ruminations

i'm fond of that word. i just finished reading nutrition. i find it to be so terribly dull. i was reading about how to properly feed dairy cattle vs beef cattle vs sheep vs goats. my eyes almost rolled back in my head. and not because i have no interest in those animals. just because nutrition is freaking boring.

i'm about to move onto alimentary systems (otherwise known as vomiting and diarrhea 101). it's a much more interesting class. i'm already way behind. in 2 weeks, i think we've covered 300 pages of notes or something. unreal.

nothing else to report. i'm trying to arrange to move my opthal midterm so that i can go down to FL for a weekend in february. i would leave thurs and come back monday night. flying, preferably. my favorite pastime, as most of you know, is flying. that and shoving small pieces of glass up my nostrils. i'm looking into getting some xanax from someone so that i can properly sedate myself once on board. what's sad is that i'm a rational person (stop snickering!). i know that flying is 1000 times safer than getting in my car everyday. i know that i'm in no more control in my car than i am in an airplane. although i do have the illusion of control with the car. i know that we all have to go sometime - and when it's time, it's time. and it's not like crashing would be any worse of a way to die than the myriad other options. so...i still hate flying. and i still cry and get airsick.

i'm such a weeny-head.

remiss

as in, i have been remiss in posting lately. every time i sit down to write, i stop. i really don't want to because all of the stuff milling around in my head right now is painful and unpleasant to write about. yes, i have finally found a way to make myself stop being so open to the world. death. also, i think all the thoughts in my head are trite and there's no real point in expressing them - because - even if they aren't trite - there isn't any answer to the them - or anything to say. so why bring it up at all?

school is school. i go everyday, sit through class, try to get enough sleep and study. i haven't been studying nearly as much as i need to be though. i think i'm burnt out. it's not just me, either. i look around during class and people look...stuporous. a lot of people haven't even started studying yet. at least i'm not quite that bad. i've been working. just not nearly as furiously or with as much dedication as usual. it's hard to care right now.

my first test is a week from tomorrow - endocrinology. i like the class. i find hormones rather interesting. it's a short class though, i think it ends in march.

i had a low-key weekend. friday night was a movie and dinner with jim (wedding crashers - which was AWFUL!) and hardee's thickburgers (which were hot, fresh, and GREAT!). saturday, i went to the big ole flea market near here with friends from school (j, s, and a). from there, i drove home and spent the day/night in gvegas . mom and i watched teen wolf (worse than i remembered!), gilmore girls (8 episodes!), and 2 episodes of firefly. during all this, we socialized and ate A LOT. we went to bed at 4am, like we were 16 year old girls. i woke up groggy and guessed the time to be around 12:30pm. boy, was i wrong. it was 2:30 in the afternoon. i gathered my stuff and came home.

my goal was to clean up the house a bit, eat dinner, and settle down to study. but then our hot water heater ruptured and poured water all over the basement. so that took some time to deal with (calls to landlord, putting stuff up off the floor, etc). i just settled down to study around 7:45. and here i am. we have no hot water, so i have to get up too early and go over to my brother's to shower. i'm toying with doing it late tonight before bed. we'll see.

my uncle buster is dying of liver cancer. he's in hospice care now - at home in brkr with his wife and family. i'm trying to figure out a weekend to go down and visit - but we'll see how that works out.

it's shaping up to be a stellar semester (sarcasm is hard to convey on the internet - so - i meant that with HEAVY sarcasm).

fun week

i had a fun week. no class, we were in CE (clinical experience). i was in the exotics ward, which is where - OF COURSE - i wanted most to be. myself and the other 2nd year knew more about birds than the fourth years we were on rotation with - so i got to do a lot of bird handling and other fun stuff. it was a great week. i got to see another tiger from the local rescue having surgery. and i actually took pictures this time (albeit with my camera phone). we had several interesting cases, including an amazon with an old humeral fracture and an african grey with a mysterious, unidentifiable nodule in his air sacs. i loved the experience.

other than that, i haven't much to say. it doesn't feel like school has really started yet because we only had 3 days of classes. next week is when the fun truly begins. tuesday - since monday, i'll be at the CDC. we leave for atlanta tomorrow.

i still sleep too much, a combination of being depressed and sick. i got whatever fun little bug is traveling around. sore throat, cough, snot...the works. i'm finally getting over it. but now jim has it. he's been asleep all day.

not much else to say. if you've never listened to calexico - go download the album 'feast of wire' - it's incredible.

stuff

what a fascinating title for my latest comments, eh? school started wednesday. i finished my last final on tuesday. not much of a break. i kept the status quo for my grades.

3 As (toxo, infxs dz, gen path), 2 B+ (anesth, pharm), 3 Bs (heme, sx, anesth). i'm pretty happy with my final grades, i must say. this semester, i'm aiming for straight As. ha. ha. ha. ha.

ha.

okay. the first three days of school were fairly low key. we had between 4-6 hours of lecture and a "lab". i put lab in quotes because it was more of a lecture with case-based notes instead of didactic notes. but whatever. so far, we've had lectures in nutrition (BORING!), GI diseases (vomiting and diarrhea), endocrine (Cushings and Addison diseases), and opthamology. i think optho is going to be more interesting than i expected. i think nutrition is going to be even more deadly dull than i envisioned. getting up at 6:50, when it's still dark outside, hasn't been as hard as i thought it would be. i suffer usually when trying to get back into a routine. but i'm doing okay. the drive is longer, from our new place. about 15 minutes, plus 5 for walking in, settling, etc.

saturday and sunday are the 4th annual exotics symposium. this is our school's first year hosting it. i'm pretty excited. lectures all morning from 8 till noon. then wetlabs in the afternoon. i'll be sitting in lectures for 4 hours, but i won't be tested on the material. i'm strictly there to learn learn learn - and not worry worry worry about regurgitating the material verbatim down to the tiniest, most insignificant nuance on a test. it'll be fun. my wetlabs include an avian hematology lab - hands on, and a trip to the zoo - to go see the vet clinic and take a look at the exhibits from a vet's perspective. aren't you envious? the lectures are a grab-bag of topics, with 2 lectures going on at one time, so i'll get to choose. there are tons of avian lectures offered all day, including avian orthopedics, avian anesthesia, raptor nutrition, and a wealth of others. so i'm excited to get all this info. learning without worrying about being tested every five minutes is so much more enticing. i'm not even lamenting the fact that i'm going to essentially spend my weekend at school, doing school stuff. but what's new about that anyway? and monday is a holiday. so i'll get to sleep in. unless i get called in to help with emergency equine surgery. i'm on call that day.

my grandmother had pacemaker surgery on tuesday. she's doing well. this is, i believe, her third pacemaker. this one was recalled by guidant systems. i was nervous about it - but it was an outpatient surgery, so she was home the same day. i've talked to her daily, and while tired, she seems to be doing alright. papa is taking care of her, and she hasn't been cooking -- just resting. i'm hoping to spend my spring break in lakeland with them.

i sleep a lot. i don't think that's good. i've been coming home from class and sleeping for 3-5 hours. then getting up, eating dinner, watching some light TV, and going to bed early (10-11). i've also been taking tylenol PM to help me sleep. it knocks me out and keeps me from dreaming. it's a blissful uninterrupted 7 hours usually. i haven't started studying for classes yet, even though we're already neck deep in material. next week is our first CE/ABLEs week. so no classes. i'm on clinical experience, working in the avian/exotics ward. i expect the next 7 days to be FULL of learning. i'm excited about that. CE coupled with the exotics symposium should pump my little skull full of knowledge! and then, on the next sunday (23rd?), a group of vet students is being chauffered by bus down to atlanta. we've been specially invited to visit the CDC on monday, after a welcoming reception on sunday night. i'm excited about it, i've always wanted to see the CDC. that's where they took stu redman when he and the rest of whatever texas town he lived in caught captain trips.

alright, i've blabbled enough.

4 weeks
it's been a month/4 weeks today.

i took my path final today. it went fine. then i ran errands - got my contact prescription, bought school supplies, went to the post office, etc. etc. all the stupid stuff i needed to do before school starts. tomorrow. i'm not ready.

i can't think of much else to say. alison came over and we watched the sisterhood of the traveling pants. it was terrible.

i have been listening to a lot of music right now and realizing how much there is that i'll never hear. and how good music can be. i've discovered (or rather, alison did and passed them on) - calexico. a mexican-ish themed band. incredible. and death cab for cutie is amazing. and the shins - chutes too narrow - is a great CD. and grandaddy's new CD is fantastic, too. music is a good way to submerge the thoughts. headphones drown out a lot, even the internal voice(s).

"if the silence takes you, i hope it takes me too"
-- 'soul meets body' by death cab for cutie

haven't felt much like posting
briefly, i'm taking my pharmacology final tomorrow. it shouldn't be any worse than they normally are. pathology on tuesday. school starts wednesday. i did surgery again on last friday, through a low-cost neuter/spay clinic. i got to neuter a puppy and to spay another puppy. i've been keeping busy cleaning, organizing, and settling the nest. and going out to dinner. we've been out to dinner 4 nights in a row. wednesday, we took andrew, dee, karen, and james out to dinner to thank them for moving us - at parkside tavern. expensive but worth the money. thursday, we went to bonnie's farewell party (she's moving to alabama), friday - the ashes came up to see bonnie off and we went to wasabi. and last night, we finally had a 'welcome home andrew' / happy birthday rhiannon / congratulations on graduating rhiannon / happy birthday jim dinner party at carrabas. we have so much leftover food we'll be eating it for months.

in the downtime, i'm pretty depressed. i feel surreal and detached most of the time. i try to keep myself occupied, but i don't have any motivation to do anything in particular. so i just watch movies, watch TV, go out to dinner, and sleep. i don't want to read really...studying for the next 2 days will keep me busy, thankfully.

haven't felt much like posting

briefly, i'm taking my pharmacology final tomorrow. it shouldn't be any worse than they normally are. pathology on tuesday. school starts wednesday. i did surgery again on last friday, through a low-cost neuter/spay clinic. i got to neuter a puppy and to spay another puppy. i've been keeping busy cleaning, organizing, and settling the nest. and going out to dinner. we've been out to dinner 4 nights in a row. wednesday, we took andrew, dee, karen, and james out to dinner to thank them for moving us - at parkside tavern. expensive but worth the money. thursday, we went to bonnie's farewell party (she's moving to alabama), friday - the ashes came up to see bonnie off and we went to wasabi. and last night, we finally had a 'welcome home andrew' / happy birthday rhiannon / congratulations on graduating rhiannon / happy birthday jim dinner party at carrabas. we have so much leftover food we'll be eating it for months.

in the downtime, i'm pretty depressed. i feel surreal and detached most of the time. i try to keep myself occupied, but i don't have any motivation to do anything in particular. so i just watch movies, watch TV, go out to dinner, and sleep. i don't want to read really...studying for the next 2 days will keep me busy, thankfully.