So close and yet so far

Hi there; Birdie here!

I have now taken two of my 8 exams in 4 weeks--Clin path exam 2 and Virology exam 1. In 3 more weeks, I'll be done with the hard part of the semester...it's not that long except that I also have 6 tests to go before then. I'm really looking forward to PBL after Thanksgiving.

Clin path was...not as great as last time. We still haven't gotten our grades back (even though they were supposed to be in our boxes Friday morning at the latest...) so I don't know exactly how bad it was, but the instructor sent out an email indicating that he was disappointed we didn't do as well as on the first exam. Virology, on the other hand--for all our stressing out about it--wasn't too bad. It was LONG (75 questions, most of which were 4-5 lines long not counting the answer choices) and a very complete assessment, but I thought it was very fair. There were only a couple of questions I straight up did not study, and nothing I was wondering "Where did this come from?" I'm really glad I went to his review session on Thursday; there were We just took that yesterday, but apparently he's already got the grades back because he sent out the distribution curve. It looked pretty reasonable to me--there were a good number of A's, and I think I'm one of them.

I did take time out of my studying Tuesday to go vote! Pretty much the entire evening out of my studying, tbh. I didn't realize the election was this week until the day before it happened, and I'm registered where my parents live, not in Baton Rouge. So I drove the hour there and back to vote, and got to have dinner with my mom and brother while I was there. Totally worth it, especially since I did get the dinner. Voting is Important.

Next week we only have one exam, but it's our cumulative final in Pharmacology. At least we'll actually have two hours for it this time...but it's also basically two tests in one, since we've covered a whole test's worth of new stuff. It's really quite intimidating. But I've done well in the class so far, and I just ran a grade calculator--if I get at least a decent B on this, I can keep my A. The exam got moved to Thursday, too--which is mildly inconvenient for the Pathology club wetlab we have planned for Wednesday, but really good for giving us more time to study. I'm planning to try and get on top of Systemic path this week, too, since that exam is next week and it's a ton of material.

So, um. You know how I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this November? Well, apparently I can't let November go by without taking a challenge. There's a thing on tumblr called the Book Photo Challenge where tumblr user books-cupcakes puts up a list of prompts for each day of the month, and you put up a photo for each day. So I am actually doing that. My favorite picture is still the first one I took:

For November 1--Currently Reading; I actually finished it that day!

I was reading on my bed and suddenly remembered that the challenge had started, so it was kind of spontaneous. I'm really happy with how it turned out. What I'm reading now, though, is The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. Somewhat conveniently, the main events of the novel take place in October/November. I love it when book-time matches up with real-time (sidenote: it's practically essential for holiday books). I bought it when I went into Barnes & Noble to get some shots for the Photo Challenge, but I've been thinking of getting it for a while since it came up on a search for Fantasy horse books. Despite the craziness of the bloodthirsty water horses, there are still normal horses and as a rider I appreciate the horse knowledge that went into it. I'm not quite 100 pages in yet, but so far I can at least say that I want to keep reading.

Speaking of horses...I am going to be riding in a jumping clinic tomorrow, like I mentioned last week. Only now I've ridden Isabella. She's...a challenge, that's a nice way to put it. I don't know what's wrong with me that I can't manage to have a good second course, but this one was BAD. We got around the whole course the first time (though she tried to run out at the first jump), and not badly either. But the second course was just a little more complicated, and Isabella refused a jump. And then went on to refuse about a dozen more jumps, including a crossrail. My instructor said it was because she was tired and didn't want to work (she had been ridden in the previous lesson, and schooled earlier), but that still didn't make me feel great about my riding. It's not very fun to spend half the lesson failing to get your horse over a single jump. Despite how blatantly terrible I was on Isabella, my instructor still wants me to ride her in the clinic. And I will, of course, but I don't think it will be as much fun as my ride last week. I wish I could have done the clinic on her instead. It's probably a good thing that I'll have to work with Isabella again--but I would prefer to do the clinic on a horse I actually work well with. I did at least trot a whole lap without stirrups, so that's something. Alea said next week we'll be starting No-Stirrups November, so that's apparently a thing.

I am really proud of myself regarding running, though! Last Friday I went running after school, and actually used the workout app I recently learned my iPod has so I could track my miles and my time. I had a good bit to run away from, between the Parasitology exams (no, I still don't know how I did) and Halloween stuff, and I actually ran the whole 4 miles! Actually, according to the app, it was 4.9 miles, but I don't know how much to trust that. And I was really proud of that, especially at an 8:09 mile, but I didn't really think that meant I could regularly run 4 miles...until this morning! I don't have my time because my iPod died halfway through (pretty near literally halfway, I think, now that I know the distance more concretely per the app), but I did definitely run the whole loop, and that's definitely 4 miles.

On Wednesday we had our first and only DIC wetlab of the semester, on ultrasound. It was the first successful wetlab since I've been an officer, but this time actually a good number of people came! We had two stations to practice ultrasound on live dogs, and one station with a cadaver dog so we could practice ultrasound-guided aspirates and biopsies. I took a bunch of pictures as Historian (but they're not on the computer yet and I'm not sure I'd want to put them up here anyway) and also got to do the things myself. It was the first time I looked at an ultrasound of the liver and recognized it as liver. I was only okay at finding things, but I'm getting a lot better at knowing what I'm looking at, and I feel like that's half the battle with ultrasound. I'm really glad I got a chance to do that, and I'm glad it was (for once!) successful.

Last night we had a VBMA dinner meeting where a vet from Texas came to talk to us about professionalism and also practice management. About half the time was him answering questions, and he kept asking for more questions and even picking out a random person in the audience and asking them to come up with a question (which I'm not really cool with). He made some interesting points, especially about "live to work" vs "work to live." According to one study he cited, people in large animal or mixed animal medicine are mostly "live to work," and "work to live"  people can only be happy in small animal medicine. If that's the case, there is less a shortage of large animal vets and more a shortage of vets who would be happy in that career. It was a pretty interesting presentation, and I'm really glad I went. I went up and talked to him afterwards (especially after he said how he wanted to greet everyone as they came in) and gave him my card. I asked him to email me stuff about marketing, since he mentioned that he'd had some great success with that. I really like this idea for future networking--if I'm giving my card to somebody and I actually care (I give out a lot of business cards just because I can, and I've got 250 of them and they'll all be obsolete in 3 years), to ask them to email me about something specific. I'm still not sure whether I really care about networking with this particular vet, but he was really engaging--in that I personally asked a lot of questions, which I don't normally do. So, you know. I roll with it.

Well, I've effectively spent all morning not-studying. I'm going to grab some lunch and then get to work on this Pharm thing. Only 3 more weeks of exams!

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.

Oh yes, this is second year

Hi there; Birdie here!

Today we had our first parasitology exam. Two exams, kind of, because we had a written in the morning and a lab practical in the afternoon. Neither of them was that bad, really, and I think I did pretty well on both of them. But I spent a lot of time on that class (especially if you count the time I spent studying for the 2 weekly quizzes on some of that material), and I don't really want to spend this evening studying, too. BUT since this is second year and we have two tests nearly every week, and at least one test every week but two (and one of them was last week), I already need to get on that. Especially since next week we have our first exam in Pharmacology, which as I understand it is basically the anatomy of second year. So I'm pretty worried about it. I haven't actually gotten to that studying yet...but I should at least get something done tonight.

Other than lots of studying, our first and uneventful DIC meeting, and a therio club meeting I attended purely for the free pizza, this week wasn't too exciting. I did order coveralls, though--therio club is selling embroidered coveralls as a fundraiser, and once we get them I can probably wear them to path club's big wetlabs, too. So that's cool.

This year my big sib didn't pass on anything, so I'm compiling a bunch of virtual resources onto a flash drive for my li'l sib. Today I actually got an email, though, from a friend in 4th year with a bunch of electronic resources that should be super helpful! I'm really glad for that. It's nice to not constantly have to rely on what other people put on dropbox.

I went to the Doctor Who viewing at the Mexican restaurant, too. I've probably mentioned it before, since I went for the 50th and also last week. I haven't found a good way to watch online, and since Certain People like to give me random comments about the episodes on Saturdays when they come out, I want to watch them as soon as possible. Which is apparently on Tuesdays at dinner. For the 50th and the first episode with the 12th doctor, it was a really good experience. Everyone was really excited, and it helped me get into the episode. This week, though, it was less great. I missed a bit of the beginning due to being stuck in traffic, and then people were kind of loud and made it harder to watch. One guy even wanted to do introductions and stuff in the middle of the episode. Like, I thought this was a Doctor Who viewing group? I'm not against a bit of commentary, but can we respect the show enough to not carry on unrelated conversations while I'm watching the new episode for the first time? So I don't know if I'm going back next Tuesday.  When I was driving home, I was thinking definitely not. But, well, I still don't have a good alternative to watch the episode. So we'll see.

I also had my second riding lesson. This time I was on a bay mare named Lily, and all the lessons rode inside because it was raining. I will never get over being thankful for having an indoor arena--before I went to college, the barn where I rode had a few different rings, but none that were covered. So I've had several lessons canceled just because it rained. But this week, I still got to ride! There was a little gymnastic set up with 3 pretty low jumps that we went over a few times. We were pretty good, except that Lily kept landing on the wrong lead...even though the correct lead was the one she usually picks up automatically. So that's on me. I got the correct lead a few times, but mostly it was wrong. Especially at the end when I was jumping with one hand behind my back. At the very end of the lesson, my instructor asked me to post the trot with no stirrups for half a lap. I used to do no-stirrups work all the time in undergrad, and I really want to be good at it (and to get my muscle back)...plus, even in the huge ring we were working in, half a lap isn't much. So I did a lap and a half. I probably could have finished a full two laps except that my instructor asked me to come back in. So that, at least, made me feel pretty good about myself.

You know how last weekend was the first LSU football game? This weekend is the first home game. I've got a ticket, because my dad made me buy the season pass, and it's surprising how difficult it is to get rid of! I've messaged two people already who were looking to get a ticket, but one meant for next weekend and the other already decided not to go. So now I've got a couple more facebook messages waiting in the ether for the person to hopefully see it and respond...hopefully both of them don't try to take me up on it! And no, I really don't want to actually go to the game. See: pharm test on Tuesday.

Despite all that studying, I've also been doing some reading just for myself. I don't usually go for nonfiction (although there's a lot more of it on my to-read list now than there has been in the past), but I'm currently reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I'm about halfway to 2/3 of the way through it now, and it's really interesting. Sometimes I get kind of irritated, but generally the author seems to realize the importance of balance more than pushing an "Introvert Ideal" to counter the Extrovert Ideal she talks about. It also brings up a lot of questions that I find interesting, especially with my psych major background. Sometimes I wish I were having a conversation with her about this stuff instead of just reading it so I could ask her a bunch of questions (though, admittedly, frequently those questions are about what the control group was or how significance was calculated, for experiments she didn't even run). I haven't finished it yet, but I'm hoping to read the rest this weekend probably. You know, in between all the studying that also needs to happen.