Incredible

This is better than some modern art in galleries!

Monday Morning Drive

It was a strange drive to school today. The sky was slate gray, with a more stormy gray pressing in from all sides. Rain was pouring down. The highway was a mercuric silver due to some combination of water and light leaking through the clouds. The surrounding fields were a brown-gray, waiting to be plowed and planted. I was one of very few drivers on the road. It felt like I was one of the last people on Earth.

Some break!!

Saturday and Sunday I was in Decorah for Juj's awesome Junior recital. Monday and Tuesday I was in Illinois for more Kaya tooth work (she finally gets her crown next Thursday, woo!). Yesterday I spent 3 1/2 hours in Des Moines dropping my resume off at clinics, and then worked on my "vaccine brochure" for Public Health in the afternoon. Today I had plans to get more work done, but I finally had to say ENOUGH! I need a break!

I had to turn down a job today. The clinic was only offering 20 hours a week, and they wanted me as a straight receptionist. I had plenty of experience doing that in undergrad. Now that I'm halfway through vet school I need to spend more time with the vets helping with exams and surgeries. Otherwise, what's the point of me even being in a clinic for the summer?

Juj is coming to visit tonight, and she's staying until Sunday morning! This gives me the perfect excuse to completely put off anything remotely school-related. I'm sure when I eventually get around to it I'll bitch and moan about not having done it sooner, but I don't care. It's break!

Juj the opera singer

When Juj was little she wanted to be an opera singer. Who knew she'd turn out to actually be able to?



Camera operator problems aside, she totally rocked it and I'm very proud. This was the last piece she sang, but you'd never know from her voice!

For your viewing pleasure:

I would like to share the image that just made me burst out laughing in class. This will teach me not to pay attention (once again) to Clin Path:

Bad news for Friday!

So in the 5 exams I've had since last Monday, here's how I've done:

83
100
94
85
81

And tomorrow is Pharmacology. In spite of the fact that I've had what are (for me) pretty spectacular grades this semester, I fear tomorrow is going to be my downfall. This instructor taught a section of Histo last year, told us it was going to be "straightforward", and then most of us failed that section. She used the exact same words on Tuesday, telling us tomorrow's test will be "straightforward". I am afraid that is a preview for how tomorrow's test will go. If you'll note the downward progression of scores, I think you'll agree. I have about 9 hours to study today, and then I'll be able to get up around 6 and study for 3 more hours in the morning. I just hope it will be enough. :(

Am I dead yet?

I think I have a new disease. I will call it Notenoughsleepduetotoomanyexamsinitis. It is a serious manifestation of mental inflammation. Signs to watch for are chronic grumpiness, chronic lack of sleep, decreased sanity, worsening mental capacity resulting in progressively lower test grades, and impotence. Tell your doctor if you experience any of these symptoms.

My Juj!

I'm getting excited to see my little sister's junior recital here in a week and a half, so I thought I'd post a couple vids of her a capella group Vinyl Roots. These are 3 months old and pretty poor quality, and they've got more experience now (these are from not that long after the group was formed) but there are no new vids. They need to get on that. ;)



Juj is on the left here.




She's also on the left here.



Left here as well!

Must be fun to go to a school with such talented kids. It makes me a tiny bit jealous I went the Vet Med route rather than trombone performance. :)

Can you tell I have my Anesthesiology final tomorrow? Because yeah, I do. :P

I'd have a 50% chance of surviving on the moon.

52%

I stole this from Midas, but I'm sure she won't mind. I would possibly be able to survive, but with my luck it wouldn't happen. :P

In other news, I somehow kicked serious ass on the Virology test and got a perfect score (with the help of a couple bonus points). I think I can die happy now.

I poked a dog in the eye!

We just had our ophthalmic exam lab, and it was really cool! The eye seems like this mysterious organ to me, and today, as the instructor for the day put it, "it's just an orifice slightly more complicated than the anus". We did a tear production test, a fluoroscein stain (it looks for corneal lesions), and flushed the lacrimal duct (which weirded me out at first, because while I logically know the eye is anesthetized by drops, it is gross that I'm poking around in there. The best part was that I was shown by a fourth year how to inject drugs into the conjunctiva. I think that squees me because I can't imagine someone doing it to me, but I got a little fluid pocket in there, and it was cool.

Our rat terrier was a little squirmy, and...really gross (bad skin, horrific mouth) but I felt bad for her just the same. All the dogs today were terminal surgery dogs. Most of them you could tell were taken from puppy mills, so at least here they serve an educational purpose before they are euthanized, but I am once again wondering how I will handle terminal surgery myself next year. I want to do it because it will give me a chance to do surgeries I otherwise couldn't do until I'm actually in practice, and I've expected that it will be extremely difficult. What I'm not sure of is whether it will actually have long-term effects on my psyche.

I wrote a respectful objection to the instructor the the Behavior class in question. (Yes, in spite of the irreverence of my posts I can be respectful. :P) I'll wait and see if anything comes of it.

Grade-a-friend!

To continue the discussion of poor class structure this year, I present Item B:

We had an assignment due today in Animal Behavior. It is worth 50 points out of a total 100 points in the class. It was a behavior case work-up, fairly straight-forward. The instructor told us to exchange with our neighbor, and our grade will be determined by their critique and assignment of points. It makes perfect sense, because we are all behavior experts having taken a half semester of a course on it. Even better, we have to write up a summary of our critique, and the person whose grade we determined gets to grade our critique.

At this point I turned to Kimberly and said, "And then I get to critique your critique of my critique."

Utter insanity.

I think Christianity has been wrong all these years

Hell is a frozen wasteland.

I don't know if we've had a record number of winter storms this year, but every time we are tempted by the emergence of clear ground our hopes are walloped by another dumping of snow and ice. The most recent one was the worst: we actually had two days that were in the 40s, and it was beautiful, before the afternoon darkened and chilled and the rain came, followed by the ice and then the snow.

A couple storms ago we had a record number of cars in the ditch between Ames and Des Moines.

This morning on my way to class I thought to myself, "Ok people, I know the road is iced over, but we can probably go a little faster than twenty miles an hour." No sooner had it entered my mind than a woman driving a minivan spun off the highway going the other direction. So, I stuck with that 20 mph and was glad it wasn't me.

Spring needs to arrive soon!

I am fully aware that once the temperature gets past the lower 80s I will be whining about wanting winter back. It's not my fault my school is in a climate with vast extremes! I want to find a place to live where summer doesn't get above the 80s and the humidity is lower. I wonder where that might be.