All right, enough with the drama posts! It's time to start posting about the cool things we see and the cool things we do in Grenada. (Oh, and yes, our power did come back. Oh, and yes, we are looking into a new apartment to move into next term.)
Jared's white coat ceremony was last night. This is a big event where all the new med students gather with their families (except that we live in Grenada, so actually only like 20 people showed up with family), a couple influential professionals give inspirational speeches, and then the students file onto the stage a few at a time to be coated in a new white lab coat with the school's logo on it.
 |
| Jared with a few of his med school buddies |
Because SGU had such a big incoming class this term, there were two white coat ceremonies. Jared was in the first one, and students with last names later in the alphabet were in the second one.
It was a proud moment to see my husband up on that stage. The man who helped him into his white coat was a student here a few years ago. He went on to be successful in the research aspect of medicine and it sounds like he's currently getting a PhD at Cambridge. Good prospects for SGU students!
The wooden sword/mace pictured above (bottom right side) is present at all academic ceremonies. This one is unique to Grenada. The wood is local and was carved by a local artist. Instead of a snake wrapping around the mace, a dragon twists around it. It is the dragon of Saint George, the fourth century Christian figure that the University was named after. In addition, the pommel of the sword is a nutmeg, which Grenada is famous for growing. (Fresh nutmeg goes on everything here--ice cream, pina coladas . . . it's amazing.)
A highlight of the processional was when the announcer (who was hilarious) introduced a Gregory House from New York to get his white coat. Tons of laughing ensued (Gregory House is the doctor on the show
House), but that really was his name.
After the processional, the students recited an SGU oath and the wives all cried because their husbands looked like real-life doctors. Then the wives all cried even harder because they realized that it will be a looooong time before their husbands are real-life doctors.
We took pictures after the ceremony, but it was already dark outside so we did the best we could.
And then Jared wouldn't take the pictures seriously anymore and started making weird faces.
(He didn't know I'd be posting them for the world to see. JOKE'S ON HIM!)
(By the way, can anyone help me out with the best settings to use for night pictures on my DSLR? I shoot with a Canon rebel t3i, and I'm useless with it at night. Hence why half these pictures look darker than it really was and the other half look lighter.)
I'm not a doctor, but I was there and my hair was straighter than it will ever be here again, so I'll include this next picture.
Single ladies, you need to go find yourself a doctor man. They are a good-looking sort of group.
After the ceremony there was a reception where local passion fruit juice was served. And we were like, "Grenada ain't so bad."
