Theres a tradition here at school that the Beef club puts on...the hayrack ride. At 4 on Friday Vet students all grab some pudding, jump on a hay rack pulled by a tractor and eat the pudding on the hour and half ride to a professors house where there is more pudding and other food and a nice big bonfire. Then they get a ride home on a van by midnight.
Before you embarrass yourself like I did....pudding = booze. apparently.
So thats mostly what I did. And it was awesome! We had 3 tractors pulling us but the hourish ride turned into 3 when our tire blew out on the hayrack. It was cool though because we were in the middle of nowhere(seriously I still have no idea where we went or how we got there) surrounded by corn fields, which people used as bathrooms like its the most normal thing to do, plenty of dried corn kernels still left on the stalks to use as ammo for pelting each other and good company. And a gorgeous sunset. Once we got to the professor's farm-also NO idea where it is or who the professor is-there was indeed lots of "pudding" and a decent sized bonfire. I don't really know how it happened but the hours went by fast-mostly dancing and belting it out to the awesome playlist. I only had to walk away twice-once for a country song and the other for Miley Cyrus...I will NOT put my hands up or move my hips like yea...and I have a problem with 30 year old farmer boys singing along to that crap, its creepy. and ok, maybe slightly amusing. but only slightly.
Some 10 hours later, yes I just said 10, I found myself and a few friends waiting for the last van at 2 am. Definite time warp, but a totally awesome one :) Also I woke up the next morning with incredibly sore pointer fingers on both hands. No idea why :)
Saturday was another gorgeously warm and sunny day so I ditched my studying for the histology test and instead spent the day walking around town and the nearby school gardens taking pictures of the changing colors of the leaves. I never understood the big deal about fall but it truly is really nice :) I would post pictures but I'm lazy and only want to post them once so check out fb-I'll eventually put them up there.
Sunday I woke up at 5 am and drove over the the vet school to pick up some friends who are part of the ZEW club( zoonotics, exotics, and wildlife) and I drove us to the Minnesota Zoo about 3 1/2 hours away. We got to see the prettiest sunrise over the corn fields (like postcard pretty/stereotypical midwest) and studied a bit of histology but mostly just hung out. We also passed a big wind farm which I didn't know where out here and some girls had never seen one before. Passed some funny places like "Manly forest" and "the sexiest casino of the midwest" in what else? An old barn. I don't think they get much competition out here. We met up with the rest of our club and got a hospital tour by a vet who might have been the least enthusiastic person I have ever met. I was so close to falling asleep standing up. The one interesting thing about him was he could seriously be Emery from the future, I could NOT get over how similar they looked-super tall, SUUUPER skinny, skinny jeans, big glasses. He was missing the mountain man/hobo beard but I'm hoping Em grows out of that by the time he hits middle age.
We then went into the actual zoo which was a good size and pretty nice, as far as zoos go. I wasn't super depressed walking around so thats always a good sign. They had river and sea otters which are always my favorites. And we got a backstage tour by the keepers for the bears, tigers, and camels. I have never seen a camel as big as the bull was, he weighed a ton! Literally, a ton-2,000+ lbs. His head was like the size of a washer. Seeing the tigers close up totally rocked and the bears have a sweet set-up there. Drove back with the sun setting on our other side. Again, pics will be on fb, I'm lazy.
So this past weekend rocked. And I just took my 2nd histo test (after our 2nd anatomy last week) and was looking through my calender-I have at least one test (usually 2) for the next month. But I refuse to be beaten down, especially with my favorite holiday coming right up, Halloween!! School can suck it, I am having way too much fun here! :D
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Universe Bitch Slap
So apparently I need to stop complaining. Because the universe has delivered a few bitch slaps that my face is still smarting from.
A few hours after my last post complaining about stalker boy, I saw him at the gym and of course, he, not being like a normal person who would rightfully just avoid the situation, decided to come talk to me. I was super rude and it worked-he hasn't talked to me since which is just fine with me but I do feel kinda bad : /
Apparently no one I've met so far is a fan of his and everyone calls him boyscout because of how he does his hair (like a 6 yr old going to church whose mom slicked it down and parted it on the side) and the fact that when he raises his hand his fingers are in the form of the boy scout pledge.
Reason #31 why he is creepy: my friend Sharon got his number and texted him "I like your hair and your affinity for merit badges" which we thought was hilarious until we get this back a few hours later "Thanks.....Sharon. I don't know what you mean by merit badges though."
We can't figure out how he knew it was her, they have never really spoke and she is from CT, and so are like 10 other people from our class so even ruling her out by elimination is a stretch. uhhh?
I was also complaining last week about the fact that my normally well-behaved cat Marley decided my open drawers were a much better place to use than the litter box, and what did I discover yesterday as I was petting Bart..........................FLEAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are you kidding me?!?!?
I had to look up the signs on the internet because a) I have NEVER had to deal with pets having them and b) I had no clue how they would even have gotten them since their cohabitant Agnes (Kelsey's pitbull) is on preventative stuff and they have never been outside.
So yea, they had them, and I immediately went to the store (itching all the way) but luckily talked to my roomie before I wasted money-word to the wise-dont buy the crap in the store, go to your vet and get the preventative/killing stuff to put ON your pet and some awesome spray that kills/sterilizes the adults, larva and eggs and stays around for 200 days called Mycodex. Shampoos dont do much and the stuff they sell on the shelves isn't very strong.
So exactly 7 loads of laundry later-I am so thankful we don't have to pay for water here-between the peeing and now the fleas I would have spent a fortune on washing and drying-pretty much all the fabric my cats have come in contact with is washed and sprayed down-including the carpet which I think is the cause of this disgusting problem. They stayed in the bathroom for the 6 hours the meds took to work and I swiffered after and felt like a terrible owner-there was a LOT of dead fleas for 2 cats to be harboring. I am hoping the problem is under control now.
Surprisingly, I was seriously grossed out;I know normally this would be a NORMAL reaction, I know, but I dealt with fleas on a daily basis in Greece. Including being able to see and feel them crawling on my skin and clothes (which wasn't happening yesterday) and I didn't get as creeped out as yesterday. I hope I'm not reverting back to being a squeamish wimp. Does this mean I can't handle thousands of maggots in food or piles of dead bodies anymore too? Hope not, I liked being a bad ass. :)
So long story short .....I LOVE MY LIFE! ok universe? I am VERY grateful for being able to be literally living my dream of going to vet school, having lots of great people around me, and am happy to have the company of my two cuddly cats, even if they have an infestation or pee on my stuff.
A few hours after my last post complaining about stalker boy, I saw him at the gym and of course, he, not being like a normal person who would rightfully just avoid the situation, decided to come talk to me. I was super rude and it worked-he hasn't talked to me since which is just fine with me but I do feel kinda bad : /
Apparently no one I've met so far is a fan of his and everyone calls him boyscout because of how he does his hair (like a 6 yr old going to church whose mom slicked it down and parted it on the side) and the fact that when he raises his hand his fingers are in the form of the boy scout pledge.
Reason #31 why he is creepy: my friend Sharon got his number and texted him "I like your hair and your affinity for merit badges" which we thought was hilarious until we get this back a few hours later "Thanks.....Sharon. I don't know what you mean by merit badges though."We can't figure out how he knew it was her, they have never really spoke and she is from CT, and so are like 10 other people from our class so even ruling her out by elimination is a stretch. uhhh?
I was also complaining last week about the fact that my normally well-behaved cat Marley decided my open drawers were a much better place to use than the litter box, and what did I discover yesterday as I was petting Bart..........................FLEAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are you kidding me?!?!?
I had to look up the signs on the internet because a) I have NEVER had to deal with pets having them and b) I had no clue how they would even have gotten them since their cohabitant Agnes (Kelsey's pitbull) is on preventative stuff and they have never been outside.
So yea, they had them, and I immediately went to the store (itching all the way) but luckily talked to my roomie before I wasted money-word to the wise-dont buy the crap in the store, go to your vet and get the preventative/killing stuff to put ON your pet and some awesome spray that kills/sterilizes the adults, larva and eggs and stays around for 200 days called Mycodex. Shampoos dont do much and the stuff they sell on the shelves isn't very strong.
So exactly 7 loads of laundry later-I am so thankful we don't have to pay for water here-between the peeing and now the fleas I would have spent a fortune on washing and drying-pretty much all the fabric my cats have come in contact with is washed and sprayed down-including the carpet which I think is the cause of this disgusting problem. They stayed in the bathroom for the 6 hours the meds took to work and I swiffered after and felt like a terrible owner-there was a LOT of dead fleas for 2 cats to be harboring. I am hoping the problem is under control now.
Surprisingly, I was seriously grossed out;I know normally this would be a NORMAL reaction, I know, but I dealt with fleas on a daily basis in Greece. Including being able to see and feel them crawling on my skin and clothes (which wasn't happening yesterday) and I didn't get as creeped out as yesterday. I hope I'm not reverting back to being a squeamish wimp. Does this mean I can't handle thousands of maggots in food or piles of dead bodies anymore too? Hope not, I liked being a bad ass. :)
So long story short .....I LOVE MY LIFE! ok universe? I am VERY grateful for being able to be literally living my dream of going to vet school, having lots of great people around me, and am happy to have the company of my two cuddly cats, even if they have an infestation or pee on my stuff.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
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
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
Saturday, September 18, 2010
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
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 :)
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 :)
Friday, September 10, 2010
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!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
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 :)
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.
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