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.