for those of you who are keeping up...

the test did not seem to go well. the questions were confusing - some had no correct answers or incorrect information in the questions themselves (as confirmed by the professor after class...)

i am starting to wonder why i have to pay $10k a year to purchase a DVM, when i could just get the books and learn this stuff myself. after the test, i was feeling dejected, so i took a moment to visit the clinic and remind myself of why i chose vet school. unfortunately, it was a relatively slow day. the only interesting animal visiting the clinic was an african serval cat. serval cats are wild cats - they look like miniature cheetahs and weigh up to 40lbs. people actually buy them and keep them as pets. yes. i know. people are mostly stupid. anyway, the serval was in the exotics ward with a big sign on the door saying 'don't go in unless you are a doctor' - but i asked permission and got to get a peek at the boy. he was very cute and snuggly. but he hissed at me. so he wasn't a happy kitty. i also visited the blood donor ferrets. they are a neat little couple of rodents. also, a lamb baby only 3 days old. very cute.

we found a car today. i was happy with the outcome - surprisingly so. we had in our minds that we would wind up with a much older honda, toyota, or mazda - because we didn't want to spend a lot of money and we wanted something cheap and reliable (yeah yeah, i know...what were we thinking?) we never really considered a domestic car. but we went to the mazda dealership (we'd had absolutely ZERO luck elsewhere - private sellers, used car lots, etc) - and found a ford escort wagon 1994. it was a one owner trade in (a 72 year old man) with a mere 87k miles on it. immaculately kept inside and out. we were given the title with the owners name - and his phone number, as he still lives in maryville. ernest (the original owner) says "that car don't drink no gas and it don't eat no oil." we purchased it for $2500 - taxes and everything. in cash. it was the easiest and most pleasant car buying experience ever. the escort is the same color as dara's...that purply red. we bought a car in cash, paid off our credit card debt and cancelled our only credit card, and paid my hospital bill in full. we are now officially debt free (because student loans don't count, right?)... we are also liberated of all our motorola stock. but it was worth it, right?

so that's a load off.

this semester is going to be very very hard. this week was only the second week of school, and it was obscenely difficult. i felt a little sad today, in fact. we were in class till 3:30 or 5 every day except for wednesday. we had an anatomy quiz and a physiology test. we also have 5 other classes to keep up with and numerous labs - as well as extracurricular involvements (equine club, awe, and being class prez)...it's overwhelming. and now, i get to spend most of saturday and all of sunday studying, studying, studying, studying...

you get the picture...