Hot Cocoa and T Cells: A Night in Vet School Paradise

My Immunology is tomorrow. I'm looking forward to having one more test done with leaving me with 3 more exams before finals, a thought that fills with me inexorable joy. Also, today we finalized our move in plans, so I will be moving in with Mecha the weekend before thanksgiving break week. I'm very excited and looking forward to having someone in my dark crevice to keep the lonely at bay. I also hope Dex will like having two sisters.

Halloween is this weekend. I wish I had more time to celebrate it, but I'll do the best with what I have. It's the ingenuity we show when dealt the hands we are dealt, anyway. All I know is, 42 days until I'm home for Christmas Break, and this semester is just a bad dream.

Magical Bowl of Candy

The second year class left our class a magical bowl of candy to make our Halloween happier. This was the bright spot in a long day of classes. I have an immunology test Friday which is really not a huge issue as she's relatively straight-forward. I also have a physiology test Monday with about 40% of the material on the test being covered in 3 lectures tomorrow. The teacher for that class has missed a lot of lectures and basically left all of us out in the cold for the test on Monday. It doesn't help that this exam is 28% of our final grade too. Oh well. Something will work out.

Great Halloween Weekend ahead.

I'm Dreaming of a...

Sleep. Oh, Sleep! Where for art thou, sleep?

One thing you get very little of as a veterinary student is sleep. Ironically, sleep is also all you ever think about.


I'll end on a positive note with some lovely quotes from Immunology class today:

In regards to some parents refusing to vaccinate their children:
"One of the downsides of democracy is that you have a choice..."
"So we have intelligent people in places like Oregon not vaccinating their children..."


In regards to Herpes:
"Unlike love, Herpes is forever."

Just Life

The Bacteriology test came and went. It was nearly impossible, like his other test, so I hope that there will be a nice curve to satisfy my doomed sense of fate. Deep down, I know that I will be okay. Four tests and a week of ABLEs stand between me and finals. I look forward to Christmas break more with each passing day (45 days to be exact). I am so close to being 1/9th of a vet that I can almost sink my teeth into it. (Note: Vet school curriculum consists of 9 semesters. Six semesters of core classes and 3 semesters of Clinicals. <----Clinicals are the fun stuff! <3 Hard work, but actual (mostly living) animals to touch!)

I don't write as much as I used to. I wish more than anything that I had time to sit down and work on my stories (books). Hopefully, over Christmas, I will have time to get some long overdue chapters into the mix.

Alone

The ticking of a small corporate clock intermittently breaks the silence that fills every recess of my apartment where I sit, quietly contemplating my life. Leaves drift slowly from the treetops lining the courtyard in front of my balcony attesting to the fleeting time that I find myself in. Youth, vibrant and vital, rolls steadily away from me as the tide on a summer's night. I watch it from where I sit, almost as one watches a crab scurry hurriedly from dune to dune, always close, always fleeting, almost in reach and always five steps ahead. To say I sit in this room alone and pity my rapidly fading youth would be rather cliche. I cannot pity my life, my choices, my actions or non-actions. I cannot pity my solitude or my lack of a social network. I am solitary by nature. When I have a pack, it is small. When it grows to large, I tend to roam. I both love and hate the solitude I experience. I look upon it as an old friend, comfortable and understanding. I also view it as a static, clinging force always offering me more company, but always pulling me further from it.

There are some days where I want so badly to walk up to someone...anyone...and thwart myself headfirst into deep conversation. I see groups socializing, and start to say something, but never can quite get the words out. Instead, I retreat. I crawl back into my comfortable solitude, always hoping, always wishing that maybe someday I could be part of someone's circle too. I lack the ability to talk about myself with people, usually even close people. When I do break down and do this, I find it cathartic for the duration, but often leave feeling empty, misunderstood, and ignored. Somedays, I want someone, anyone, to understand me so badly that every fiber of being aches with the longing.

I sit and as the sun begins its steady descent to the earth, accompanied by the rhythmic ticking of the clock above my door, aware that this will always be my fate. I accept it as I always have with a certain calm understanding that society was not made for people like me.

Just Clostridium

My family came up to visit this weekend and go to the football game. I love them very much and am always very happy to get a chance to spend time with them. Too bad that I am stuck here studying for my Bacteriology test on Monday. At least I get to go to the game tonight. Although football really isn't my forte, I do like watching the games live. It's kind of exciting to get caught up in everyone's emotions, and my dad has wanted to go to this game forever since we are playing a big rival team.

I wish my tests didn't have to cut out our time together. I'm so burnt out on studying that I really don't know how I'm still going. The other day, a friend told me after the P.D. test that she's been pretty sick and needed to see someone or else she was going to have to drop out of vet school. I don't think people on the outside realize just how hard, time-consuming, and breaking vet school can be at times. So many people crash and burn because they just can't do it anymore, physically or mentally. I can't blame them. It does wear on the soul. You begin to miss the daylight, the friends, significant others, and life, in general. When you are in vet school, most people don't have lives outside of school. They simply can't maintain both lives anymore. You can try as hard as you want, but eventually one has to give for the other to survive. It's a wonder that so many people actually graduate from vet school. I know that I am not in the most challenging, death-match of programs, also. One of our interns is from Germany. She told us that they let everyone into vet school there and see how many crash and burn. She said you sit down for a test and you and someone else are the last ones there, and you know that one of you won't be there tomorrow.

I know that I could be in a program like that where you are almost expected to fail. I'm very fortunate. I know I shouldn't complain about things like this. I could be one of the people struggling to even get a shot to try out vet school. I suppose the message that I want to convey is that it's very consuming. For the friends and family of those in vet school, we may not be as open or understanding at times. We may have a bad attitude about things. We may seem broken, beaten, and empty at moments, but we are always going to be here for you. We love you, truly we do. We will be ourselves again, even if we seem to lack that at times. Just give us a while for our heads to clear when we act oddly.

For the significant others of those in vet school, it really isn't you. It is us. We are overworked and downtrodden. We may see the smallest things as the beginnings of battles. While it is us, you have got to meet us half way. If you have a loved one in vet school, make them dinner some night so that they eat and leave sweet, encouraging notes for them to find. If you aren't close to your loved one, send them sweet emails, letters, or "care" packages. Let them know that you care. Understand that they won't always want to talk to you on the phone or when they get home. Above all, just love them. That's what they need most of all.

All that said, I guess I'm not really sure what kind of blog this is. I would say self-pity, but I'm not sure I feel like it is so much. Maybe it's a, "just so you know" blog or a "facts of vet school life" blog so that people entering vet school or people with loved ones in vet school will have some kind of understanding of the time, the love, and the losses associated with being in it. Maybe it's just a "I am miffed because I'm here and not at GMX this weekend" blog. >_<

Whatever it is, I got a chai mix of tea from Teavana and german rock sugar, so it will all be okay.

^-^


Also, I'm found this picture on PostSecret. I found it strangely true. Maybe not a book read by Babar, but when I was little I always thought that I was just a character in a really crappy book with a boring plot that someday someone would just stop reading. I know it probably sounds strange. Anyway. Does anyone else remember Babar?!

And Now For Something Completely Different...

I came across this character the other day, and felt the overwhelming urge to make this cosplay in the future sometime (after my backed up list of promised cosplays dwindles a bit). I've seen several cosplays that were pretty decent, but not a large sum of them, and I think it would be a very fun cosplay to do regardless of how many people knew what she was from. I am thinking of of using an orange vinyl for the pumpkin over a foam and wire frame base, and I would really like to add some LEDs in the eyes and mouth (despite her not having any).



Additionally, I found this adorable figure of Saber from Fate/Stay Night in a lion costume. And it would make a pretty spiffy future cosplay as well. A lot easier than the giant pumpkin, I'm sure.



So, here's to the cosplay future!

I Am a Polar Bear.

So, I was sitting in class feeling pretty crappy about being so confused on the various functions of respiratory physiology when our professor started a new powerpoint presentation and showed us a picture of a polar bear and its cub. The slide was titled, "Am I a polar bear?" He proceeded to tell us a story about how the baby polar bear kept asking his father if he (the cub) was a polar bear, if his dad was a polar bear, and if his mom was a polar bear. Finally the father got so disgruntled with the question that he inquired why the cub was asking so much to which the cub responded, "Because I'm freezing!"

He turned to the class to tell us that we were, in fact, polar bears. That sometimes we may feel a bit cold and confused. That we may begin to question our identities, but we were definitely on the right track and would get it eventually. I'm not so sure why this encouragement struck me so strongly at that moment, but it was just what I needed to hear from someone who was teaching us.

We are all on the right track. We are all future veterinarians. There will be times when we become so bogged down, disheveled, disgruntled, confused, discouraged, and beaten that we forget who we are, but we are all future vets. We have it in us; the will, the desire, the hope, and most importantly, the love for what we do. We may falter and sway. We may at times forget who we even are, but no matter what, we are on the right path to our dreams. And, there will always be someone there to keep us "warm" and guide us.

If It Moos Like a Cow...

I've spent a good deal of time staring at different breeds of cows. I've come to realize that a vast majority of them are almost exactly the same. This is even more true of different breeds of horses. Coming from a relatively small animal/wildlife background, distinguishing all of the different types of cows and horses is proving rather difficult. I know that I will get it all eventually, though.

To prove a point, I present to you:

Angus



Brangus


As you will notice, both are medium sized, black cows without horns. Thank you, and good night.

Cheating= Catching a Raptor Wearing a Hood

Today, we had our avian Physical Diagnosis lab. While this lab wasn't as hands on as all the other labs (because birds have a tendency to drop dead if you look at them funny), it was still rather interesting and I found some pretty good recipes for cookies on stumbleupon. Our teacher did show off his lovely Harris Hawk that he's trained to hunt for him. She was a lovely girl. We also heard a great story about a guy that threw a blanket over a Great Horned Owl that was injured to catch it and picked it without restraining both of his legs. The owl decided to flip around and grab the first thing it could and refused to let go until they sedated him. Such a "ballsy" move. :3

It also gave me a chance to talk with several other classmates for a little bonding time. Apparently, there are quite a few other people in the same boat grade-wise as me in Anatomy. One of them actually talked to the teacher who told him that there were only two people that he was worried about passing the class. This is a very comforting thought although I really hope that those people are able to pull it out of themselves. I really don't want to lose anyone to anatomy.

For the last part of the day, Mecha-san and myself took a trip to a little pizza place next to a dollar theatre for tiramisu. It was pretty good, but I always enjoy our adventures and their ability to give me a small break from the reality that I must face.

Well On My Way to Disney World

Sorry for the lack of Weekend updates! I had a lovely visit from my boyfriend who surprised me and took my horseback riding up in Townsend on Saturday. I always find it fascinating that no matter how long we are away from each other, we always fit so perfectly together, and I really don't think I could be happier with anyone else. ^-^


Mushiness Aside:

So the big Anatomy Exam came and went, and I am forced to say that my tireless efforts proved to have little prevail against the evils of the test that I was faced with. I never really explained the grading system in that class, but each test counts for a certain amount of points for our final grade. The first for 23, the second for 35, and the last for 42 (I know..Irony!). I missed 9 on the first test (14/23), so I was already down to a 91 in the class. I missed 8 on this second test (27/35), so proportionally better than the first given that it had more questions. But I'm down to an 83 now, and have to have a 70 or higher to pass the class (keeping above the D mark). I know it seems that it would be difficult to miss so many out of 42, but his tests are very cryptic and difficult to navigate. I suppose that at least I did not bomb the blasted thing, and still have a shot at passing.


I think that should I pass this class, I will go to Disney World during Christmas Break to celebrate. Maybe then I can soothe my broken soul with glorious visions of childhood and sing "It's a Small World After All."

These next 2 weeks, I have 4 exams: Physical Diagnosis (this Friday), Bacteriology (Next Monday), Immunology (Next Friday), and Physiology (the Monday After). The Physiology exam will also mark the start of ABLE's Week...Something my anti-group work mentality absolutely dreads. So, needless to say, the next three weeks will be dreadfully busy, but I will try to keep everyone posted on what's happening.

Your Argument is Invalid Because I Have a Rocket Launcher

You know those days that stand between you and freedom? The day you have worked so hard to prepare for, and you are burnt out on. So you strap on your best pair of combat boots and prepare for the final assault. You know that you will probably not sequester the fiend to achieve glorious victory, but that doesn't mean you won't give it your best shot and head out, head held high and guns readied.

This is kind of how I feel about my anatomy exam tomorrow. When you have spent well over 100 solid hours studying for something, you start to not really care anymore. You know that you don't know everything you need to (most of us). Though how anyone can when your teacher hands you a 300 page lab book and just says, "It's all in here", I'll never know. At this point, I find myself wallowing in a field of information so vast that I could never pack it all in even if I spent my life at it. After all, very few clients walk in and demand a list of innervations for the muscles of the thorax off the top of your head. You have your base knowledge of commonly used/lost muscles, innervations, and vessels, but you have a huge stack of reference books to fill in the gaps. I guess that what I am saying is that I now have this base knowledge, but I am not a reference book. I have trouble remembering what I had for dinner last night. I'm more adept of employing skills over a long term. I pick up information and continuously apply it over a span of 3-4 years and then it's there if I continue to use it.

I know this probably all made no sense. It really doesn't have to. I have given it my very best (more than I've ever given anything), and I just have to leave it at that. Do I know everything? No. Will I ever? No. But I'm here for the long haul. That's what school is about, right? You learn pieces to add to an ever increasing mental library of information. It isn't in the short term that you see results, but rather in the long term. I have no doubt that I will someday be a fantastic vet, not because I know everything or made A's on all of my tests in vet school, but because I truly, honestly, madly, deeply, unfathomably love the animals I hope to treat, the people I hope to teach, and the medicine that I am learning.

So, Dr. Anatomy, don't work so hard to discourage us. I know you probably don't mean to, but it really drags some of us down. It's okay though because we're all going to be wonderful vets in different ways. I'm sorry that I could not live up to your standards in anatomy class, but I have learned a lot, and it will stay with me always.

(Also, 55 days left until the end of this semester....THANKS GOD!)

Addicted to Stress

Somedays, I wonder what I would do if I wasn't constantly stressed. There have been very few times in my life that I've actually experienced a stress-free environment, so I have a hard time thinking about things outside the realm of my stress. So, today when I found a Cowboy Bebop AMV to "Stress" by Jim's Big Ego, I thought it fit how I have been feeling recently pretty well. I posted the lyrics at the end of the blog so you all can enjoy it too. Pretty fun little song from the late 90s, but I'm always behind everything, so maybe you all are too.

Life is a strange little thing. We're born into a cold, cruel world out of a nice, cozy environment and thrust head first into the ins and outs of a very odd world. We go through a very needy phase and after a very short time are forced to realize that we can't get everything that we want when we want it. This would probably be our first life lesson. Even though at this point, we are under a year of age, it's a lesson that sticks with us the rest of our lives. We slowly learn to become independent. We crawl at first and, before you know it, we break out into a full run. From this point on, life never slows down. I know, you think, "But, Kitsune, time moved so slowly when we were young." But despite the feeling of slowly moving time, we were already beginning a journey on a downhill incline. I suppose this is something you realize at about 18 years. Childhood was but a fleeting phase of a (hopefully) much longer life. Then you start a job or college and time amplifies ten fold. Before you know it, you are married with a kid or walking across the stage at graduation (or maybe both). Then, the saps like me, head off to a graduate school or medical school because we can't quite face reality. By the time I graduate, I will have been in school for about 20 years of my life (Kindergarten to vet school graduation). If I live to be 100, that's 1/5 of my life. If I live an average life span, it ends up being about 1/4 of my life. I'm not really sure how I will handle not being in school. It's hard to remember not going to school, and even harder to remember not having the stresses that it places on your life. I may very well show up at a universities steps, begging them to let me sit in the back of a liberal arts class so that I can doodle and design cosplays.

Strange little blog over, I have approximately 35 hours and 30 minutes until my Anatomy Test of doom. I have studied for about 10 hours so far today and still feel no closer to my goal. I hope you've been praying, wishing, blessing, thinking, and/or offering sacrifices for my good luck on the test because I'll really be needing it! ^-~

"Stress" by Big Jim's Ego

I'm Addicted to stress
that's the way that i get things done
if I'm not under pressure then i sleep too long
and i hang around like a bum
i think I'm going nowhere and that makes me nervous
everybody's out to get me but i feel all right
everybody's out to get me but i feel all right
everybody's out to get me but i feel all right
Everybody's thinking 'bout me
its the little things that get you
its the little things that get you when you weren't paying attention
its the little things that get you
its the little things that get you when you weren't paying attention

trying to cut down on my caffeine consumption
so when i get up i just have one cup of coffee
and i like to have another cup of coffee with my breakfast
and on the way to work i like to get a cup of coffee
like the kind of cup of coffee that you get with the donuts
but i never get the donut i just have the cup of coffee
and when i get to work i have a cup of coffee
cause i like to have coffee when I'm talking on the phone
but it usually grows cold and i need to get another cup of coffee
and its lunch, and i have an espresso
and when i get back its not morning anymore so i have
a diet cola and another diet cola
but then I'm feeling fine and I'm feeling pretty sharp
and feeling pretty wired and I'm getting things done
but right about two i get this little tiny migraine
it starts behind my eyes and it moves to the back of my neck
and it moves to the bottom of my spine
but it doesn't get there until 5 or 6 o clock
which is the end of the day so I'm fine!
so I'm fine so I'm fine
except when i have to work late when i have to work late
which i usually do

I'm Addicted to stress
that's the way that i get things done
if I'm not under pressure then i sleep too long
and i hang around like a bum
and i think I'm going nowhere and that makes me nervous
everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies thinking about me!

((talking to trumpet player))
hey, how ya doing...
looking good...
you been working out? yeah i can tell...
alright... see ya later...

i love to work i love to run i love to play real hard
i love to steal little things from the grocery store
like a piece of bubble gum or sometimes i just stick
my thumb in a peach and leave it there
i love to work i love to run i love to water-ski snowboard
jet ski skydive parasail hanglide rollerblade mountainbike
bungee jump well i mean i'd love to do these things if i ever had the time
i love to work i love to work i love to workout after work
i love to spend a little time with this woman I'm seeing
except uh, we never get the time to spend together
so we call each other up and we talk about work
but i think id really love is to get up by myself on a tiny little island
in the middle of the ocean with just me a book and a cellular phone
and a personal computer in case something came up
and i'd eat and i'd drink and i'd run and i'd sleep
and i wouldn't do nothing but swim all day
except i don't know how to do laps in the ocean
where there are sharks! where there are sharks! where there are sharks!
and there's this kind of anemone that sticks in your foot
and the poison goes up to your brain and you die
and sand fleas! sand fleas! yuck!
but actually i think would be really relaxing
just me by myself in the middle of the ocean
and thats what i'd really like to do more than anything else
except i'd probably hate it

I'm Addicted to stress
its the way that i get things done
if I'm not under pressure then i sleep too long
and i hang around like a bum
and i think I'm going nowhere and that makes me nervous...
everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies thinking about me!

everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies out to get me, but i feel alright
everybodies thinking about me!(x2)

Wee Wee Wee, All the Way Home

Today was our physical diagnosis lab on swine. I love our P.D. labs. It's the only time that I actually feel like I'm working towards something. It's hard to sit in class day after day and not get to put your hands on living animals. You start to fall into a dull routine and feel like you are walking the same, albeit substantially more difficult, path that you walked during undergrad if you were a science major of some sort.

It's hard for the non-animal people to grasp the significance of touching something living to animal people like myself and my classmates. And today, we donned our navy coveralls and work boots and gleefully charged into the small animal hospital on campus. We are fortunate to have a small pig nursery of about 8 sows and approximately 60 four week old piglets. If you've never been in a swine facility (like me), then the first thing that you will hit you is the overwhelming scent of pig. You may think, like me, " Oh, Pigs. How bad could they really smell?". The answer is horrible. It will knock you flat on your back, and we have a small, very clean facility. I can't even imagine the smell at a large scale swine facility. You take the smell home with you too. Oh, sure. You can change. You can shower, but it will follow you like a bad disease.

Disregarding the smell, the piglets were rather adorable (at standing distance). Grab one by the hind leg and let the fun begin! You have never had anything so adorable and so loud in your hands before. I'm pretty sure that I'm still rather deaf from this morning.

Unfortunately, life can't always be P.D. labs. After two hours, it's back to real life and back to ever-looming school work. So, with my update, I head off again to the underworld of studying anatomy. Please hope for the best for me and my classmates. We really need it.

"Pelvic Recesses- It's not what you do with your pelvis in your free time".

Gross anatomy is the bane of my very existence. Many nights, I actually have some pretty strange and vivid nightmares about the class. Honestly, I think I could tell you with certainty that without gross anatomy, first semester would have been pretty nonchalant. I'm not saying that vet school would have been easy by any means, but I wouldn't dread my days with a fear usually reserved for chaotic creatures of the underworld.

My second exam in the class is this Friday. I can tell you that I barely passed the first test, and that this test is very key in my passing the class. I've struggled with this material day and night, and still, I feel no closer to my final goal. I've always done rather well in school, so the idea of struggling so hard just to pass a class and move on is a foreign concept to me. There's nothing worse than giving something everything you have and still doing poorly in it. I can't seem to get my mood elevated enough to even believe I can pull it together for this one.

I guess all that I can do is pull out my very best and hope that I've brought enough to the table to make a passing (and hopefully, well above)grade.

Not to be such a downer with a first post on a new blog about vet school life. I hope anyone reading this that's new to the game and heading into the game of vet school soon will not find themselves discouraged. I suppose that we all reach our obstacles that stand ominously above our goals. We can sit and aimlessly chuck rocks at them for a while, but eventually our substance is made known by how we advance to climb over them or go around them (or maybe slide under them).

Life has never been easy. I've worked really hard to get here, and I'll be damned if I let a silly anatomy class kick my ass!