Winter Term 2012-2013, Week 5--The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

All in all, I would say that the week leading up to Christmas Break was pretty manageable. I did well on my first Physiology exam, despite being worried that adding the extra consideration of vet school interviews was negatively affecting my studies. I feel like my other classes are probably going well, too, if Physiology is. I still make mistakes on a fairly regular basis in Microbiology lab, but I really can't be good at everything, so it's good for me to have something that challenges me, something I need to work at.

Sarah was really good as Lucia on Tuesday. I really enjoyed the program. It's funny because Saint Lucia is originally a Sicilian thing that migrated to Sweden, and Sarah is both Sicilian and Swedish, so she was perfect for the role!

Thursday night/Friday morning was the premiere of The Hobbit. It wasn't quite as good as The Lord of the Rings trilogy but was still watchable. I think it would have benefited from being just one movie instead of the first of a trilogy. There is a lot of extraneous stuff that verges on the ridiculous and unnecessary. However, the music and cinematography--not to mention the set design and makeup/costumes--were fantastic. But all the visual and auditory marvels could not make up for the lack of a certain charm and poignancy that the original Lord of the Rings movies possess. Perhaps the second two movies will be better.

Of course, the biggest part of the last seven days was my interview at Kansas State! It was quite the weekend. I got home around 9 PM on Friday and had to leave at 7 AM the next morning to make the eight-hour drive to Manhattan, Kansas. It was pretty grueling. We stopped at a really good rib joint called Arthur Bryant's in Kansas City, Missouri because Dad wasn't about to let us drive through without some good KC barbecue. That's my dad for you.

We arrived in Manhattan around 4:30 PM, so we had about an hour-and-a-half of down time before we had to be at K-State for a pizza party. Once there, we sat in on a student panel, which was really helpful! We learned a lot about the school and life in Manhattan.

The next morning was the big day, my second vet school interview. I felt just as nervous for this one as for the first one at Iowa State, which kind of didn't make sense to me. I was almost nauseated. Maybe I was just worried about making the same mistakes at K-State as I made at Iowa State. Anyway, I found everyone there to be so nice and welcoming. I learned about the great support system they have in place, with professors more than willing to answer questions, participate in club activities, and the like. I heard that residents are also willing and eager to help, and the school allows first years to have second-year buddies and fourth-year mentors, so I'm really excited for those opportunities. I also learned that the food-animal faculty there is great and that there are many food safety experiences available. My interview team told me that I might look into getting a dual DVM/MPH (Master's of Public Health), and I could complete the MPH courses during the summer when my vet courses were not in session. Overall, I got a really good vibe from the school. The area is pretty nice, and I like the rolling hills. It also seems like a very safe place. You know, K-State was the very first Land Grant university established, which I think counts for something. The interview itself went much better than Iowa State, I think. It was a more traditional-type interview in which I got asked questions about more vet-related topics and about my schoolwork. It was overall less behavioral than Iowa State, and the interviewers here (two faculty members and a Kansas practitioner) knew much more about my application than the two Iowa practitioners with whom I interviewed at Iiowa State. It's just interesting to see how different schools operate differently. Probably the best news I got was that I will find out about my application status as early as the first of the new year! This is sort of nerve-wracking for me because I did not think that I would find out so soon. I was prepared for a long wait and not finding out until I was back at school, but it looks like I will know before break is over. You gotta love the schools that do not mess around and get results out as fast as possible. Now, I intend to enjoy the rest of break. I will hopefully get to shadow a couple of times as well as work and complete some pretty major homework assignments. This is what I get for attending a college that's on trimesters where Christmas Break is right in the middle of a term. Oh, well. I always get done what I need to.

Greetings from Manhattan, Kansas! Photo courtesy of www.hannush.com.