Welcome back to second year

Hi there; Birdie here!

I have now finished the first week of my second semester of second year of vet school. This means...only two more full semesters of classrooms! I'll talk about this week in a minute, but first: it's a new year, and time for reflection. So please consider this picture:

Fall 2014 exam/study schedule

This is the schedule I made last semester for every exam I had to take and every exam I had to study for. This is how many exams I had last semester...plus one, actually, since I made this after the first two weeks of class and thus after the first exam. I haven't made one for this semester yet because we're trying to move a couple of tests so I need to wait until the schedule is finalized. When I do that one, I'll try to remember to put it up here. I've heard that fall second year is the worst, but I kind of find that hard to believe when I look at how many classes we have this semester. It's 26-ish credits this semester, I think? I'm also taking 3 electives. Technically we're only supposed to take 2, but one of mine is the online Emerging Diseases or whatever class we need for licensing to write inspection certificates and such. So I can still take two others with that; mine are Skin and a case-based "advanced" feline medicine course. I tried to get into a cultural competency class, but I was literally the only person who signed up, so it got pulled. Skin is supposed to be pretty cool, though. I've heard there's lots of hands-on experience, suture practice, etc.

In general, our classes this semester seem pretty cool. Well, I'm not super excited about Farm Animal or Exotics because that's not what I want to do with my life, but eh. We're finally going to learn physical exams (in Anesthesia, of all classes!) and learn to suture! My favorite teacher, who taught us immunology, is lecturing again, so that's fun. Also we have a class with my mentor, a clinician who went to the same tiny undergrad I did, and he's a really entertaining instructor. Apparently some of my classmates have a lot of trouble following him,but I haven't had that problem. I still don't have all of my textbooks yet--two of my book orders got cancelled sometime after I made them, and I had to re-order! I got a couple of these really good Secrets books, so that's cool. They're pretty hard to find, though, and more expensive than they look like they should be. I mean, I'm used to things like my giant, heavy, two-volume internal medicine book being $100-200, but these are smallish paperbacks that I don't think should be over $50, much less $200. I think they're probably out of print and that's why. But they're really great books, with clear explanations.

This is one of the Secrets books I bought since we're taking Oncology this semester

Speaking of the new year, I decided to do a reading challenge for 2015. Two, actually--a blog I follow put up her own (only 12 books, with some overlap) so I'm doing that as well as the 52-book popsugar challenge. I've already read 4 of the 52 books (none of which counts for the 12th, unfortunately). I'm currently reading Crossed by Ally Condie for "a trilogy." I'm also doing (at least) the 52 book challenge as a photo challenge since I liked the November one so much. So don't be surprised if I talk about books on here more than usual this year. :)

The semester hasn't started stressing me yet (although I do have quite a lot of studying plans for this weekend even though the first test isn't even next week yet), but I know it's coming. I still have my 3 officerships, which means I'm about to have to meet with all of them to set up meetings for the semester and also prepare for open house. Apparently second years have certain parts of open house we're in charge of, too--I thought we were done with that! And once again I'm not sure what I'm working but it's probably club stuff not class stuff. This year it actually didn't fall at the same time as New Orleans Comic Con...but the con is this weekend, and I never registered or anything, so I'm still not going. At least I know I'm going to Dragon Con in September! I also started riding lessons again this week. My instructor keeps putting me on Cricket, and on Thursday she told me I ride him well. To which I could just say, "Really?" He is very slow, and I certainly don't feel like I ride him well. Apparently there's another student show next weekend, but I've already decided I'm not doing it--not least because she wants me to ride Cricket in the show. And I definitely can't ride Cricket well enough to do well in a show. So, pass.

I'm still not sure what I'm doing for this summer. I did update my resume (um, this week. Not actually over break), and I looked up deadlines for a bunch of programs. But then during this week my mentor approached me after class and when I told him I hadn't found anyone else to do research with over the summer, he said he'd try to think of a project I can do. I'm not really sure how I feel about that--mostly, I don't like all this uncertainty. I just really want to do something vet-related this summer. I mean, I will, it's non-negotiable, but I'd also like to 1) know what I'm doing and 2) get paid. If I don't get any of my stuff, I'll look up 2-week externships at AVMA's website (and hopefully get the Live Oak Bank one, too) and do a few of those...but I'd really rather do something paid than something where I have to pay to travel.

Oh, also, I'm all registered for SAVMA symposium! I also actually booked my room and flight at the same time, so unlike last year I'll be in the same hotel as the symposium, which will be much more convenient. This year I'm doing two wetlabs: a nutrition/critical care one and an abdominal surgery one. I'm actually getting there a day early for the nutrition wetlab, and nothing else will have started yet, so I've got a free afternoon. Symposium is in Minnesota this year, so what I'm planning on doing with that afternoon is: go to the Mall of America! I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. Also, I am DEFINITELY going to hear Temple Grandin speak this year. Last year I had to miss her because of my wetlab, but this time I checked the schedule and made sure I have that time free! Dr. Roark is also going to be speaking, so I'll try to hear him if I can. Betsy Charles is, too, but I'll miss her for abdominal surgery. It's going to be SUPER cold, though--not excited about that. Everything else, though, is looking pretty cool.

Last night I went to see Into the Woods with one of my friends. Another friend was supposed to meet us, but she couldn't find parking, couldn't find the theater, and then was too late to get a ticket. But we did randomly meet up with a few of our other classmates who were also going to see the movie! It was really well done, but I can't say I liked it a lot. There were some really weird scenes in the first part: the wolf was creepy, and I wasn't expecting the princes to be so silly. And then the second half happened, which I really wasn't expecting, and I didn't much care for the ending. I prefer a little more happily ever in my fairy tails, and I am very upset about certain deaths. I'm glad my little brother didn't end up seeing it; for all that it was PG it was very scary and almost certainly inappropriate.

One last thing before I sign off: I have a new laptop, and it's AWESOME! Apparently this isn't going to be a quick note because I have to tell the whole story. First, my gaming laptop completely died. It did the thing it did when I first got it where it wouldn't turn on, so I took it to the Muppet since he fixed it the first time. He almost fixed it, though not without severely messing with its aesthetic--instead of a power button attached to the side it would have an awkward red button from radio shack hanging out by the wires, and then he drilled a hole in it that turned out to be useless! But none of that mattered because the big wires he'd used to fix it the first time had come off the microwires in the computer itself, and it was going to be difficult to fix. So I gave up on that. Then my ordinary laptop, which mostly worked fine, kept having spurts of problems too. Finally, I think it was the week after Thanksgiving, I bought my new laptop. And I'm glad I didn't buy it earlier when I almost did, on Black Friday, because not only were the Black Friday sales still going but I also got an additional discount through LSU! So I got a really nice gaming laptop, even better than the one I was originally going to get, for less than $1,000 not including tax. I'm still getting used to it a little. It has Windows 8, which I'm not used to, and the trackpad is centered under the spacebar instead of centrally on the laptop, so I keep accidentally right-clicking. But I've successfully played some Don't Starve on it, and started Mass Effect (which I finally bought when it was on Steam Sale around Christmas). Other than Windows 8 (and certain things about that OS that unfortunately I can't turn off), it hasn't given me any problems, and I'm really happy with it.

So many exams, so little time

Hi there; Birdie here!

Wow, this morning seems so long ago, much less when I wrote last two weeks ago. The first part at least is because I woke up at 5:30 this morning and took an exam at 8. Then I stayed for an extra hour and a half after we were supposed to be done with class for a review session..that's kind of a whole 'nother story. The review was extremely tension-inducing because the teacher does things like not answering questions and shutting them down with "let's keep it simple" (even when it really was a simple question) while still telling us we need to know "all that detail." I'd rather not get into how he interrupts students trying to answer his question so that he can say the same thing they were about to say. And then I went to dinner with L & H--I finally tried Kaminari! It's a buffet-style sushi and hibachi place, and I've heard classmates talking about going there to celebrate finishing an exam because it's also a great price. It was really good! The only problem is that there's no key for what's in the sushi... I'm really glad we got to go though, would buy again.

Other than the systemic path exam we just took (which I think went fine; I didn't have to do that well to keep my grade anyway), we have all our grades back for once. We finally got parasitology...though now that I look back, that was only a couple of weeks ago? Time moves differently in vet school--I mean, that was 5 exams ago. Anyway, we got our grades back last Friday, but they had some errors in the calculation. I think they confused themselves with how much they changed the points. Anyway, getting that grade upset me--I did as bad as I thought I did--but when I heard my classmates talking about the miscalculations I hoped it would make it better. And it turns out it did; even if this class is on the normal LSU scale and not a 10-point scale, I still got the grade I wanted! We also finished pharm, and I made an A. Not a very high A, but A is A and I'm super happy I got one in pharm. I also did well on the first virology exam, which was nice, so I'm not quite so worried about this next one, which is one of the 3 exams in 3 days standing between me and Thanksgiving. I am so ready for that break, even if it's just 2 extra days!

We also signed up for elective next semester. I'm going to be in three this year: the online USDA foreign/emerging diseases class that's required for things like writing certificates of health (which doesn't count towards your quota, which is why I can take 3 electives), an advanced feline medicine class (even though I haven't taken the basic one--I heard the basic one is not great, and this is case based and should be interesting), and a "cultural competency" class (which I'm actually really interested in, but I wouldn't be surprised if no one else signs up and it gets dropped).

At this point, I'm mostly stressing more for other people around me than for myself. I'm doing fine, and it totally sucks to have 3 exams in 3 days but I'll manage, and I'm looking forward to some easy, fun, PBL with associated free time. Meanwhile, people who want to get into competitive programs are struggling and getting Cs, and others are dreading PBL because they don't work well with their groups. I feel really bad for these people, but there's not really anything I can do for them...

My computer's been acting up a little recently. When I restarted for an update earlier this week, it took several tries to power on. I thought it was just an anomaly until it happened once randomly when I tried to turn it on after a routine shutdown. Of course now it's turning on fine, when I was about to let my friend's boyfriend in IT look at it. I'm keeping my backups very up to date (I think my virology objectives are only on there, not my laptop) and luckily I kind of have a backup laptop in my gaming one, so I'm not worrying about it yet. But that's probably something to deal with after Thanksgiving when I have time. Oh, and my summer research project fell through. So now I have to figure out something else for the summer, too.

We had our last DIC meeting of the semester this week. I decided to stick with the officerships I have...I don't want to back off with responsibility, that doesn't look good, and I kind of like being three officers. Sure, it's a pain sometimes, but I'm kind of proud of being able to handle it. So yep, I'm historian again! I also helped my team to victory in jeopardy. The highlight was probably how quickly I was able to rattle off the Roentgen signs (Size, Shape, Margination, Number, Location, Opacity!) before another student had even finished one or two. Well, after the question where I knew the answer (side effect of iodinated contrast in lungs = pulmonary edema) but someone else shouted out a wrong answer first while I was trying to discuss it, I wasn't going to sit back and let them do it! Also on the note of things to be proud of--did I mention I submitted an article to the Vet Gazette? I don't think I did, especially since they rejected it for the September issue. But now it's being published! It's about the VLE, and it's going up this weekend!

I'll finish this entry by talking about my riding. The clinic...well, it got better. We did fine at first over the warm-ups, but on the first or second course (probably the second, that's how it usually works for me) I actually fell off. I didn't get hurt at all, but it kind of sucked because someone else's horse was refusing earlier but then I had to go and prove that I was the worst rider in the class. So that's cool. But Isabella only refused a couple more times after that. I learned to ride her forward into my hand, which was a really helpful piece of advice because it meant I didn't have to make her go faster to get over the jump when she already wanted to be quick. By the end we were doing pretty well, I think.

Last week I rode Sailor, one of my favorites. We did a lot of no-stirrups work. Like, maybe half the lesson without stirrups, including some trot poles and once or twice over a little crossrail. The saddle I was in (because the previous rider had it) had weird stirrups with a hook sort of attachment instead of a buckle, so when I had to cross them in front of the saddle they didn't quite lay flat. I wound up with bruises on my legs from them! Sailor got a little quick at the end but I think we did alright. This week my instructor forgot to put me on the list, but I wound up on Cajun. I think he's a little green in his re-training; he's a former barrel racer and they're apparently trying to put some advanced students on him now, which I guess I qualify? He was really quick, and I was warned to keep a nice full seat at the canter or he'd run off. Which of course meant he kept breaking back to trot--but Alea said I have a nice deep seat like she does, which makes me feel good about myself. Cajun jumped really big, especially on the last jump (in a line). It wasn't much of a boost for my ego as a rider since he wasn't really great at the exercises, but I hope I did well for the horse. We also did some no-stirrups no-reins trotting on a lunge line. It was a tiny, tight circle, which made balancing a lot harder! At least I didn't fall again.

Unlike last weekend (I went to the Renaissance fair; maybe I'll write about it next week), this weekend I don't have anything planned but studying and a trip to WalMart (although I should try to run tomorrow morning). Three tests to go...Let's do this. Almost there.

I can see a light...

Hi there; Birdie here!

I just have to get through this physiology final on Monday and then the week after I'll have a whole week with no exams! I'm really excited about it. I've been finding it really hard to study for physio and for last week's anatomy exam. We haven't gotten the written exam grades yet, but I got an A on the practical, so I guess I managed to study enough anyway. I'm hoping to finish writing study guides for the physio notes today and then go over them tomorrow, and hopefully that will be enough. Then I can take at least a few days off studying...kind of like I did after the anatomy exam, actually, only this time I won't have to feel bad about it.

I still am aiming to update this on Fridays, btw, but I wanted to hold out so that I could write about the wetlab I went to this morning. It was put on by Internal Medicine Club, which I'm not actually a member of--apparently they got a grant of some sort, so they could open it to non-members. And I figured, why not? One of the club officers there was talking to me at one point during the wetlab and basically giving me a spiel promoting the club, and she seemed kind of impressed that I was going to this wetlab as a first year. Well, that's the kind of person I am--if I've got an opportunity to do stuff like that, I'll take it whenever I can, basically. It's not like I'm going to get less busy during the later, harder years. I still don't think I'll be joining this club, though...I'm already paying probably too much in dues.

We got to do a bunch of procedures on cadaver dogs: CSF taps (getting cerebrospinal fluid samples--a procedure that can be pretty scary, since if your needle goes in too deep you hit brainstem!), thoracocentesis (drawing out fluid from around the lungs), and bone marrow biopsies from a couple of different sites. We also had a few cadaver cats to practice placing esophageal tubes on, and I got to put in my first suture with it! Not that I was at all good at it--turns out, cat skin is really tough. The doctors make suturing look so easy, but it wasn't easy at all to get my needle through, much less in the right place. One of the dogs had a strange abdominal mass--it felt like ribs on palpation. Once everyone had gotten to try the procedures (and third years were getting ready to practice surgery on the dogs), they went in to see what it was...turns out, it was his stomach, FULL of dry dog food. It was absolutely bulging; we could see individual pellets distorting the surface of the stomach.

I'm glad I managed to do well on the wetlab procedures...it makes me feel a little better about how bad I messed up in anatomy lab. Between my partner not having looked at the dissection guide for what we were about to start, neither of us having looked at the demo dog yet, and misinterpreting part of the instructions, we managed to (rather messily) cut into our abdominal cavity when we're supposed to be working on the thorax. Not that we managed to cut the thorax very well, either, apparently, since we can't really see anything in there...it worked rather better on the big demo dog. Luckily by the time of the exam we'll have gotten to the abdomen anyway, and dissection skills aren't a part of our grade unless they interfere with us being able to answer our quiz questions. Apparently we did something right on our last dissection, though; I didn't notice as we were going through the practical, but judging by the fact that the left pelvic limb was removed when we went to get him out yesterday, our dog was one of the stations.

I've been having a little trouble with live dogs, too. Well, one live dog in particular--my second roommate (the other first year) is fostering/potentially adopting a dog from the local shelter. She's really cute, but she's super scared of me and starts growling and barking at me every time I go downstairs. I don't think she understands where I come from since she can't get up the twisty metal staircase herself. She does that somewhat to our other roommate as well, but she gets over it or at least doesn't do it as much. It's kind of frustrating...I like to study downstairs sometimes, but now if I try she'll just want to bark at me the whole time. And it's really not convenient that I have to go through that roommate's bedroom to do my laundry...

One last thing: on Tuesday I went with my friend to the weekly 5k downtown, as we often do. We usually meet up with a bunch of our classmates, but no one else was there (most likely because that was between the anatomy practical and written exam). We did the run anyway, in about 30 minutes (which, with the way we were running, makes me think that wasn't really 5k, but eh). When we finished, we saw a bunch of runners trailing off somewhere, so we joined the trail. It turns out, they were shooting a commercial for a catastrophe-themed "run for your life" 5k in the spring--and we got to be in it! We had to run up a hill (but not too fast) and look scared, with "military" waving us on and an "ambulance" in the background. It was really fun! If you happen to be in the Baton Rouge area and see a commercial like that, I'm in it. :) We all got free entries to the race for participating in the commercial, and I might actually do it; if I do, it'll be my first 5k since I really started running! And after that part, there was a horror scream contest, and my friend won the girls' part. She won a $50 gift card to a sports & outdoors store, though she hasn't gotten it yet. So if you see that commercial and there's a close-up on a girl screaming--I know her.

Sorry, I lied, one more thing: I finally got my laptop back. :D

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!