against my better judgement

i more or less screwed off this past week. watched movies, slept a lot, went to the last week of classes, and assiduously did not study. i couldn't bring myself to do it. i needed the break too bad. i did study yesterday. and i've been studying most of today. taking a break now. finals start on wednesday and last till next tuesday. then it's over. i cannot explain how relieved i will be when next tuesday finally gets here. this semester has been unparalleled in its awfulness. for more reasons than one.

last night was fun. we all went out for jessica's 25th birthday, to parkside tavern. good food, a few drinks, a nice night altogether. i went to bed early and got up this morning at 10ish to study. which i've been doing - more or less - ever since.

nothing else much to report here. i'm sure i'll be more interesting after finals are over.

relief

i feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my body. today was our 3rd GI exam. i took it on about 2 hours of solid sleep. i don't think i performed particularly well. and i don't care. for the next week and 4 days, i don't have a single test to take. the feeling is one of immense relief. i can study slowly, focus on what i'm learning, and prepare for my finals. the last 4 weeks have been a nightmare, for a variety of reasons - chief among them the fact that we've had approx 2 tests a week - repeatedly. i was about to the end of my rope. in fact, i think i was at the end of my rope, technically. since, instead of studying as much as i should have for this test, i got distracted a lot. it was the worst, most blurred 4 weeks of my life. i think. other things outside of school are affecting me too, but ... i hope everything will be smoother from here on to the end of the semester. i have one more week of classes, then the weekend + 2 study days, then 4 finals. and then i'm officially a third year vet student. kind of dizzying how fast time is flying by me.

i won an award at the annual honors convocation dinner. it was a Merck award, for demonstrating outstanding leadership and citizenship within the vet school. i was nominated by a faculty member, though i will never know who precisely. i got to go to a big fancy dinner (incidentally - on the night BEFORE my GI exam) - and got to eat a lot - and then had to go up on stage and have my picture taken in front of 300 people. it was embarrassing but nice to be recognized. at any rate...

tonight, i went to dinner with 2 of the avian vets from school, classmates, and a noted avian veterinarian who has won the LaFeber award before (big award in the world of avian medicine). it was a good time. we went to stir fry cafe, i had a red stripe and general tso's chicken, and it relaxed me. now i'm just chilling. because i'm taking the FREAKING weekend off. i haven't had a weekend that i didn't have to study on for 3 weeks or something ridiculous like that.

tomorrow is the vet school 'prom' - actually the congrats 2nd year students, you're officially halfway done with clinics big drunkfest. it's an animal masquerade, held at the knoxville zoo. it promises to be a lot of fun. i'm going as a cockatoo. i have a long, slinky white dress and a fabulous head crest of white feathers designed by sharon - and a big feather white boa. i'm going to be very convincing and very sexy. i might post pictures.

my sister-in-law was accepted into dental school. she and andrew will be moving to memphis in a couple of months, to prepare for starting dental school in the fall. i'm excited and anxious for her (since i know what medical programs can do to people - i fall more on the anxious side).

i think that's about all to report here. not very interesting. i've lost the ability to be interesting.

you would think that antibiotics and other drugs would be a kind of important thing to learn. but no, i've learned nothing. our pharm midterm was today, and it was so nasty. so unbelievably bad. the person in our class who normally makes an A and makes fun of us all after tests, because she never thinks they were hard - WELLED UP IN TEARS - post-pharm exam. it was that bad. i think i was sure about the answers to 10 of the 40 3.75 point questions. as the exam went along, i felt a sinking sensation in my stomach. i had to guess on so many. and not - intelligent, 'i can narrow it down to 2 answers guessing' - but 'omigod, i've never seen that drug before!' guessing. not a good feeling. everyone i talked to after the test said it was awful, and they guessed a great deal, too. the outcome of the test is upsetting me, but it's also the fact that i've learned virtually nothing in there. i blame it, partially, on bacteriology. i studied really hard for bacteriology, and i retained absolutely NOTHING from that class. it was the class (last year) - where the test average would be a 56 or a 45. our final had a 30 point curve. i think that i never made above a 67 on a a test, and i got a B+ in the stupid class. it was a waste of time. and now we're trying to learn antibiotics for bacterial infections, when most of the time, i can't even tell you if the bacteria is gram + or gram -. anyway. no more time to complain about it. our zoonoses midterm is on monday. 150+ pages of reading that i havent' even GLANCED at since the class started. it's going to be horrible. but isn't it always?

nothing else to report here. i go to school, i come home. i see j on occasion, when i eat, and sometimes when i go to bed at night. i see my birds and cats probably even less. ahh, vet school.

another death

jim's grandmother died yesterday. we were there when it happened, in bristol. we had gone to visit, since grandma hadn't been drinking or eating well for the past several days. she'd also been having trouble breathing. the hospice people knew that it wouldn't be long, as did jim's dad. so all of us went down there yesterday to say goodbye. we hadn't been there an hour or so, when she died peacefully. she struggled with alzheimer's for something in the neighborhood of 15 years. her decline was slow, but in the last few weeks, it's come on very fast. i don't think anyone expected her to live as long as she has. i'm thankful that she is at rest, i just hope jim's grandad does ok. it's definitely going to change his life in some fundamental ways.

i'm gettingto be some kind of funeral afficianado. i've been to more funerals in the past 3 months than ever in my life. it's not a fun way to spend time. this time, i won't be missing any tests, thankfully, though i won't have as much time to prepare for my ophtho final as i need. it's not the end of the world. it's more important to be with jim and his family now then worry about the small stuff.

apparently, i'm all talk.

i missed a mere 7 points on the 2nd portion of nutrition, so i squeaked in slightly above the A mark, with a 90.1% in the class. amazing. i feel like giving the professor back the A and asking for the grade i really deserved, due to my slacker-dom. but whatever.

neuro was on friday. it was brutal. i'd rather not think about that grade. we'll see. it was evil scantron, so no room for error and no room in which to explain thought processes. you either got it right or you missed it. but i'm finished with 2 classes now, endocrine and nutrition, and i have As in both. ophtho winds up this coming thurs. leaving me with a mere 6 classes or so before the end of the semester. not too bad.