Yes, I'm still blogging!

Hi there; Birdie here!

Sorry it's been a while since my last update. It actually wasn't because I was busy with school--last week was another break between exams (as defined as one exam Tuesday and then the next not until the next Friday). I've actually been doing a ton of extracurricular stuff. I guess I'll start where I left off...this is going to be a long post, but at least I'm putting some pictures in this time!

The Saturday after my last post (um, 3 weeks ago...) I volunteered to help out with an ultrasound CE course at school. It seemed like a good idea: free breakfast, free lunch, learn some stuff about ultrasound and get to practice ultrasounding dogs. But actually, I felt like it was a waste of my time. There were a lot of lectures in the morning, and I didn't feel like I was learning anything new. It was all the Basics of Ultrasound stuff we had in radiology class and a long list of artifacts. Then I didn't actually get to eat lunch--the email said we needed to be in Jr. Surgery helping to anesthetize and tube the dogs at 12, so I went there and was actually working for the whole hour. And by working I mainly mean holding a dog and asking what I could help with--I didn't even get to try placing a catheter. Then I monitored anesthesia for about 4 hours and got to spend 15 minutes actually doing the ultrasound. Overall, I didn't think it was worth the time away from studying for my two path tests that week. Definitely won't be doing it again next year.

Then the next weekend was my horse show. Yes, I did end up riding in it! I was kind of late to sign up though, so none of the horses I had wanted to ride were available for my class. I ended up on Nick, and I only got to ride him for 15 minutes at the end of my Thursday lesson before the Saturday show. My instructor told me to show up early so I could practice ride him before our class, so I did. I got to watch some of the Western classes--pole bending looked like a lot of fun, and I'd like to try it sometime! There was also a Halloween costume contest for Western showmanship, a class that would have been really boring without the costumes.

One of my favorites: "Harry Trotter"

I missed the instructors' demos since that was when I got the chance to practice ride (at least, until someone came out and told me to get off and wait until my instructor was out here...). Two other kids were riding Nick in the show (different classes: flatting and trotting crossrails), so we had some fun times switching out the saddle about 6 times. I made friends with quite a few of the younger riders including the two who shared Nick with me. Also, a couple of my friends came to see me ride! I did really well. ^-^ I got first place in both my jumping classes, and fourth on the flat (out of I think 8 riders). My instructor said she's definitely moving me up to a higher class in the next show. Well, she should...I've shown at a much higher level than that in high school. I forgot to ask my friends to take pictures of me riding, but here's one of my co-riders on Nick:

Audrey rocking the crossrail

I don't know when another show will happen, but there's about to be a jumping clinic next weekend! Once again, I can't have any of the horses I usually ride, so I'll be on a pony named Isabella. At least this time I should hopefully be able to ride her for a full lesson before the clinic. My lesson this past Thursday was a lot of fun. I was on Sadie, a dark bay to black mare. Apparently she can be a terror for less experienced riders, but she was great for me. I got to do some really fun stuff, too! After going through the simpler course with my instructor's other students, I got to do the complicated course another lesson was doing, with a bunch of rollbacks and interesting turns! I kind of completely blew my last course, though, and didn't really get a good spot on anything but the line. At least I did a great job with the single vertical I asked to take after that bad round, and even got the turn after it really smoothly.

Then last weekend was the Josh Project Chili Cookoff! We had a pretty good turnout, but apparently it was smaller than previous years. :( We'll have to do a lot better advertising it next time...but it was hard because we didn't have confirmation on first prize for about 3 weeks after I was supposed to have it. My little sib is on Josh Project committee now--he showed up early to study and kept asking how he could help out, so we let him. Then when we told him he's on committee, he was like "oh, I need to focus on bringing my grades up for this semester" and we told him this was the big thing this semester and he already did it. So yeah, he's in. Some of the chilis were pretty good, others I didn't like as much. I'm still really disappointed I didn't get to try the pumpkin chili someone apparently made last year or the year before.

Chili tasting time!

The same person (one of my classmates!) won for both chili and dessert. Her chili had chocolate and beer and bacon in it--no wonder it was good! We actually only had 2 desserts: her peach cobbler, and some lemon icebox pies. Good thing we didn't have prizes for second and third place for that! Anyway, she's also the Hill's rep, so she brought some pumpkins for people to carve at the event. I think people had a lot of fun with that too. It was the day after the class Halloween party (which I didn't attend, for multiple reasons), which probably contributed to people not showing up. But we did have bloody marys, which a lot of people appreciated, and water and gatorade as well as the obligatory tailgate beer. Overall it was a pretty good time (the game, which I tried to go to after, was less so, but I don't need to dwell on that).

Some of my favorite pumpkins people did

I also got inducted into Phi Kappa Phi a little over a week ago. I think I was the only vet student there (if there were others who got offered, they were probably studying instead of going to the ceremony...but I didn't want to have to find where to pick my stuff up alone later!), but it was undergrad junior and seniors as well as grad students. It was kind of pretentious, to be honest. But ever since high school I've always joined honor societies if I have the chance because even if most people who apply to whatever I'm applying to have that on their resume, I'm being compared to them so I need to have it too.My parents came up for the induction ceremony and we went to dinner afterwards, so that was nice. Last weekend I also went to see the Book of Life with my family! It was really good--better than I think the trailers make it look. I liked it a lot, and I'm planning to get it on DVD when it comes out.

We've had a couple of path wetlabs since I last wrote too. A couple Wednesdays ago we had a pathology resident from Tennessee do a multihead microscope wetlab with us. She brought some histology slides that were really cool--even more so because most of the cases were stuff we'd talked about in class recently. I got 4 of the 6 diagnoses! ...off of her leading questions, not from the slides themselves, but still. I felt really smart. We saw Cryptosporidium serpentis in a snake stomach, Johne's disease in a goat intestine, the epicardium of a cow with hardware disease, a cat brain with FIP, a horse kidney with Actinobacillus equuli in the glomeruli and a bunch of tissues from a dog with Blastomycosis. That was really cool, and the resident was cool too. I forgot to give her my card, but she said she'd send out a survey so hopefully I can email her back from that. We also did a clin path jeopardy to review for our second exam (Monday! eek!). About a dozen second years came to that, and it was pretty good too. I won first place, tied with a friend. Luckily, it was easy for us to figure out how to split the prizes--while everyone was arguing about tiebreakers, we quietly went up and I got the candy she didn't like and she got the Nightmare Before Christmas water bottle I didn't want.

Ok, now I'm more or less caught up to this week. On Wednesday, we had grand rounds in the morning--and the speaker was Dr. Betsy Charles, director of the VLI (in charge of VLE)! I heard her speak in the morning and at a lunch talk, and then several students and faculty members who have done VLE went out to dinner with her. We went to a sushi place downtown, and it was really nice. I did lose quite a lot of study time though--we were there for 3 hours! But I absolutely would not have rathered miss it. I didn't get to talk to Betsy much at dinner, but I did give her my card. I also learned that Dr. Burba is leaving LSU to go to Oklahoma! That makes me sad; I'd been looking forward to taking classes with him. So he got one of my cards too.

This morning I did another wetlab, with Emergency & Critical Care club. I learned how to place endotracheal tubes! And also how to do CPR on dogs and cats. I even managed to place a tube in a cat...after a few tries. Having a laryngoscope helps a lot. I tubed the cat once, and the dog a few times: in sternal, in lateral, and without a laryngoscope. I learned a lot, and I'm really glad I got to practice. And now I'll get to practice on live cats too, for Spay Day!

Oh, and I've been working on what I'm doing for the summer. I'm hoping to do research for Summer Scholars this year, and I've been talking with one of the clinicians about it. He's got a project he wants to do, and if they have enough funding it sounds like a fantastic opportunity. It's sort of an extension of the project his students worked on a couple of years ago involving blood pressure measurements. It sounds like I might be able to present this research at a ACVIM conference and get an article out of it! So I really hope the costs aren't more than they can afford (it's the particularly sensitive catheters they need to buy that's the limiting factor). And after that I hope I get accepted for Summer Scholars even though I'll be out for two weeks in Italy...

See? A lot of non-school stuff has been going on. But of course there's been plenty of tests too. We still haven't gotten systemic path back yet, but I aced the first clin path exam! And I made my A in endocrine. In fact, I did a lot better on the exam than I thought I did. I aced our last pharm exam, too, which is good--our final is cumulative, and I really appreciate the buffer that gives me, especially since I'll be focusing pretty hard on virology this week even though the pharm final is next Tuesday. And yesterday we finished another class--parasitology. I am very ready to be done with that class, but I don't know whether I managed an A in it. But I think it's unlikely I got less than a B (at least, if my grade calculations are at least a little accurate...which I'm not sure about, given how much they've changed point values around), and I definitely passed, so that's good enough for me right now. I have 8 exams in the next 4 weeks (which is why I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year...for once. At least I wrote a novel over the summer!), and I've got some major studying to focus on. I'll try and go back to updating more regularly, but for now...wish me luck!

So much everything

Hi there; Birdie here!

Fall break was so not long enough, especially since I spent most of it at the dentist, planning a spring break trip with my family, and making trips to like 4 stores to get my new phone. Not exactly the leas stressful! I finally did get my phone, though (in Baton Rouge, actually, rather than where my parents live). My sister got an iPhone 6, but I chose to upgrade to a 5s instead. The 6 is what I refer to as "stupid big." I can't use it with one hand, and I can't fit it in my pocket. To me, part of the point of modern technology is convenience. So what's the point of having the newest and best tech if I can't easily use it? I love my 5s. I got a really cool purple-and-blue-tone space print case for it, and the ability to unlock it with my fingerprint is awesome! I've got the thumb and forefinger of both hands programmed in, and I'm actually locking my phone now. I never used the passcode feature with my 4.

Also on the technology front, I secured the first place prize for our Josh Project chili cook-off--an iPad mini! It took forever to get in touch with the right person, but I finally got confirmation, and I'm going to pick it up on Monday! The cook-off is coming up really soon now, just two weeks from tomorrow. We're having another committee meeting on Monday to talk about it. We still haven't got any first years on the committee though...I'm going to plug it in the email I send out in the next day or so for sign-ups for the cook-off.

Today we finished our first class of the semester--endocrine final this morning. It was...not ideal, but I think I did well. Almost certainly well enough to make an A, given that I've currently got over 100% in the class. We got a couple of exams back, too. I made an A in pharm, so that's good! Apparently (and surprisingly, I think), that's not the class I need to worry about most. Despite my studying (and I really think I did know things!) I didn't do as well as I would have liked on the parasitology exam. By quite a lot, actually. It's going to be difficult to pull my grade back up to an A now; I'll practically have to ace the final. I'd really like to know the class average for that exam--I'm not sure whether it was really that tough an exam or whether I just failed at studying for it. It's really making me feel pretty bad about my academics.

I'm questioning whether I will be able to do the horse show like my instructor wants when we have a pharm exam that next Tuesday. Especially since I'd just be doing trot-in-canter-out crossrails to verticals. I do still really want to do it though...I'll have to decide probably tomorrow. I rode a new horse at my lesson yesterday: a beautiful bay named Sailor. I liked him a lot. He did keep trying to canter in to the combination we were supposed to trot though. And of course I'm still basically incapable of landing on the left lead--I have no clue why!

In other non-academic news, I went to deliver Josh Kits to children at the hospital on Tuesday. I was The Committee Member who went, with a classmate in my year and a first year. I'm really glad I went, even though I was worrying about studying.

I went to a couple of interesting lunch talks this week. On Wednesday Dr. Mauterer, who runs the vet part of the Dream Clinic, gave a talk sponsored by Zoetis. Unfortunately, it was double-scheduled, so I had to miss the internal medicine club meeting, too. I wish the club meeting had been the day before or after so I could do both. Then today, a dental specialist gave us a sort of intro to small animal dentistry. He talked a lot about the virtues of dental radiographs, and it was pretty convincing. I talked to him after about potentially doing a wetlab with DIC, and he seemed somewhat interested. Unfortunately, he didn't have any cards, but he told me who to talk to to get to him. It would be nice to have that, especially since I know people at other schools have really enjoyed a dental radiograph wetlab.

Today I really should be studying, since we have two exams next week (clin path and systemic path) and especially since I'll be busy pretty much all day tomorrow at a CE (I think?) ultrasound workshop. In fact, there are multiple things I could be doing tomorrow: it's a raptor work day, and the Dream Clinic is happening tomorrow too. Well, it was--actually, it got cancelled due to the Ebola scare in New Orleans! So I'm glad I wound up getting into the ultrasound thing. I'd asked to be in it a while ago and got a response back that it was full--then earlier this week I got the email saying what the schedule is! I'm pretty excited, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot. Unfortunately, it means I have to be there at 8 tomorrow morning--and stay until 5, losing hours of study time.

Despite that, what I did when I got home was finish my book. I only just got around to reading the newest Sarah Dessen book, The Moon and More. Which is a very summery book to be reading in October, but that's okay (especially since I often forget it's not August, anyway. Yay South?). It's not my favorite of her books, but it's still really good--especially at the end. A good ending is very important to me in a book. {Spoilers upcoming!} I usually think of Sarah Dessen as a romance writer, but I'm not sure this book actually qualifies since the protagonist actually ends up with neither of the boys. And I actually really like it that way. Also, I liked how some of the side characters got some development, too. It's put me in quite a bit of a book mood, and I would really like to read something else, or even write...but now I have to actually study. At least I'm halfway through the semester?

Good things!

Hi there; Birdie here!

It is 8 am, I am in class, I got home at 1 in the morning last night, and I'm the happiest I've been...definitely this semester, at least. Last night was a friend's birthday (my study buddy's boyfriend). I made an experimental vanilla Coke cake--it was triple vanilla, actually, since I 1) subbed in vanilla powder for the cocoa powder in the recipe, 2) used vanilla Coke, and 3) threw in some vanilla sugar for good measure. It actually turned out really well (it tastes like a buttery baked good, and possibly a bit like butterbeer), and he loved it! And since we don't have another test until next Friday, we had a game night! We played Super Munchkin, and it was soooo fun! All 3 of us got really close to winning, and I lost my winning battle by 1 level. But in the end, the birthday boy won. Then we just hung out and discussed life and DnD and everything. It was just so good.

And then today after classes, I get to go home for break! I'm so excited. I'm gonna go sit in my beanbag chair (which arrived after I left for school) and read a book! Ok, I'm not really excited about the dentist thing tomorrow, but it's still probably better than being in class. Of course I'm still going to need to study over break, but not as hardcore as usual, which is nice. Oh, today we start our last new (non-PBL) class. We have one hour of it, last thing of the day, right before break. I'm not sure why they did that.

Yesterday's pharm exam...well, I'm not really sure how it went. There were fully a quarter of the questions that I wasn't sure on. It'll probably be fine, and I most likely passed, but I won't really know until we get the results back. After break, I guess. I did get my systemic path exam back, and I aced it, so that makes me feel better about things. Still waiting on parasitology exam back, too, and that wasn't great. But all that can wait until after break.

My new camera came in earlier this week! I'm really excited about the new camera. It's really nice, and I didn't have to get the most expensive one (it wasn't actually that much better). I haven't picked it up yet though because I'm still waiting on the Best Buy manager to get back to me on the Josh Project donation. I have been trying to get him on the phone all week, but apparently now he's on vacation until Sunday. Still, it's better than if he was going to be in tomorrow when I'm with my parents and won't be able to deal with that.

I'm just gonna throw in another plug for how much I love my li'l sib. I've just run into him a couple of times in the hall (once after one of the failed attempts to talk to Best Buy), and his enthusiasm just makes me feel better about vet school and everything.

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!

Deep breath

Hi there; Birdie here!

Yesterday was our first systemic path exam, and our next exam isn't until next Friday (parasitology), so I'm enjoying a bit of a breather. Yesterday I pretty much aggressively did nothing useful (youtube and video games ftw) and ordered Chinese food for dinner. It was a nice break, and I kind of need it after a marathon of Parasit Friday-Pharm Tuesday-Endocrine Friday-Path Tuesday. Welcome to second year? That's definitely going to be happening a few more times this semester...

The pharm exam was kind of a mess. We only had 50 minutes for the exam, when literally every other class gives us 2 hours even if we really don't need it. AND we had 51 questions--less than a minute per question, and 12 questions more than that exam's had in previous years. AND a good deal of the questions were intense critical thinking, like "which of the following is composed of only true statements?" which is basically 4 true or false questions in one. It was not great. We got the grades for that yesterday, and the course coordinator gave us 6 points back on it, and we're all really grateful for that. I'm actually happy with my grade now with those added points!

The weekend I mostly spent studying, because pharm is a big deal. But I did have a nice surprise--my dad was in town, so we got to meet up for breakfast. That was really nice. We also tried to get my new phone, but I want to try out the iPhone 6 before I decide if I'm going to get a 5 or a 6 and they didn't have a demo yet. Oh, and on Friday we had a spontaneous movie night! We made brownies and a frozen pizza and watched The Black Swan--me and my first year roommate and another friend. I wound up not going to the football game, though, and I didn't even manage to give my ticket to anyone. Maybe I'll go this weekend? I am also going shopping with my sister on Saturday, too, so I'm not sure if I'll be ready to leave for football two hours before kickoff like I need to to get parking.

Last week, Aimee rode with me at my lesson! She was on a cute old bay named Jesse, and I had a cranky mare named Baby. Baby did not like being near other horses, so it was a little stressful keeping her away from everyone else, especially since we were all in the indoor. My instructor said she liked the way I rode Baby, though!

I'm pretty happy with how our first pathology club meeting went! A pretty good number of people showed up (not like surgery club levels of attendance, but still) and we had good food and I was able to get the drinks and I think the pathologists did a good job selling why pathology is important even if you don't want to specialize. I know we gained at least one member, too--my little sib!

Speaking of my little sib, the first years are having their first anatomy exam today and yesterday. Apparently my test file was pretty helpful--when I texted my li'l sib Good luck, he said I was the best big sib! So that makes me really happy.

There were a bunch of club meetings, too, since I've last written. Surgery club--I'm not sure whether I'll be able to make it to the suture wetlab this year, either; I think it's the same day as the Josh Project chili cookoff. VBMA--a very uplifting (sarcasm) talk about life insurance and disability insurance. Also a lab animal club meeting I went to mostly for the food, and it didn't change my mind at all about not being in that club.

And speaking of Josh Project...I'm kind of regretting being on the committee. But I'm basically the only one from my class who consistently shows up, so if I don't do it, no one else will. We have to start working on the chili cookoff approximately now; in fact, the second year members are having a meeting about it today at lunch.

Tonight I'm going to work on studying parasitology (because, of course, we still have a quiz on Friday), and (hopefully, if it works out) chatting with my undergrad friends. I'm looking forward to spending this weekend doing some things that aren't studying! Even if I should probably get started studying for my next couple of exams...that'll happen, too.

Nearly done...

Hi there; Birdie here!

I just got out of my pathology final, so all I have left is a bunch of meetings of my elective, bacteriology final Friday, and I'm done! Literally, that's all I have left; there's not even any bacteriology class left. Technically there's class time for it, but I already finished the last lab so I just need to do whatever they need us to do do close out. Of course, I still need to start studying bacteriology since I've been focused on path...luckily it's not a particularly difficult course and I have really good resources from previous years.

Last Thursday we had our multihead microscope wetlab. It was really cool. One of my classmates who came brought a slide of a biopsy from a mammary mass on her cat, and we looked at a bunch of blood smears. This stuff is even cooler now that I've actually had a bit of pathology and know somewhat what we're talking about. And I was actually really good at doing the blood smears (which was surprising since I wasn't last time). Then that evening I Google-hangout'd with a bunch of my friends from undergrad, which was nice. I hope we continue to do that.

On Friday I went to the scholarship and awards ceremony. I got to see some of my classmates and also my roommate get awards, but I didn't get anything. In future years, I won't show up unless I get an email that says I'm getting something. We weren't sure whether they'd been sent out this year, so I went anyway. Plus my friend said she was going (she didn't wind up getting anything either). At least there was a reception afterwards.

Saturday was the Josh Project crawfish boil/powderpuff football game, which I was sort of involved with setting up (I made the fliers and made announcements to my class). I didn't go, though, even to help set up. What I did instead was play Pathfinder. It was kind of frustrating how useless I was in combat, so after the session we talked about how to make my character better. It helped a lot when I found out I was supposed to be adding my +2 dex to hit, which means I didn't need to miss as much as I did. We also changed one of my feats and one of my discoveries, so I should be much more useful next time. I also liked that they pointed out how useful I am outside of combat--I have basically all the knowledge skills so I can roll to find out about pretty much anything, and I prepared a new extract that lets me identify magic items (which means we don't have to pay the guy in town to do it, and also we can start using things immediately without worrying about whether they're cursed or something). Altogether, it makes me feel much better and I'm really looking forward to this Saturday (which will be the last weekend I'm here for 4 weeks at least if not the whole summer).

Then on Sunday I did an ophthamology wetlab with surgery club, which was AWESOME. I highly recommend surgery club wetlabs, you learn a ton. The cadavers we used were the heads from cadavers that had been used in one of the electives (skin). We did corneal debridement and grid and punctate keratotomies--if an animal has an ulcer that's not healing because the attachments of epithelium to basement membrane are messed up, you remove all the unattached epithelium (and keep going until it all comes off), and then create little divots in the basement membrane so the epithelium will go in and adhere. The clinician said that punctate ones are better because the grid ones cause more vision distortion. This procedure you can do under just sedation or local anaesthetic (when you're comfortable with it); it doesn't need general anaesthesia. We also did temporary tarsorrahpy, so if an eye pops out of a dogs head (this happens sometimes with small brachycephalic breeds where the eyes are already bulging, even just with restraint) you decrease the size of the palpebral opening to hold it in for a while. This meant suturing, and marks the second time I've sutured, so that was a significant learning experience. The second years in the wetlab with me were really helpful with that, too. Then we did an eyelid mass removal, with a figure-8 suture to close. I took a few tries, but I'm really proud of how I finished that. Then we finished up with an enucleation--eyeball removal. I was the second one to get my eye out. I didn't get much out of the closure for that one though since 1) I was kind of in a hurry to get out of there because that was 4+ hours I didn't spend studying pathology and 2) I'm not really sure of the Correct way to do a simple continuous suture and I don't want to put a bunch of effort into learning the wrong thing. But anyway, we did a lot, I learned a lot, and it was 110% worth the studying time lost.

Yesterday I met with the dean of students (for the third attempt) to get flight reservations for my trip to VLE. The timing is kind of a mess since the cheapest flights don't get in until after 2, when the last shuttle from the airport to the "camp" or wherever where the experience is actually held. I'm hoping we get to fly on United since I get reward miles with them, but they are not the cheapest (even if I did manage to find flights that work great for not TOO much more expensive than the state will pay for...but more expensive is more expensive). So that's still a work in progress.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Hi there; Birdie here!

After Wednesday, I will be DONE with anatomy! School will be so much easier then...I won't even have any afternoon classes until after spring break. I am stressing pretty hardcore about this (even as I type this instead of studying)--since I actually did really well on the last exam, I have a chance of keeping an A in this class, so I really want to. Plus it seems like there's a lot more stuff I don't know at this point for this exam. I spent a couple hours yesterday and pretty much all evening Saturday in the lab and am feeling a lot better about the limb and especially the bones. I started out knowing bones really well so that's always my confidence point, and since we get to pick which question we start on for the practical I like to start with a bone.

Actually, I just ran a grade calculator and if I get an 88 on everything left I'll (barely) keep my A. I think I've done better than that on all my previous anatomy stuff. This might actually be doable...I can't slow down, though, this is anatomy and it's a lot of information. I feel better about it now though.

I did a good amount of non-anatomy over the weekend, too. Saturday morning I went to a raptor workday and did my second ever blood draw--on Sydney, the turkey vulture. She has big veins, and I volunteered first. :) My draw wasn't actually very good--I only managed it with the clinician's help, and I took too long so the blood clotted in the tube. BUT I got blood, so I'm 2 for 2. After that we played Pathfinder, but it seemed really short, especially since we stopped in a place that wasn't really a stopping point in the story (we were chasing the Monk down a hall). It was still fun, but sometimes I really miss my previous DM.

Oh, speaking of tabletop games...there's a kickstarter for basically a Monster Manual of bacteria and antibiotics. It ends today so I doubt anyone will be able to donate from seeing it, but here's the link https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nerdcoremedical/the-bacterionomicon
I backed it and will be getting the hardcover when it comes out. My study buddy and I are trying to convince her boyfriend (who DMs for a party online through Roll20) to DM a game for us using it.

On Sunday I helped out with Spay Day. There was an adorable dilute calico kitten (dilute calicos and tortiseshells are among my favorites) that I wanted to take home. It was a shelter cat, too. Unfortunately, my roommate says I can't have a cat, so that's not happening for another year at least, so I don't get that kitten. I worked prep again this time. There was one cat who looked like she might have had a spay scar, so we were going to run a blood test to check if she'd been spayed (it checks for...lutenizing hormone, IIRC. Some hormone from the ovaries). The test would take 30 minutes (including getting plasma/serum), so we just let the surgeon open her up rather than have her under anasthesia so long. I had heard of the test last time, but this is the first time I heard the details and one of my classmates was hearing it for the first time, so I thought maybe my readers would find it interesting.

Last week I also finally got my car fixed. It was actually minimal trouble--I dropped it off in the morning, got my friend to drive me to school, and we went to pick it up after just a little extra time in anatomy lab. It was a little anxiety-inducing at the end, since apparently they needed my permission to do one part replacement and I missed the call asking for said permission since I was in bacteriology lab and wearing gloves that it took some time to get out of. Luckily they were able to replace it and get me my car back right around closing. And then I got a snowball--it's definitely heading towards summertime, 'cause the snowball stands are opening up. If you're not a Louisianian, you probably don't understand the wonders of snowball. It's like a snow cone, but bigger--in an actual styrofoam cup (or Chinese takeout box, if you're at Plum Street), not a little cone. And there are cream flavors, which are my favorites (they're sweet, with condensed milk mixed into the syrup), and you can get toppings like condensed milk on top. Snowballs are an important part of my summers.

I also did something with Josh Project (for once)--I went to deliver the kits (stuffed dog + book) to children in the hospital, along with a couple of service dogs. We didn't spend much time at all with the kids, and a lot of time standing in hallways because the dogs went first and we came in when they left. It was pretty nice, though--I'm going again on April 22, right after spring break. I was really impressed with the hospital worker and how he talked to the kids.

Other than that, last week was mainly just classes. I got lunch from a club/presentation every single day. I learned about class IV laser therapy, anemia, and some surgery cases. I also sat through a webinar about how to pay off debt that pretty much only applied to federal loans, which mine aren't. At least they gave me pizza.

Well, wish me luck on anatomy...however it turns out, it will all be over soon.