Hi there; Birdie here!
Today's post title is a reference to the song from Treasure Planet, which has been in my head for the past hour or so. It's also about what I'm feeling regarding vet school right now--however difficult it continues to be, I've gotten this far and I can get through it.
I've currently got a cookie sheet of snickerdoodles cooling, and I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've baked since the semester started. It's been a while! It helps that I've got people to share the baked goods with; I'm going to a potluck tonight (it's the first one of those in a while, too, huh?). We had our cardio final today, and it wasn't too bad. There were a few I wasn't sure on, but especially with how well I did on the first exam, I'm not too worried about it. The farm animal exam earlier this week is a different story--for that one, I'm hoping I guessed well and relying on the fact that it's less than half the points of our last exam, plus we still have 2 more exams to go. Luckily one of my classmates recorded the audio for the lectures I missed so I at least heard everything on this week's exams, but I still have two hours of lecture to catch up on in exotics (hopefully tonight). Then I can go on and miss two MORE days of class that I'll have to catch up on next week.
This week we also had our first surgery lab (my group went on Monday), and it was kind of incredibly intimidating. Now that I've caught up on the first two lectures for that class, I realize I was pretty unprepared for lab. I didn't wear my lab coat because I didn't see why we should when we're just changing into a gown--turns out it's because in real life we're supposed to wear a coat over our scrubs when we leave the surgery suite to reduce contamination. I also didn't get the memo about not wearing nail polish (the reason for that is because where it's chipped can create reservoirs for bacteria that you can't reach with your scrub) and blatantly had on nail polish. She didn't notice (probably because it was still the pink I had for DC), but I could easily have taken it off that morning and replaced it at night if I'd known. Still kicking myself for that. And that's not even mentioning the intimidation factor from the lab itself. Our first lab was all about how to create the sterile field: scrubbing, gowning and gloving, and draping the patient. The first thing we learned is that it's critical to fold your gown the right way when you wrap it so that you can put it on without contaminating anything but the inside. Then we learned both open (normal, with just your hands, like for a castration or something where you're not fully gowned) and closed (with your fingers tucked inside the cuffs of your gown the whole time) gloving, and how to scrub, and how to drape the patient. Said "patient" was actually a pillow with a xyphoid, pubis, and mammary chains drawn on it. It is surprisingly difficult to towel clamp drapes to a pillow. Like, incredibly difficult, actually. I managed to do everything, but it's so precise I'm really anxious about messing it up. At least I had the right type of cap. The caps in our packs are all guys' caps (which is a terrible idea on the bookstore's part--they don't give us a choice in buying them, but well over half of us can't use them), so some of the girls had to wear bouffant caps underneath. Luckily, I have a cute purple one with gold fleur de lis that I got from a feline club fundraiser. Over the summer I'm planning to find some cute material and make one or two more.
On Tuesday we had a small animal abdominal ultrasound for Diagnostic Imaging Club. It was pretty cool, except that we split the big group into two hour-long sessions--but as an officer, I had to stay the whole time. The dogs at my station both hours had some interesting issues: a thickened intestinal submucosa (potentially Heterobilharzia) in one and some bladder sediment in the other. I got to do the ultrasound myself once, naturally. I even got the right kidney on the first try, and found the duodenum! After we flipped the dog into left lateral, but still. But basically I spent most of the second hour hovering around, trying to be useful or learn something or at least not get in the way, and thinking about how I needed to be studying cardio. I'd definitely say it was a good wetlab. We had over 20 people (which had been supposed to be our limit), so I'm pretty happy with that!
Then on Wednesday, we did a mulitheaded microscope wetlab for path club. And by "we," I mean me and my li'l sib, because that's all who came. We had a few other people RSVP, but they couldn't make it for various reasons such as worrying about oncology, or forgetting about it. Couldn't get any of my classmates to come along, either. We looked at a few oncology cases, and I'm really proud of my little--it seemed like he learned a lot. It was mostly a review for me. We talked about the 5 round cell tumors (TVT, mast cell tumor, plasma cell tumor, histiocytoma, and lymphoma) and how to tell a sarcoma from a carcinoma--all of which I still remember from clin path and from going over again recently in oncology.
I also got to ride twice this week! There were lessons on Monday to make up for last week, when there were no Thursday or Friday lessons. I got to ride Sailor again, and we did some really cool stuff. My instructor put me on the lunge line and took away my reins and then had me canter without the reins. And, what I think is more impressive, after a few canter transitions she had us sitting trot with no reins. I'm really proud of how well I did at that. I remember when I was much younger and taking riding lessons, I mentioned to my instructor that I'd read that you should stop a horse with your seat first before using the reins and asked how to do that. Back then, they told me at my level I shouldn't be trying to do that. Well, now I can! And yesterday I rode Cajun, which I was really into. He was a lot better about not jumping huge, and I'm really proud of him. Well, but then the last jump in our line got moved for our last time through, and he still jumps really big when he gets a long spot. Still, I stayed with him! My position wasn't great, and I had a hard time keeping my heels down. It was a fun lesson though. My instructor thanked me a couple of times for riding him, but I had zero problem with it. I rather liked him yesterday, actually.
It helps that the book I just finished, Catch Rider, is all about a girl who wants to be able to ride any horse. I'm glad I read it on the week I had two lessons! I'm also pretty glad I read Snowman first. In Catch Rider, the main character goes to the Maclay finals at Madison Square Gardens, and I recognized that show site from the other book, so that was pretty cool. Before that, I finished Counting by 7s, which I liked a lot (my disliked characters got a lot of development, too), and The School for Good and Evil. I'm not real sure what to do with that one--I'm still not sure what happened at the ending, and I had some problems with it in general. There's two more, it's a trilogy, but I don't think I'll be picking up the others (at least in the near future). Since Terry Pratchett died, I decided that I need to re-read Going Postal immediately. I'm not even sure whether I'll count it for the challenge; it might be outside of that. It could probably count for funny book if I wanted it to. And at some point I need to finish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (a book recommended by a friend, which is due back to the library before symposium unless I renew it) and read my Temple Grandin book (before Friday!). Oh, and study for oncology still. Right, studying too.
Tomorrow my family's coming up and we're going to the St. Patrick's Day parade. I'm pretty excited. I didn't get to any Mardi Gras parades this year, and I generally like St. Patrick's parades better because they throw a wider variety of stuff, including vegetables. One time I caught a pack of sour straws. Vegetables are much more useful than doubloons, too. I don't understand the kind of parades where people don't throw you anything--I'm a Louisiana girl at heart! Then on Sunday I'm running in the Great Rover Road Run 5k. I haven't actually been running in at least a month probably, so that's not really ideal. At least I have been riding so I should be sort of in shape? I just want to run the whole thing, I know I have zero chance of placing at all. But the entry fee goes to local shelters and the Dream Clinic, so it's a worthy cause. I'm glad I'm doing it, regardless of how unprepared I am.
Showing posts with label li'l sib. Show all posts
Showing posts with label li'l sib. Show all posts
Friday, March 13, 2015
Friday, March 6, 2015
Progress, I suppose
Hi there; Birdie here!
This week has been intense, but I can't really say it's over because I still need to catch up on lectures. First I went to DC, which--more on that later, but it was pretty stressful. Then I came back and didn't even have time to unpack because I had to study for my derm final makeup yesterday and my orthopedics final today. And then yesterday I found out that I got the Banfield summer job program--AND I got summer scholars. So in the midst of my exams I had to deal with that decision. I wound up deciding on summer scholars, since I don't have any research experience and unfortunately despite being in vet school I am still forever trying to make myself look good for the next application. Also my housing in Texas near the Banfield hospital fell through. I made the calls/emails to make that decision official this morning. And I've still got about 7 hours of lecture I hope to get through this weekend, which isn't counting the studying I need to do for next week's exams. Vet school's tough.
I'm actually pretty upset, because even though our classes are usually recorded (which I was counting on, being gone for two days) a certain farm animal clinician decided that not enough people were in class and didn't record. One of my classmates gave me her notes, but I'm not super comfortable with that; I'd rather hear it myself. I'm going to be missing his class for Symposium, too...this time I'll make sure to ask him beforehand in the hopes he won't decide not to record.
DC was...honestly, not what I was expecting. When it talked about "exposing veterinary students to the legislative process" I didn't know that meant making up lobbyists and setting up meetings for us with congress members' offices. The first night was good. We had a little reception to talk with other participants (one of my VLE groupmates was there!), and then a bunch of us went out to a place called the Beer (Bier?) Baron, where I got funnel cake burger sliders and another guy in the group got a chicken Parmesan donut. It was really cold! As we were walking back, everything was encased in ice. It was also raining earlier that day when I was walking to the hotel from the metro station. I actually took the metro station the wrong way for 2 stops, but I wound up on the same train I would have have to wait for, so I consider it a win--I waited in warm trains instead of on a cold platform.
The second day (first full day) was when the problem started. After several talks (we even had powerpoint printouts, just like vet school lectures), we had some mock meetings. The first couple of people who went up made me cringe. First, there was a large group that gave me so much secondhand embarrassment because no one seemed to know what to say and the person playing the senator had to keep feeding them lines. Then the next person was quite good, except that she kept saying things that were probably jokes but were just so very "no, don't do that!" So I figured, I have some idea what I'm doing, I'll go up. So I did. And I completely messed up which bill is which (we were presenting two bills: the Veterinary Medical Loan Repayment Program Enhancement Act and proposals for reauthorization of the Higher Education Act). I did my best to keep going anyway, and I probably wasn't the only one who would do that, but I felt horrible. It was not easy, it was not fun, and it did not make me feel good about messing up in front of actual congressmen (or their staff) the next day. No matter how much I wanted to bow out and fly home, though, I couldn't get out of it. I think they thought they needed me, although after my meetings I'm not sure why. I don't think I made any difference whatsoever: either they already supported our position or they brushed me off without listening. I met with one senator and two representatives--well, I met with their offices. Overall, I don't really know how to feel about it. It's a worthwhile experience and I'm sure it will look good on my resume, but I'm not sure it was a good experience for me.
The surgery wetlab a couple of weeks ago was a better experience, but that wasn't what I was expecting either. Basically, since literally none of us had sufficient background, we spent the wetlab learning to suture and do ligatures. At the end one of the groups got to do the neuter on their dog, but that's about it. Still, it might have actually been better, since literally everyone got to have hands-on personally instructed experience. I mean, the group that did the neuter, it was just 2 people who got to do it, I'm not sure what they would have done with the groups of 3-4 we had. And I feel like I learned a lot about spay/neuter procedures from the lecture beforehand. Either way, it's giving me a great leg up in our current surgery class. We had lectures on suture patterns and on instruments this week, and I have a good basis for that right now. We also had our first microscope wetlab for path club, and finally had a meeting and officer elections. I wasn't able to be there (it was Tuesday, while I was in DC), but I kept my vice-presidency.
At my riding lesson last week, I got to ride Sailor, my favorite! I think we did well together, and my instructor said I "managed him well. He gets a little excited." I also worked on my position, especially over jumps. The ring was super crowded, though, which I didn't appreciate. Naturally I didn't ride this week since I had so much in the way of tests (and summer decisions) to deal with, but actually there weren't lessons at the end of this weeks so I get to make it up on Monday and ride twice next week.
On the book front, I finished Tam Lin and was pretty disappointed in it. In the hopes of reading something I'd like better than my last few books, I got a short story collection called 21 Proms that has a John Green story in it (kind of hoping it would be like My True Love Gave to Me, a recent Christmas short story collection I loved). Well, the John Green story was alright, but I didn't like any of the others. I didn't relate to the characters, and some of them were just plain weird. On my flights/in DC, I read Top Dog by Jerry Jay Carroll for a book I own but hadn't read. It's the best one I've read in a while, which isn't saying much. I liked the battle between good and evil, and some of the symbolism, but as a whole I didn't care for the narrator's tone and I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending. Now I'm reading Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan. I've read nearly 200 pages just today (mostly just after I got home), so that's pretty good. I firmly dislike certain characters and situations, though. I need to find some better books, or I'll forget why I love reading (no I won't, I'll never do that).
I just got back from going to the gymnastics meet with A. It was senior night--the seniors' last meet. We got there a little late, after the first event had started. There were like three 10.0s this time--there weren't any last time! The star floor performer had her routine last, with music that included Stand Up and Get Crunk (a Saints pump-up song) and I'm pretty sure the LSU fight song too. She got a 10.0 for it, and she totally deserved it. Anyway, it was really fun and totally not catching up on lectures like I should have been doing.
Today I also started my feeding shift. The co-chair on duty right now is actually my li'l sib, and I caught him in the feed room when I went in before my test. He showed me and another feeder how to put on jesses (like a bird leash), and when I came back after the exam I jessed Lucy as well as feeding her. I have to say, it felt pretty cool to just walk around with a bird on my fist, nbd. I'm meeting him again in the morning to help stretch an owl that the wildlife hospital got in.
Next week I've got a farm animal exam (on less than 7 lectures this time, because that makes sense...I really don't like that class) and a cardio final, and the week after that it's Symposium. After this week, I really hope things get better (though I can't really see them getting worse, knock on wood).
This week has been intense, but I can't really say it's over because I still need to catch up on lectures. First I went to DC, which--more on that later, but it was pretty stressful. Then I came back and didn't even have time to unpack because I had to study for my derm final makeup yesterday and my orthopedics final today. And then yesterday I found out that I got the Banfield summer job program--AND I got summer scholars. So in the midst of my exams I had to deal with that decision. I wound up deciding on summer scholars, since I don't have any research experience and unfortunately despite being in vet school I am still forever trying to make myself look good for the next application. Also my housing in Texas near the Banfield hospital fell through. I made the calls/emails to make that decision official this morning. And I've still got about 7 hours of lecture I hope to get through this weekend, which isn't counting the studying I need to do for next week's exams. Vet school's tough.
I'm actually pretty upset, because even though our classes are usually recorded (which I was counting on, being gone for two days) a certain farm animal clinician decided that not enough people were in class and didn't record. One of my classmates gave me her notes, but I'm not super comfortable with that; I'd rather hear it myself. I'm going to be missing his class for Symposium, too...this time I'll make sure to ask him beforehand in the hopes he won't decide not to record.
DC was...honestly, not what I was expecting. When it talked about "exposing veterinary students to the legislative process" I didn't know that meant making up lobbyists and setting up meetings for us with congress members' offices. The first night was good. We had a little reception to talk with other participants (one of my VLE groupmates was there!), and then a bunch of us went out to a place called the Beer (Bier?) Baron, where I got funnel cake burger sliders and another guy in the group got a chicken Parmesan donut. It was really cold! As we were walking back, everything was encased in ice. It was also raining earlier that day when I was walking to the hotel from the metro station. I actually took the metro station the wrong way for 2 stops, but I wound up on the same train I would have have to wait for, so I consider it a win--I waited in warm trains instead of on a cold platform.
The second day (first full day) was when the problem started. After several talks (we even had powerpoint printouts, just like vet school lectures), we had some mock meetings. The first couple of people who went up made me cringe. First, there was a large group that gave me so much secondhand embarrassment because no one seemed to know what to say and the person playing the senator had to keep feeding them lines. Then the next person was quite good, except that she kept saying things that were probably jokes but were just so very "no, don't do that!" So I figured, I have some idea what I'm doing, I'll go up. So I did. And I completely messed up which bill is which (we were presenting two bills: the Veterinary Medical Loan Repayment Program Enhancement Act and proposals for reauthorization of the Higher Education Act). I did my best to keep going anyway, and I probably wasn't the only one who would do that, but I felt horrible. It was not easy, it was not fun, and it did not make me feel good about messing up in front of actual congressmen (or their staff) the next day. No matter how much I wanted to bow out and fly home, though, I couldn't get out of it. I think they thought they needed me, although after my meetings I'm not sure why. I don't think I made any difference whatsoever: either they already supported our position or they brushed me off without listening. I met with one senator and two representatives--well, I met with their offices. Overall, I don't really know how to feel about it. It's a worthwhile experience and I'm sure it will look good on my resume, but I'm not sure it was a good experience for me.
The surgery wetlab a couple of weeks ago was a better experience, but that wasn't what I was expecting either. Basically, since literally none of us had sufficient background, we spent the wetlab learning to suture and do ligatures. At the end one of the groups got to do the neuter on their dog, but that's about it. Still, it might have actually been better, since literally everyone got to have hands-on personally instructed experience. I mean, the group that did the neuter, it was just 2 people who got to do it, I'm not sure what they would have done with the groups of 3-4 we had. And I feel like I learned a lot about spay/neuter procedures from the lecture beforehand. Either way, it's giving me a great leg up in our current surgery class. We had lectures on suture patterns and on instruments this week, and I have a good basis for that right now. We also had our first microscope wetlab for path club, and finally had a meeting and officer elections. I wasn't able to be there (it was Tuesday, while I was in DC), but I kept my vice-presidency.
At my riding lesson last week, I got to ride Sailor, my favorite! I think we did well together, and my instructor said I "managed him well. He gets a little excited." I also worked on my position, especially over jumps. The ring was super crowded, though, which I didn't appreciate. Naturally I didn't ride this week since I had so much in the way of tests (and summer decisions) to deal with, but actually there weren't lessons at the end of this weeks so I get to make it up on Monday and ride twice next week.
On the book front, I finished Tam Lin and was pretty disappointed in it. In the hopes of reading something I'd like better than my last few books, I got a short story collection called 21 Proms that has a John Green story in it (kind of hoping it would be like My True Love Gave to Me, a recent Christmas short story collection I loved). Well, the John Green story was alright, but I didn't like any of the others. I didn't relate to the characters, and some of them were just plain weird. On my flights/in DC, I read Top Dog by Jerry Jay Carroll for a book I own but hadn't read. It's the best one I've read in a while, which isn't saying much. I liked the battle between good and evil, and some of the symbolism, but as a whole I didn't care for the narrator's tone and I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending. Now I'm reading Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan. I've read nearly 200 pages just today (mostly just after I got home), so that's pretty good. I firmly dislike certain characters and situations, though. I need to find some better books, or I'll forget why I love reading (no I won't, I'll never do that).
I just got back from going to the gymnastics meet with A. It was senior night--the seniors' last meet. We got there a little late, after the first event had started. There were like three 10.0s this time--there weren't any last time! The star floor performer had her routine last, with music that included Stand Up and Get Crunk (a Saints pump-up song) and I'm pretty sure the LSU fight song too. She got a 10.0 for it, and she totally deserved it. Anyway, it was really fun and totally not catching up on lectures like I should have been doing.
Today I also started my feeding shift. The co-chair on duty right now is actually my li'l sib, and I caught him in the feed room when I went in before my test. He showed me and another feeder how to put on jesses (like a bird leash), and when I came back after the exam I jessed Lucy as well as feeding her. I have to say, it felt pretty cool to just walk around with a bird on my fist, nbd. I'm meeting him again in the morning to help stretch an owl that the wildlife hospital got in.
Next week I've got a farm animal exam (on less than 7 lectures this time, because that makes sense...I really don't like that class) and a cardio final, and the week after that it's Symposium. After this week, I really hope things get better (though I can't really see them getting worse, knock on wood).
Saturday, November 1, 2014
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.
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:
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.
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).
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!
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.
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| 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:
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| Audrey rocking the crossrail |
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.
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| 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).
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| Some of my favorite pumpkins people did |
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!
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
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 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.
Friday, September 26, 2014
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!
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!
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
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.
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.
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