This is my fourth and hopefully my final trip back to Grenada to complete 5th term. After 1 canceled flight, 2 delayed flights, and 3 baggage ticket confirmation tags for 1 checked bag (yes, 3 tags), I am currently sitting in Miami International Airport about to board my flight to Grenada and praying that my checked bag follows my footsteps. The last 15 hours have been somewhat of a whirlwind of events.
Let me just start by saying that I know I have been pretty lucky. This is my fourth trip to Grenada since January 2015 and I have never had any issues with baggage or delayed flights on my way to Grenada until now. This time, the hiccup in my travel experience began when my direct flight to Miami was canceled for unknown reasons. I knew that I had to get myself to Miami to catch the Miami-Grenada flight. Otherwise, the next available seat on a plane to Grenada is 10 days from now. The entire school returns back to the island around the same weekend in January and August. So, it is difficult to find a last minute seat on a flight to Grenada at that time. After much persistence with the airline company, I was finally put on a flight to Miami with 1 stop in Atlanta. I am so thankful that all the flights today have not been delayed by more than an hour. So, I have been able to catch all connecting flights smoothly.
For any future students, majority of the time, students have no problem flying into Grenada. However, if you are stuck with canceled flights/delayed flights, do everything in your power to catch the flight to Grenada to avoid additional chaos. That is typically the trickiest flight to re-book. Also, I would highly recommend packing a few pairs of clothes and basic necessities in carry-on bags in case the checked bag(s) does not make it to Grenada right away.
Update 1: I safely landed in Grenada. However, my checked bag is either taking a mini-vacation at the beach in Miami or was accidentally put on a wrong flight and sent to see the Statue of Liberty in New York. I am just hoping that it arrives in Grenada within the next few days!
Update 2: Day 4: My bag finally found its way to Grenada with 4 tags! I'm just glad that everything is still intact! :)
Now, let's start Term 5! Hope you are having a great week!
~N
Term 4 Daily Schedule
During my first two terms at SGU, I was lucky to have some amazing upper-term roommates. When I was working my way through term 1, they were meandering their way through term 3/4. Before the term started, my roommates made a tentative schedule of how they were going to manage the material. So, I thought I would be pro-active and do the same before term 4 started. Although their schedule worked for them, the study schedule I made went straight into the trash as soon as the term started. I had planned weeks in advance and I soon realized that it was simply unrealistic.
So, during term 4, I made schedules one week at a time. For each day of the week, I wrote down what I wanted to accomplish. If there were 100 microbiology slides to get through. I would split it up into 3 days to make it more manageable. If there were large units in pathology to review, I would split it up into 2-3 days. During my nightly review of the material, I would try to condense the material to one page of notes. The following is a sample of how scheduled my studying:
7 am - wake up! (ok, it was almost never 7 am, but I would try to wake up at 7am. I had the hardest time waking up in the morning)
8 am - 12 pm - lecture - usually 2 hours of micro followed by 2 hours of path
12 pm - 1 pm - lunch and review pathology lab slide and/or watch CPD video to get a general idea of what to expect in lab.
1-3 pm - pathology lab about 3-4 times a week OR micro lab (on Fridays post-midterm)
3-5 pm - CPD lab only 2 days a week
5-5:30 pm - possible nap, snack, shower, facebook, catching up with news, etc
5:30-8:30 pm - try my very best to finish reviewing micro that was taught in lecture
8:30 pm-9:00 pm - dinner and talk to my family. On many nights, my family would eat dinner at the same time as me and we would all facetime during this time. Meal prep was so important this term. Feel free to read more about my meal prep ideas here.
9:00pm-12:30 am - finish as much path as possible.
12:30 am-1:30am - finish pathology slide for next day and finish an initial pre-view of pathology for the following day. (I almost never did any pre-view of the material for microbiology)
~1:45am - sleep!! :)
Of course there were days that I was up much later than 1:30am to prepare for the next day. Irrespective of what happened during the week, I made sure that I finished reviewing the material over the following weekend. For this reason, I organized schedules one week at a time. This is a schedule that worked for me. However, there were many that woke up extremely early and studied and those that slept periodically during the day.
There is no correct or wrong method of handling the material in term 4. I found this pattern to work for me and I stuck with it. As I mentioned here, the only big study schedule change that I made during term 4 was when and how I used pathoma.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions/comments.
Hope everyone has a great weekend! :)
~N
9:00pm-12:30 am - finish as much path as possible.
12:30 am-1:30am - finish pathology slide for next day and finish an initial pre-view of pathology for the following day. (I almost never did any pre-view of the material for microbiology)
~1:45am - sleep!! :)
Of course there were days that I was up much later than 1:30am to prepare for the next day. Irrespective of what happened during the week, I made sure that I finished reviewing the material over the following weekend. For this reason, I organized schedules one week at a time. This is a schedule that worked for me. However, there were many that woke up extremely early and studied and those that slept periodically during the day.
There is no correct or wrong method of handling the material in term 4. I found this pattern to work for me and I stuck with it. As I mentioned here, the only big study schedule change that I made during term 4 was when and how I used pathoma.
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions/comments.
Hope everyone has a great weekend! :)
~N
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