I'll Be Home Soon!

I just bought my plane ticket home! I put it off for so long because I had two countdowns going--there was a good chance I would need surgery after finals, but it turns out that's no longer the case!

When will I be seeing my pretty little home? MAY 6TH!! Clearly I'm excited.

There are a lot more people than I would have expected who just don't want to leave, not sure why though. It could simply be because they have had the opportunities to go home a few times (Christmas, Spring Break, etc.) but I haven't been home in almost 9 months...I need to be back! 

Anyway, my itinerary is as follows:

Depart Tampa @ 7:10am

Arrive in San Juan @ 10:00am

Depart San Juan @ 12:05pm

Arrive in St. Croix @ 12:44pm 

(by the way, the Henry E. Rohlsen airport on STX is the smallest one I know!--pictured below) 

Channelside Ponds

This weekend involved quite a bit of adventuring and discoveries! On Wednesday, Paulina and I were both bored and decided to wander through Channelside for a bit. There, we found 2 little ponds filled with softshell turtles and baby Moorhens (which I will get back to later). There was also this really large, strange looking duck that Paulina thought looked like a turkey--she looked it up, and it is...a turkey duck! Alright, so the proper name is a Muscovy duck but who cares...the thing definitely looks like a turkey. Softshell turtles are really interesting to me. I've actually held one before, and yes, their shells are very soft. But the most exciting part of our discoveries were the baby Moorhens!

At first we saw one parent and 2 babies, so we followed the babies around a little bit, only to then find a nest with the other parent and ANOTHER baby! So then there were 3 right? Well there were, until we saw another one pushing its way through the tall grass to get home to mama! They were absolutely...adorable! We just stood watching all the little babies, 4 in total now, walk all around the pond for about 1.5 hours until it was time to leave.

But that's not the end of the story! It was clear that 1 day of observations was not enough, so we went back Thursday to get another peek at them before going to see Disney's Oceans (which was only 75 minutes long but still good!) I'll wrap this up with a few pictures of the lovelies that we found :)

Only 20 days left..

     The semester is coming to a close very fast, with only 2 weeks of classes left before finals. Luckily, I'll only have finals on Tuesday the 4th, and I'll be going home May 6th if everything goes according to plan. I thought I'd be getting a lot of work as the semester ends, but surprisingly, I'm finding that I have less assignments now than I have so far! Then again, most of the work I had came from my English class, and we only have like 3 assignments left... 

      I'm glad to finally be able to take a breather, at least for a little while, because once finals come around, we all know what that means--a few hours of intense stressing, and then suuummmmeeeeerrrrr!!!

The Caribbean: In words.

I just wanted to put together a short summary of what you will find in the Caribbean--from the ordinary, to what only locals might see:

tamarind balls, heliconias, palm trees, sea fans, smiles, passion fruit, culture, sea turtles, chickens, dreadlocks, big beard, sea glass, soccer balls, calypso, johnny cake, rain forests, snorkels, iguanas, kalalloo, gorgeous sunsets, roast pork, hibiscus, madras print, mongoose, sugar mills, pasteles, plantation houses, boardwalks, coppers, forts, conch *everything*, boats, hummingbirds, hot sauce, white sand, lizards, goats, pot holes, soca, 80 degree weather, fish fry, something new every day.

New Life Change

I've thought about it for a while, but finally decided to stick with my idea--I'm no longer a meat eater. My cholesterol has always been really bad, with no change from dieting, but there was one thing left to test. I want to see if cutting meat out of my diet will affect my cholesterol in any way (but that's not the only reason why, I'm just particularly curious about that aspect). Honestly, I've gotten bored with meat. When prepared properly, there's a different story, but most of the meat here is cooked very unhealthily (ex: chicken fingers/burgers/fried chicken sandwich/etc). Today started the change, and no it's not an April Fools joke! 

 :) I love fruits and vegetables, even though there aren't many vegetarian options here at UT, I will make the best of it. On the bright side, I am not cutting out seafood because fish has omega 3 oils (very good for cholesterol) so I will up my fish-consumption once I get home--and actually have a fresh supply! 

My Monday classes were canceled for April 5th, which means--4 day weekend for me! Couldn't be happier, I definitely need the break. I hope everyone has a joyous Easter! The only thing that could make it better is if we were all back home dying Easter eggs and smiling with friends and family.