Activities in Ames

We had an Art Fair!!! It wasn't quite as fantastic as 4th Ave Street Fair but it was like a little sister, trying really hard to emulate it and almost succeeding :) I didn't get anything partly because I am broke but mostly because my brain isn't organized enough yet to be thinking about X-mas presents or other gift giving opportunities. But it does give me hope that there is enough culture in this small town to keep me happy for another 3 and half years. Speaking of culture-I found an awesome Thai place with a whole menu (ok its like a half page) of veggie stuff and had some super tasty sweet and sour tofu. Now that I have friends I can go to restaurants to try things and not feel like a loner :D


I went tailgating yesterday, even though it was freezing and rainy-see I can be a tough mid-westerner too! Well ok, by the time I dragged by butt out from under my comforter it had stopped raining and I did have 3 layers on but whatever! Apparently right before we got there some coked out guy was chasing one of my fellow students around our bus and he got tackled by law enforcement and taken away on a golf cart. Think that's classy? Just wait...

I ended up babysitting 2 of my friends since they got toasted pretty early on and we ended up at a trailer (in my trailer park) surrounded by big-ass farmer boys who were doing a power hour(shot of beer every minute for an hr-might not sound like a lot but you work your way through a 12 pack pretty fast), smoking and blasting country music all outside. I was thinking...wow ok I'm finally experiencing what I was fearing about living in a trailer park in the mid-west when 2 of the boys started shoving each other in a race to pee in the bushes on the side of the trailer (they had a totally adequate bathroom INSIDE-like 2 steps away). Then one of them fell on me-with his pants ZIPPED UP thank god. His apology was a smile (with a missing tooth) and then he preceded to lie to me about how he was a vet student too and he was taking a class called VM 123 (all our classes are 300 level or over and no such class abbreviation as VM) called "Cow/calf" and all he did for class was shove his arm up cows butts. And when he finished chugging his beer he threw the can into the bushes in the front yard. I know what you are thinking.... CLASSY! right? I love my life.

Update on the stalker boy from my pseudo date...still creeping. He has texted me EVERY single day asking to do one thing or another and I either ignore him or decline and my "no thanks blah excuse blah" have turned a lot more harsh and still...they keep on coming!! Luckily he hasn't tried to wait for me after class and walk me home in awhile and really doesn't try very hard to speak to me in real life so I don't know what the deal is. Seriously though, how DENSE can his head be?! Suggestions?? I don't know if I've ever had to deal with someone this bad before and normally I'd just be a bitch and make sure he didn't want to hang out with me ever again buuut since we will be in school together every day for 8 hrs for the next 3 years I dont want to make any enemies.
On the bright side, my roomie and other friends all think it is quite entertaining and are getting a big kick out of it. It doesn't help that he is incredible socially akward and looks kinda like a Who from Dr. Seuss

My room

Here are the pics I promised a long time ago of my room.






Note-the framed and signed picture of some of my favorite people was one of the first things I hung and I look at it everyday as I get dressed(since its above my dresser hehe) and the black and white blanket is Marley's absolute favorite spot to hang out on




Also, I actually put pictures in the frames on the wall now so they aren't just empty. and that is my spiffy computer on the bed-it has a fingerprint scanner on it that I use to log in-how cool is that?!



I love my wall of closets-I dont think I could do without it!

I'll take some more pictures of the other areas and post those soon too-I promise! :) Gotta get back to studying now

C= DVM

Well I survived my first two tests of Vet school! The first one was Cell Biology on Wed and Anatomy on Thurs. The bio one wasn't so bad, a lot of review but anatomy...oh my god. Every part of every bone, every muscle including its function, where it attaches and all the nerves that innervate them! And my favorite-they picked the most complicated, convoluted part-the skull-to teach us on the day BEFORE the exam! WTF! This was how I studied the night before: all my bones of my bone box spread out-I guess it was a fairly large dog haha



The anatomy test itself wasn't too painful and I got a high B so I am pretty pleased with myself :)
It had a practical portion where they pinned certain muscles/parts of bones on our cadaver dogs and we had to identify them and then a multiple choice section (thank god). It felt very nice to get it over with but strangely I wasn't very stressed out beforehand and I didn't really cram, I got a decent amount of sleep the night before and the usual nervous stomach ache I get before a major test was absent. My undergrad self would never have believed it :) Grades finally don't really matter-a C=DVM as they told us in our orientation so I don't have to kill myself to get As anymore and its AWESOME! Of course I want to do well, getting a job/internship/residency do slightly depend on having a decent GPA but its nice to have the competition lowered quite a bit.

Also, they have about a bazillion clubs here and of course all are super interesting and I want to join them all! I have restricted myself to only:
SCAVMA-big club everybody joins which is an extension of the vet association we will all be a part of when we graduate;
Equine
Cow
Pig
ZEW-exotic and wildlife-I decided to be a fund-raising chair for this one-its a small time commitment and looks good on the ever present resume
Shelter
Emergency medicine for all animals
Emergency equine team-I'm on call for intensive care, births, and surgeries (soo excited!!) Business-another one for the resume and I have no idea about any financial/business like

And I am undecided about the holistic club and reproduction. The only thing that is holding me back is all these clubs have dues ranging from $10-20+ so they add up quickly and I'm afraid if I join too many they will all overlap with meetings and wet labs -which are basically different activities dealing with the specific animals or topics they are about. Decisions decisions...

Oh and one added bonus of learning anatomy so well, I now know which muscles are injured in my still (seriously?!) swollen ankle. Not that I can do anything about it, but I thought that was kinda cool :)

Farmer's Market Joy

Des Monies Farmers Market is AWESOME!! It is massive but not too crowded and have lots and LOTS of food, mostly produce-I have never seen so many veggies in my life! I went and got some fresh mozzarella, basil, and granola which are all super tasty and the other time I went I got some delicious sweet corn ice cream-which was basically like rice pudding with chunks of corn-it worked somehow. They also have some cool craft booths, it kinda fills the void left in my life from the 4th Ave street fair in Tucson. I think it will be closing up in October since it will probably be too cold to go outside for an extended period of time but I'm gonna try to go as often as I can before then!

Holy crap school

Just wanted to show off my massive stacks of books and my bone box :) I wont put up my pile of flashcards-thats just depressing.

So I've survived 2 weeks of vet school so far! It has been intense but not as bad as my nightmares. So far individual classes have not been too difficult, the hard part is just trying to swallow the mountain of information everyday. I am hoping I can get some kind of system going where I study every day...right now it has been pretty hard to try to do that, I've never been one to study much until the night before a test so this whole being prepared thing is a bit tricky and kind of a pain in the ass.

3 day weekend HALLELUJAH! I haven't studied as much as I have wanted to but my brain is enjoying its rest. Yesterday (Saturday) I went tubing in Eldora-about an hr drive away-with my roommate and some other people. Pretty much consumed all of my calories in beer that day which made for a fun and relaxing float down a river and one hell of a hangover a few hours later. I met some trashy, skanky people who decided it was a great day for celebrating Mardi Gras and wanted girls to flash their bazoombas for some crappy beads. While I passed, I got to see some awesome saggy titties and they got some beads so everybody wins I guess. Some BAMFs made a stereo system out of wood, car speakers and a solar panel and figured out how to float it down on the river so we had some good music and like I said-interesting company. Woke up a few hours later in my car-I didn't drive anywhere just fell asleep in the seat-apparently people thought I took off with the saggy booby girls for the bachlorette party since no one could find me. :) I have some standards people! the floating/camping place had some horrible cover band playing and I took off to go home after consuming every scrap of food I had with me. No pictures unfortunately, those saggy gems will just reside in my memory...no reason to subject you all to that acute kind of misery.

Plans for my last day of freedom-study my bone box, and 3 in stack of flashcards for anatomy-read a few chapters for histology and go over the weeks notes. Saved all the real good stuff for last :)

Oh and here's an update on my ankle-it really hasn't gotten any better as far as appearances go

:(

Bart pissed on my bed today so he is definitely on my SHIT list. I have no idea what to do with him...it doesnt make any sense.

Tailgating

I had no idea tailgating was itself a sport. AZ peeps, you guys have no idea how serious it is over here. Camping out a full day beforehand-and paying for spots ranging from $20-50 for one night. Buses/RVs/cars are painted permanently(!) with school colors and logos, and dont even get me started on the other decorations-including clothing.

















Grilling meat and corn (of course) and drinking lots of beer, I'd say more than half the people didn't even go to the game, its more of an excuse than a reason to tailgate here. Vet students get in on it too-we have our own bus! Pretty sad looking thing but its awesome and a fair amount of people showed up too.










In other news, my ungraceful self has reared her bruised head and when I was running the other day I tripped on the edge of a sidewalk and some grass and got a nasty twisted ankle and skinned knee.
I couldnt walk at all for awhile and had to have my roomate pick me up. I forgot just how horribly painful it can be...a few days later now I can walk with only a slight limp and my knee is finally done oozing and is scabbed up. heres some awesome pictures...I'll update when the bruising gets even prettier on the ankle...I'm still waiting for my foot to get back to a normal size.

Shame

This is Bart posting-my mom is making me do a public apology for my misdeeds. I pissed on the couch. Numerous times. and then I got so cocky about it-I mean who doesnt want to smell my awesome urine??? I did it in front of Mom and the new girl-who apparently owns the couch. SO they yelled at me and my tail got as wide as I am-which if you listen to my mom is apparently too wide-and I've been imprisoned in the bedroom ever since. Which isn't really that bad since all I do is sleep and eat but still. so I'm sorry ok Mom?

I saw that after all my hard work that you put the couch out by the dumpster which is a shame because it was really starting to smell just right. I guess I need to be more stealthy next time. I mean...there won't be a next time. Can I have my dinner now??