New Exam Schedule

This post will interest all those who end up on my site after searching “Ross vet school”… i get quite a few of you’s!

Starting from next semester, which will be my 3rd semester, exams will no longer be given every so many weeks… totalling 3-4 exams per class.   NOW, we get one… let me say this again, ONE midterm per class (4) then ONE final at the end.

Let’s just say that some people in my class were PISSED when they heard about this.  Unfortunately, some were screeching like banshees about how it wasn’t fair and how it was only our class because our class was so huge and they were trying to weed people out… it kind of made them look not-bright considering it WASN’T just our class and OF COURSE they’re going to deny the fact that they are deliberately trying to weed our class of 130-something people down to a more reasonable class size.

I’m actually not that upset over it.  Yeah, you have one exam that you could screw up and screw your grade for the entire semester… or the other option is to just do WELL on the midterm, then take the final.  It’s not the most brilliant concept, but it seems to be one people are having a hard time grasping.  They’re not going to change the exam schedule, they have made that very clear, so deal with it — just do well on the exams, duh.

The ideas behind this minimal testing is to get away from the tiny details that some profs like to target… it’ll require big-picture questions and is geared to get away from the practice of studying test-to-test.  To explain that better… for exam 1 of class 1 you would study for it and take it… in the mean time, your other classes are being put on the back burner until those exams are next in line.  Then, you focus on the next up coming test thus putting the next class at the back of the line until it’s ready to be called up for another test.

I understand the reasoning and for the most part I agree with them… I think it’s totally do-able and no, I don’t think it’s going to be easy for me because I’m actually quite good at functioning test-to-test, but it’s all about being responsible.

Failing is not an option.  Getting bad grades aren’t an option, so what else can you do? Nothing, you just gotta get it done.  And, get it done right.

Misalignment

I’m killing some time before I have to TA in the Anatomy Lab…

It’s the final stretch until Finals Week — I can feel the eerie calm again like last semester.  Just took a Neuro quiz yesterday that I did well on even though I fell into a funk and didn’t really study for it… good sign, but I doubt I have many more of those left in my pocket.  From now until August I need to mentally, emotionally & physically prepare myself for the disaster of final exams… therein lies my problem.
I’m not quite mentally exhausted because everytime I feel that way I’m amazed that I can fit more stuff in and it stays… but my brain is constantly crying out for care in return and I think I’m compensating by eating.  We learned that your neurons are in constant need for glucose and since studying is all about the neurons, it’s all about the glucose… that’s my justification: the more studying I’m doing is leading to the more eating I’ve done.  At least my clothes are still fitting right now…

I’m a bit emotionally distraught.  As a student, you come here to go to school and are thrown in the same boat as a bunch of other people, you make friends, blah blah blah… the making friends part I think has always been a complex subject for me.  I seem to categorize people into 3 different groups, 1) stupid  2) normal  3) on a different plane.  Despite the categorization, friends are friends, but after a little bit I start to subconsciously hold standards up to the people that I meet and as usual, they’re rarely met — it’s not their fault; it just makes me crazier than the average person.  People just make things more complicated and 2nd semester is too soon to be testing those friendships.  Plus, I’m away from home where I know there are people who HAVE shown me time and time again that they are good friends or just as crazy as I am!

Lastly, I need to start exercising, again.  This would be attempt #3 in this entire semester to do this but I’m eating while studying, eating my emotions and eating to eat (because life says we need to eat b’fast, lunch & dinner).  Plus, the beer is not helping.  I have a friend who swims in the ocean a few times a week… I don’t know if I’m brave enough for that knowing there are sharks out there… my neighbor fishes for them so I KNOW they’re out there!

I do look forward to coming home though so there is a light at the end of the tunnel… seeing the people & animals that I love.  AND, I have an externship to look forward to!

Stressed OUT

I need a cartoon picture of crazy blood-shot eyes…

Getting a little bit older & vet school has done NOTHING for my rising anxiety levels.  It’s definitely done nothing for my patience, thus loads and loads of stress is something that I am continually building on myself.

This is definitely one of those ‘hell weeks.’  I just had a Physio II test this morning and although I feel OK about it, one can never predict the outcome.  Especially me.  Apparently, I’m not a naturally logical person when it comes to the functioning of a body… I think I’m too open minded to other options, lol.  Anything can happen, given the ‘right’ circumstances, right?  Ha… Well, it just seems that I have to work a little harder than everyone else to understand physio when everyone else says it’s just an intuitive thing… you either know it or you don’t.  I guess I’m in the ‘don’t know it’ category.  Sometimes I think I really get it, but then when I’m left to use the facts that I’ve learned to predict the outcome, I end up on a path that nature apparently wouldn’t have gone down!  Oh well… once the grades come out, we’ll know for sure.

Which leads me to my next problem.  I have major anxiety over waiting for grades that it totally hinders my studying.  ESPECIALLY knowing that I have a crazy test that I could potentially FAIL on thursday.  Immunology.  Notorious for failing 2nd semester students… I got an A on the first test, but it’s the 2nd test that ‘gets them all ~”  I have this bad habit of reading 2 pages then zonking out or reading just the words.  It’s a weird thing to do, but it’s like reading aloud (but in your head) so that I’m just concentrating on enunciating the words (all in my head) yet not taking the time to understand the concepts behind the sentences.  It’s a big time waster… so I end up reading all of it, to retain none of it.  Bad badddd…  And this is one of those classes where you basically memorize the material and vomit it back out for the test!

Normally my physio prof is on the ball about getting grades posted asap… so I’ll be sitting here waiting so that I can officially start cramming like a crazy person until Thursday!

Tired.

I’ve been a real Debbie-downer lately but I’m just so tired these days.  So tired of school, so tired of people, so tired of sweating, so tired of this culture, so tired of this freakin’ island.  I don’t hate it, but I’m having a hard time finding ‘the beauty of another culture.’  I feel like I’m seeing more bad than good… I realize that I’m on a developing country, but where is the beautiful, tradition-ridden culture that you always find in other countries?  If it’s here, I don’t see it… it’s a little unsettling to me that I can only count on less fingers than one hand has, the number of locals that I trust.  I’m not saying that the people of this island are bad people, but the culture doesn’t seem to enourage courtesy or dignity at a great degree and that’s unfortunate.  I think it’s just compiling and I’m feeling dumpy… so close yet so far to the end of this ridiculous semester.

This past week there was an older woman I stopped for… you have to yield for pedestrians here too but the pedestrians here aren’t exactly in a hurry, nor do they stay within crosswalks, or even on the sidewalk for that matter.  Usually they just spill out into the road and then they glare at me for definitely NOT almost hitting them…  Well so I stop, wave at the lady and she waves me to go instead.  I know this sounds really simple and probably silly, but this isn’t something that usually happens to me here… something so insignificant, yet it was impressive enough in my mind to write about it.  I have always believed that if you’re in a crosswalk and there’s ONE car coming that you should just let them through… the car is going to go through the crosswalk before you even make it out to the middle so it’s not going to kill you to wait 3 seconds… what WILL kill you is if you try to cross and they can’t stop in time and hit you.  More than half the time, I get glared at for stopping so abruptly as if I was contemplating hitting them on purpose yet decided last minute not to…

One other time I went through a crosswalk before a person and their child even stepped out onto the road and this van driver half-hung out of his window to yell at me.  USUALLY, the local drivers cross a reckless line that I’ve never even known from retarded teenage boys.  Let’s just say, I say a little prayer and take a deep breath every time I get in my vehicle.

Today’s event left me feeling exasperated though… lots of stray dogs on this island — ‘you can’t save them all’ has never been such an apparent concept than here.  There’s this narrow street area right as you enter the main city, I take this road to go to school… well this one dog was zigging & zagging; I really thought it was neurologic… and of course, there was a dude walking almost in the middle of the road, too.  So cars were driving around the dog and man.  I go by slowly and look in my rear view because that dog was really worrying me… the car behind me went around the guy and then just clipped the dog’s hip!  I screamed in my car because I thought it was going to roll under the tire, but it spun on the ground then got back up just to start zigzag’ing all around the road again.  Of course, the people just kept going as soon as they had clearance again.  Earlier this week, I swore a herd of baby pigs running across the road was going to get demolished by a van and a car going in opposite directions.  Again, watching in my rear view I literally screamed like a banshee — I saw the car behind me slide diagonally because they slammed on the brakes, the van must have slammed on their brakes too and then there was just smoke everywhere.

You just don’t stop here when you’re by yourself.  Especially when you’re going through certain parts of town… the guy kicking the puppy in the side street, the kids chasing a dog into another side street and then hearing it screaming seconds later… I want to stop, but I also don’t want to die.  That probably sounds really dramatic but sometimes looking out for #1 is always going to be the better choice in the long run…

The Slapping Game

I love fridays… it’s the end of the school week and it’s time for some volleyball!  It also means that the 2-for-1 beer specials are going on, too!  The funny thing about the beers here are that they aren’t regulated well… as my neighbor told me “one batch seems to more toxic than the others.”  Looking back, I can’t agree more — I think between everyone sharing the beer special, since I know I can’t drink the first beer before the second beer gets warm in the freakin’ 24/7 summer heat here, I drink about the same amount every friday… some fridays, I’ll be perfectly fine while other fridays, I find it amazing that I made it home while taking others home as well!  Yesterday was probably one of the funnier fridays so far…  I accidently started Slapping Wars.

Sometime after our game, I lost my depth perception and ended up whacking my friend’s back leaving a huge red handprint.  Somehow that turned into giving another friend symmetrical handprint’s across the chest.  Each finger was distinctly outlined… hopefully pictures are stored on someone’s camera for me to steal and post later.  Of course this all snowballed and there was slapping going on by multiple people.  I felt like I was in elementary school again, but in that fun care-free ‘who cares if we look stupid’ way.  Being an adult can be stuffy sometimes and this was a perfect way to relieve some tension from school and the tests to come… ok, “perfect” is probably not the right word to use, but it was still hilarious.  There’s nothing like reverting back to childhood games to bring people closer together.

Now that it’s no longer friday afternoon, back to doing the responsible thing:  spending some good quality time on campus to study some skulls & help some 1st semesters in Anatomy.  So far, I’ve really enjoyed TAing Anatomy — hopefully I can keep doing it, I can already see how it would help when I had already forgotten things from that last semester.

Mid-semester Break & Puppies

Thank GOD we have these… it’s only a 3-day weekend, but I will take it!

So, Tudor is growing every day… of course, he was the runt of the litter, but now he’s getting longer and taller each day so who knows how big he’ll really get!  I do really like him and now that we have housebreaking and basic obedience commands down, he’s become really easy to live with — I get the “how are you REALLY going to let him go?” from all different angles, but honestly, I WANT HIM TO GO.  There are many reasons that go with this statement, the primary should be because I CANNOT have another dog.  Nor do I want another dog at this point!  The cat is a different story…

I think so highly of my own dogs that I can easily say ‘no’ to adding another to ‘my pack.’  I do the purebred-thing because I want a certain kind of dog and I commend all of those who have taken in rescues and adopted from shelters, but it’s just not something that I’m readily going to do.  Later in life, when I’m looking for just a companion dog or just wanting a dog that isn’t a doberman then I will DEFINITELY hit the shelters first.  But for now, I’m right where I want to be with my dogs — well, despite the fact that I’m not physically with them at the moment.

This stuff reminds me of the discussions I’ve had with people that start with “Do you love Labs?” I think I’ve found a pretty distinct line between lab lovers and non-lab lovers.  For the most part, it sounds like you’re either a lab person or you’re not.  I enjoy other peoples’ labs, but would I ever own one?  Probably never.  I’m saying this after having test driven one via fostering one several years back.

There is one dog that always sticks out in my mind though when it comes to rescued dogs that aren’t dobermans that I wish could have adopted — her name is Norah.  We took her out of a high-kill West Virginia shelter for AWFP and she was adopted fairly quickly.  Of course, I took that picture of her and knew it was MONEY before I even previewed it.

Norah

I’m Back!

Just kidding!  Well, hopefully.  I thought 1st semester sucked the life out of me… 2nd semester sucked it out and obliterated it into little particles!

Where have I been?  Here.  Just running around like a crazy person… before we saw that I was fostering a cat.  Then I ended up with two puppies.  That was not the smartest decision of my life.  They were 5 weeks old and 1 of them finally went to it’s new forever home about a week ago so now I’m down to one puppy and one cat.  So far, I’ve still managed to pull off decent grades given the retarded schedule and puppy boot-camping.

I have a test on Wednesday for Physio II then thankfully there is some time for the dust to settle.  Oddly enough, there’s only 2 months left in this semester and I had no idea — in the single moments, I’ve felt that every day has dragged which made every week seem even longer than the last.  I’ll go more in detail about my previous weeks after this test has been taken… I didn’t want my lonely blog to go stale.

Here’s a picture of my foster puppy, Tudor.  He’s 8-9 weeks old now.  If someone thinks they are just destined to have him, then shipping arrangements when I come home for August could probably be arranged. lol

My Foster Cat

Meet Tula!

She loves lounging on the pillows!

She came into PAWS through the Feral Cat Project, which I believe is a student run thing here at Ross U.  She used to be a ‘Marriott Stray’ where she begged for scraps from tourists.  I ate there one day by the pool and was begged at by another stray cat, this beautiful Siamese with an F’d up eye, I really wanted to take him home!  Anyway, she was very pregnant when she came into the program and they ended up spaying her and aborting the babies.  She’s still got some mammary baggage going on, but she’s such a petite little cat that it’s almost a cute feature.

The first night she spent in my apartment was interesting and warrants a well written story in a post so I’ll try to add it a little bit later.

For now, I HAVE to get some studying done!
There are seriously not enough hours in the day.

Where did my life go?

I sold my soul to vet school.

Second semester S-U-C-K-S already.  The days just draggggg onnnnnn and they are by far the longest days ever, even though I feel like we’re getting out of class earlier than last semester.  I think the biggest effect is because we have these ridiculous breaks in between that leave you with 2-3 hours… not necessarily a bad thing, but you’re never really done with your day until much later.  Then of course there are the meetings, TA sessions, etc.

The material we’re learning so far isn’t too bad… yet.  I’ve been sufficiently warned and am thoroughly scared.  But, right now, it’s not so bad;
- In Physiology II, we just finished Water/Water Balance/Osmosis and now we’re headed towards Renal Physiology — Yay, for the Kidney Gods!
- In Parasitology, we’re just plowing through worms, hehe.  Nematodes are roundworms which look just like spaghetti, no joke.  Cestodes are flatter worms which are being compared to fettucine.  I’ll never look at pasta the same way again.
- In Immunology, we’re still in the intro phases so all is good.  This (and Physio II) is what fails a lot of people so I’m trying to stay ahead in this class.  Had a tutor session last night that I found to be pretty productive.  We had to take an extra session to go over Bacteriology because apparently we don’t take that class OR Virology until later, yet its necessary to know for Immunology… curriculum changes anyone?!
- Anatomy II is still just same ol’ Anatomy.  This semester, I’m a TA for Anatomy I… hopefully I’ll be able to help some firsties!  We just did external genitalia, again (we finished last semester doing this) — this poor mare that we keep using for palpation has gotten so cranky that now she sees us and is all teeth and kicking out at the teachers and rearing up in the crossties.  It’s all just so safe.  Note the sarcasm.  She’s gotten really sour with the institution poking her vulva.  I would too!

I currently have a foster kitty and am receiving another one on Wednesday!  It’s really nice having another ‘body’ in here… even just this little cat makes it better than just being all alone.  I will have pictures at some point.

I started writing a Home: Part II entry then shortly thereafter I left the U.S. and lost what little hold I had on my life.  I do have some pictures to share — the friday before I left, Ken and I went hiking in the Cascades in Pembroke, VA and took lots of pictures… of the dogs!

Here’s my favorite:

Here’s the rest of the gallery!

Home: Part I

I like how things happen in life that make you appreciate what you previously took for granted. I’m not saying I hate St. Kitts — I’m just saying that I never realized how easy and convenient things can be here in the U.S.. I never realized how much I missed my car, Mr. Honda, either. I was really hating on him towards the end, but driving around today made me realize how much I’d give to have him on the island instead of the P.O.S. that I’m driving now. I have trust issues… as of right now, the island car and I, haven’t quite bonded yet.

Ever since I’ve gotten home, I’ve managed to eat 2 home cooked meals in 7 days. Do I feel gross? YES. But, am I happy? YES. There is going to be some working out once I get back on the rock, but for now, I am reveling in the fact that I missed eating out at fast food chains THAT much and am fulfilling the greatly missed activity. Mmmmm, McDonald’s! Eating what you want when you want it is a feeling that’s hard to beat. I still have much eating to do before I leave… I will have to be rolled back to the island, for sure.

Did lots of shopping already… getting ready for second semester – got more highlighters, apparently one semester was too much for my favorite highlighter. Trying new tactics of note taking and hoping that this time my plan for organization will stick and help me in the end. I was pretty peeved after getting grades… it’s not that I did poorly, because I didn’t, but I didn’t do SUPER FANTASTIC. And of course, it was due to finals — I felt like I put in so much work throughout just to have the end bring me down, that kind of sucks… and duh, I knew it was a cumulative final, but still… was the work in the middle for nothing? It also looks like I will be doing some wheedling with my professors when I get back!

I’ve been trying to just sit around and spend time with the dogs since I know I’ll be leaving them behind again… in fact, I left them behind to go to Northern VA and it turns out my little dog, Oscar, has probably found his permanent home here. For those who don’t know Oscar’s story — he was having major allergy symptoms and he’s definitely neurotic. I left him with my mom when I went to school with tons of shampoos, cyclosporine, holistic dog food, clothing and booties. He used to eat his little paws raw and constantly attacked the imaginary swarm of flies around his head. Well, he’s no longer on cyclosporine or his crazy shampooing regimen. Although, he still bites the flies, I’d say that he’s doing pretty good here as the solitary dog! I personally believe that living with the big dogs stressed him out or gave him anxiety, or something. It makes me feel better about having had to disperse my dogs and leaving the country — they all look great without me! Here I thought I was the magic maker when it came to owning my pets, lol.

I did go out and buy a Peticure for my mom, however. This was my one complaint — Oscar is so spoiled that she lets his nails grow out longer than I like because “he doesn’t like it.” He doesn’t like clippers and he doesn’t like the dremel, but he dislikes the dremel less than the clippers and I just couldn’t forsee my mom using a real dremel tool from Home Depot. In fact, the Peticure isn’t that different from a real dremel tool at all BUT it does have that shavings catcher which is just priceless as long as you don’t turn it upside down and spill it all over yourself. I did do that once. If you’ve never used a dremel on your dog’s toe nails before, this product is actually a good way to start… it’s fairly low speed and you have the plastic “safety” that you put your dog’s toenail through so you’re not going too far, but as long as you know the general rules of dremeling, you don’t really need to buy the specific product unless you REALLY want that shavings catcher, which I do really love.

Things I want to share about dremeling:

1. Don’t grind for too long; I normally do a billion little ‘zips’ on one nail and this grinds down and shapes at the same time. And obviously, don’t do it for too long because it’ll get hot and hurt your dog. Think of acrylic nails, same concept.
2. Sometimes it helps if you grind all of the nails a bunch of times rather than just working on one nail at a time… this has helped me when working with a dog that got really fussy when you would stay on the one nail.
3. Standing or laying? My one dog would rather lay flat out on his side to be dremeled than any other position… my other dog would rather be standing on a grooming table and be dremeled like how you would pick a horse’s hooves. Littler dogs can be easily done while being held in your lap.
4. If your dog doesn’t mind, I’ve found that it’s quicker to clip the tips then grind all the edges for a smooth finish.

Obviously, you should work with your dog on getting used to the dremel with lots of treats and praise before any crazy manipulations. Usually, it’s not an enjoyable activity but it is definitely a highly tolerable one so don’t give up if they don’t like it the first time!

Anyway… where was I? I’m still in Northern VA for 2 more days and then I’m back to the burg. I can already tell this break was too too short!