For the last 20 months I've called Saint Maarten my home away from home. Between moving to a new country where I knew no one and the rigors of med school it has been quite the experience. 3 days from now I will be back home in Minnesota and I couldn't be more excited. It's actually a really weird feeling. I'm excited to get home to the cold and see family for the holidays, but it's weird to think that I may never see people from my island family ever again.... Down here I have seen everyone in my class almost every single day for the greater part of 2 years, and now, I won't. You grow accustom to seeing the smiles and the nervous faces...and now...nothing. I can't imagine what people did without Skype/FB/email or any other sort of instant contact. I know i'll keep in contact with my good friends and a majority will drift but that's the nature of a situation when you put thousands of miles between people again; especially when everyone is busy studying for Step and during clinicals.
Top 3 things I will NOT miss about SXM:
1. Traffic: 1 island, 1 road, too many hours in traffic just to go to the grocery store.
2. Having to go to more than 1 store for random things....AKA no Target
3. Everything costs more $$!
3 things I'll miss:
1. The people....mostly friends from school, but also getting to be friends with your pizza guy or the ladies at the coffee shop. All in all it really is a friendly island and having friends or someone to cheer you up everyday made it all easier.
2. Friends that are like family...I really can't imagine going through these past 20 months without great friends.
3. The beaches, winters on the island and chatting up the tourists.
Alright, I'm going to try and finish up these last few days with some fun and goodbyes and call it a wrap. I'll try and keep blogging and maybe do a post about shelfs/NBME comps/kaplan comp and what I found worked for me in case anyone who is in basic sciences actually reads this.
Noxolo
