So, I’m in my Epidemiology class… not my most favorite class.  We’re covering food safety stuff now and it’s enough to make me want to be a vegetarian — I actually want to do it, not because I feel bad for the slaughtered animals but it’s more because I don’t like the processing.  Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for the animals too but me not eating meat will NOT stop the production and slaughter of food animals.

I just can’t do it here though.  The grocery stores just aren’t consistent with their imported products and it’s so expensive, especially for someone who’s never done the vegetarian thing formally.  Plus, if it’s not done right, it’s so easy to not get all the nutrients and/or imbalances from not having that meat protein in your diet… I can see that happening to me, I need to live in some organic based city of California to actually be a true vegetarian!

4th semester is starting to roll along and despite any changes I made in my life to make it less hectic, it’s just as much so if not worse.  Not in a bad way, but I don’t think it’ll ever get less busy from here on out…

I love having my dog here — it’s been a life saver.  I’ve hit this weird point where I’ve been here a little over a year now and I’ve gone to class with the same people every single day… these are the same people I see when I go out at night too so I’m currently really peeved by many of them, hate a few of them and am still not sure who some of them are.  I’m sure this will subside with time seeing that the critical labs where we all have to work together are to come in the near future, but at this very moment — I would probably be happy if I never saw many of these people ever again… I just feel like I’ve seen them too much and the novelties of their ‘different’ personalities have worn off and have now become annoying.  Oh well… I didn’t get into this profession for the people, lol.

I have hopes and plans to do a post on my experience with the whole pet traveling thing, but chances are it  may not come until the break!

Time to reflect on the year…

January 2009, I started vet school.  Something I worked so hard for was finally materializing and it was an exciting and new start for me.  It was like starting high school all over again, the bad and good parts!

April 2009, I finished my first semester of vet school and it was pretty tough but I did it – there were things that needed fixin’ but I was still really motivated.  Going home for that break was a little weird because I was so glad to be home, but I just don’t think I really knew to appreciate it completely yet.

May 2009, 2nd semester begins – we were all forewarned that this would be the worst semester ever and it undoubtable was worse than 1st, but I did it.  I did it and fostered a bunch of animals on top of it so when it was over I felt like Superwoman.  I ended that semester significantly more successful than the previous so I was really proud of myself… proud that I fixed what needed to be fixed and also took on things that I shouldn’t have and still came out on top.  Going home was a great reward after that.

August 2009, I now knew how to enjoy my time at home and got fat while doing it!  I also spent a week at the VOSM, which was a great experience.  I love that place and it embodies everything I want to do in the future, so that was a great jolt of motivation for when I returned to the island.

September 2009, 3rd semester starts and there I was thinking it was going to be smooth sailing… which it mostly was because we only had those two exams per class!  But, I’ve never felt so much stress + panic during finals day-in and day-out before in my life.  That could NOT have been healthy.  I couldn’t even feel relief until the grades were released on Saturday, December 19th!  That’s a long time to be surging with stress without breathing freely…  by far, that was the most mentally stressing semester for me.

December 2009, I’m treasuring the time I’ve spent here on break… still am.  A couple times, I let myself think about the day I leave and it really bothers me.  All the other breaks, the moment my heart sinks is when the airplane wheels lift off the runway.  It’s usually never fully real until that moment… but now, I already have that bottoming-out feeling just thinking about it.  This is a pretty important break just because I won’t be returning to U.S. soil until April/May 2011.  That’s kind of a scary thought… so much could happen until then!

I’m excited for 2010, but I hope it goes by fast and uneventfully.  I already want to come home and I haven’t even left yet.  Thankfully, Doobie & Manny will be going back to the island with me… after a painstaking process of getting their import permits, back/forths with the USDA and MULTIPLE visits to the clinic for their rabies titers and health certificates.  Man, the process in itself is a turn-off to wanting to bring your pets to St. Kitts… but, I’m really counting on them to help ease the reality that we’re STUCK until 2011.

One thing I miss about the island – seeing the Tula-la kitty, I am excited to see her again.  Of couse my fosters too, Mia and Tobey (yes, his name says Dylan on the website). Oddly, I’m looking forward to seeing Tobey again… now that school’s over, it’ll be nice to see his perpetually happy face.  Doobie’s going to have to play nice with Tobey until I can find him a new foster home, but at the same time, I feel this is a good thing and I can use this as an opportunity to work on Doobie and his socialization skills with other dogs.

I usually make resolutions for the new year but I’m pretty sure I’ve never successfully completed any of them… of course, there’s the usual: hit the gym frequently and consistently, eat healthier, stop being a bitch, etc.

In 2010, I just want to resolve to keep kicking ass in school, help some people along the way, continue to be the world’s best dog owner and enjoy my time wisely.  It’s been completely overdone, but it’s never been more true… life is what you make of it.  I stuck myself on that island voluntarily and I will be damned if I don’t leave there with lots of stories to share when I get back in 2011.

Final 1 down of 4

3rd Semester summary – AWFUL

Just when you think it should get better at some point, it just gets worse.  We were all given such hope with the light at the end of the tunnel when we finished 2nd… this semester by far was the worst, at least for me!

I got through midterms fine, and I THOUGHT I hadn’t waited to the last minute to study but it sure does feel that way.  I hate this, I hate this, I hate this!  I can literally feel the acid levels of my stomach rise after my 4th cup of coffee.  And this final I just took?  HARD.  Viruses, I HATE YOU!  I think my A just dropped to a C.  I hope this is one of those cases where I’m being annoying about my pseudo-failure and it actually turns out that I ace’d it, but unfortunately I doubt it.  After a semester’s worth of material, it seems that I know NOTHING about canine distemper, Newcastle disease or equine influenza.  Oddly enough, I felt like those things appeared on the test way more than the other viruses we learned, which I KNEW about!

Of course, I’ve left only 1 day to study for each of my other finals… stupid viruses!

Block exams, I hate you.  Vet school is unhealthy for the body.  I can’t wait to get in the cold weather!  5 days and I’m back on U.S. soil!

Not that they were ever great except during the Super Bowl.  But, there was a time when I thought TV marketing was doing well… even the big actors were jumping on the U.S. TV commercials ship.  Lately, there have been some awful ones though or I’ve just been watching way too much TV and not doing enough studying!

Zooey Deschanel’s COTTON commercial — she sings the theme song and I think she sounds horrible.  Her singing voice is the same as her talking voice except that the words are stretched out in a note… makes me cringe every time I hear it.

Kay Jewelers’ new series of commercials for their ‘Love’s Embrace’ line — I can’t help but burst out laughing every time this comes on because it’s really corny and poorly acted then all of a sudden it gets really creepy!  For example, the couple that is in a cabin (i think) during a thunderstorm and the woman is scared of the thunder, I guess, and is like “never let me go” and then all of sudden the man’s tone changes and he goes “And, I never will.”  But the tone is all wrong… like in a dooming sort of tone.  So, initially I thought it was just the one commercial with the one bad actor.  It happens again in their other commercial but not quite as dramatically.  I’ll attribute the first one to the thunderstorm, haha.  Whoever directed those commercials must not have realized the tone-changing moment was way overdone and that ‘cue the romantic music’ should somehow fit in there to show that the man is not going to abduct her and tie her up somewhere to die.  Yeah, I can totally see how it would make me want to buy that jewelry.

It’s kind of nice that I get to do school all over again… I remember when I got a real job and realized how much I liked being a student or at least living the schedule of a student.

In high school, I rode and I played some sports and was in some clubs… so it’s not like I was a completely uninvolved student.  I didn’t take on any positions though, I was always just a member.

In college, I was in the pre-vet club, equestrian club, etc… again, only as a member… but Virginia Tech’s student body was so big that you kind of got lost in the group if you didn’t step up and take on a role of some sort.  That’s where I ended up working though, in the veterinary teaching hospital… so, I did find a tiny niche for myself there for a while.

Now, I’m on St. Kitts @ RUSVM and I get another try at student life.  I got a little tired of getting lost in the crowd I guess and now I’ve officially taken the role of Foster Coordinator for PAWS — it’s essentially a vet student run rescue group on St. Kitts.  We’re still in the transition phase of old to new officers, but so far I really like having a ‘job.’  I’ve also managed to still be captain of my intramural volleyball team since the first semester.  There are definitely days where I wish I didn’t have to take on a leadership role, but in the bigger picture it feels good to be involved.  It’s like I’m finally getting to those things I always wanted to do but never did and I’m SURE this’ll be my last chance to do school again, so now’s the time!

Of course, I’m fostering a new cat.  It’s another calico — I refuse to become the crazy calico cat lady though!  I’ve always had cats, but I’m really enjoying the company of the cats here… Tobey’s still here, too.  Those seeking adult dogs are a whole different market, but whoever his person is will enjoy him; he’s clearly got a repressed puppyhood that’s coming out.  I had a puppy here too for a while, Raisin, but I passed him on to another foster home because I was spreading myself a little thin.  Eventually I’ll do a picture update!

Cancer.  We just learned about neoplasia in pathology — it was pretty interesting.  Cancer cells are like abducted-by-alien cells… I can see why people go into oncology.

Here’s an article from the NYTimes.com about cancer and how some of them actually will vanish without any treatment.  That’s not to encourage the scared-to-go-to-the-doctor-folks that you should just leave them alone and cross your fingers in hopes that it’s one of those tumors. 

“Cancer cells and precancerous cells are so common that nearly everyone by middle age or old age is riddled with them”… that’s a statement from one of the pathologists that they had talked to — kinda ominous and scary.  Just thinking about that makes me feel like I’m essentially on the road to my deteriorating death as we speak… but reality is, I am.  And so is everyone else.  It’s what you do before you get there that matters, right?

Now that Doobie is a middle-aged doberman (turned 6 in June) I’ve gotten really obsessive about getting his annual diagnostics done – bloodwork… he’s constantly on the verge of going hypothyroid but not quite there; echocardiogram – so far so good; 24-hour holter monitor – so far zero VPCs… He’s starting to pop lipomas which aren’t the most attractive, but I’ll most definitely take it over anything that would end in -sarcoma or -carcinoma!  Being a doberman, I feel like I have a lot more to worry about with him too… I know I’m covering the big killer – cardio, but there are other things that get dobes too… kidney & liver stuff.  Sometimes cancer is in there, too.  Oh the stresses of having a dog!

So far, pathology has proven to be my favorite class of this semester.  Can’t wait to get to the congenital deformities!

Watched this last night…

It was probably one of the scarier movies I’ve seen in a really long time.  I’m a big chicken when it comes to scary movies… BUT, everyone else was screaming in the theater, too.

It did indeed have that Blair Witch VHS-effect to it, but unlike Blair Witch, I thought this was done pretty well.  The guy character was really annoying, but I think that was the point.  I’m trying not to give anything away!  What made it scarier for me than anything else though is that there was nothing visibly scary… for instance, lots of scary movies use gruesome make-up/costume to create crazy characters that pop out of nowhere with scary music in the background.  I’m pretty sure this movie had NO music, except the dude playing his guitar… you could see stuff happening without really seeing what was causing it to happen… as if you were there watching it with your own eyes and not as a 3rd party observer outside of the story [I don't think that makes sense at all].  There wasn’t the scary image flash of something creepy like a lot of movies either… it was static noise, silence, creeking, footsteps, movements… you obviously knew something was there but you couldn’t see it.  I got a couple body chills through the movie too and not in a good way — it was super creepy.  Oh, and the ending… good, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually watch the images directly.  It’s kinda like that one scene from The Exorcist where the girl crawls (if you can even call it that?) upside down and backwards down the stairs; that was burned into my head for weeks, I could NOT get that out of my head.  I was not about to be stuck with something like that again!

I thought it was definitely Halloween worthy.

One other thing that made the movie scarier for me… I was sitting at the end of our group and this dude decides to rudely walk across our entire row just to sit down next to me.  The theater was NOT packed at all.  I wasn’t totally offended by this except for the fact that he smelled.  Smelled really bad.  I thought I could handle it, but then he kept wanting to chat… how am I? when does the movie start?  Then I grabbed my drink just in time for him to start fluffing his dread-locked hair… I got up and left.  My friend came with me and we did a pseudo-bathroom trip and sat down at the OTHER end of our group so that I was in an aisle seat.  That’s all good and fine except that after the movie started I was paranoid that he would get up and sit behind me since he clearly knew we ditched him.  He INDEED did get up, walked all the way across our row again… passed by us, went outside briefly, came back in and sat behind us!!!!!  But, it was a few seats down — we’re pretty sure it was right next to another group of people in the row above us.  I felt sorry for the girl he was sitting next to because I’m pretty sure I got a few whiffs of him even then.  That whole thing gave me some added anxiety throughout the movie.  He was clearly drunk or on something else.

Also, the movie was NOT based on true events… and Thank God.

Hell Week Jr. (HW Jr.) ended last week, but I’m still trying to recover from it a week later.  Last weekend was a mess — it was our midsemester break weekend so we got Monday off, but then that just meant party-party-party up until Sunday night.  Sunday was fun; instead of a night catamaran trip we did a day trip for a friend’s birthday; will talk more about it later.  After that week of tests though, I don’t think anyone could help letting loose like crazy banshees… it was awwwfffuuulllllll.

It wasn’t that it was super hard – I got good grades, but by Wednesday night and Thursday I was burnt-out.  I’ve been exhausted and dragging before but I don’t know that I’ve been really burnt-out useless.

Let me back up.  So we started HW Jr. on the Friday before… not bad of a start, one exam then the weekend to rev-up for the new week.  Studied the entire weekend then came Monday.  One exam down, feeling good, waiting for grades… waiting for grades… waiting… this is when anxiety starts to build.  Studied all night Monday and then Tuesday, took the next exam on Wednesday… went well, feeling good, but tired.  Wednesday night… I don’t know where my motivation and focus went but it was gone.  I think the effort of TRYING to study was probably more draining than anything else. 

It’s not like I haven’t taken a week’s worth of back to back finals, but I think the added pressure of this one test then just a final comprising each class’ grade plus the fact that we don’t even know how any of these professors test (except one, since he taught our immuno class last semester).  Now that I’m writing all this, I feel like my complaints aren’t really as warranted as I feel they should be but they’re valid, I swear! 

Now that we’re back to reality, I still haven’t caught up on sleep and feel like crap every waking minute.  Part of it is because I’m insane and OF COURSE took in another foster puppy.  Not only is it a puppy, but it’s a crazy 5 week old puppy.  It’s slowly working it’s way into ‘my program’ but hopefully at the next adoption day he’ll go.  Cuteee, but I’m just not into puppies like I used to be…

It irritates me when I explain a situation over e-mail and the person replies back with an incorrect reiteration of the email without a real reply to my situation.  I know that’s probably a weird oxymoron, “incorrect reiteration” but this isn’t the first time it’s happened.  And I assure you, I questioned my explanation before I jumped to the conclusion that they were idiots.

It’s happening as we speak… 3 different e-mails come and gone, basically slight variations of each other, all ending in “let me know” when none of my questions were ever answered in the first place.

I get a lot of ‘junk’ e-mail through the school too… so another useless e-mail is not appreciated, especially when I need a matter resolved.  I don’t know how many bake sales actually happen in a semester, but I’d easily say there are AT LEAST 1-2 each week.  And there are AT LEAST 2 e-mails per day telling you about it.

Rant done, gotta get studyin’!