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  • Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

    So as some of you may know, I am now going to med school in the Caribbean.

    The university is an "off-shore" institution. The office and everything is based in the states, all the staff is American, and the classes are split like right down the middle with ALMOST half of the students being Canadian (tons from the GTA area) and the other half are Americans.

    You might think it's ghetto or something since it's in the Caribbean but keep in mind that it is run/owned by Americans. All the **** is high-tech, class rooms are nicer than the shitty rooms at U of C and U of S, there is wireless internet at school, transportation to and from dorms, etc.

    Class size is like 70 students which is wicked. You know everybody, the teacher knows you, and when you need help you get it on the spot.

    I will be here on this island for 2 years (actually 20 months....which is 5 semesters of work). After that, I will write the USMLE (United States Medical Licensure Examination) and I will then do 2 years of clinical rotations in the states. So 4 years from now I will be Dr. nismodrifter (MD) and will be set to get a residency in the United States. I however would really..REALLY like to land a residency in Canada since Canada is where I want to live once I'm all done. Only problem with that is that it is really tough to get one. Hopefully all the **** will work out and I will end up in some rural **** hole in Canada in 4 years....but I'll have a smile on my face because I'll be in Canada yo haha.

    I just had 4 exams in 2 days (Monday/Tuesday...and had one on Friday too) so I thought I'd post this **** up before the workload starts to pile up again (ie: tomorrow morning.....).

    The school is located on an island called Nevis (pronounced knee-vis). It is part of the union of St.Kitts and Nevis (you might know about St Kitts...it has like a 12 star Marriot resort). Nevis is 1/2 hour ferry ride from St Kitts and you can clearly see St. Kitts from Nevis.

    Weather was hot hot in the first week of September but I noticed that it's getting cooler now. I spend 99% of my time inside though so I never get to experience the crazy heat mid-day. I have gotten hella mad brown though haha. Temperature is extremely constant....always +31c peak every single freaking day.

    Beaches are extremely pimp. Water is warm and clear. Famous people like Oprah, Kelly Ripa, Mel Gibson, and Sean Connery actually have houses here on this island (it's not a busy place...so it's perfect for some high profile person to come here and relax). Princess Diana also used to vacation here.

    The people here are VERY VERY VERY VERY NICE. It is weird really. Walkin down the street everyone says good morning, hello, good afternoon, good evening to you. If I'm ever walkin home from school since I missed the bus or some **** someone will guaranteed stop and offer a ride.

    Anyways, here's some pics I took during my first week here. No they are not p-shopped....everything really is as blue and as green as it is shown in the pictures. The first time I actually checked out the beach I thought the **** must be fake. It is so nice that you just can't believe that things can be so green and the sky can be so blue.

    Pics:

    My dorm yo: It's the building in the middle. Have AC, wireless internet, everything. I've never stayed in a dorm before but other people say the rooms are huge in comparison to what you get in Canada/States. The room is like hotel sized with a kitchen and ****.


    View from room: pimpz


    View of St. Kitts from the front deck of the dorm:


    A street in the main part of the town. The clouds on the mountain in the background are very rarely NOT there. 99% of the time the clouds hang on the top of it and make it look all scary and ****. The mountain is just behind the dorms.



    The main street of the town area. Everything "important" is along this stretch of road. Can't see much on this part of it but there is a huge grocery store and stores like that on it.


    A beach at a restaurant where we ate. Pimpz yo. The water here was crystal clear.


    Beach pwnage: This same damn bird pwned like 20 fishes in an hour. Crazy to see how they can spot them from so high above and then fly like a missile to pwn the fish.


    The beach that is a 5min walk from my dorm. Sooo nice, this one is definately my favorite. Only had time to check it out in the couple of days before classes started. Haven't been down there since.


    Car spottings:
    - The cars here are freaking WICKED. It's all JDM ****. I've seen quite a few NICE cars including:
    - RHD Pathfinders (Terranos)...lots of these around.
    - Toyota Soarer (ie: Lexus SC400).
    - Toyota Altezza..omg teh real Altezza lights.
    - RHD Fairlady (ie: 300ZX) in mint condition with 18" BBS LM's (3pc $$$$ wheels yo).
    - older Mitsu EVO with huge FMIC etc.
    - and others that I can't just think of right now. I've said OMG NICE CAR quite a few times but I can't remember them all.

    Here are some notable spottings during times I have had a camera on me:

    Got RICE?: Picture is bubbly because the Suzuki Samurai I was in had plastic rear windows.


    Arospeed! OMG I wonder if he has one of those cold air intake FMIC things :bigpimp:


    Ahhhh a diesel that I really wish we had. GDI yo.


    This van is in desperate need of a huge freaking body kit JDM stylez yo.


    Saw the front of this and went OMG!! Subie guys, does this guys car look like anything special or is it all just bolt on body stuff.


    But then I saw the rear....


    OMGWTFBBQ!!!1!!!R33!!1!!1: First time I've seen one of these in person.


    And the unmistakable Skyline rear:


    I'm missin home a ton really. People always say "WTF, look at where you are, the place is crazy nice and you want to go home". I'll just say this: When you are dead tired and have 8 hours of studying ahead of you and there is no freaking Tim Hortons around you realize how good home is ahha. There is no "fast food" place on this island. There are local places but of course no Mcdonalds or anything of that sort. St. Kitts has a KFC and a Subway but there is no way in hell that going there and coming back will make it a "fast food" experience.

    Other than that everything is available from the grocery store. You name it they got it but everything does cost a little more. Most of the stuff is reasonably priced (ie: a can of pop costs you the usual $1) but things like Tropicana Juice will run you like 10 bucks CDN....ouch.

    So that's all for now. Basically my only night off in 3 weeks (we have exams every 3 weeks and I'm always studying my rear end off to keep up). I'll be back in Calgary in December for X-mas break. After that I don't exactly know when I'll be back. I get 2-3 weeks off every 4 months (ie: in between semesters) but thats about it. I might come back in April or I might come back in August...not exactly sure.

    Piece yo!

    Attached is a map of where the island is.
    Attached Files

  • #2
    Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

    nice place, not the cars.

    good luck and have fun
    2002 VW Golf GT TDI
    2016 VW Passat BiTDI

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

      Well looks like a sweet place to go to school, good luck with the studies and dont forget to enjoy yourself too!!
      Blair
      Former Cars: '12 Fiat 500, '10 VW GTI, '05 Smart Fortwo, '96 VW Jetta GLX, '02 VW GTI 337.........

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      • #4
        Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

        So did you not get into a canadian med schol?
        Simon

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        • #5
          Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

          yea.. if you can afford to go way down there.. is it like beter than schools in NA?? coulda bought your way into stanford or harvard or something

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

            You seem pretty excited to get into the workforce...Man are you gonna be dissapointed!

            Take your time in school, as much as you may think it sucks now, trust me, working sucks way more!!
            REAL men use harsh language as self-defense
            -james

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

              Originally posted by James
              You seem pretty excited to get into the workforce...Man are you gonna be dissapointed!

              Take your time in school, as much as you may think it sucks now, trust me, working sucks way more!!

              ^^ True, no matter what you are doing.
              KR
              Porsche 991 Carrera S

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

                Sounds like a nice place to live, how is the tuiton?
                Hopefully you grow out the the pimpz and yo's before you start taking on patience though
                Name: Brent
                His: '04 TDI Golf Mods: None If it's smoken it ain't broken
                Family: '15 Jetta Sportwagon
                Fun car: '92 Blue Karmann Crabby Cabby Mods: Coils, front and rear swaybars, LED interior lights and some other old things.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

                  Originally posted by Ryan
                  yea.. if you can afford to go way down there.. is it like beter than schools in NA?? coulda bought your way into stanford or harvard or something

                  Haha you're an idiot Ryan. It's not about "buying" your way into schools, its about being accepted. I have a few friends in med school in hungary right now because they couldn't get into Canadian med schools.. and they come from 'wealthy' families.
                  Simon

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                  • #10
                    Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

                    well i didnt' mean it like that.. but i should have asked.. is it hard to get into canadian med schools then?

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

                      Ya its stupidly hard to get into anything in canada lol

                      Simon - I hope your friends aren't goign to that Pecs School (i havent heard anything good of them.... but lots of bad)

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

                        ok I'm going to try and do my best to cover all the questions that came up haha:

                        1. Yes it is crazy hard to get into a Canadian med school. My grades were decent but not good enough to get in.

                        - I could have stuck it out at a Canadian university for another year or 2...or 3...or 4 and keep working my rear end off with A CHANCE that I might get in. The problem here is that as every year passes it gets tougher and tougher to get into a Canadian med school. For me to raise my grades up to a point where they would be competitive I'd have to pull like 4.0's every year and I MIGHT MIGHT have a chance. It's retarded. I've got a whole bunch of friends who didn't and will not get in because after being rejected like 3 times with 3.9X gpa's they just give up.

                        The Canadian system is F'd IMO. Too many applicants, not close to enough seats, and nothing in sight to see them increasing the number of seats (they did increase seats to 125 from 100 at U of C this year......but they get over 1600 applications for those seats).
                        Realistically I did not see myself being capable of pulling 4.0's every year so I decided to take this route to make sure that I'm not wasting years of my life.

                        The one major scew up in Canada's health care system is that they make life a living hell for foreign trained doctors. Canadian citizens like me who are going to school abroad because they could not get into a Canadian school have to jump through billions of hoops to practise in Canada. Rules are changing (ie: in Ontario, if you have written the American exams and have completed a residency in the states you are allowed to practise in Ontario without having to write any Canadian examinations). This is the future. I hope that when I am done the rules be more lenient and I won't have any issue moving back to Calgary. I could always write all the examinations once I'm done residency in states but that is not fun.....I'd still do it though if thats what it takes to return here.

                        - Tuition: Same as any other Canadian or American med school. Canadian schools are typically $7g'ish CDN per semester. I pay like $6950 USD.

                        - Like I said in my post, like half of the students here are Canadian. There are a bunch of people from Calgary actually that I know. One is an RN and the other is a good friend who stuck it out and did not get accepted to a Canadian school.

                        Simon: Yes there are many people who go to countries like Hungary, the UK, and Australia. Only problem with Hungarian schools is that they are a bit shady and are not that great IMO with setting you up with clinical rotations in the United States. The only reason that I am where I am right now is because I KNOW that I am going to a reputable school that has a well established record of having graduates in high places.

                        If you have any more questions then please ask away, I'll do my best to answer them.

                        There was a good CBC article on Canadian students going to international schools and it explained the whole situation about how admissions is for Canadian schools. I'll try and find the story and post it up.

                        Oh and about the "pimpz and yos"......I will pimp for life.....YO!!1!
                        Last edited by nismodrifter; 09-27-2006, 01:58 PM.

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                        • #13
                          Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

                          damn! that sucks man.. well best of luck.. thanks for filling me in.. i didn't know it was that bad here..

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                          • #14
                            Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

                            That definitely looks p1mp Yo!

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                            • #15
                              Re: Full pics + info + car spottings of where I am

                              $7k a semester? plus food and housing? ouch! Well atleast you get to live in a nice place while you study even if you don't get to enjoy it.
                              Name: Brent
                              His: '04 TDI Golf Mods: None If it's smoken it ain't broken
                              Family: '15 Jetta Sportwagon
                              Fun car: '92 Blue Karmann Crabby Cabby Mods: Coils, front and rear swaybars, LED interior lights and some other old things.

                              Comment

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