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.