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 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.