NAVC recap

The last week has been an absolute whirlwind of activity. I'm exhausted. It's been a totally different experience when compared with NAVC last year. I came alone in 2009, and while I enjoyed the family time, a conference is a rather lonely experience without friends and/or colleagues.

This year, I was joined by inarguably my 2 closest friends from vet school. Our days began at around 7am and tended to end past 11:00pm. On top of that, one of my internmates was there. We didn't get along well during my internship, but that was partly because an internship is such a hard experience. Now that it's over, I really, really enjoyed her company. Add to that this funny occurrence: I walked into my very first meeting, with over 400 vets, sat down, and realized that 3 seats down was a relief veterinarian from my current town. She pulls ER shifts for us occasionally. I always liked her a lot at work, but I've never seen her much outside of it. She joined our little posse as well (and was in the lab with me). All in all, it was a thoroughly fun, busy experience.

There were lots of great learning opportunities at the conference. I took a great wet lab (Advanced Emergency Procedures). We attended the Foreigner concert on Monday night, as well. Last night was the Sea World shindig sponsored by Schering-Plough. The whole of Sea World was rented out for us last night. The beer and wine was free, the food was free, the games were free, the 2 big coasters (Manta and Kraken) were open, as was Journey to Atlantis (flume ride). There were dolphin and sea lion shows. The finale was the Shamu show (which, while hokey and a little obnoxious due to the loud, cheesy music and video show, was still fantastic).

We slept "late" this morning (i.e. 9am) and then I took them to the airport. I have one more day here, then I too, shall head home. Speaking of home, it has not been without its excitement. My African grey and Senegal got into a big fracas. The grey was (of course!) uninjured. My Sennie wound up having to see the avian vet in our town last night (luckily, a friend AND neighbor). He spent the night at my work, but he is home today and expected to recover fine.

Did I mention how tired I am?