Yay for school!

Roomate and I on our first day of Vet School!

Well I've been waiting for over a year to start school and it has finally happened! Orientation was interesting-they threw a lot of information at us and had us play a lot of silly games but it did accomplish their goal of us getting to know some people. There are 149 students in my class and I think I know the name of about 10 and probably could recognize another 20? Apparently we will get to know everyone...I guess over 4 years thats enough time :) so far I am trying to hold off on judging since I will have to spend the next 4 years of my life with these people every single day, all day.

The ratio of girls to boys is about 70:30 and the boys hang out in little packs-its kinda cute but also totally sucks-how are we supposed to talk to them when they have their little groups? Now I know how boys feel when they want to approach a girl who is in her group of friends-it takes more balls than I have to put yourself out there.

As far as classes go, most of the professors are totally awesome, and mostly it has been review-although they tend to go at lightspeed and review a few months of undergrad classes in one 50 min lecture. My classes are: anatomy/morphology, microscopic anatomy/physiology-bascially histology, molecular and cell biology, nutrition biochem, radiology, case study, clinical foundations and veterinarian in society.

Anatomy is insane with the all the crap we are supposed to memorize but we get to cut open dogs and explore so its hard to hate it, and in clinical foundations we actually get to work with a live dog which is nice :) shes a cute little beagle. We also get a box full of bones to play/study with so thats been kinda cool too. The instructor who gave them to us has a German accent so when he says it it sounds like boom box-I was really confused for awhile what stereos had to do with anatomy until I saw them. :)

This is my roommate Kelsey and I after our White Coat Ceremony-we are kinda a big deal now an pretty official. I now have a white coat, stethescope and scapula (from the dissection kit) so watch out world!

Internet Issues

So I've had quite a challenge getting connected to the real world...finally got internet (permanently I hope) today, 8/21, a full 2 weeks after it was supposed to work. So I've got some posts that are backlogged and will be trying to catch up in a hurry so I'll try to keep it chronological but it may not be awesomely accurate :)

Iowa State Fair

" I went to the Iowa State Fair and all I got was type II Diabetes"

Too true.

Iowans take their state fair VERY seriously. They camp out for an entire week, and its all they do. It is miles long and obviously takes more than just a day to see everything. They have all kinds of animal exhibits-including mini cows! (I didn't know those exisisted) and some other massive animals like:

Buster, a 3022 pound bull-i didn't get a picture of his balls

but trust me they were equally impressive :)

Also a massive pig that was about the size of a small cow but all he did was lay around

In addition to massive animals, they had massive food and pretty much everything on a large scale. And I could not find food that wasn't deep fried, covered in grease or sugar. I ended up just eating the apple and energy bar I brought with me and some pizza. Also, they had everything imaginable available on a stick-it was totally ridiculous!

They pulled people around on tractors (John Deer of course) and have lots of different exhibits and shows. One famous one is the butter cow which was pretty much life size and they also did a bit of Dr. Seuss too.

I was exhausted after a few hours-I can't imagine doing it for a week but apparently they live off this kind of stuff so there you go! I guess if you are ever in Iowa in August you should try to see it!

Flooding

SOoo this sucks. The above pictures were taken a few days BEFORE all the massive flooding happened so it was already saturated and then it rained for 3 days straight. SO it flooded all the main roads, parking lots, highways and broke a water main which means all the drinkable water flowed out-into the river and Ames has no water. Luckily Kelsey (my roommate) has been living with her sister in a nearby town so I took my cats down the only drivable road out of Ames and stayed there for 5 days because thats how long it took to get water back in the faucets.

Lucky our trailer was on higher ground so there was no damage but some places, like the school's basketball court was up to 6 feet underwater and the rec center* was totally flooded too.

*the gym is still closed a month later! grrr

Discoveries

After a much less teary goodbye than I was expecting from my parents I had all of Ames to discover by myself and get set up. After much organizing and some tetrus like skills I was able to unpack 90% of my boxes and fit everything! Packing all of my stuff I was getting a bit disgusted with my materialism and the fact that I had enough stuff to pack numerous cars full and I didn't use most of it. Since I lived out of a backpack in Europe for 4 months I knew most was superfluous and unnecessary. However unloading all of it, I was glad I had it. Its the stuff that make you feels home, the silly knickknacks that don't serve much purpose but to remind you of memories or different places and be comfortably familiar when everything else is different. On that note however, I think a big cleaning is necessary at least every 2 yrs so you aren't stuck going through figurines from elementary school or sneak attacks of ex-boyfriend pictures/letters that make you want to puke a little...or a lot.

Some awesome things I discovered right away: TARGET**, Panera (fantastic bakery/restaurant), parks everywhere, salvation army ($10 microwave ooh yea), and more Mexican restaurants that any other nationality although I haven't tried any yet-not expecting much.

**I didn't allow myself into Target for a full week and half-more self control than I thought was possible since I knew once I went in all bets were off. And sure enough, once I did go, I spent $15 in the dollar section-among other things but I was good about passing up my kryptonite-dresses with pockets and flannel shirts since I really am super broke.

Hy-Vee is the grocery store here and awesomely enough they have my veggie food in good quantities, no facon but I'll survive I guess. There is a rumor that Trader Joes is being built in Des Monies- a 1/2 hr away which I would drive many times over to get my hands on so I'm pretty excited about that.

Out my room window is the back of the Vet School and a nice little exercise trail so thats pretty convenient although running here is more like swimming in a swamp than running in Arizona. The humidity is something I definitely need to adjust to, I never knew I could actually have sweat pouring off me in such quantities...like the shirt was about as wet as if I had jumped into a pool. nice visual I know. :)

Welcome to Ames

We woke up on Friday, 8/30, to a very wet city, with rain expected all day. Great day to move! We had been pretty lucky with weather and encountering only sprinkles along the way(with the exception of my little skidding adventure) so my stuff was up to this point safe and dry. We didn't have much choice so we just started moving things, a few stuff got wet or scratched but for the most part, it was all just fine.

I was worried about the condition of the trailer since Kelsey had called me while we were still in AR and warned about numerous problems with flooring, toilet, and sink being rotten/falling apart and the ugliness of the walls. My room was a pretty hideous olive green/wood paneling mix so we first painted the walls a nice sea-foamy greenish color. The carpet is nasty with stains and smells and will be replaced by wood flooring soon. Kelsey herself had been staying up til the wee hrs of nights painting the walls to make it look a LOT better. The toilet problems had already been fixed and overall, I was expecting a small, rotting and ugly place (I had a nightmare the night before about what it would look like) but it turned out to be more roomy than I imagined, a little smelly, but not too shabby.

My parents and I stayed in the hotel for a few nights while we waited for paint to dry and to set up furniture and not only did the hotel give internet, free breakfasts where I stole lots of cereal, oatmeal, tea bags and whatever else fit in my purse, and I also stole the phonebook which has served me very well as far as getting around with no internet or people to ask for directions. Iowa is good for my morals ;)

Once the paint dried-it took much longer than in AZ surprise surprise... we were able to put stuff in my room and were able to interpret the sweds directions semi-successfully from IKEA and my room is a bit crowded but I was able to fit all my crap surprisingly!

Once the stuff was mostly set up, my parents left in a much emptier truck on 8/1 and I was now on my own.