will be a coming post later at the end of March/ beginning of April that will cover more of the packing details of coming to St.Kitts but, for now, I will just focus on one thing.....Vehicles!

Now I had some idea that the vehicles down here were a little....how can I say this nicely? They are well loved and quirky!

Now, that isn't necessarily a bad thing and it has not discouraged me and it shouldn't worry you at all!
I just want you to be prepared and well-informed.

So let's start with the basics. There are cars and then there are SUVs.
Now the cars can be cheaper and have better miles per gallon, which is a great thing since gas here is going to be a bit more pricey than back in the states. With the SUVs , you will have to spend more money (normally) and have lower mpg but you can get around on the rougher streets and off-road on some of the dirt roads and beaches. For every person there is their own opinion, so just make a choice that works best for you.

I will say that you should be aware of the fact that a lot of cars will scrape the road on some hills or turns because of the angles on the street but it's nothing too major. I personally wanted an SUV because it was off the ground, could get places and was bigger so if I got in an accident I would be safer.

I went ahead and put together some listing from the Ross Student Page of students selling their vehicles. I want you to get a better understanding of the cost and the look of the island cars. Please know that there are vehicles that have "island quirks". Island quirks could be anything from the windows don't roll down to you have to crawl through the back seat into the trunk to open the trunk!

OOOOhhh, I almost forgot....it is common for the vehicle to have a name that everyone knows the vehicle by. For example, Big Orange, Golden Goddess, Big Dip, Black Cat and Marshmellow!


So take a look, I hope this helps give you a good idea of what stuff is listed for.

So this is just a taste of some of the vehicles but keep in mind that most students buy from other students but there are students that buy from locals or one of the few dealerships on the island. 

DO NOT FEEL RUSHED!!!

There are tons of cars and SUVs so don't make anyone rush you into buying a car within in the first week of being here. Also, you can go into purchasing a vehicle with another student but be careful before you do and make sure you have really put some thought into it. You need to make sure you both have similar plans for classes, studying and such.

I'm going to purchase an SUV with Maryland. We both can only spend $3,000 a piece so we can afford a nicer car if we go into one together.  These are all things to think about. 

As always please feel free to message me if you have any questions!

Follow me on Instagram: Sam_Vetstudent

Munchies and Crunchies !

One of the bigger questions that I stumbled across while looking into Ross was, "what kind of food is there on the island"?

First off let me clarify that there is NO Walmart, NO Target and before you ask, just know that the answer is probably no to any American grocery stores. But I give you a promise from the bottom of my heart, you will not starve!
You will survive if you hate seafood because there is more than seafood here. Maryland hates seafood and she always finds multiple things on the menus to order. Maryland, Texas, Jersey (the newest member of our little Prep squad) and I have loved everything that I've eaten here.

If you want it, you can find it! There are differences in the local grocery stores. There are the two main stores that are closer to campus. One is called Rams and the other is called Best Buy ( and no it is not the electronic Best Buy stores from back in the states).

I've added a few random video that I took on my last grocery store run to Rams with Jersey, Maryland, and NOLA. I hope these give you a little insight into what Rams looks like inside.

There are tons of food cafe/shacks on campus to have for lunch during the week. They will not be open during your orientation week though. But when they do open, there is the burger shack, Spice shack (which always has great food), smoothie shack, shack shack, boba tea shack and the vegan shack. If you want smoothies, you will find the best smoothies on campus at the smoothie shack. There's a coffee shop called Rituals on campus so don't worry my coffee lovers, we got you covered. There is the vegan cafe on campus too, in case there is any of you who are vegan.

If you go into town you will stumble upon familiar restaurant names like Subway, Burger King, and Dominio's pizza. SEE?!?!?! I told you that you wouldn't starve! You can either go into town and get these or you can order 869.

869 is the name of a delivery service that will deliver food from many different places in town to any place on the island (within reason).

One of my favorite things to do is to have what we call "Adult Dinner Parties"! It's literally when a group of us, all bring something to someone's dorm room and we all cook a big meal together! It's awesome. Texas gives Adult Dinner Parties a 10/10!

But the real take away is that you will not starve :) Please let me know if you have any questions.

You can also follow me on Instagram @sam_vetstudent

Shhh....be very, very quite. We're hunting apartments

Well with any student who comes into Ross, you have to stay the first semester in the dorms on campus.

Here's a video of my lovely dorm when I first moved into the dorms. I was originally put into the dorm building called "Cleghorn" but about four days later, I moved to the dorm building "Douglas". So that is why the two videos show two different rooms.
So this is a tour of my Cleghorn room, the day I landed in St.Kitts!

This is a video of my dorm after I finished unpacking and decorating in the dorm building "Douglas". It turned out rather nicely. 

I took that video this morning since my older video from January wasn't loading properly.  

But of course, after your very first semester on campus, you are required to find housing elsewhere. Now, this can be a bit tricky. There is housing across the campus but it is very competitive because everyone wants to live there. I had originally wanted to live on my own but after speaking with other students I changed my mind and decided to be roommates with Maryland! She and I began looking for a two bedroom/ two bathroom apartment. We wanted to say about $1,000 dollars or less (of course) but the main thing for both of us was safety. 

I changed my mind about a roommate for multiple reasons:

1.) Maryland is a super awesome friend

2.) safer in pairs ( in case you lock yourself out,etc)

3.) having a buddy

4.) able to rent a more expensive place and split the cost

5.) study group

6.) can go in on the purchasing of a vehicle  

We went and looked at a few different places and even put down offers for apartments but we kept missing out it seemed. But then we found Silver Reef Apartment Complex. It all kinda came together and we were able to sign a lease. Here are a few pictures of a double unit (2bed/2 bath).

Now I know what you are thinking....Sam where are the videos? You always posted videos! Okay, okay, here is a video of a single room.... that's the best I can do for you at this time but don't fret when Maryland and I move in, in May, I'll take a better video of our apartment. Sorry, I know that I took this video a little too quickly through the apartment but thank you for bearing with me.

A single unit is $1,300 a month and then the double unit is $1,900 a month. Now, this a bit more on the expensive side but not terrible prices for down here. Maryland and I had a talk about rent and the two bedrooms. Maryland wanted the larger upstairs room with the private bathroom and walk-in closet and I was totes fine with the downstairs bedroom and large full hallway bathroom. So we spilt the rent $1,000 and $900. Maryland pays $100 more to be on the top floor with the bigger room.

Unfortunately, Silver Reef is not pet-friendly so I will have to wait to bring Gryffindor down but he is doing just fine stateside. I will close with a picture of him that was sent to me from W this morning.

Failure teaches us to stand back up

Hello, darling people of the internet! It is after the first exam and I've been here for over a month.

I really love this school and the island. I'm so excited for my journey here! As always I want to be honest with you and let you know my success and my failure. I know I post a lot of the positive and funny stories that make up a big chunk of my life but I would be remiss if I did not share the negative side of things with you as well. I am human and negative things happen.

I promise, my dear reader, that after this not-so-happy tale, I will post a much happier one. Okay so let dive right in. My study methods for the exam included attending TA sessions, group study sessions, making notecard and private studying. I was feeling confident and positive about my understanding of the course material.

On the exams in Vet Prep there are your four main classes;
Medical Math &Pharmocology
Microbiology
Veterinary Terminology
Cell Biology

The exams in Vet Prep semester are, what they call, "Block Exams". Meaning that you get all four exams at once and have two hours to complete all four exams. It sounds awful but it's not horrible....okay it's kinda horrible (I can't lie to you guys). Soooo anywho........I decided to take my exam from easiest to hardest so I could build my confidence! So I started with Veterinary Terminology, then Pharmacology, then Microbiology and then lastly Cell Biology. Now the good thing is that each section of the exam is only about 30 questions and the questions are multiple choice (so roughly 90 some questions for the entire exam). So, that is in your favor while taking the exam. But the downside to that is that if you miss about 3 questions, you drop a letter grade.

My grades for Exam one came out to be:

Medical Math &Pharmocology   B
Microbiology                               A
Veterinary Terminology               A
Cell Biology                                 F

My heart sank and I felt sick to my stomach.....how could this have happened? I felt like I had studied so hard. I cried, a lot.....for about 20 mins and that's when I started to feel sorry for myself. I felt like I didn't belong here like I wasn't good enough and that I should just go home.
I felt the weight on the failure drop like 1,000lbs on my shoulders and I felt so lost.......but then I started to get angry. I was angry at myself. I wasn't angry because I had failed ( though it upset me to my core), I was angry because after one exam all I could see was my one weakness....my one fail. I had not been happy for any of my A's or B's that I had earned through my hard work and studying. After one F, I was talking myself down, ready to run back to Kansas and call it quits!

No Way.

Not going to happen.

I have come too far and worked too hard to let one failure define me! I have faced failure before but it was my strength to push forward that had gotten me here, TO VET SCHOOL! No one else had done that, that was all me!

So, ladies and gentlemen, I failed my first Cell Biology section but I Passed my three other courses! One F will NOT define me! So for anyone reading this blog, know that you are more than your failures....YOU are the fire in your heart that burns for your dream! You deserve this and you can make it happen!

So I return to my study desk to begin study for my next exam and push through to do better!

As a very wise person once said,
"I just want to remind you that one “bad grade” doesn’t define you, limit your intelligence, outline your potential or decrease your worth. You are going to rock the rest of this semester because I know this isn’t going to set you back, talk to your professor, show them your notes, reassess how you studied, and give it all you got! "- OLAB

Update from 2nd week

Alrighty, my lovely people!
So have few new people to add to my list of friends! (side note: I am not listing everyone so if you know find yourself listed do not be mad, you will get your moment in the spotlight soon )

So for starters, I want to highlight two new squad members. First, we have NOLA, she is from New Orleans, Louisana. So when you abbreviate her town and state you get NO, LA ---> and that's why she is NOLA.
Second, we have our next member from New Jersey. I will refer to him as Jersey.

Pressing forward let us just dive straight into the second week. I will continue to try to keep you updated but as I progress onward this semester I know I will not be able to post every week. Feel free to message me any questions you might have. Remember I was a Pre-Vet student in undergrad just like some of you. I searched for weeks for students blogs and Instagram accounts. Trying to collect all the data I could. If you are thinking of applying to Ross, I say do it! Jump off into the deep end.....of the ocean and swim (or most likely, fly ) to St.Kitts and become a Rossie (the nickname of Ross students).

I digress, where was I.....OH yes, 2nd week! Days seem to fly by here. My normal day consists of waking up about 6am-6: 30 am and getting ready for the day. I start off kinda slow, making my bed, washing any dishes in my sink and brushing my teeth. You know, pretty basic stuff. Now at 7 am, I meet Maryland at the patio area between the dorm buildings and we go on a 20 min run around campus and by the paddocks, where some the animals eat there breakfast. If you run any later then 8 am, it is just getting too warm, plus all the first semester students are heading off to morning classes so you end up weaving in and out of groups of them as you run. Side note: campus has a lot of "slopes". I say "slopes" because being from Kansas, I would call them hills but the locals and upper semesters continue to tell me that they are just "slopes". But hey, you know what? When you come down, you can see for yourself and you can let me know.

After my morning run, I head back to my dorm for a quick 20 mins and get ready for a study group and classes. I want to just say that I have a MacBook, iPad and an apple pencil. They are amazing and they make life a whole lot easier for me. But each student will have there own personal style so find yours.

Our vet prep course runs about 50 mins long and meets throughout the week. They are, for the most part, in the same room. So you stay in your seat and the professors cycle through. It's actually quite nice indeed! Also, all lectures are recorded and posted online for you to rewatch at another time. All the professors teach from powerpoints that they post before class (either days before or 30 mins before).

 (I know that in this video I said I would mute the volume but I can't get it to mute, so please disregard). This a video of our Vet Prep classroom with is the Lower Auditorium ( which is referred to as "Lower Aud").

We do have random little things peppered throughout our week. For example, the club fair happened on the student union pavilion (the grassy area southwest of the Student Union).  It was amazing to see how many clubs there were. Most clubs only meet once every month or every two months. SOoooo I decide to join a few as a normal member and not run for any officer position (at least not yet).

Clubs that I signed up for were AABP Club, Surgery Club, ZEW club and scuba club.
       -ZEW (Zoo, Exotic, Wildlife) Club
Core Statement: ZEW Club serves to provide Ross University’s veterinary students with hands-on experiences and further education in the fields of zoo, exotic and wildlife medicine. Whether it be researching, government, mixed practice, integration with other fields, etc.... we're your club!
     -Surgery Club
Our club motto is to further the students’ knowledge in the area of veterinary surgery with emphasis on small animal surgery and some emphasis on large animal and equine surgery, to provide information about specializing in the field of surgery within the veterinary profession, and when possible, organize hands-on opportunities for the members of the club.
       -Scuba Club
Welcome to the RUSVM Scuba Club! We are dedicated to introducing you to the fabulous world thirty feet (and further) below sea level.  The club is open to all Ross students, faculty, staff, and their family members. You don't need to be certified to join. Monthly club dives, other island dive trips, Beach Fest, and diver education opportunities provide students with ample opportunity to get to know each other and the island.
     -AABP Club
Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine's chapter of American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP).
 **any of you that know me, knew that I would find this club in a heartbeat**

Well that's a long enough post for now, until next time, Have A Great Day!

Semester Colors Explained

So this was something I have come to fully understand since I've been here and I wish to pass on the knowledge that I have learned.

First thing first, the understanding that every semester gets a color. That semester class stays the same color until they leave the island to go to their clinics. Along with getting your own semester class color, you and your semester pick a mascot for your class as well!

So.... right now,

 1st semester is the GREEN semester and they will be called green semester until they leave to go to clinics. They have picked their semester class mascot, which is a Stag.

2nd semesters are the BLACK Cats

3rd semesters are the PINK Narwhals

4th semesters are the BLUE Blue Footed Boobies (it's the national bird of St.Kitts)

5th semester is the ORANGE Tigers

6th semester is the RED Lions

7th semester is the PURPLE Stingrays

Now since I came in as a Vet Prepper, I'm kinda lumped into the green semester with the first semester students but next semester when I go into 1st semester, we will take over PURPLE. So we will be the Purple semester and then we will also, as a class, vote on our new mascot for our semester.

Week one: Classes, Buses and Movies....OH MY!

Hello dearies!
Week one is pretty fun and interesting!
Classes are pretty straightforward so far, I would say to find a good study group and start studying the first day. Study every day and don't fall behind and it will help to not add extra stress. My study group and I meet for about 4-8hours a day so far (it depends on the homework and lecture load for that day). Remember all the things you had to do to get here, don't slack off when you have been given such a great opportunity, that others would die for. You are here for a reason to prove them right, you deserve to be here!

Vet Prep has 7 classes and you can find them on the Ross webpage.
-Case Base Learning (a pass/ fail class)
-Microbiology
-Pharmacology
-Cellular Biology
-Veterinary Terminology
-Transition to vet life (a pass/fail class)
-Clinical Application  (a pass/fail class)

Veterinary Terminology in the Multipurpose Lab

Microbiology in the Lower Auditorium

First Day of Vet Prep

Maryland and I went and caught a "bus" to go to the local movie theatre with a group of people. I say "bus" because it was not what you would normally call a bus. So if you want to catch a bus there are a few things to know.

Bus Fact #1: Buses kinda just make loops around the island but all buses will always end at the capital Basseterre

Bus Fact #2: They don't make spots at every bus stop, they will pick up people who just flag them down on the side of the road.

Bus Fact #3: The bus fare is always $2.50 EC (which is $0.93 US)

Bus Fact #4: It is normally a Van and not an actual bus. ( when the van/bus pulled up to get us, every cell in my body was screaming "Do NOT Get In That Van with the Strangers!!" but that's what you have to do. #SorryMom)

Bus Fact #5: It is only a bus if it has a green license plate and it has the letter "H" before the numbers on the plate.

Bus Fact #6: Bus drivers seem to drive faster than taxi drivers
    *I think buses are the only things that don't run on island time

Bus Fact #7: have your $2.50 EC ready to give to the driver (either right as you get in or right when you get out) DO NOT MAKE THEM WAIT FOR YOU (or else they will be very grumpy)

Bus Fact #8: When in doubt, ask the fellow passengers on the bus. Most are extremely friendly and happy to answer any questions

Bus Fact #9: have your ID out and visible, this will inform all those around you that you are not a tourist but, in fact, a student! This will help you as you mingle with the locals.

So even though the final destination of the buses is the capital, there are tons of places to stop along the way. There are two grocery stores and even a movie theatre! Yes, you heard correctly there is a real US quality movie theatre! Maryland and I went with a smaller group of upper semester students to go see The Greatest Showman. I was amazed at the prices! A movie ticket back home would have easily been $10 US dollars but here it was on $6 US dollars! We were also informed that on Tuesdays that Ross Students can see movies for $3 US dollars! You can't beat that! This theatre even gets movie about two or three days earlier than back in the states. It was a nice thing to do to take a little two-hour study break.

Well, my dears that is all I have right now.  Tune in next time to hear about of our adventures during the weekend after the first week of Vet Prep!

Bus ride to the Capital

The Movie Theatre