I'm halfway done with exams, whooo! That means I'm almost 1/8 a doctor, or at least that's what my classmates keep saying. We had VBS I on Monday and that went okay. I didn't expect some of the content so that kind of sucked and I made what I thought was an educated guess and... it wasn't. Oh well, still feel like I did pretty well! Vet Issues was today and that went okay as well. Most of it was short answer and there was only one question that I had no idea on and I'm pretty sure I'll still get partial credit. MCB was way easier than I expected and thank god for that! I was really worried about the free response/fill in the blank portion but it wasn't horrible. We'll see if my good feelings translate into good grades.
I got my vet med hoodie that I ordered ages ago, today! I really like it, but it's HUGE. It has pawprints on the hood too -- cute!

I took Piper to the dog park before I got down to studying today, and I think she really enjoyed it. She hasn't gotten much love in the last few days because I really didn't do a good job of preparing for exams and we're both paying the price.

I had a friend/coworker stay with me the last few days -- the one that had an interview at Western. She isn't sure how she did, but I'm pretty sure she did great. The people who interviewed her are ones that are pretty hard on you and won't let you know you're doing but they're really nice professors so I'm sure she was fine.
Well, I have my anatomy/histology/radiology/parasitology/pathology practical tomorrow! Not sure how to study it other than looking at the slides over and over and over again.

Wow! I haven't updated in awhile. Midterms went great. I actually got 100s (or over) in a couple subjects (microbiology, immunology, and pharmacology) which made me feel really good!
Since then, Taylor came to visit and we went hiking with Piper up by Mt. Baldy. It was the first hiking adventure for Piper and for myself and I made the mistake of saying "Why do people find hiking hard? It's just a lot of walking." Oh, I quickly found out. All these rocks and turns and inclines! It was fun though, and the best part is how tired Piper was afterwards! I really want to go again now that it's really cold, because I want to see snow! I was talking to some people from school today and I'm thinking about going snowboarding/skiing in a few weeks -- after finals, of course.

How cute are they?

I went home for Thanksgiving, and Piper went with  me! She was really good on the flight, but she pooped in the Dallas airport. Oops. I took her to the dog relief area but she refused to go in there and I really can't blame her. It was three tiny strips of very fake grass and it smelled so bad in there. I wouldn't have wanted to go either! It was great to see everyone for Thanksgiving. I went to my step-grandparents on Thanksgiving day and Piper got into the cheesecake. Oops, again... It was only a little bit though, definitely fixable! That night, my mum and I drove to Wellington and I showed Bruno and Nick which was great! Nick and I won a class, which made me feel good considering how out of shape I was. Bruno was phenomenal but he was a little excited and I had the wrong bridle on for the hunters so he kind of took me around at his own pace. Piper went to the horse show too, and had a great time! The best part again: how tired she was at the end of the day.

My beautiful family!

Pretty boy in the 3'6"

Such a poser!

Learning to be a horse show dog

Sunday we came back to my place and I had a bunch of people from DEM come over, which was nice. We always do a second Thanksgiving for friends so it was nice to see people I grew up with as well as people from undergrad. It was a good little reunion! I left Sunday night and got back to California around midnight PST.
We've had an exciting GI/repro block and exams start on Tuesday so I'm getting geared up for that. The GI portion of the VBS exam is Tuesday and the repro part is the following Monday... I kind of wish they were reversed, because I'm definitely more comfortable with the reproduction topics. C'est la vie! Clinical skills is going to be a bit harder for me than last block. Last block it was scrubbing, open gloving, heart ausculation, taking a pathology sample from a "bladder," making a blood smear... stuff I was very comfortable at it. This time we have reproductive palpation, suture patterns (simple continuous and simple interrupted), gowning and closed gloving (okay, not that hard but getting the gloves on is awkward!), and catheter taping. All definitely things that aren't exceedingly difficult, but they take more thought than last block.
I found out two people that I work with got interviews at WesternU, and actually interview  next week! I'm really excited for them. I'm so in love with my school, and I didn't even know one of them applied here so I'm pretty ecstatic. I sent them both how I "studied" for my interview, and I'm hoping they do well!

Obligatory cute puppy picture to end the post

Thanksgiving on the horizon

Three weeks into the new block and feeling okay! Still not 100% on cows but I'm getting the hang of dog/cat/horse GI. Thanksgiving is only four weeks away and I absolutely can't wait to go home and also to not be the one cooking all the time!
Vet Games is this week, and I actually found some school spirit and participated in the three-legged race. We came second in our heat, which isn't too shabby! Students get points for wearing something relating to the theme of the day so on Monday I wore my 2017 wolf shirt that a classmate made for me and then Tuesday I slacked off because I didn't have tie-day. Yesterday I wore a shirt from undergrad, and today I'm wearing the official vet games shirt! The class of 2016 is a couple hundred points ahead of us, so we have to catch up!
I had to buy some surgical instruments for school: needle holders and forceps. There's a company here, HMC surgical, that has a student rep and says that we get 45% off of their instruments but they still seemed... pricey. I bought stainless steel Olsen-Hegars and Adson-Brown forceps, and it came to $40. A lot of people bought the tungsten carbide in several instruments, as well as buying suture scissors, bandage scissors, and other forceps but I wanted to do more research before I put down more money. I looked on Amazon today and there's a seller called Vet Med USA with pretty good reviews and they were selling TC Olsen-Hegars for $28... HMC sold them for $88. So, I ordered the ones online and I'll probably compare them to my roommate's that she bought from HMC. I plan on being a small animal surgeon so most places will supply instruments and I don't need to worry about having my own. Although, the nice thing about HMC is that they have a lifetime warranty!

On to block 2

I survived midterms! Not only did I survive, but I managed to get an A in VBS (our big main course that comprises the 12 -ologies) and a B on our practical! I'm still waiting on my vet issues, ACT, and clinical skills grade, but apparently that might take awhile.
Our first case of the new block has to do with cows, and I think this is the first time I've felt overwhelmed while I've been here. I can handle all the basic science about cows: their GI, their behaviour, their nutrition, their pathology... what I'm having a difficult time understanding is all the different rations for different stages of productions and the different feedlot operations. I'm having a hard time even finding concrete information on that. I've currently turned to Wikipedia. It seems like every textbook or journal article assumes that everyone knows this information already, so they just skip over it.
I went to Toyota today because I ordered the mirror replacement (someone stole the back of my mirror while I was on campus!) and it turns out they ordered the wrong part... this was after they tried to double charge me, of course. Not super happy with Claremont Toyota at the moment.
Piper is doing great! Still working on potty training. We seem to have a couple really good days with no accidents and then a really bad one. But at least the good is outweighing the bad! She's learned to sit, lie down, and stay although "stay" is a little shaky. She kind of knows "come," but it really depends on what she wants to do at the moment... We're working on fetch and drop it, which she gets about 50% of the time! I'm pretty proud of her for how young she is. She's still pretty shy but we went to PetSmart last night and she actually walked up to a couple employees and let them give her treats, so I see that as a huge milestone.
Taylor came to visit after midterms, which was fantastic. We went to the mall on Friday after my exam because I needed to buy new jeans (props to Old Navy for fitting petite girls!) and then I cooked dinner for us. We hung out and watched movies all day Saturday which was perfect because I honestly didn't want to do anything else. After all the stress of exams and not being able to do anything else, that's all I wanted to do. He left early Sunday which was a bummer because I would have wanted to spend the whole day with him... But at least Piper and I go home at the end of next month, and we're super excited for that!

T-minus 1 week until midterms

I've been pretty bad about updating, no lie. We have a week until midterms and my time has been consumed with studying and a new puppy! That's right, I'm the dumb vet student that got a puppy two weeks (she's been here a week!) before midterms. She hasn't been too bad, we only have a couple accidents a day inside and she definitely knows that she's not supposed to be doing it so at least she knows it's wrong. She's pretty friendly, but also fairly timid. I'm hoping to break her out of that shell. I took her to Banfield the other day to get her first round of puppy shots (DAPP, lepto, bord) and a fecal and deworming. She's also now on Comfortis and Iverhart but I'm trying to get my hands on some Trifexis, since that's what I prefer.

Piper!

Playing with the toys my mum got her

Not supposed to be on the furniture!

Our case this week wasn't too crazy, at least I didn't think so. It's all about integument and hypersensitivity reactions so I've been looking at that. Last week was all about leukocytes and specifically mast cell reactions. I've started making study guides for the major concepts that have come up. I've completed one for bones (which included endochondral ossification, bone remodeling, bone repair, and Haversian systems) and joints (that included the anatomy of joints, articular cartilage, synovial fluid, and the various types of joints with examples). I'm going to go and spend some time in the anatomy lab today because I definitely feel like that's my weak spot.
The concert a few weeks ago was a lot of fun! It was really nice to be able to see Taylor, see my parents, and ride my horses. I can't wait to see Taylor again after midterms, and then go home for Thanksgiving in two months! I can't believe I've already lived here for two months.

Mumford and Sons

Hot and sweaty after the concert

Nicholas

Big jump! 

Bruno

I'm getting more adventurous with my cooking and what I'm eating. I tried Rubio's fish tacos which were really good but made me sick both times so that sucks. I tried cooking steak, which ended up being delicious! I cooked it medium the first time, and medium-rare the second and it was awesome both ways. I tried mochi ice cream, which I guess is a California thing. I'm already addicted.

Three weeks until midterms!

So, it's been awhile since I updated! I definitely got caught up and busy in vet school. I haven't been talking to Taylor much either, whoops!
I think I'm finally, finally, finally starting to get the hang of anatomy. It really does just take a crazy amount of repetition. We got a not so anatomy intense case this week so that helped too. We were able to take some time and go over the canine forelimb and hind limb again and studying the equine hind limb really helped to reaffirm what I already knew about the dog! I just need to go over the muscles and everything in the tarsus and carpus of the dog (seeing as horses don't really have a ton of muscles there, just muscle attachments!)
I started looking at pharm too, which I'd really neglected. Physio is starting to make more and more sense, but I definitely need to review bone formation before it seeps out of my mind completely.
We only have three weeks until midterms and that'll be our first exams of the block! Kind of scary considering we really only have two sets of exams for the semester and then that's it. I'm feeling okay about everything, but I definitely know that there's improvement to be made. I did a good job covering the information present in the case this week, especially since a lot of it related to basic science concepts I'd been comfortable with in the past (yay, muscle contraction and sarcomeres!) so it's a good chance for me to really nail down some concepts I'd been lacking.
I went to a really cool lunch talk today, by Dr. Kaur, Dr. Boynton, and Dr. Charles and they basically talked about challenges they faced and obstacles they overcame while in school -- not just vet school. They all kind of had the same message: don't let anything set you back. Dr. Boynton's words really stuck with me though. She was determined to be the best, and she was. She made sure she learned more concepts and facts than they could ask. My motivation has kind of been lacking in the last week or so, so that really gave me the kick in the butt to refocus. I want to be the best, and I'm going to be the best. I want to be one of those incredible, amazing students that I was in awe of in undergrad and that professors are so unbelievably impressed by.
Unfortunately, I don't know how impressed administration is with our class right now. Apparently a fellow first year wore a low cut shirt, and no bra today and bent over in front of the dean... So, now we may have a dress code put into place. Most colleges at our school, and most vet colleges have a dress code so it was a definite privilege that we didn't...I just wish she hadn't taken it for granted.
On a totally not school related note, I'm currently in the Phoenix airport! Someone told me they don't use daylight savings here, so that's kind of weird. I'm on my way home to see the Fun. (but they cancelled :( ) and Mumford and Sons concert with Taylor! I'm so excited to be able to see him and spend some time with him. I also get to see my parents and ride my amazing horses which is something I've been sorely missing!

Contest!

Hey guys! Just a quick post to ask for some help in winning a contest. I managed to make the top 10 of the Animo photo contest on Facebook and have been holding the lead pretty steadily but now I'm only 4 likes ahead of the girl who's in second. So, please, go to this page and like my photo. I'm the one with this caption: "Animo client Rachel Williams and her partner in crime Nick looking sharp in her Animo show coat." Thanks guys!

Two weeks down, a lot more to go!

Alright, so two weeks of vet school down and the third starts tomorrow! Last week was interesting, to say the least. One of the LEAD sessions, talking about study skills was a little helpful. Dr. McNamara and Dr. Barr sat in and weighed in as well, so that was nice. Dr. McNamara, responsible for discovering West Nile in North America, actually shared study techniques that she used when she was studying for her DAVCP boards, and I think I might end up stealing them.
For those of you that don't know, when you enter training to become a DACV-anything, you're responsible for being up to date on current veterinary news. What that means is that the college gives you certain journals to read and you have to read them a certain amount of years back and know absolutely everything about them. So, what Dr. McNamara did was Xerox the copy of the cover page of those journals and write notes on the back of the page. Then, she would transcribe that to a 3x5 index card, using only key words so when she saw just those few key words, she remembered everything about the article. Pretty cool!
Anyway, back to my second week. The lecture from the parasitology professor was really helpful. She helped identify the questions we should be asking when looking into parasitology mentions in our cases. She also explained to us how the parasitology practical worked and how we were tested, which was something I hadn't even remembered to look into!
We also had a lecture about research and how to get involved, which is something I need to start doing very quickly. There's a research club on campus, so I have to look into joining that. They do summer training, so that might be where my summer goes. As for now, the lecturer said to identify an area of interest and find out if any professors are conducting research in that field. As it so happens, the lecturer is doing research with regards to equine stem cells which is an area of interest for me! I've always been nervous to get involved in research because it seems like everyone got involved their freshman year of undergrad, or even before then so I feel a little lost and I don't exactly know what would be expected. Anyway, I might as well visit her office next week and see what she has to say!
I was pretty unproductive yesterday, so I'm trying to make up for it today. I've been looking into the different viral families that infect vertebrates and their relative characteristics. Next, I'm going to look into distemper, leptospirosis, bordetella, adenovirus, and parainfluenza.
Oh, another happy note! I booked my flight to go home and see Taylor in a few weeks, so I'm excited about that! His parents bought him tickets to the Gentleman of the Road Tour months ago (and he chose me as his plus one, how cute!) and booked a hotel room but I was really going back and forth on if I should fly home for what will basically be just 48 hours. I decided it was worth it. I really want to go, I really want to see my boyfriend, and it's not close to any big exams so I can manage. Plus, being on the plane will hopefully force me to study because what else am I going to do 20,000 feet in the air? My wallet kind of hurts, but that's unavoidable with student loans anyway!

Week two

So the second week of school has been pretty anticlimactic. I guess, for the first time ever, the faculty and staff decided that first years needed a second week of orientation (taking place after the first real week of school) to fill in any gaps or insecurities that we may not have thought of previously. I was kind of interested to see what it would pertain of, especially since WesternU is so student centred. I thought maybe the professors of each discipline would tell us what we should have taken away from each lecture and what we missed. Instead, it's been a lot of lectures on how to study anatomy, how to study histology, how to study pathology, etc. I think the pathology one helped me a little bit because I was honestly lost with pathology. I still don't really know what I'm expected to actually know in regards of testable material but I feel closer to knowing what I need to be pulling out of a textbook.

We're also having a bunch of sessions about time management, study skills, and basically getting to know ourselves as a person and how to interact with others in a group setting. This is all stuff that I feel like we've been doing since the first week of orientation.

I went to a seminar today by David Kersey, who's actually my facilitator this block as well as my advisor. For those that don't know, Dr. Kersey was involved in the recent twin panda birth in the U.S. (the first one since the late 80s!) It was pretty cool to hear him talk about his field and what he did and how he was responsible. He made it all sound so easy, which it definitely is not. Tomorrow is club day, so I'm going to check out a bunch of the clubs. I think I'm going to join shelter medicine, theriogenology, and surgery club. I'm still not sure about the others, but we'll see. I was thinking the zoo medicine club too, because they get to do a lot of hands on wet labs, kind of like the therio club. I'm not interested in therio or zoo medicine but I am interested in techniques like palpation, semen collection, and alligator handling!

Thursday is a talk by Dr. Tyler DACVIM, about IM relating to our case, so that should be interesting. Friday is a mandatory SCAVMA meeting which is ironic considering I never asked to join SCAVMA... I kind of wonder what the penalty would be if I didn't show up. Would they revoke my membership that I didn't ask them to pay for? We'll see.

I've been cooking a lot! I feel so homey. I made burgers, which I wrote about in my last post and am slowly making my way through. I made rice pudding the other night, and then I also made blueberry cake. I don't actually like blueberry cake so I may have shipped some off somewhere :)

Home sweet Cali!

So, I really haven't updated in awhile. Things have been so crazy! I arrived in Ontario, California on August 1 and drove from the airport to the house where my car was waiting. We ended up returning mum's rental car the next day because, well, I had a car. Her hotel was only 10 minutes away so I just had breakfast at her hotel each morning and then we did our stuff. The house is beautiful! I hadn't seen it in person like the other girls so it was really nice to see. It has a great full kitchen and I have my own pantry, own shelf in the fridge, and then a cupboard for glasses and plates and another one for cookware. I also went out and bought a mini Keurig. Once you have the coffee maker, you don't need anything else!

I even put Christmas lights up in my room!

I bought furniture from one of the girls who moved out so all of my bedroom furniture was already upstairs and I just had to move it into my room which was pretty easy. Mum and I did that and then we went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to shop around for stuff like the dishware, bath towels, kitchen towels, bed sets, and all that other home goods goodness! We actually ended up getting most it from Ikea, just because everything was so cheap. Who can argue with 59 cents a glass? I bought a lamp and a coffee table from there that I ended up returning. The lamp broke and the house seems to have inherited a coffee table.

My roommates all seem nice! I'm living with a third year vet student, another first year vet student, and then a first year pharm student. The help and advice from the third year has been indispensable.

Orientation was extremely long, about 8-5 each day, and culminated in the convocation and white coat ceremony. The white coat ceremony was fun, but I was kind of worried about being "coated." The guy that held my coat out for me was kind of tall and I got one arm in easily and then totally missed the next. Whoops! Then we got to go to the President's luncheon on campus which had delicious barbecue and shaved ice!

Taylor showed up on the fifth of August and stayed through to the eleventh which was really nice. He got to see the white coat ceremony and help me move in a little bit more.

The coat!

Taylor and I at convocation

I explored the grocery stores and I really like Winco Foods and Sprouts the best. I couldn't believe how cheap it is to eat healthy out here. The prices at places like Sprouts and Stater Bros aren't just reasonable, they're actually cheaper than the places I'm used to like Publix and Albertson's. I've been shopping at Costco a fair amount too. I actually bought 5 lbs of hamburger meat today... and cooked it all! Plus I bought 24 hamburger buns and two loaves of bread. My roomie and I split the bread and I stole a 6 pack of cinnamon raisin bagels -- a fair trade.

Yeah, that's about 20 hamburger patties...

Cooking on my own has been quite an adventure. I'd never cooked on a gas stove and I'd never made hamburgers before. I was really nervous about seasoning the meat (I just used salt and pepper) and undercooking the meat but I think it turned out great! I got a little overzealous with the pepper in the end, but that's okay. Now I just have to eat hamburgers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for awhile. I'm going to experiment with making a ham, cheese, and spinach omelette tomorrow morning.

As far as vet school goes, it's been interesting so far. I've had a radiology lecture from Dr. Charles, a vet issues course from Professors Barrett and Kovacs and then PBL which is the basis of our studies. I've been working extremely hard on covering the anatomy of the forelimb as well as the physiology of how long bone forms and how muscle works. I think I have the muscular aspect down but I found it really difficult to find much physiology on bones in general, other than how motor neurons work, so that's kind of frustrating. My roommate has a human physiology book she was using tonight that she said is good, so I might wake up early and borrow that. A lot of students told me that they didn't cover anything until the fifth week when they were first years and I've been putting in about five or more hours of studying a day so I'm hoping that means I'll be okay... Then again, it's not necessarily the length of studying that's important, but the quality.

I do miss everyone at home, but I'm not as homesick as I expected. Nick is apparently still sneezing, and our vet thinks it's allergies which I disagree with. He's 9 years old, I think we would have noticed them before and they wouldn't have had such an acute onset. So, we're sending him to the vet in Gainesville to be scoped. Apparently it sounds like he's actually trying to sneeze something out, which is what it sounded like when I was still in Florida. I'm glad my trainer and mum are taking over there. I miss my puppies! It's so hard to hear about everyone's pets and not have mine here. I'm substituting with my roommates' cats: Kiba and Clover. I'm planning on getting a dog next semester, but I'm forcing myself to wait out the first block at a minimum! I don't want to be adjusting to vet school and a puppy at the same time and end up shooting myself in the foot.

I woke up to Kiba in my sink yesterday

Tomorrow we have anatomy lab and a physio lecture. I feel a little more prepared for anatomy this time, as far as the bones go, but I'm still iffy on the muscles and I haven't touched blood supply or the nerves at all. I wish I'd taken anatomy in undergrad!

I'm definitely not an artist

Wrapping up

The last few days have been great. My last day at work was the twentieth, and one of my coworkers suggested we go and get sushi with his girlfriend and my boyfriend and then go bowling and drink White Russians after (we're both big fans of the Big Lebowski). The restaurant was amazing. We all shared our food and every single piece I had was amazing. I absolutely have to go back. After that, we went to go bowling and almost all of my coworkers were there! It was a surprise going away party and it was awesome. It was really nice to see how many people turned out. We bowled, we drank, we talked -- it was great.

The next day, I got up at 5 in the morning and headed to Venice! The show was a lot of fun, Nick won all of his classes and paid for his show bill and Bruno's. I can't complain about that. We're here again, but mum's with me this time. Nick won a class today that actually won me a helmet so that was pretty cool! It's one of those new Circle K helmets that people are starting to wear. I have to get fitted for it, since I guess they don't want people to just eBay it.

Nick is pretty bombproof. Bruno thinks he's dumb

Drinking out of his dog bowl! He loves it

I ended up getting a new car. Jerry went out and bought me a new Toyota RAV4 and it drives great. It's getting shipped out to California tomorrow and I was allowed to pack a suitcase with up to 100 lbs in it, so I managed to put all of my textbooks and a couple articles of clothing in there.

2010 Toyota RAV4!

Before we left for the first Venice, I rode Wally and we actually jumped our first jump! He was perfect, didn't care at all. Unfortunately, he flipped out when lunging and tore some skin off of my fingers. 

Ouch!

The middle finger got swollen and won't stop oozing. The skin is slowly taking over the nail. 

My flight leaves for California at 6:50 AM on Thursday, so I need to get ready for that at some point in time and hope my finger is better!

The countdown begins!

It's officially time to start counting down. It's only 11 days until my twentieth birthday (goodbye teenage years!) and 14 days until the big move to California. I've been putting off packing mainly because I'm not packing for a trip, I'm packing to move and that means most of the stuff I'd pack is stuff that I'm actually using day-to-day. I am going to go through all of my clothes though and actually get rid of stuff that I won't be keeping at all.
Dr. Jackie, at work, gave me some awesome books that I'm really excited about. She gave me one on pathology, one radiology book that I love flipping through at work, a couple clinical nutrition books, and then the small animal nerd book. I'm going to miss working with Dr. Jackie quite a bit. My boss said she'd keep me on as seasonally employed, but she mentioned this in passing, so I'll have to see if she was serious about that. It'd be really nice to come back and pick up hours over breaks.
As promised, here are videos of the regional championships in Atlanta! Yeah, they all start the same way, but I promise they're different videos!

First team qualifier
First individual qualifier, second team round
Final team event, and victory gallop!

The victory gallop is definitely one of my favourite parts! The victory gallop in New York, after M&S Finals was too much fun. I showed in the adults, and so a lot of them didn't want pictures afterwards, in front of the banner and with the president of the organization so I very sheepishly approached him, asking for a picture. I wasn't missing out on that opportunity! And then mum, Peggy, and I stood in front of it as well and made Lauren take pictures.
I'm taking off to Venice on Sunday for three days, then coming home for a couple, and then leaving again from the 25-28 (my birthday!). It'll be Bruno's first time in Venice, so hopefully he behaves. Nick loves Venice, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Also, I have three followers now, so hi followers! I'm at 299 page views right now, so hopefully I break that soon!

Home again

It's been awhile since I updated! Week two was a ton of fun, especially with the regional jumper championship. I have some videos on YouTube that I'll have to post later. Florida ended up winning gold in the children's championship and us adults won bronze! I also won sixth in the individual event (that damn first class!) but a Floridian took home gold which was awesome!

Team Florida before our victory gallop! 

Nick sporting his ribbon

And of course we had orange braids to represent Florida 

The drive home was extremely long. It took about 7.5 hours and we only stopped three or four times. I had Taylor for company and the first thing he said was that he wanted to sleep! Absolutely not, on a trip like that, you have to keep the driver awake.

Almost 500 miles in one day

I came home to find a pair of shoes that I'd ordered (yay for new shoes!) and my diploma. Now I just have to get it framed, I guess. I don't really know where I'm going to put it but I don't want to just stuff it away somewhere; although, that'll probably be what happens.

I've been staying pretty busy by  picking up hours on the days that I'm not scheduled at Banfield at my parent's store. It's pretty easy, mindless work. I've been sorting cards, sticking stuff in sleeves, and pulling selected cards out of boxes. It's pretty nice to have an extra source of income too. I've been riding my two year old again, and he's been perfect! He's starting to understand which lead is the correct one, which has been a challenge since he'd only pick up the right lead in the beginning. I know we're a long ways off from worrying about that at all, but it's such a good feeling when something like that comes together! Bruno has been great since we got his left stifle injected as well, I think he was just a little unbalanced. Switching the bit on that horse and getting his stifles injected is the best thing we ever did to him.

Another fun thing I've been working on is teaching myself ASL. I should probably be focusing on regaining fluency in French, but ASL seemed like a fun, new challenge for now. I watch a pretty bad TV show centering around a deaf girl and I noticed myself picking up some basic signs, so I figured I could actually actively learn it. I only know really basic stuff so far: "Hello," "how are you?" "my name is..." "what is your name?" "see you later," and I'm trying to teach myself Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, so we'll see how that goes!

My dad ended up emailing me and telling me that work is forcing him to take seven weeks of vacation. He's thinking of going to Wales to practice his Welsh, since he didn't think he'd make it to America in time with me leaving and everything. I told him it'd be nice if he tried, but I'd understand otherwise. I haven't seen him since I was about ten, I believe.

Registration for WesternU opened on the first. It's basically just a placeholder, because first years don't get a choice of electives. Unfortunately, I had a hold on my account because they apparently didn't receive the health clearance forms I faxed in ages ago... So I faxed them in again, and emailed them just to be safe. Turns out my doctor ordered the wrong titer for Hep B. Which I got revaccinated for due to the results of the titer. WesternU said I should be able to ask him to just call in the order to the diagnostics lab, but he did so yesterday after they closed and today I got off work after they closed, and tomorrow they're closed for a holiday. I'm hoping to show up at 7 AM, when they open on Friday, so I can get in there before I work at 8:30.

End of week 1!

Week 1 ended pretty well! The horses were great. Nick ended up champion in his adult jumper division, and Bruno even managed to get a fourth in his hunter classic! Bruno is definitely not a hunter so I was pleasantly surprised by that. I think switching his bit made him a lot happier. We showed in the schoolings today and he was really excited but he was also willing to work and to listen which was nice.

Bruno hacking in the big field

Nick ended up showing in the Grand Prix ring the last couple days of the horse show, which was pretty fun! The Grand Prix ring at this show is actually the ring that was used for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics so it's amazing to be able to show in there. Our first class in there was so fun and so crazy. We had to canter up and over a hill, jump a vertical and then turn left and canter up this bank right next to the bleachers (I could have leaned out and touched them!), jump a one stride, and then turn left and come down the hill to jump another vertical before continuing to the rest of the course. I was really worried, thinking Nick would spook or balk or something, but he didn't care at all. So proud of him!

Nick over the liverpool 

Pretty!

We went to Six Flags on our day off, on Monday. I'm not really a roller coaster person but it was still fun! I ended up going on a log ride and then one of those water rides where you sit in this round raft thing with about eight people. I guess it's like a tame copy of whitewater rafting (which I definitely want to try one day!). I bought tons of candy too, that I'm currently munching on.

Hanging out with Bugs

The train track was pretty!

Pretty archways 

Tim bought a Green Lantern cape

Trying on hats

The hat I got for Demie!

We saw Man of Steel after Six Flags too, which was really good! I love all the new superhero movies coming out. I still really want to see the new Iron Man too, but I think it's out of theatres by now. I want to see Epic and World War Z too. We went to see the Purge yesterday, which was really good too!

Ended up getting mani/pedis too. Only my second ever!

Nick had to jog for his regional adult jumper thing today, which was interesting to say the least. I had to wear breeches, tall boots, and an orange polo shirt. Nick had to be in a normal hunter bridle with a plain snaffle and a leather lead rope. No boots, nothing covering him. He jogged great, I think he just thought the whole thing was kind of dumb but kind of fun. We got a bunch of free stuff from our sponsor, Cavalor. By a ton, I mean a TON. I got a shirt, a regional championship hat, a USHJA hat, a couple interesting bags of feed from Cavalor, and a saddle pad that I have to show in for the team event. Plus I got some free pamphlets and stuff like that too. Oh! And a regional championship bag. 

Waiting to go in to jog 

I'm a jogging pro by now

The next couple days should be fun, I just hope my team doesn't get bumped on day one!