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