I'm still alive!

Okay so I made it out of my first semester alive thank God, I nearly died a few times, but I'm okay now. So here's my list of what to do to survive your first semester of med school in DR from the beginning. Ahem:
1. Come to terms with the fact that this is not the US, or Puerto Rico, or Canada, or wherever the heck you come from fast! The sooner you accept that this country and the school you'll be attending has it's own set of norms (annoying as they may seem) and laws (or lack thereof), the sooner you'll get over the initial shock and figure out how to do what you set out to do. The electric company will hustle you, your landlord may hustle you, your lawer can hustle you LOL for real, your motoconcho will try to hustle you, anyone who sells you anything will definitely hustle you if you let them, your neighbors, and classmates (Dominican or not) may try to hustle you so WAKE UP! Don't let them take you as an idiot. Also apreciate, but certainly don't expect great customer service unless you're in a resort lol. As my Canadian friend put it, this is a country of hustlers, so you gotta figure out how to hustle them back (I thought Canadians were friendly!), but he's right. No matter where you come from you're an extranjero (a foreigner) so to everyone here (including family unfortunately) you're a walking talking money bag. This brings me to the next thing
2. Watch your freiking money. Don't walk around with lookin all flashy and stuff (trust me you don't wanna do that here you might just get jacked up), put your money in a safe place always when you step out, make sure you don't let everyone in your home, and count your money before and after you buy something. This country has turned me into a human calculator dude seriously. What I'm saying is, when you need to pay for something, don't pull out your wad of fresh bills to count out 20 pesos, when you buy compare prices in different places so you know who's trying to get you for your cash, figure out the cheapest way to get around, and notice who charges foreign students higher prices, for certain things especially big purchases negotiate (meaning talk the price down, hustle them back remember) and calculate how much you would be paying in dollars (whip out your calculator ain't no shame!) before you get your change back, you should already know how much you're getting back, and don't let them get away with your money! Doesn't matter if it's 5 pesos, they will think they can get over on you forever so don't be a pendejo! (Unfortunately I've learned some things the hard way :-( so be careful). Oh yea, and don't think you can buy the whole island cuz you got a few dollar bills because money runs out so don't be dumb.
3. Quit complaining already. This one is a challenge to many my friends, but it's necessary. You're here already, you've made the decision to be here, you need to be here (go check reality and I'll wait). So shut up and take it like a man! Yes there are things fundamentally wrong with this place: the government, the environment, the people, the school system, the services, everything, but you need to be here. Just because you have dollars does NOT mean this country needs to change for you, because you have decided to come here on your own. Let me repeat that, this country does NOT need to change for you my dear. In fact, it's the other way around so accept and assimilate.
4. Keep a copy of every single receipt ever, or proof of anything important, be it from school, purchases, government docs, whatever, and file them away. People magically lose recollection of things and lose receipts of things easily, and electronic records would be great here if the internet and the electricity were reliable, yes even in big businesses (like the bank!) so you must keep them for yourself. The last thing you thought you might need to save might just save your butt at the most unexpected moment, trust.
5. Watch what you put in your mouth. Remember, there is no FDA here (I mean there is the equivalent, but they don't really hold that much weight ) so clean your veggies and fruit well (with a few drops of chlorine!), cook and wash with water from the botellon (purified water), don't eat and drink everywhere for obvious reasons. Don't take my advice and you might just end up with an ameba in your stomach, and trust me it's not pretty (not to mention painful)!! Yes you heard right, the unicellular creature we all study in highschool bio (so disgusting) will make your intestine it's home.
6. Don't be lazy and do your work. Now, academic integrity has become a big deal in the US (as it should be), here not so much. It's incredible the amount of cheating and crazy obvious plagiarism going on. However, don't do it, tempting though it may be, even if it's a stupid ass class like Orientation to the University (yes they made this an actual class!!). Why you ask? Because students get into the habit of cheating even when they get to the actual med classes and not into the habit of studying, but guess what? You have the USMLE Step 1 to pass no matter what, and you know what that means? It means even if you cheated and got by protecting your GPA and didn't really learn the material, you can't graduate unless you pass Step 1 if you're an American student. So if you didn't learn it before, you definitely gotta learn that mess then, and trust me it is A LOT of material, A LOT...A LOTTT. Did I emphasize it's A LOT of information, just wanted to reiterate, just in case you forgot you were in med school afterall lol. Otherwise, you might as well go home and give up.
7. Talk to upper classmen and get their input. One of my professors (hey Brathwaite!) gave me this advice, and it was the smartest thing I did. Not only do they give or lend you material so you don't have to buy it yourself, but they tell you which teachers suck, which teachers will actually teach, how to study for certain classes, how to survive the school (and the country) and beat the system (they all try to hustle it back, told you so). Now don't do everything everyone tells you obviously, but weigh different people's opinions and then decide how you're going to tackle things. The advice one upper classman gave me (about the Gunner Program I wrote about before) might just make the difference of whether I pass Step 1 or not so pay attention!
8. Make a weekly schedule and stry as hard as you can to stick to it. Know when you're going to study, and when you're going to chill. Know your priorities; you're here to study medicine. So eventhough the beach is a 15 min bus ride away and you do need to get your mind off the books every once in a while (otherwise you'll go nuts), keep in mind the beach ain't going nowhere (and they'll never run out of beer it's DR)!! Make sure most of your time during the week is spent hitting the books, clearing your concepts and memorizing, otherwise you're wasting your time. Take snacks and lunch to school, eventhough my house is only 15 min away from school and I walk, home=laziness (and baby kitty play time :-D). So I still pack my lunch, and cook in bulk during the weekend, freeze in tuppawear, and just heat things as I go to economize time. And try different methods out until you get the most out of your time and effort. Next semester I think I'll use my Saturdays to review every week so I don't fall behind and then have to memorize everything before the test. Falling behind is the worse thing you can do to yourself with challenging subjects. You'll figure out your own things, but it's like an upper classman told me, you either want the pressure now, or you want it later, so make sure you make good use of your time from get. Oh yea, and do make time to excercise because school is stressful and you should try to stay in good health (and good spirits)!
9. When you fall, get back up! Things can be disappointing and really unfair, especially in school, so when something happens to you, take note of it and move on. No use crying over spilled milk right? Learn from it so it doesn't happen again to you. If you're a cry baby you'll definitely have to man up here, and keep in mind there is not always someone to complain to who can change things to make them fair so don't get stuck on that either.
10. Keep the big picture in mind. Count your victories instead of your losses and keep in mind that you can't be perfect. Remain positive and remember everytime you get caught up that you came here to become a doctor so learn to handle the pressure and keep going no matter what!

I hope this helps someone out there at some point. I'll post whatever I'll learn, because things are definitely not easy.