Winter Term 2012-2013, Week 1: The Beginning of the End

One week of my final term as an undergraduate is over. I only have nine more weeks of class, plus finals week. This is so crazy. Life has returned to its normally-hectic state, as I jumped right into my full schedule of classes, proctoring, and extracurriculars. Oh, yeah. And I have another interview to prepare for before Winter Break. This one came as a curveball because I was not expecting to have another interview before Kansas State. But, I do. And it's with Iowa State! My second choice after good ol' Minnesota! At first, I was really worried because I wasn't sure how I'd get there and not miss class. I thought I would have to  take the Greyhound, which would require 14 hours of travel roundtrip. Instead, I have taken a big leap as an adult and booked my first rental car. They do allow you to rent as an under-25, but there's usually a fee or surcharge associated with it. Which I get. But, anyway, I found a discount code for Hertz, so that fee will be deducted from my total. All in all, for the same price as a roundtrip bus ticket, I have the freedom to make the three hour drive there and back all on my own schedule, and I won't miss class at all! Now, I will be very tired probably after my interview, but I think I will be fine. There is not much else that I can do. For right now, I have put interview preparation into hyperdrive, spending upwards of an hour-and-a-half to two hours each day formulating my answers to some of the questions I anticipate will be asked of me. It can get tedious at times, but on the whole, it is wonderful to really clarify my stand on lots of veterinary issues and to really come to a good understanding of who I am as a person and who I want to be in the future (i.e., my goals and such). I feel really prepared already, just from having answered some of the questions. I think I will go into the interview fairly confident. After all, like I said earlier, they want me there! It's quite the accomplishment to be even invited to interview, so I can take that with me. I will probably also need to treat myself to some CDs to listen to on the way there and back, just to make the drive more enjoyable and to calm my nerves. On the whole, I think it will be a big adventure, and I love those, deep down.

My classes are going pretty well so far. I need to make sure I can focus on them well enough to keep my grades as high as I would like them. I have been worried that my work quality might slip because I am preoccupied by preparation for my interviews, but now that I have a set schedule down, I can relax a little more and focus on each thing one at a time. I have the same professor for Microbiology as I did for Immunology, and I am glad, since she is a really awesome person. She is so funny and intelligent. It makes for a really great lab and class experience. We get to listen to music in Micro lab, which is sometimes fun and sometimes really distracting because I want to sing along. We also get to use the lowest grade of research microscopes, which are the highest grade of student scopes available. That is just really cool to me to be able to use such high-quality equipment. I feel like that class will really teach me things that I will use as a veterinarian.

My Human Physiology professor is a really great person, too. I talked to him a couple of days ago about my interviews and how nervous I was, and he said he felt the same way when he interviewed for a job at Augustana. He made me feel a lot better. What also makes me feel better is that I read that the interview committees understand and expect me to be nervous, and they will take that into account when they are evaluating me. Part of the test is being under pressure and for them to see how you do in an unfamiliar situation when you are off your game a little bit. I just have to show them that their invitation to interview was not a mistake!

Animal Communication is going to be a pretty interesting class, I think. It is taught in a more grad-school-type format, where most of the class will be taught by student groups presenting on a topic in the field. I have a pretty good group, and we get most of class time to work together, so I won't have to worry too much about lots of outside group work for that class. That will be good, since I have a group project for both Human Physiology and Microbiology. I had two group projects last term, so I don't think one more is going to kill me. I don't think, anyway...you can never be too sure...(I kid, I kid...)

On Friday night, I gave myself a well-deserved break from studying and went to see The Bourne Legacy in Olin with Sarah and Devon. It was a pretty good movie, mostly because of Jeremy Renner. But the original Bourne movies are much better.

Yesterday, I got to go to the animal shelter again after quite a long absence. Most of the dogs had been walked, and the FIV room is still closed (le sigh...), so we sat in the normal cat room. There were actually a couple of really affectionate cats in there, which is weird. Crazy Lucy is now not allowed out except at night when all the other cats are put away because there have been too many "incidents." I sort of feel bad for that cat, like she's a little misunderstood. She's kind of bipolar, one minute being very cuddly and the next trying to bite or scratch her handler, but for the most part, she's fine.



Finally, this week will be pretty short, as it's Thanksgiving on Thursday, one of my favorite holidays! I was really hoping and expecting to get a ride back from a fellow Minnesotan, but she is leaving too early for me. I can't miss my class on Wednesday because I have a non-makeupable quiz (yes, I know that's not really a word, but work with me here). However, being the awesome friend that she is, Sarah has agreed to let me come with her to Cincinnati for the break! We are going to her grandma's house, and Sarah said that she's looking forward to introducing me to the family and especially her grandma, who she says I will like. What would I do without my friends? I have never been to Cincinnati, so I'm hoping it's a good experience. At the very least, it will be an exciting eight-hour road trip with my best friend, which is always a recipe for insanity. I imagine much belting out of songs and dancing in the car will occur. I will really miss my family, and I was hoping to work some over break (and celebrate my birthday as well as pick up some little Christmas gifts for my roommates), but that's just how things worked out this year. This is what is so hard about going to school 380 miles away. The only thing that I would change about Augustana is its location. If I could, I would totally move it to Minneapolis, with all the same people and everything. But life doesn't work like that.

Anyway, I wish you all a very happy holiday weekend! I know I have a million things to be thankful for. What about you?

(P.S. Sorry about the lack of pictures...maybe I'll have some from Cincinnati for you next week?)

Fall Break 2012--All the News That's Fit to Blog About

Well, here I am near the end of my last Fall Break of college. I've known Dr. J for three years now! That is just crazy to me to think about. Anyway, it's been quite the break. I did very well in all of my classes this term, despite the extreme stress I felt myself under during most of it. This gives me hope that I can manage stressful situations in my life without resorting to emotional breakdowns/hysterics and that I can come out on top. I understand that the rest of my life will be very similar to the last few months, so this was really just a foretaste of things to come. It was really good for me, in retrospect, and I guess I have nothing to regret whatsoever.

I got some exciting news on Monday night. I will be interviewing at the Kansas State University (K-State, from here on out) vet school on Sunday, December 16th. I am both excited and nervous. This is NOT a guarantee that I will get in, but it does mean that the admissions committee wants to talk to me. I am given much confidence by this thought alone. I really have nothing to lose. I will go in there as well prepared as I can be. I will be myself and show them how capable I am as a student and as a person. I will be driving down to Manhattan, Kansas with Mom and Dad early the day before so we can be in time for a pizza party on the eve of the interview. It will be good because I can meet other pre-vets and talk to vet students, who can answer some questions I have about finances, what daily life is like during each year, and how much surgical experience I might gain as a student there. Like I said, this is not a for-sure thing yet, but at least it's a chance, and that's all I can ask for right now.

With that in mind, my whole shadowing experience seems to have changed. I went with Dr. J yesterday to the clinic, and even though I was only there for five hours, I still had a great time. It was wonderful to see everyone again, and they seemed pretty pleased to see me, too. I met a new clinic cat named Fig, who is so cute and is probably my new favorite clinic kitty (after Odie, of course; he'll always be my bestie there). At first he was shy of me, but when I started to pet Cheeks, he seemed interested in meeting me. He was purring as I pet him, so I picked him up. Kind of by accident, he ended up on his back being cradled like a baby, but he seemed to enjoy it and let me hold him like that and walk around with him for a bit. Then, I sat down with him on my lap and let him bite my sleeve a bit. He is such a good-sized cat. He is very light and perfect for cuddling. I guess the story goes that Dr. N found him on the side of the road, so emaciated that she and one of the techs couldn't find a muscle large enough to give an injection. He had maggots crawling all over him and a bot fly larva in his neck. Dr. N has a picture of him from "before," and while I didn't see it, I understand it was pretty bad. However, he looks pretty good now. I would say he probably still needs to gain some weight, but he's doing well under the excellent care of the clinic staff and doctors. He does have a problem using the litter box, probably the result of some brain damage suffered when he was starving, but again, I believe he will get better as time passes. I think it's wonderful how the clinic continues to take in strays and treat them. I love seeing the results and the happy endings that come when a family finally adopts one of the cats. There seems to be a lack of good veterinary care for cats these days, not because of any vet's negligence but because clients seem to be less concerned about bringing their cats in routinely than they do their dogs. As such, cats tend to be sicker when they do come in, making visits more expensive and involved. This probably adds to the negativity that some clients may feel about bringing their cats in, especially since most cats hate being put in carriers and taken for a car ride. Dr. N does a lot of work toward better veterinary care for cats, and this gives me hope that even if I do go into something like small animal medicine, I will still have important roles to play. Right now, I am pretty interested in the ideas of laser surgery for spays and neuters and the idea of only removing the ovaries during a spay instead of the ovaries and the uterus (this requires a smaller incision site, among other things).

Another thing that made this clinic visit cool was that I got to apply some of what I know from Immunology to help me answer my own questions. When Dr. N told me that it was dangerous to vaccinate an animal with a fever, I wondered why. I almost asked her before I remembered that an injection is like a wound to the body, sometimes eliciting an inflammatory response of immune cells to the injection site. During fever, the activity of those cells increases, so the inflammation may be more severe and could cause damage to the surrounding tissues. At least, this is what I conjecture based on my knowledge. I am no expert, so don't take my word for it. It was just very cool for me to be able to apply my knowledge like that.

Finally, I got to see what ringworm looks like under a blacklight. A couple of cats at the clinic have the fungal skin condition, so Dr. J took me into a dark room with the light and showed me the neon-green fungus glowing like a radioactive material. I have seen pictures of this phenomenon online but never in real life. I later got to watch Dr. J and a tech lime dip the cats, which I was not allowed to participate in because they were afraid that I might catch the ringworm, too. I was secretly glad that I could just play an observing role for that one (especially since the dip smells like sulfur, which reminds me of the selenium sulfide I've used to treat tinea versicolor on myself).

Other than all this, I just generally enjoyed seeing the changes that have been made to the clinic (like new computers!) since I have been gone. I got to follow Dr. N into some appointments, which I like because I enjoy seeing how many different vets work. Dr. N is very good about explaining everything she does to me. She gave me quite the compliment when I was helping her count pills and fill sample bags, and she commented, "It's like we're making a tech out of you!" This makes me feel welcome there and like I am gaining some competency in the field of veterinary medicine, even if it is just in an assisting role.

On an unrelated note, I got to vote for the first time on Tuesday! It went very smoothly. I won't tell you who I voted for because that's honestly pretty irrelevant, but I did enjoy the whole process. Of course, I did get my obligatory sticker, and I felt proud wearing it and seeing it on other people at the thrift store, knowing I was one of them. Our neighbors were there, too, so I got to hear their take on K-State. The wife said she had a friend go there for Marketing, and she said she loved it. I know vet med is different, but it must a good school. The husband said it was pretty scenic, rolling hills and all that. I think I have chosen some good schools that fit my speed of life. I don't think I would feel comfortable in a really big city. I'm not a country girl; I do need some culture, but I also am not a big-time NYC-type, either.

Yup, yup. I cannot tell a lie.

 I am looking forward to starting my classes on Monday. I have really enjoyed being home and even going in to work, but I am also eager to finish my final term. I think December 16th is going to come very quickly. I just hope I'm ready when it does!

I leave you with this:

My beloved dog taking a snooze in the TV room, which I guess is now one of her favorite activities in her old age.  That and eating. Well, she's always liked eating, but now all she does is sleep and ingest foodstuffs.