Noche Buena, Part Three

Let them eat!!!

Finally it was time to eat dinner! There was laughing, dancing, queueing, and I’m pretty sure someone cried.

Feeding and sitting fourty+ people is no easy matter. It took a good half hour for everyone to get situated. For dinner we had the two lechones, two types of frijoles, yuca, and so much rice… Dessert was a yummy mix of coconut brittle, Christmas tree cake, rum cake, flan, and bunuelos (MMMMM!!!!). By the time 10PM rolled around, we were all ready to collapse into a food coma.

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner was followed by a rousing game of White Elephant.

Then we had a surprise visit from Santa.

The evening was a great success and everyone made it safely home by midnight, giving Santa plenty of time to get back to business and deliver all his presents.

Noche Buena, Part 2

The Cooking of the Pigs
Roasting a pig (or lechon) to perfection is a long process that begins with picking out the right one. This year, I went with Duly and Tio Fran way out into the boonies of Miami and we picked out the perfect one. I have no idea where the Rodriguez clan found theirs.

This is not her, but is representative in size.

The piggy came to us frozen, so we needed to thaw and then season her to perfection.

On Noche Buena, the pig is then placed into the cooking device of your choice. This year, there was an argument of whether the caja china was better than the hueco, so we did one in each. With the caja china, the pig is placed inside of a box and the coals and laid in the lid. With the hueco, the coals are placed on the ground and the pig is suspended over them, and covered with metal siding to keep the heat in.






After a few hours, you need to turn the pig so the skin is evenly cooked on both sides.

Tio Fran and Duly flip the pig

Once you flip the pig, cook it for an hour. Then check it every ten minutes until the skin is nice and crispy.








After the pig is nicely roasted, it is time to bring it in and take it out of the rack. People flock like raptors to get the choice pieces of skin (the best part!) and ribs.

Nati gives us a breakdown of what goes into cooking the pig

Tio Fran and Duly bring the pig into the madness

When everyone is satisfied with their share of the skin, the pig is carved up and then it’s time to eat!

Noche Buena 2011, part 1

The original plan last night was to live blog the whole event. However, the iPad technology was not quite up to snuff so I’ve deleted all the posts and decided to start anew.
The day began with an absolutely mad trip to Publix. I was seriously about to start drop kicking the families that decided it was absolutely necessary to bring ALL of their kids, spouses, in-laws, AND cousins to the store. YOU DO NOT NEED TEN PEOPLE TO DO THE SHOPPING!!!!!

I then called my little helper elf (the one with opposable thumbs) for an afternoon of baking!

We made apple pie muffins, pumpkin bread, cranberry bars, and coquito.

 

Meanwhile, at my aunt’s house, the party was beginning to come together.
 

On the left is La Caja China. On the right is El Hueco. The competition is going to be fierce, but only one lechon can win!

Forty pounds live weight of pure yumminess!

Horsies

So I have survived a week anda half of equine medicine so far. I've got a bit of knowledge in my gaps, and probably am not impressing anyone with my inability to retain things they have told me os vital for passing. One day I will be able to learn all the antibiotics and the specific dates that the stupid jockey club says you must give the flu vaccine. Today is not that day, and tomorrow isn't looking good either. At least cske friday's are something mice to look forward to. This week I am making Libby's pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling!!!!!! This friday we also have "cupcakes and cocktails" night, created by the awesome Erin. Should be good good times.

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Location:Bush

Start of Module 2

We started the second module yesterday. I am on equine for the next forf weeks, starting off with orthopedics. I feel so useless; somehow I always manage to forget all the material that I had learned the night before. At least the clinicians and redidents that we've been working with are nice.
Today was exciting since the new build had it's official grand opening and Princess Ann came. I didn't get to see her, but the event was in the news. It's always exciting when royalty comes round.


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Sunday

Went into the city today to work on our neuro presentation. We ended up talking about our weekend more than working on the presentation; hopefully we do ok tomorrow.

Afterwards, I went to Sainsbury to pick up food for the week and some more clothes. I need to go try those on soon. Spent most of the evening cooking food for the week so that I could have proper meals. So far I've made chinese vegetable soup, spicy 'sausage' sauce to go with pasta, creamy butternut squash and sage sauce to go with gnocchi (which I need to get), and roasted some butternut squash and onions to make more soup tomorrow. I also have stuff to make thai 'chicken' green curry and eggplant lasagna. I'll have to make those Wednesday.

Tomorrow starts my last week at the small animal hospital; next stop is four weeks at the equine hospital. Have to do a lot of cramming for that next weekend!!!! At least I won't have to dress nicely for that since we have to wear boiler suits.


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Crazy Night

As usual, my neighbors were very noisy and banged lots of doors when they came home (drunk) last night. A little while later, somene kept buzzing to be let in. I finally got annoyed and let them in, and they promptly started to clump about and bang on all the hallway doors. I thought it was the drunk neighbors' drunk friends that didn't know you had to open the hallway door so to get to the flat doors. They eventually figured it out and started banging on my neighbors' door. From the sounds coming out of the hallway, I thought something was up so I went to my door to look out the peep hole.

To my amazement, there were two cops in my hallway!!!! I opened the door to see what was wrong, and they started asking me about my neighbors (if they were home, who lived there, what kind of people were they, etc). I told them that my neighbors had recently gotten back in, and they were a young couple with a kid and a big dog. Cops said thanks, I said you're welcome, and then I went back into my flat and locked the door while they went back to banging on the door and looking through the mail slot. The cops started shouting that they could see my neighbor's shadow and that she needed to open the door. She shouted back that the cops needed a warrant.

I quickly went to the living room, to be as far from the action as possible. A few minutes later, I looked out then window and saw a taxi, two cops cars and a cop van. There was a lot of shouting, walkie talkie talk, and guarding of the hallway door before the lady cop was able to convince my neighbor that no warrant was required and she (neighbor) had to open the door because she (cop) needed to make sure everyone was ok.

Long story short, the taxi driver noticed the couple arguing in his cab and then saw blood when they got out. He called the cops reporting a possible assault. My neighbor claims that they had gone out drinking with another couple, and that at some point she fell and busted her nose. They did have a fight in the cab, but she was not assaulted. And now her partner was passed out in bed and she was fine (swollen eyes due to the drinking). I don't think the cops were convinced, but there was not much else they could do except inform child services that the police had been called there. That led to another tear fest and more arguing. But the cops have to involve child services whenever they are called out for domestic issues, even if the child was not present.

All of this drama started around eleven and finished just after midnight. There was more shouting and banging coming from my neighbors this morning; lord only knows what they were up to. So glad that we won't be living here too much longer. Have already lived next to crazy neighbors with domestic issues (chick was CRAAAAZY and eventually arrested), and don't particularly want to go through that again.


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Count down

Just bought my plane ticket for my Christmas holiday. I shall be in the States 19 Nov - 6 Jan. Only 63 days to go!


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Woot

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Getting familiar with my new iPad2. This should make blogging from school and stuff much easier. But we'll see. I am not very consistent with these things, lol. Also, please forgive my typos when I post from the ipad since I've turned off autocorrect.

Location:Penicuil

Ugh…

This last semester of lectures seems to be dragging on forever! Not only are we learning about equine AND exotics (who came up with that pairing?), we are also doing our public health module. Doesn’t help that being cooped up in the same lecture theatre for hours every day makes us very prone to getting sick. And it REALLY doesn’t help when you have to set up EMS on a different continent with a five hour time difference! I cannot wait for spring break since that signals the end of lectures.

All of the EMS has made me anxious, so I’ve come up with a plan of sorts to help me organise myself. If I can get 10 weeks done through the summer, then I’ll only have to do 3-4 weeks (depending if I can squeeze in another conference) during my externship period, hurray! Hopefully I’ll hear back from my cousin soon so that I can plan (or not plan) some equine EMS. I also need to get in touch with the Patrick AFB in Cocoa Beach to hopefully get two weeks out of them. After that, I’m hoping to do two weeks of exotics work for fun (and practice for next year’s exotics rotation). Vacation in the US? What vacation? At least there’ll be sun.

Then is back to the UK to hopefully not take any resits, have a bit of a breather, and then (cross my fingers) three more weeks of EMS at RAF Feltwell. That is, if they’ll take me back after my two weeks with this this spring break.  The CPT seems keen to have me on but is a bit concerned with housing and transportation. I’ve managed to find a nearby B&B, and the owner mentioned using a bike to get to the base. I’ll have to ask her if she’s got one to loan me, or if there is a place to hire one in town. Feltwell, by the way, is this tiny town outside of Cambridge. After several tries at using a Journey Planner, I’ve figured out a route that will get me there for about £55 return, not including a short taxi ride.

Some time during all of this, I also need to write up my SSC2 (student selected component 2). My project is a literary review on campylobacter in the poultry food chain (probably just in the EU), from ‘farm to fork’. It’s got to be a bajillion words long (I think) AND I have to design a research project. Funny thing about that… I went for a lit review to avoid coming up with a research project. And yet, there it is. I have to design one.  Sad.face.

Things I have learned since quite possibly, maybe, breaking my foot

 

• Horse shoes leave interesting bruise patterns.
• Do not walk 4 miles on your injure foot. It won’t end well.
• Your trainers/sneakers are a lot tighter than you had imagined.
• Your foot may no longer look swollen, but you are very very wrong. Do not try wearing steel toe boots.
• A&E doctors do not like radiographing your foot/toe because even if there is a break, ‘there is not a lot [they] can do about it’.
• Ibuprofen + paracetamol will NOT take away the pain, contrary to what the A&E doctor tells you.
• Your GP will give you a stronger NSAID, but will still not radiograph your foot because ‘it will heal in another 4-6 weeks if it is broken. wear good walking boots if you can tolerate it.’
• Just because your foot feels better in the morning doesn’t mean you should stop wearing the elastotube.
• Shower water falls with a lot of force…
• … and so do ping pong balls dropped from waist level.
• You will have to stand like a rock star to wash dishes. You will look stupid, just deal with it.
• Your feet carry a lot of weight when you sit on the toilet. Be careful how you position yourself.
• Do not massage your foot to make it feel better. The delayed pressure/pain will be a whole lot worse than the initial injury.

Foot, evening it was stomped on. Bruise not fully developed.

RIDING!

YAY! One good thing that seems to be taking off are the riding lessons with the Horse Society. Due to illness, snow, finals, the winter holiday, and a lack of interest, we only got out two novice lessons last semester. This semester we are moving to Tower Farms, which is much closer and only requires TWO people! YAY!

I also took a ‘lesson’ a Dryden a few weeks ago. It was really the try-outs for the international competition, but the lady was super nice and coached me over a few jumps. Didn’t make team, but that’s ok since I learned that I can still jump. Hopefully I’ll be able to take some more lessons out there since the instructor is super awesome and the horses are FANTASTIC. I absolutely loved it.

Technorati Tags: horseback riding,Horse Society,Tower Farm,Dryden,RDSVS

Eih

Woah, haven’t posted in nearly a month. Will fix this shortly (this post not included). Days seem to drag on when they are filled with lectures and waiting for things to happen so that you can plan more things. But at the same time, I never seem to have time to do much of anything.

I AM A CHAMPION!!!

Well, that’s what I like to tell myself. Started playing foosball again this week and, ZOMG, my skill level has gone like +5 since last semester. I actually beat Pookish, the undeniable champ, by a point! Granted, he was playing one-handed, with his right hand (he’s a lefty), but I still beat him! Woot woot!

Then, we played teams. Me and Poon versus Pookish and T-biz. Then, to keep it fair, T-biz and I switched sides. Pookish and I DOMINATED! Even after Poon and T-biz switched so that Poon could be on offense (his preferred position), Pook and I still dominated. One day we will shut them out and make them do the Naked Lap of Shame around the school. Tee hee (and totally j/k).

If you are wondering how we have so much time to play all this foosball, the TTO generously allows us an hour lunch in addition to inexplicably long breaks between classes. If you are wondering why I don’t use this time to study, I totally do! But you can only study poop and coughing for so long before losing your mind. Solution? FOOSBALL!

Glossary

• Poon: Alan Poon
• Pookish: Allen Putzig
• T-biz: Tara B
• shut out: don’t let them make a goal

LA ICU

Ok, since I REALLY don’t feel like reading 20 pages on colic and why horses do it, I’ve decided to post on my large animal ICU week. I started 20 Dec at 9AM and finished 27 Dec 9AM. The first few days were tough since we had to get up in the middle of the night to do colic checks and give meds, but as horses got better and went home the workload got easier. We were very lucky since no emergency colic cases came in (in previous years. they’ve had 2 to 4 cases come in over-night on CHRISTMAS!).

Not pictured: Demon shower

The cottage was way more comfy than I thought it would be. Two twin rooms and a bathroom upstairs, two single rooms and a bathroom downstairs, and a kitchen/lounge. Only thing was, the upstairs shower was possessed by some evil demon, so we all had to share the downstairs one.

I can has some foodz, pleaz?

The on-duty resident would bring his dog with him when the hospital was closed for Christmas, and he’d follow us around all day. Poor thing has really short legs, so he’d always be the last one to arrive. Someone said he was as old as dinosaurs, lol.

For Christmas, we joined up with the girls doing small animal ICU for a very scrumptious dinner. Kit was awesome and made some crumble and key lime pie for dessert!

Even the guys came along for some fun (and food). They weren’t too keen on having their pics taken, though.

It was very cold during our week, so we spent a lot of time hiding in here ‘learning’ about horsey things. But really, we just ate chocolates and goofed around. And wrote in our charts, since that is very important!

We had some good cases in and got to see several endoscopies, stomach tubings, how to work up an ophtho case, and how to manage ortho cases. I even learned how to place an IV!

The new build is coming along nicely. Hopefully it will open soon so that we can enjoy it before graduation!

Winter Holiday

Guess I’ll start with the most recent events. I was able to go to Miami for a few days over the winter holiday. Travel was much better this year since I did not go through the North East. Why I ever thought that was a good idea is beyond me (I’ll post about this later). Even though we were delayed a bit due to strikes at CDG, I was still able to make it home in time for dinner. : D

This trip was jam-packed with people and events. The day after I arrived, there was a HUGE family reunion at my uncle’s house. Thank goodness not everyone was able to come, cuz we would not have fit!

  We barely fit in the pic!

It was nice seeing (most) of my family again. I even met up with Franchie and she invited me to a New Year’s Eve party. It’s the first proper NYE party that I’ve been too! I didn’t know anybody there other than her and her little brother, but I still had a good time.

A few days before I had to leave, we got to do our Secret Santa exchange. The presents this year were amazing! JP won; he gave Christian a ‘chick’ to keep him from getting too distracted by going out to get chicks.

Naturally, no one wanted to take care of the chick, so I ended up keeping it for a few days. (S)he was so cute and even bonded with me! Eventually we gave it back to JP so that he could take it back to the farm.

Nap time!

My dad broke out the nommy Puerto Rican food a few times while I was home. They’d been keeping it in the freezer for me all month since they knew how much I liked it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I even got to have some proper paella!

Heck yeah! Seafood!

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games. I had to squeeze in a week of EMS, so I spent a few days working with Dr Mendez. It was fun, and I got to practice doing physicals and giving IV injections.

The flights home were fairly uneventful, though I did get delayed at CDG (again) for a few hours. It wasn’t their fault this time, though; EDI opened late on account of some snow and all flights in and out were delayed a few hours. For some reason, Air France felt bad about it and gave me 1000 miles! Woot!

Miami from above

 

Some place in Scotland from above

Revival

So, it’s been ages and ages and ages since I last posted on my blog, but I finally figured out how to use this fun blog toy on my computer which should encourage me to post more often. Lots has happened in the past few years, so I will try to fill in the gaps between postings of my current activities.

I’m now halfway through fourth year, and we are learning about equines, exotics, and public health this semester. Last semester we did farm animals and a bit of epidemiology. Our farm marks come out Thursday and I can’t wait! We won’t get our epidemiology marks for some time, but I do not have high hopes for that test. Oh well.

Me, Abuelita, and the girls