Winter Break 2012-2013, Part 2--Into the Shadowland

Well, happy 2013, everyone! This is going to be a very big year for me and my family, and I hope you have great things planned, too!

I trust you all had a good Christmas. I was fortunate enough to receive a really awesome book all about how to care for baby animals, and the best thing is that the book was written by a veterinarian and a vet tech. I really wanted a stethoscope, but Mom and Dad want me to pick out my own, so that's going to be my graduation present. I can't wait!

This past Wednesday, I shadowed at the clinic (hence the title of the post) for a second time before I went back to school. As always, it was a varied day of surgery plus appointments. There were six surgeries in all: a feline spay, a feline neuter, a canine spay, a canine neuter, a canine spay with a mass removal, and a canine mass removal. I thought it was kind of funny that there was one of each of the most typical kind of surgery (the feline and canine spays and neuters). I love having a full surgery schedule because I actually get to do things instead of standing in an appointment room. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the doctors talk with clients, and that's an important part of my pre-vet education, too, but I feel so much more useful when I can participate and know that I am doing something necessary for the clinic (like freeing up someone else so that they can help a doctor or another tech with a tricky animal). The best part of the surgeries was that one of the patients was a really old Brittany, just like my dog! She took so long to go under and even longer to come back out of anesthesia. She didn't even respond to me pulling hair mats out of her ears, something my dog would never stand for. She was so much like my dog, though. She was just such a nervous Nellie, and she shed like crazy. I often joke that when we clean our house, we find another dog's worth of hair lying around.

 Like last time, I was sort of like a mini-tech, which I really enjoy. I'm looking forward to getting back home after these last six weeks of school, where I can hopefully work somewhere science-y but still have time for more shadowing (you know, just so I keep myself in the right frame of mind).

Speaking of which, I cannot believe how close the end of my undergraduate career is! It will be absolute chaos to fit everything in, but when I am done, it will feel so great! This chaos will be compounded by my interview at my dream school, the University of Minnesota! I'm really hoping that I will be able to go in early February because that works best for my schedule, but we'll just see when the date and time get set. This one should be another behavioral interview, and I'm determined to do better at that format this time around than I did at Iowa State. I found out recently that Minnesota is a top-ten vet school, so I will really need to be en pointe with this one. It's going to be the hardest to get into. I know a girl who went to Augie, a very highly motivated student, who was wait-listed at Minnesota. She eventually got in because a spot opened up, but I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened to me, too. We'll see, though, I have to try to be confident in myself because I'm an old pro at this by now (or at least, no longer a novice).

That's about if for now. I'm going to try to enjoy what little time I have left at Augustana. I'll try to have some fun with friends while I still can, too. Cheers!