really?

I was looking at my stats for today and somehow I had 73 page views in the last 24 hours... I looked at the audience overview because that is super high and saw this...

Malaysia... weird... and 34 views? 

Nothing too exciting lately. Finished up a few quizzes and have one more before Thanksgiving break. Dead week we only have a couple classes and it is all review so studying will definitely be a priority over everything else. Last week I had my equine husbandry labs so I got to do exams on horses all week. Also, I started training for the new job. Getting up at 4am and then having a full day of classes afterwards is not easy! At least it is only 2 days a week until finals week. I got to see a colic case of one of OSU's horses, a horse that was gored in the thorax by a bull, 2 of the sweetest heifer calves, some rodeo bulls with leg injuries (apparently very common), and a really neat neurological equine case on a horse that had been competing at AQHA world show.  We are going over more neurophysiology right now and it is exciting to be able to actually implement what we are learning on a living, breathing animal! It also shows how important anatomy actually is no matter how boring, tedious, and smelly it has gotten (next semester we have equine/comparitive anatomy which is suppose to be a thousand times better).
The actual school part of vet school is going by so fast, and I'm not doing too bad. The feeling that I somehow mistakenly got into vet school is starting to fade. I am no where near stellar in any of my classes, but I know several of my extremely intelligent colleagues are struggling and I feel awful for them. At the beginning of the semester I really thought I would at least enjoy some of my classes, and I did at first, but now... we are all sick of (and somewhat agitated with) every class and extremely ready to just move on and be that much closer to graduating. I doubt I'm going to win any major awards for my grades, but all I'm here for is those three letters behind my name so I can't complain too much.

Time flies when you never stop studying

Oh, wait, that isn't how that goes... None of us can believe it, but in exactly 1 month we have our final final of first semester! That means finals week is 3 1/2 weeks away. How in the world am I going to fit everything I need into my brain before that awful week arrives???!!! Oh that's right, never stop studying! So what am I doing now? Procrastinating on a blog of course.
All we have left this semester before finals is a couple physiology 1 quizzes and a histology quizzam. The anatomy test on Monday was pure evil! My decent grades from the last physiology 1 exam and zootechnology midterm (yes, I know I was worried for nothing about that exam) somewhat kept me from taking all the junk food in the house, ingesting it, and crawling under the covers and hibernating forever until I could find something easier in life to accomplish.
There were 2 things every vet student said you get burnt out on quickly: one of which I didn't think possible and the other I didn't think would happen so fast. Pizza and studying. Well, its true. I am so sick of pizza from all the club meetings and lunch and learns, but its free so you shut up and eat it. Studying... I figured since it had been a couple years since I had hit the books it might take me a bit longer to hit this roadblock, but no... it is something always on the back of your mind, and while I don't feel as guilty when I take study breaks, I still feel that if I had studied just a little bit more maybe I would have got an A.
Oh and lesson of the day: Don't be like me and pay attention in ALL of your undergrad chemistry classes, because that crap comes back again and again in vet school. It will make studying a lot easier!!

Good news?

Had 2 tests and 2 quizzes this week. The quizzes went great. It will be a bit before I know how the tests went, but I think they were ok. The semester is quickly coming to an end and it is kind of exciting knowing that we will all be 1/8 dvm in a few more weeks. Monday we have our last exam until finals and it has to be anatomy! There is a lot of pressure on this exam because if you do well you can replace your worst exam grade with this one; however, in the long run, a couple points don't make very much difference since the final is worth sooo much.
Moving on to the possible good news... a question a lot of people have going into vet school is if you can hold down a job. The answer is usually a resounding NO! But, being crazy me, I applied for an overnight large animal ICU tech position where 1 or 2 weekend nights a month you work in the large animal barn monitering hospitalized cases, administering treatments, helping with incoming emergencies, etc and I just found out I got it. I'm pretty excited I think since it will be nice to have a few extra bucks and more importantly getting to know the staff at the hospital a lot more. We get more info on it next week and I'll keep it updated on how it goes. Hopefully, it won't be too hard on me and get me used to studying working weird hours. It is also a possibility of working more hours over Christmas and summer breaks so it would be nice not to have to worry about finding a job during the non school times.
Other cool things of the week. I got to do a physical exam on a guinea pig and llama one day, sheep one day, and cow another day. The joys of being a vet is how variable every day can be!

Nerves, veins, and arteries oh my!

I should be studying. I'm not sure which subject because all classes have something coming up and I'm not sure which is the most important. I feel like I'm drowning, and thinking that finals week is quickly approaching isn't helping. I'm so unprepared and extremely behind in anatomy, but I have a very important physiology test on Thursday. I wish I could drink coffee and be super woman and pull all nighters, but it just makes my stomach hurt. Last night I crashed at 9pm.... you suck time change!
On Saturday after studying I went by a friend's birthday get together and I got to play with a fellow vet student's baby. She was super cute, but I don't know how she takes care of her and not fail vet school. It was nice hanging out with some classmates and their significant others outside of school.
We've had some rainy weather lately and all I want to do is snuggle on the couch with my puppies, but it looks like kidneys and lungs take precedent tonight.

Glow in the dark cat...

Cool or creepy? Apparently you can get a cloned cat and the cloners added a fluorescent gene so it glows in the dark. As if I needed another reason not to get a cat, ha. We have our zootech midterm (worth 33% of our grade) in about an hour and kinda freaking out about it since we all started studying for it yesterday after the practical portion of histology. I think we maybe underestimated the amount of material on this thing. And why do there have to be so many types of tabbys?! While there can only be 4 questions per lecture we are not sure how specific it is going to be since there is about 50 slides a lecture. This class is supposed to be an easy grade, too!
As much fun as I have with my classmates I'm so ready for Christmas break. Studying constantly is super tiring and always worrying about grades is a little stressful. Better go make sure I can tell the difference between a belgian blue and rhode island red.

Weird

Vet students are weird. While this isn't really news, it can be easily confirmed by listening to almost any conversation we have with each other. The more we talk the weirder we get, too. This can actually be detrimental to other relationships because your significant other will start pointing it out on a regular basis. Like when you show him a video of a macrophage chasing and enveloping bacteria and not only is he not impressed, but points out how lame you are... but when shown in class every vet student is as excited as if it were a chase seen on an action movie.

We just got our first test back from physiology 2 and while the average was a D, which is failing in vet school, I got a C! Never been so happy for a C in my life. From what I have heard the class should get slightly easier from here on out though, so that is encouraging I guess. 

Anatomy didn't go so well... luckily my previous grades helped keep my grade looking decent; however, our final is worth like half our grade so it doesn't matter much what we have going in to it since it is worth so much. Assuming we all make it, I think we have picked out our anatomy group for next semester when we start on the horse. I think I'll like the horse more than dogs and cats... they're bigger and, well its a horse. In zootech we went over exotics and pocket pets and it reminded me how much I love little wabbits! Soo cute and fuzzy, but definitely don't have time or money for another mouth to feed. Speaking of money I found out today that my insurance actually covered every penny of my rabies shots so we just got refunded about 850 bucks!

On a less boring note, I got to do a physical on a cow this week. It is nice getting our hands on something alive and cows are pretty much the coolest. The stethoscope the clinic I worked for got me has come in handy for these labs.  We also added husbandry labs to our schedule and every other week we do physicals monday thru thursday. This week I had the blood donor cats and dogs and while it was interesting the first day, it started to just feel like a waste of time by day 4. At least food animal then equine are my last 2 rotations so that should be more fun.
Tomorrow morning I'm helping my husband work some calves and while I am a little sad my histology study time is getting disturbed, I'm excited to get some fresh air. Off to curl up to learn about some nephrology, bleh.