It's been a long week

Hi there; Birdie here!

It's been a long week, but it went so quickly! The parasit exam was today, and I don't think it went great. I don't think I failed, but whether I did well is going to depend a lot on how well I guessed. I thought the lab portion went better...until people were asking me about it afterwards and it turns out I totally messed up something I thought I had. I also didn't realize until a few days ago that our pharm exam is next week, and by that time I was worrying about parasit too much to deal with it, so I haven't studied that at all. Luckily I've got all weekend to work on it--I'm going to work really hard this weekend, and really look forward to next week after the exam! On Tuesday I'm doing a game night at my friend's house for her boyfriend's birthday, and then Wednesday night I'll be going home for fall break! Unfortunately, most of the reason I'm actually going home is that I have to go to the dentist because my face decided to hate me this summer. But other than that, home will be nice, and I might even go to a convention on Saturday--haven't decided yet.

Josh Project is going better than I'd hoped though, or at least asking for donations (to be prizes for the chili cookoff) did. I've gotta say, we have the greatest pitch; who doesn't want to help give cute animals to sick kids? Every place we went to, the person we spoke with seemed interested in helping us. We even got one set of items to put as a prize already. I may have gotten our first prize, too; I went to exchange my new camera (I got a sweet new camera! A really nice one.), I talked with a manager and asked for a certain electronic that would make a fantastic first prize. He said he could definitely help me out, but I haven't been able to get in contact with him since. And I'd really like to since the camera's in now and I really don't want to drive there more than I have to. It's very inconvenient. None of the other stores has gotten back to us either, as far as I know at least. Every c/o 2017 committee member's email was on the letter, so maybe they emailed someone else and I just haven't heard.

This is one of those weeks where I got free lunch every day because I went to so many meetings. I saw my li'l sib at most of them, too...I guess he's being like me and going to basically everything. "Because knowledge is power, you know?" It was kind of nice to hear him say that today, actually. I've been kind of over it and not really wanting to pay attention to the talks and stuff, but today it was better. The fact that it was interesting stories instead of farm animal stuff that's irrelevant to my life probably helped. I do want to learn how to work with farm animals, but their presentation just seemed a lot more intensely farm animal focused than I am. Also, their main club thing is rounds, which mean skipping lunch. And I'd rather do rounds on species I'll actually work with. So I'm not doing farm animal club this year.

I did join critical care club this year because (like internal med), their meetings are interesting and informative, so even if I can't make the wetlabs, it's worth it. I really hope I can make wetlabs for things other than my officer clubs, but unfortunately it seems like things keep being scheduled the same day. Technically I could do the trach tube ECC wetlab and the path wetlab that are the same day, but that's a long day and I'm not sure I can spare it. And I'm really upset about missing the surgery club wetlab AGAIN. I forget what it was last year, but this year it's the same day as the chili cookoff. And as a committee member, I'm pretty sure I need to be there to set up and not roll in late after learning how to suture.

The meeting on Wednesday was our Phi Zeta meeting with (one of) the speakers. It was actually the one whose talk I didn't go to, since I spent those 2 hours studying instead--and the new dean didn't come talk to us! That was one of the ones where I had trouble paying attention, honestly. I think that was around the time I realized how behind I was on studying for pharm. But two of my classmates placed in the poster competition, so I'm really happy for them. I also talked with someone who did summer scholars last year, because I think I'm going to apply this year. I really want to do something actually vet related this summer. And still make money, but I think the part about being able to put it on my resume is a little more important now. The only thing is that I only have (an estimate of) 10 weeks, not the whole summer--because my family is going to Italy, and I'm not going to say no to that! I'm really really excited about the trip, especially since Italy is next on my list of Places I Really Want To Go.

I rode the same horse twice now! His name is Krewe, and he reminds me of my favorite horse at the barn I rode at in high school--mostly because he also likes to hold his head up higher than normal horses. He's very good, and I think I was on him again because my instructor wants me to ride him in the student show coming up in October. She told me about the show and about a clinic that are coming up this semester that she wants me to ride in, which makes me feel pretty good. We've also been doing a little more complex stuff in my lessons, like a bending line and a sort of mini course with a gymnastic around to a single jump. Yesterday she had me go around in half seat at the walk with no stirrups--I think that might be even harder than posting without stirrups! We also did a thing where the 4 people in my group did the course one at a time and then the others said something they liked about the ride and something they didn't. I'm still kind of frustrated sometimes at being worse than I was before I didn't ride for a year, so hearing the positives made me feel somewhat better! I heard some bad news, though, about another horse at the barn, Omega, who colicked and died. I never got to ride him, but I wanted to, and I'm sad for him.

One happier note so I don't end my post on that: I got to go see The Maze Runner with a couple of my friends from school, and that was a lot of fun (even if the book was, as always, better). Now I'm going to try and get some studying done. Local anesthetics and autonomic nervous system, here I come!