It's going to be a long weekend, too

Hi there; Birdie here!

It's 5:00, I just got out of my second two-hour session of Therio with Third-Years, and I'm still at school. We didn't have class on Wednesday (more on that later), so I guess the second lecture set today was to make up for that. Luckily, today's lectures were the last of the repro part of physiology--no more classes with third years until I'm a third year! As for why I'm still at school, it's (obviously) not to study, as evidenced by my very-much-not-studying as I write my blog post. I'm staying for Dr. DeBowes' leadership workshop in an hour. He gave a talk at lunch, and he's the first VBMA speaker I've actually really liked. His talk was all about improving communication/compliance because "good medicine is good business." Especially since my undergrad thesis was on client communication and compliance, he was right up my alley. I'm pretty excited about tonight.

The workshop is continuing tomorrow, too, as a day-long thing. And Sunday is a Spay Day, which will get me 1) a SCAVMA point so I can stay in good standing and stay in clubs and 2) handling experience with cats. That's also pretty much all day (though it is until 3 instead of 5), so I hope I can manage to do all of that and also manage to study for histology and (hopefully) start on anatomy. Luckily cell bio/histo is the class I rocked my last test in, so I've got a little bit of buffer if I don't get to study as much as I'd like. Also, the exam isn't on Monday (for once)--it's not until Wednesday for the written, Thursday for the lab.

Speaking of exams, I also got back both last week's Anatomy test and the physio test we took on Tuesday. I'm still not entirely sure about the grading scale (though I know a 91-point-something is a B, since that's what I have for PBL with the last couple of grades at 0 since they aren't up yet). I didn't do as well as I would have liked on either of them, but between getting points back/questions thrown out on physio and potentially getting back points on Anatomy, I think I actually did pretty well. Definitely not so well that I'm not going to stress about the next exam (and the next...and the next), but well enough that I'm not freaking out about those.

Remember how I said I didn't have classes on Wednesday? That's because it was Phi Zeta Day, a research emphasis day. There were two speakers--one in academia and one in the human pharmaceutical industry--which we had to attend as part of our Intro to Vet Med course. In between, there were poster presentations of students who did research (as well as some faculty, and PhD students), and some of them got awards. I asked a bunch of the students about the Merial Summer Scholars program since I'm thinking about doing it next summer. It was kind of annoying when they took the opportunity to sell the experience as a Great Opportunity(tm). I know it is a valuable experience, that's why I'm interested, I want to find out more about specifics that can help me decide what to do with it! I'm not sure if I want to stay at LSU or go somewhere else (a large reason I didn't go to Missouri for vet school was so I would be free to leave the state for more than a week or two). I'm kind of unsure whether it's worth applying, too...apparently clinical projects are a lot harder to get funded than biomedical basic research, and I think I'd rather do clinical. And I'm sure it will be very competitive (have I mentioned how my class likes applying for everything? It took two days of the bookstore being closed for them to interview all the applicants). Between those two, I'm worried I'll get really invested in an idea and then not get it--or get it, but only for something I don't really want to do. Honestly, I really don't want to think about next summer at this point...but for this application I probably kind of have to.

I also participated in a necropsy wet lab hosted by path club last night. Only 4 of us showed up, and all first years. First the head doctor did a demonstration. It was really hard to watch...between my lab coat in the heat, the smell, and looking at the dog's blood and viscera (especially with the knowledge that I had to dissect fresh tissue today), I started feeling really uncomfortable and didn't want to do that. I asked permission and stepped out and was getting all ready to leave when the resident (I think?) met me in the hall to tell me how This Is an Important Skill and You'll Need To Do This In Fourth Year And Probably Your Career. He also told me it's important to equine practitioners because I'd mentioned that I knew how to use the disposable plastic booties after my experience at an equine hospital. I'm not actually going into equine. I've spent time in an exotics clinic, too, and I'm DEFINITELY not doing exotics. I calmly explained that I will do it, just not today when it's optional...though his talk made me think he meant even the wetlab wasn't optional. I have NEVER hated vet school as much as I did in that moment. But after that I would basically be questioning myself forever about whether I shouldn't be in vet school and am paying 10k a semester just to blow it all when I fail out of my fourth year rotations. I came back without the lab coat and had no problems whatsoever (though I did have to go back for my coat before I started my own necropsy). In fact, the doctor I was working with kept telling me how well I was doing--that he was surprised it was my first necropsy and that I "must be doing well in anatomy." I got up to taking off the dog's head but didn't want to fight with the saw enough to get it's brain out, but I did everything else, including getting a bone marrow sample. I'm still not sure it was worth it or whether it was a better use of my time than doing a run/walk with a couple more of my classmates, but anyway, it's done.

Speaking of running, I went on Sunday last weekend without my usual running partner. I still met up with the rest of the usual group (they missed her actually). I don't know whether it was the weather change (chillier than usual and heavy, humid about-to-storm weather) or my lack of music (because I didn't want my ipod to get wet if it started raining) or what, but I don't feel like I did as well as I have been doing. Without my usual partner-in-slowness, though, I did not cross the finish line alone. In fact, every one of the others (3 people) turned around at some point to come back for me so that we would all get back together. I felt kind of bad for slowing them down, but it also felt kind of nice--like I was part of a team. For our Tuesday run, my best partner was back, and with new running shoes! We finished the 5k in ~36 minutes--better than our previous times. I hope I can keep improving, even though I'm probably too busy to go run this weekend.

Football

Hi there; Birdie here!

They say it never rains in Tiger Stadium, but man was there some liquid sunshine tonight! My dad came up so we could go to the LSU vs. Auburn game. He had invites to two tailgates, and we checked out both of them. One was under a tent/pavilion thing--it was really big, though. I spent some time talking to an '04 LSU business graduate before we moved on to check out the next party. That one was way class; it was on a balcony of the Journalism building, and it was HUGE. They had these really awesome cups that turned purple when cold (well, some turned orange for Auburn). I got one and was really excited about it, but apparently cups aren't allowed in the stadium for some reason. Even if they're empty. I really don't understand that one. What could possibly be dangerous to them about an empty plastic cup? They don't even have to refill it or anything! What's the point in having a cool cup if I'm just going to have to throw it away? I also feel bad because it got thrown away and it wasn't meant to be disposable. So that wasn't the best start.

The game was pretty fun, even though I don't really understand football. My dad was explaining everything to me, and he seemed to enjoy it. Just before we left, the Tigers (er, purple and gold tigers) scored a touchdown three times before it counted because they got penalties on the first two. We left in the third quarter, with the score 28-7 for LSU. Geaux (LSU) Tigers! I actually liked Auburn's band better, though...largely because they played the Imperial March from Star Wars, and their halftime show was Bond-themed. If LSU's band made any references, I didn't get them.

My dad also brought up my bound copy of my undergrad thesis. The psych department keeps copies of everyone's thesis, and they give us each a free copy of ours as well. It's very fancy; we had to get it printed on high quality paper first, and now it's in this hardbound dark green cover with my name and (part of) the title and 2013 on the spine. Yes, I did my undergrad in the psych department even though I was headed for vet school; I liked the classes, and it was an easy enough major that I could fit all the prereqs in. My thesis was actually vet-related, though; the first part of the title is "Relating to Clients for Effective Practice." So now if I ever think I haven't accomplished anything, I can look at those shiny gold letters on the spine and nearly 50 pages (counting references) of high quality paper with my writing on them. Nice to have something physical like that.

In other news, my computer totally crashed (I'm typing this on my tablet). It was really random--it just froze and ran slow and then when I went to restart it "Windows was not able to successfully start." So I'll have to take it in tomorrow and hopefully they can fix it. I'm really glad I already finished, printed, and turned in my SOAP assignment for PBL or that would be a real problem. It's still pretty upsetting because one lecturer in physio likes to give us questions to research on our own that will be on the exam. I'd already done a few of them and typed them in with my notes, but now I'll probably have to look them all up again. Oh, and it really puts a damper on how I was planning to catch up on typing up my notes this weekend. Hopefully I can get it fixed before too long.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a quick update about my first college football game. See you next week!

It's been a long week

Hi there; Birdie here!

I've survived my first anatomy exam! We had the hour-long practical on Tuesday afternoon and the two-hour written part on Wednesday morning. For the next one I really want to start studying earlier...it was pretty tough to be studying so intensely, especially between the practical and the written, and I wasn't quite 100% comfortable with my knowledge. Luckily my classmate who makes flashcards on the iflascards app (sidenote: I got iOS7 on my iphone and it's really weird) apparently agrees and has already made a set for origins and insertions.

On Sunday one of our class reps (he actually interviewed at the same session I did, and he's a pretty awesome rep) set up a mock practical. It was great practice, and the real practical was much easier than that mock practical was! For instance, the real thing only had two 3-part questions instead of nearly every question being 3 or 4 parts, with some of those parts including questions about insertions or action. Apparently that's pretty standard for mock practicals set up by students, according to one of our anatomy professors. The practical exam was really clear--it even listed what exactly we needed to include in our prepositional phrases (like process, bone, and side for acromion of the right scapula), so I guess I didn't need to worry so much about whether I would get points off for leaving something out. The written wasn't bad either, even if it wasn't all multiple choice like it was last year. After the exam I didn't even want to talk about it with my classmates--you know, the whole "47 was D, right?" thing. That was definitely a well-deserved night off studying. I made a cherry pie and watched Netflix instead. :) We still haven't gotten our grades back, but the coordinator said so far we've all done well, so that's good.

We haven't gotten back our PBL grades, either--one of my classmates theorized it's so we'll all put effort into the last little assignment (due Monday) instead of knowing it won't affect our grade--but we did get back the cell bio exams. I'm happy with how I did, but there were some mean questions and several that we as a class disputed. Unfortunately, one particular professor is notorious for mean questions and is too politically powerful for us to dispute his questions. We really want to...his supposed "gimme" question only had 35% of the class get it correct! When our reps went to talk to him, he said we should have looked at his old test questions and that these questions were the same as last year. We do have test files from our bigs, but the most recent test in there is from 2007 or 2008. His response when the reps reminded him we aren't supposed to have last year's tests--"Well, aren't you smart enough to get a copy?" I don't even need the credit back on his questions, but I am really upset about that. He's just...WRONG! We've gone to the year coordinator and the department chair, and I really hope they can get past the politics and do something about him.

Speaking of policy decisions that aren't necessarily a good idea...they're restructuring our physiology course to include reproduction/therio stuff. That's not the bad idea; the bad idea is that this year for the transition, they put the therio stuff much earlier in the class and put us in the same lecture as third years. Seriously, who thought that sounded like a good idea to put the noobs in with the ones who are about to start clinics? Especially when our first joint lecture was Wednesday right after the anatomy exam--NONE of us followed it at all. It's actually been much better after the first day, in my opinion at least, but we're still pretty worried for the exam (which is next Tuesday--luckily it got moved from Monday).

By the way, I did end up going running on Saturday in my new shoes. I just happened to go at 8 instead of 6:30...a little more reasonable. ;) They worked out really well. I also did the 5k again this week, but it felt much shorter. Maybe I'm getting used to it? I was such a nerd while running it, actually. The mass of us running in a group reminded me of red blood cells in circulation, and there was one part where we did a little loop with a turn where we could see the runners ahead of us that reminded me of a loop of Henle in the kidneys. This weekend there's a football game so we might end up doing a run on Sunday instead of Saturday.

In fact, I'm going to the football game. I'm not really big into football, but my dad wants to go so he got us tickets. He knows some people tailgating, and I know some second years tailgating as well, so we're going to hang out with them. I actually went to the bookstore on main campus (during the two hours I didn't realize we didn't have class this morning...the third years had an exam so our joint lecture was moved to late afternoon) and bought a Tigers T-shirt to wear tomorrow. I have a lot planned next weekend, too. SCAVMA is doing a cat spay day on Sunday that I'm going to help out with, and there's some sort of business not-really-clinic that VBMA is putting on that I want to do as well. Path club is going to be doing wetlabs during the week soon, too...lots to look forward to.

I should probably be studying

Hi there; Birdie here!

I'm still not very sure I'm studying enough. I didn't feel bad about how I did on either of this week's tests. The only thing we've gotten back so far is the lab portion of the cell bio exam, though. I did well on that, but it's not really enough feedback for me to be comfortable with how little I seem to be studying compared to everyone else. I know, I shouldn't compare myself to others...but it worries me that some people are trying to study five hours a day and I still sometimes watch two hour-long episodes of Supernatural instead of studying. If it works for me, that's all that matters, right?

We have our first anatomy exam next week (practical Tuesday, written Wednesday), and that's what I'm really worried about. Part of it is that I'm worried I won't know all the stuff, but I know that I'll learn what I know I have to by the exam, so that's pretty small. But then I'm worried that I won't know things because I don't know that I have to learn them--things like ligaments of the manus (which I almost wouldn't have studied unless they're on the terms sheet until I heard the group behind me going over them) or muscles in specific gait phases (which we might need to know but I'm not sure where to find). Mostly, though, I'm worried that I'll know what I need to but I won't write it in the perfect formula they want and will get points off for it. It's entirely possible that will happen on every question and I'll do poorly on the entire practical because of it. Apparently the mastoid part of the cleidocephalicus muscle isn't good enough for cleidocephalicus muscle pars mastoidea.

With problem solving class over (although we still have one assignment for it due on the 23rd), we've started physiology I. It used to be the biochem class too, but they've apparently revamped it since last year. Just looking at those notes for the first day stressed me out, but it's gotten better. Our current instructor, who also happens to teach biochem to undergrad students on main campus, is much easier to follow. We get notes for every class except anatomy (which we had to pay $300 for, I'm still upset about that), and I like the way she did her notes. Actually, she doesn't give us a lot and we have to write most of it ourselves, but there's space for that and she gives us chemical structures even if we don't have to know them. It's much better than the first instructor who gave us double the information on the slides and nowhere to put it.

In other news, despite the fact that I'm already probably in too many clubs/paying too much in dues, I also joined pathology club. They have 4 wetlabs planned this year; totally worth the price of admission. I also went to two VBMA meetings this week. The first speaker really annoyed me. It seemed like he was totally ignoring the client's perspective and purely focusing on economics, which is what I hate most about business. Today's speaker was really good, though. He talked about mentorship--apparently AAHA has a free toolkit online all about skills employers want. They can be used to evaluate expectations to prevent high turnover of new grads, but they can also help little first years like me know what we should be working on. I actually learned some stuff there, and it wasn't just yet another presentation on how much debt we'll have and how miserable our outlook as vet students is.

I've managed to go running twice this week. Well, mostly walking both times really, but I did a 5k with a HUGE group on Tuesday--it was amazing to be part of this pack and see them all running up a slight hill--and then  walked around the lakes with a friend while going over parts of the pelvic limb bones. Since I'm apparently going to be doing this a lot (and my parents agreed to pay for it), I got new running shoes. They just came in today, so I'm tempted to go running with some fellow students tomorrow...only problem is that they're running at 6:30 am and I have enough of waking up so early on weekdays. Guess we'll see.

But in the meantime...I have some origins and insertions to learn.

First test down

Hi there; Birdie here!

As the title says, I finished my very first vet school exam. Technically a final, I guess, since that class is over. It wasn't too bad, especially since it was just for the problem solving course and not any heavy science material. It was a little trickier than I was expecting, and there was one term we were supposed to define that I'm pretty sure was never mentioned in class, but overall I think I did well. I even finished the extra, take-home library portion.

Now I need to study for the next exam, cell bio tomorrow. This one's more of a midterm, not a final. Apparently one specific teacher writes particularly bad/tricky questions, so I definitely need to look over his lectures again. And I want to look over it some more in general. Plus I need to learn the intrinsic muscles of the thoracic limb (that means muscles only on the limb itself, not attached to the trunk) AND the bones of the pelvic limb for an anatomy quiz Friday. I know I can do it, I'm just not sure how.

I did get to do something other than study this weekend, though. I went to my first wetlab with Diagnostic Imaging Club! I got to ultrasound a horse's distal limb with and without a plastic standoff. We haven't had any horse anatomy yet--that's next semester--but I had some idea what was going on from the lecture on Friday. And I got the muscle memory of the tiny shifts you need to make to try and find a good image. Ultrasound is pretty hard on the arm--you have to press hard, not to mention holding your arm out for whatever length of time you're looking for something. I feel more comfortable with ultrasound in general now, even if I'm not likely to be working with horses when I'm in practice. And it was really nice to see a live animal for once. I'm really glad I got to go...I wish I could afford to be in more clubs and go to their wetlabs, too! I did finally pay my VBMA dues, though.

Well, back to studying...

Now the real fun starts...

Hi there; Birdie here!

Had a bit of internet trouble, so I think this published somewhere about halfway through my typing it? Anyway, this is the full post.

For a short week with a Labor Day holiday at the start, it sure feels pretty long. I guess being at school from before 8 until after 5 or 6 will do that to you. That's not normally the case around here--I'm looking at my schedule and there's only a handful of days we're scheduled until 5. A little of it was from anatomy lab, but mostly it was problem solving class: moving it to the end of the day for rabies vaccines, adding two hours of it to the end of the day for presentations, and of course preparing for those presentations. Our group did well on the presentations--only lost fractions of a point on our learning issues, probably for not being complete enough; I am so not worried about that.

I'm also feeding an owl at the raptor rehab facility. It's a rotation such that any one person is responsible for a single bird only about once a month for a five day period, and my first one is this week. He’s an owl named BAMF (he earned it, apparently). Since he’s a night bird, he gets fed after 5pm. Every day except today, that’s meant “when I get out of class” more or less, including staying late in anatomy.

 I missed the initial training session so I’m not sure what I’m doing and haven’t tried “fisting” him (holding him on my glove), but a fellow feeder showed me the super basic basics on Tuesday. The first day I had to wait in the rain for like 10 minutes for the coordinator since the lock wouldn’t open—it turned out I just needed to push it up! That made me feel smart, not.

We had our second rabies vaccines this week. I'd heard the second one is the worst, and I'm pretty inclined to agree. My first one wasn't bad at all, but the day after this one I felt absolutely miserable. Combined with the fact that I needed to feed BAMF and study still, it meant I didn’t make the run this week. Definitely next week, though—and I might try and join tomorrow, too.

I only had one club this week, but they’ve started feeding me! Apparently radiology always has the best food, or so they say. Diagnostic Imaging Club also has the honor of being the first club I’ve actually paid my dues for. They’re having an ultrasound lab on the equine distal limb on Sunday, and I’m going. The meeting today was in preparation for it, and it was really positive. A doctor from radiology showed some slides of some normal ultrasounds and some with lesions, and explained them well enough that I totally understood everything. I could really see what was abnormal! Of course, it was just one view of one area and I don’t really know what to do with that diagnostically, but it felt really nice. DIC is totally worth the dues.

We had a “fresh” dog in anatomy today, as opposed to the embalmed one we’ve been working on. It a lot worse than the usual anatomy lab smell: wet dog + raw meat. A lot of the muscles looked different when they were fresh (especially when they were already cut). The fresh tendons and muscle attachments were really pretty though! Some of the fibers had yellows and blues in them. Not in a sick way, just like a sheen to them. I’m not sure my description is getting it across, but it was really nice. I still need to study my muscles a LOT, but I’m feeling a little better about it. And after the instructors got to the first two for us, my partner and I found ligaments ourselves. I for one was pretty proud of that, considering that ligaments are just thickenings of the joint capsule and I’m pretty sure we cut through the first one we tried to find.

Tomorrow is the first home game for LSU football, and I am so NOT excited about it. I don’t get football, so to me it just means 1) everything is really crowded/traffic and 2) they changed the parking rules and I’m not sure where I can park without being towed or ticketed. Guess I’m not going to school to study tomorrow…

This is the first weekend I’m actually spending here in BR, and I know exactly what I’m doing: lots of studying. We have our first two exams next Monday and Tuesday, in problem solving and cell bio. So far I’m studying cell bio the way I studied in undergrad: typing my notes (though I’m about 6 lectures behind now) and going over all the notes every night for a week before the test. It’s a pretty time-intensive way of studying (it took me 3 hours last night), so I doubt I can keep it up. I haven’t started studying problem solving at all yet, but that’s what the weekend is for.

Speaking of studying, I should get to it. I have a lot of cell bio to get through.