a good week ended

this was, hands down, my best CE experience. i thoroughly enjoyed the 4th years i worked with, the intern, the resident, and the clinician - plus an exchange student named mel. it was just a great week. it made me yearn to be a 4th year sooner than i will be. i realize that, in about 6 months, i'll be in the clinics, working my rear end off, finished with the hours and hours and hours of class for good. it doesn't seem soon enough. i jokingly told my fellow rotation mates that instead of going back to class on monday morning, i was just going to show up in a white coat with a stethoscope and pretend i'm a 4th year.

it was incredibly invigorating to take clients, to sit and talk face to face with owners, hear about their pets' problems, and work on figuring out what caused it. i also realized that, despite how i feel, i have learned a great deal in the last 2.5 years, and that i'm actually going to be SOMEWHAT capable when i'm finished here. i'm going to do an internship, of course - to hone my skills.

i guess i'm just excited -- thrilled -- that i'm really going to be a doctor in less than 2 years. it's not the white coat, it's not the respect of being a doctor, it's not the fact that i'll have dr in front of my name. it's that i'll be fixing animals and fixing people, too. i felt profoundly settled and happy this week. the week was hard, the hours demanding, but i felt great. i wish i could keep that before me - to help me through these next 6 months. i know i'll lose these feelings rapidly - because that's what happens in vet school. but now - now i'm so close to really being there, in the clinics, working and learning. maybe i can hang onto it until i get to the clinics. i hope so. it might propel me and motivate me through this next semester and a half.

vet school has been hard, it's taken it's toll on my happiness, my stability, and my marriage - but i think, in the end, it's going to have been worth most of the struggle. not all of it, i don't think - there are some things that can never be made up for, but enough of it that i can be happy with my life and vocation. i - ME - i am going to be a doctor. i did what i really wanted to do - took the pre-reqs, applied, and went to vet school. and i'm so close.

relaxing week (?)

i'm on CE this week (clinical experience). my assignment is ophthalmology. it's been a decent first two days. i watched a phacoemulsificati0n today (cataract surgery). i also got to look at a variety of eyes - calf, llama, and dog. to top it off, we practiced our different eye surgeries on dead pig eyes. i did much better at the eye surgery than i expected. i struggled the first time. i lack the meticulous nature required for surgery, i think.

at any rate, i should be using this week to catch up. i'll leave that statement with the obvious implications it bears.

we're on emergency duty tomorrow night - so we'll be at school until 11pm or later. supposedly midnight. i hope that isn't the case, but it probably will be.

musings

god, i love football. love it love it love it. the sport, the fans, the excitement, the athleticism, the close calls, the near wins, the near losses, the disappointments...it's all too much for me sometimes. yesterday was one of the biggest rivalry games in the country. we won by a mere 3 points. it was an incredible game. and we are now, i believe, ranked in the national top 10. as we should be. ah... it was so intense. toward the end, i was weak with excitement. my knees actually felt watery. our seats were pretty damned good, a measly 13 rows up from the field. we were in the student section, which doesn't (literally) sit down for the entire 3.5 hours.

i had an odd feeling while i was sitting in the stadium, amidst the 100,00+ people. i felt fully what it must have been like to be alive in the time of the gladiators, in the coliseum, watching that spectacle. we, as humans, have changed so little, really. i mean - our stadium even looks like the coliseum - albeit ours has the large chunk that the coliseum is missing. it was a gorgeous day, a perfectly flawless blue sky, not a cloud in sight, a fall breeze, and football. i love football!! and i love that our team is doing so well this season.

totally unrelated, but nada surf has a song called fruit fly. it's about a swarm of fruit flies taking over a guy's kitchen because he leaves a bag of food on the table. the guy takes the bag to the trash, and when he comes back - the fruit flies are all confused - flying "geometric patterns, smearing out of control." i know it sounds silly, but the song is an EXCELLENT metaphor for life.
essentially the song questions what one does when the purpose has been taken from life. and the answer? you go on. it's a rather sad take on things, but no less true for its melancholy.

at any rate, i love metaphorical ramblings (i love lots of things tonight). especially in song form. i also particularly enjoy the guitar solo at the end. nada surf is a truly underrated band. everyone heard that one song they had that was wildly popular (haha, the song was called popular) - and it sounds nothing like their true sound. check them out, if you haven't - especially fruit fly, blonde on blonde, paper boats, and inside of love.

back to studying behavior.

riddle me this:

what sleeps till 1:30pm on sunday, goes to bed at 9:30p sunday night, comes home from 7 hrs of class on monday only to nap until 8pm?

answer: me.

that was funnier in my head.

what has the attention span of a chipmunk and the motivation of a sloth - but is neither?

answer: me.

in case i'm not getting my point across, i'm having some major motivational and time management issues. as in, i don't want to study and i have plenty of time this week to do so. for once, i am not whining about the insane time crunch that defines my daily existence. i only have a radiology quiz on friday, covering a mere 20 pages of material. and a behavior midterm a week from today, covering 100 or so pages of laughably easy material. then i'm on clinical exposure for a week, working in ophtho - so no exams then either. so yes, for once - vet school has lightened up a tad. and as soon as it does, i flake out and want to sleep all the time and mope around the house.

in other news, someone in our class actually complained about rude people making noises during exams. and when i say noise, i mean coughing, sneezing, and sniffling as a result of being sick. i mean - COME ON - complaining about noisy people who have 1) strep 2) a cold 3) strep and a cold or 4) sinus infections is just ridiculous. i sent out a scathing classwide email about learning some sympathy, as a result. yup, that's me - winning friends and influencing people everywhere i go.

alright, off to probably not study.

i'm writing this down as testament

to the fact that - at this precise moment - i am choosing NOT to study. instead, i am going to read a book. i want to write this down so that in a week or two, when i'm panicking and crying and hysterical because i'm so behind, i'll be able to come here, read my blog, and remember this sunday night when i chose to be utterly worthless instead of accomplishing anything. i could study the mass of cardiology notes i'm completely behind on, read my behavior lectures (since the midterm is a week from tomorrow), or catch up in repro or respiratory or multispecies medicine.

but no - i refuse. this has been a relaxing, if not entirely happy, fall break. i got to spend my hard earned tutoring money on new clothes, hang out with my closest friend that i haven't really been able to see much this semester, go home and spend a day with my mom, and have dinner with my inlaws (all except bon). it was great. and i'm going to savor it for just a few more hours.

so take that - you life-sucking troll of a vet school. (of course, i realize the only person i'm actually punishing is myself...but ah well)

my eyes are burning

from lack of sleep. we had an exam yesterday and a radiology quiz today. the quiz is only worth 10 points, and i guess - normally - in this situation - i would have blown it off. but the next quiz is going to be THE 'blow off' quiz due to the fact that we have a respiratory exam the same day (next wednesday). so i was up till 3am cramming frantically. i didn't make it to my classes this morning either. i've been skipping an obscene amount of lecture lately.

then it's fall break. YEAH. it can't get here fast enough.

in non-test related news, i am tutoring now. i only get paid a wee $12/hr. but it's money. previously, i was receiving $0/hour - just for my good looks. it's turning out to be good for me, because i get to review stuff from last year that i've totally forgotten. pharmacology, hematology, pathology, etc. i'm not sure how the time issue is going to work out, because every time i schedule to meet with my tutoree, i want to change it - due to this test, or that quiz - or whatever. so, the time crunch will be interesting. i'm also a bit apprehensive about my skills as a tutor in general. i want to teach (EVENTUALLY YES!) so i want to be a good tutor.

um. other non-school related news...thinking...................thinking.............................still thinking.
ok, i have nothing to say. i give up. vet school has eaten my brain. i don't read, watch the news, sleep, eat properly, or exercise anymore. i am officially consumed by the madness. MADNESS I TELL YOU.

ok, 4 hours of sleep definitely not enough. nor is 15 hours in 3 days.

i'm starting to panic

some of you know about the intense emotional turmoil in my life this past summer, and some of you don't. regardless of whether or not you know about it, i had a very hard summer. it has translated into a very hard year. i'm trying to stay positive. ok. that's a total lie. right now, i'm just trying to get through the days one at a time. but i've been pretty down all semester, and it's making it very hard for me to study. normally, i'm a very dedicated student. i try to keep up with my classes, and i work pretty hard. i'm not (in school) a procrastinator, and i take pride in my work ethic (if not much else). but this semester, i just can't find the willpower to really apply myself. perhaps it's not merely my internal emotional upset, but also simple burn-outed-ness. expected, at this point in the curriculum. however, our classes are very difficult this semester - respiratory, radiology, and cardiology - not to mention all the others. due to my unfailingly constant depression, i've skipped a lot of class. and not to utilize my time better -but to sleep. my grades have reflected this a bit, i think. i made low Bs on both of my first big tests. i know, i know - complaining about Bs - but still. i can do better. and i'm afraid those grades are about to really start slipping, since it's now to the point where i'm studying test to test,

and now, i'm starting to be very worried about the rest of the semester. in typical vet school fashion, the schedule is unrelenting. we have a test in respiratory 1 week from tomorrow. it covers about 150 pages of notes. i skipped a vast majority of the classes, and thus - have no idea what's going on half the time (when i'm present). it's 1 am now, and i didn't get thru all the material i needed to for my test on thursday (multispecies med). and i have a radiology quiz on friday. i haven't even GLANCED at that material yet. it's bound to be about 75 pages.

the stress, coupled with my already very low mental state, is about all i can handle.

i wish i had something else to talk about. but i don't.