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’!

For a semester that’s not supposed to be as busy as last semester, I’m super busy.

I managed to get the cold that’s being passed around and am still coughing up crap from it… that’s annoying mostly because of how annoying I think it is when other people cough and sneeze excessively in class.  There has to be someone in my class that wants to kill me as much as I want to kill them when they do it… ?

Tutoring is more enjoyable for me than I originally thought, although I’m not doing a good job as far as letting it consume most of my time instead of studying for my own classes.  My people just had their exams, which I hope went well… I can’t help but feel that I’m semi-responsible for their grades if it were to turn out badly.

The track-thing fell through, which was probably better anyway, but it’s still a little disappointing — a mini-story does accompany but probably not appropriate for the public internet forum.  It just also sucks that I spent money to buy stuff that I didn’t even get to use!

Midterms are coming up and I really need to get into study-mode, but it’s just not kicking in like I’d hoped.  The classes this semester are just soooooo booorrriinnnnngggggg… pathology is kinda cool sometimes & I hear the necropsies (sp?) are way cooler than the powerpoint presentations made it out to be, but bacteriology is like microbio from undergrad, viro is like immuno + viruses and pharmacology is just like pharmacology.  Which, I took 2 semesters of in undergrad as well.  SO, I just feel like things are just dragging along until the freak-out begins… that should be in about 1.5 weeks.

Scheduled Doobie & Manny’s 2nd round of titers, too — I’m worried but not worried since I won’t be there, but I’m sure things will be fine.  It’s like animals who are more nuts with their owners and once they’re taken by the techs and away from their people they come back to Earth and mellow out.  I hope that’s the case, too.  When I was at home getting Doobie’s echo done, the clinician and techs joked that I was talking trash about my dog.  I wasn’t making anything up… he DOES freak out when palpated and when his heart is being listened to, I wasn’t the only one there when it’s happened, I have witnesses!  This last time though he was seen by one of the community practice vets from VMRCVM’s VTH who used to be in the army for 12-15 years so she was used to working dogs (I’m not implying that working dogs are unsocialized freaks, but I think the “working dogs” that she’s had experiences with, that worked in our favor, are the dogs that weren’t meant to be adored pets in the home and therefore weren’t socialized to love everyone who petted their head; they had jobs that they were good at and unfortunately many of them may not have been great with all people)… it was the first time Doobie’s ever gotten a full physical exam, EVER.  I was really impressed.  She’s going to be the one seeing him again for the 2nd titer, but then he needs to get a health certificate 30 days out from departure and she’s going to be off-clinics and heading to Europe so that’s going to be another stress-ulcer for me later.

In other news; I have a new foster dog — his name is Tobey.  He was found wandering near campus and was going to get re-released in a different area of the island if no one took him in, so that’s where PAWS came in thus leading him to my home.  Tula, now *my* kitty, isn’t exactly thrilled at this new arrangement because we can’t figure out if he wants to desperately play with her or eat her…  Anyway, I got him a few days after my AC unit outside caught on fire and practically imploded.  Oh the adventures of living on St. Kitts!!

Tobey

Week 1 of 3rd semester is over and I hate to say it, but I’m BORED!  The classes aren’t interesting (hopefully, it’s just not ‘yet’) and we get out at 12 PM 3x’s a week.  I’m not complaining about getting out early, but this week we didn’t have a lot of material to study so there was a whole lot of sitting around and staring at each other.  That did make time for a volleyball practice though which was convenient, and necessary.

I decided to start tutoring Anatomy I & II this semester so we’ll see how that goes – I have a handful of students right now for each and I think I might draw the line there… I can already see myself doing their notes before I study my own material, so I’m going to have to be careful with that.  I’m pretty excited about it though because this time I can already tell that Anatomy II information stuck better than Anatomy I did when I went into 2nd semester!  I’m still TA’ing too but this way I get what I want and I can go in order.

That’s my OCD talking — it’s like with TV shows… I start watching a series, but then if by some chance life gets in the way and I miss an episode then I can’t continue watching the series anymore.  At least until it comes out on DVD so I can watch it straight though.  It drives me crazy, skipping episodes, so I just can’t do it — I’ve ‘dropped’ several shows for this reason, but I just can’t seem to get over it!  Crazy, I know.  TA’ing was kind of like that… you’re not able to schedule yourself at regular intervals so you end up jumping from one topic to another given that there are actually people in the lab to assist in the first place.  It really shouldn’t matter, but going out of the order it was taught really bugs me and then I find myself backtracking information to make sure the stuff in between isn’t something they missed out on!  It’s personally frustrating, but I’m hoping my tutorees will fill that gap in my life, lol.

Went out to the racetrack this morning to watch some of the horses breeze ~ can’t wait to get started riding!  It sounds like we’re going to start slow, thank God, and go out one afternoon a week and do the afternoon workouts for some of the horses then go Saturday mornings, too.  Here are some views of the track:

Beaumont Track, Saint Kitts

Hopefully.

Just took my last final and I think I gave that my poorest effort of all the finals, but it was my highest running grade so I’ll take it.  I feel good about all the finals, I don’t think I bombed any of them anyway.  If I have supporting facts stored in my brain for every answer that I’ve chosen then I walk way from the exams thinking I’ve done fairly well and so far it’s been pretty consistent.  I just hope that Saturday brings good news as well — grades are released that day and with each passing day I’ve gotten more delirious, so fingers crossed everyone.

I’m so pumped that it’s over that I’m tired… big parties are planned for tonight, Lord knows we’ve deserved it after the semester from HELL.  Right now though, I think I’m going to sit by my pool and drink a Bloody Mary!

Virginia, I’ll see you on Saturday (hopefully) !!

… of 2nd semester, that is.

I have a Neuroanatomy Exam at 3:10ish PM today.  Freaking out, of course.  That’s why I’m writing a post rather than studying to calm the nerves a bit…

THEN, next week my schedule looks like this:

Monday – Physio II Final
Tuesday – Immunology Final
Wednesday – Anatomy II Final
Thursday – Parasitology Final

THEN, this semester is OVER!

In other news, my foster puppy has been adopted, YAY!  When they find homes, it IS really worth it… I also heard down the grapevine that my foster kitty might have found her forever home, too — I haven’t been officially notified yet but if so, then that’s good too.  There’s a part of me that really wanted to keep her, but it was on the condition that she was still with me at the end… if she’s not, then I guess it wasn’t meant to be.  Honestly, I SHOULDN’T be bringing anything home with me ANYWAY. 

Although I have a bad feeling that a little grey tabby girl kitty will come around in the near future and then I’ll HAVE to keep her because we know how I am with matching pairs of pets…