*Sigh*

We learned why we sigh this week. Respiratory physiology is actually a lot more interesting than I would have thought. There have been little factoids every day that really keep me interested.
We also had what will probably be the highlight of first year this week: goat castration. Did physical exams, trimmed hooves, and did all the surgical injections as well as actually removing the testicles. A nearby school has a huge goat program that saves about 100 goats for 1st years to castrate. Some other good news, the outcome of my physiology 1 exam was quite good considering my dislike for the material.
On the downside was my anatomy quiz and multiple choice part of my histology exam. Not sure how the practical portion of histology went yet though. After taking that depressing histology exam un motivation has been a real problem. I don't understand why a professor tries to trick you with questions. That doesn't seem like the best way to test the knowledge of a subject to me, but obviously the students don't get much say in that aspect. I was starting to feel like I was getting the hang of vet school until this week, too.
Extracurricular activities have definitely been on the back burner,  too. I spent about 8 hours organizing and studying for our second anatomy exam (which is Monday) with some classmates at school. Our current professor is horrible at presenting/delivering everything we need to know and everyone is really ready for our original professor to come back.
I feel like all I do is complain about vet school on here, but I am glad to be here, it's just so much easier to point out the negatives than the positives. My classmates are amazingly helpful and supportive. Everyone is willing to share study guides they have made and helpful hints. While sometimes it feels like high school again, mostly everyone here is pretty great. Better go cram in a few more facts before my anatomy test.

Brains

My head is overflowing with brains and not in the good way. After I started feeling really good about the skull we started the brain and it kind of makes me want to cry. Knowing all the sections and their functions wouldn't be too bad, but when you add in nerves, where they start and end, what they affect, and oh yeah, arteries. Oh and we have a quiz over it all on Friday :(. Which wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have a histology exam and physiology quiz on Monday. Can we please add a few more hours to the day?
Tomorrow we are going to OSUs feedlot for zootech. Normally I'd be excited, but I worked there for a semester and had a stocker feedlot class in undergrad as well as my husband being an assistant manager at a feedyard so now I feel like it is going to be a waste of valuable study time.
We find out how we did on our physiology 1 test tomorrow. I feel ok about it, but everyone studied super hard for the cell bio part and not so much for the neurophysiology part and the neurophysiology part ended up being exceptionally harder. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.
The cool (yes i just said cool because vet school is lame) part about vet school is that your classes sometimes overlap material, so while learning about muscles in histology we are also covering it in physiology. Makes studying a lot tinge easier. Bleh, studying...

**** just got real

That seems to be what every first year has said this week. We got our anatomy exams back on Monday and the class average was an 81. I did better than the average, but I want to avoid the whole who did better than who stuff and just say that I was pleased with my grade, but there is always room for improvement. We got our histology quiz back today and I have the same sentiments for it, too. I did do better than I had thought though, so that was exciting.
Just as everyone was rejoicing over the first exam being over we started learning the skull in anatomy and all I can say is OMG! There are more holes, protuberances, etc on the skull than everything else we have learned combined. I feel so behind in everything right now and every second spent not studying I feel guilty. (Like right now)
We started physiology 2 on Monday and that extra 4 hours in a classroom a week really is exhausting. On Monday's we spend 3 hours sitting in the same cramped classroom trying to pay attention and boy is it hard. Then we get another 3 hours of anatomy after that.
We have a quiz in neurophysiology on Thursday and a physiology 1 test on Monday and starting next week we have a test every week pretty much until finals (goodbye weekends!) Hopefully I can get everything organized by this evening so I can get a good nights  some sleep. I was sooo hoping to stay fit by working out in the morning but I have found that if I want a parking spot within a mile from the school I have to leave my house by 7:30 and up by 6:30. If I want to work out in the morning it would require getting up way too early and I'm so exhausted after sitting in class all day that I can't motivate myself to do it when I get home. I know those are all lame excuses, but right now that is all I've got.
Get rabies shot 2 tomorrow, bleh. Luckily I don't have a zootech lab tomorrow so I can use the whole afternoon for studying. Yay...

Firsts

Got my first rabies shot today around 8:30 this morning and no reaction yet. It didn't hurt too bad, but I have 2 more to go and I've heard it only gets worse.
We had our first histology exam yesterday... and I really have no idea how I did. I know it wasn't an A and I walked out second guessing myself. Definitely not a good feeling. Everyone is calling it a quizam because it was probably the biggest quiz anyone's taken.
Exam number 1 is tomorrow and its for anatomy. I think I feel prepared, but who knows. I got an A on the last anatomy quiz and that is reassuring, but I want to excell on this test because I know anatomy is only going to get harder from here on out so maybe I can have a little buffer. I was studying with some classmates on a break today and I can really notice a difference spending a few hours in anatomy lab on the weekends is making and you can pick out the people who haven't quite easily.
Physiology 1 is going okay. Not a favorite class by any means. We add physiology 2 next week and it is supposed to be a VERY tough class. So not only do we have to manage our classes now getting harder, we get to add one. I can feel the stress building up by the copious amount of acne covering my face... it looks like a terrible pizza.
I get a break this weekend and I get to see one of my best friends get married. It will be nice not to have to concentrate on school for a few hours and hopefully I won't feel too anxious not studying since all we have next week is a neurophysiology quiz on Thursday.
In zoo technology we got to learn how to do basic physical exams on dogs today. Classmates brought in their own dogs and my first one was on an adorable 10 mo old aussie and she did great. Next, was a Very well behaved jack russell and I actually found an abnormality on her that no one had noticed before. It was nice to know I was thorough but I definitely felt bad showing the owner, especially since it was a fellow first year. Hopefully it turns out to be nothing, but at least it was a toe in the water of giving bad news. I feel ahead of the game when it comes to some small animal stuff because of everything I learned working as a technician at a small animal clinic.
Well, the intermedioradial carpal bone is calling my name..... what is a sonovial joint again?