Whirlwind week (aka: super long post)

I know; no posts in over two weeks!  Bad vet student.  But honestly, things were kind of crazy last week.  So I'll try to summarise everything thats been going on recently.  This will be just a 'wee' bit out of order :)

Classes have been going pretty well so, keeping up with everything, just trying to memorise the anatomy of the forelimb.  We have to know all the muscles and their origins and insertions and the functions that they have (i.e. abduction, adduction, flexion, extension).  I know where they all are and the bones of the forelimb, I just have to finish memorising exactly where on each bone they insert and the innervations of each one.

On Wednesday I learned how to suture!  I learned three different types; the simple interrupted, the simple continuous and the cruciate.  I volunteered to learn before the rest of the class and will help teach these patterns in two weeks.  This means lots of practice at home to become proficient and make sure that holding my instruments correctly becomes second nature.  I have my own suture material and needles at home along with a fake plastic stomach to practice on.

Simple interrupted (surgeons knot):

Simple continuous:

Cruciate:

Weird sticky stomach:

Note my awesome suturing skills...

Yesterday in class our neurophysiology professor was talking about how muscles work and their components: myosin and actin filaments and how they fit together in thin and thick filaments.  To give us a better picture, he used bottle brushes (what we use back home to clean beakers) and "flump".  Flump is a marshmallow candy on a stick.  When he said flump, all the American students looked at each other wondering what the heck he was talking about.  But flump looks like this:

We all decided that it sounded like a candy that would be served on the trolley on the Hogwarts Express (which they definitely had snack trolley on my trip to Edinburgh!)  I mean, come on, Flump?  Harry Potter, anyone?

On Tuesday, we went to the farm to learn how to restrain cattle and different rope knots used to restrain them.  We also learned how to make harnesses for them.  It was quite fun and a lovely day.  Which I hear will be a rarity here.  Many Scottish people said they had a warmer spring and colder summer this year which means winter will be here earlier (some are even predicting snow before Halloween!). I am surprisingly used to the cold weather already.  It has been in the 50's during the day and 40's at night and most of the time I wear short sleeves and my North Face waterproof shell.  I really don't miss the 100 degree weather from home.  But cold weather also means winter food!  I have been cooking a lot this week and really venturing out of my culinary comfort zone.  I made homemade butternut squash soup and stew this week.  I also roasted a pumpkin and made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin seeds.  They turned out pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself.  We had some people over tonight and made chicken tacos and guacamole.  We have had such a hard time finding good peppers here.  My friend's husband is hispanic and is quite disappointed in the selection.  I mean, if I can eat a jalapeño here, then it is not hot at all.  They are pretty lacking in their Latin food here (although curry spices seem to be all the rage).  I also tried Toffee Apple Cider today (brothers brand) and recommend it to everyone.

You know you want one. . .

Last Tuesday, my roommates and I went downtown to go see the band Cage the Elephant in concert.  It took place in the Garage, a smaller venue that had a lot of character.  You would probably know this band best from the song: Ain't no rest for the wicked.  It was a great concert and we had a lot of fun.  Afterwards, we went out to Driftwood, a pub/bar that had 90p vodka mixers (very cheap for here in Glasgow).  It ended up being quiz night, which means that groups of people do trivia quizzes to win money.  But of course, being Glasgow, it wouldn't be fun without inappropriate games  Like "assume that sexual position".  I think you all can see where that was headed. . .  We walked in late, but had a great time people watching.

Yes, that is a truck coming out of the wall above the doors.

Last Thursday the vet school had a ceilidh.  A ceilidh is a traditional Scottish get together.  Basically, a Scottish band plays traditional songs that dances that go along with them, usually in pairs or groups of eight.  Pretty much all of us Americans had no idea what we were doing, but we had a great time jumping around.  The general idea involves swinging your partner around and then jumping around in a circle.  It was a blast!  Crazy Scottish dancing with some Tenents beer?  Awesome party.  The last dance involved dancing down a line of people with your partner so that you danced with everyone at the party.  Here is a video of a ceilidh (not ours) just so you can see what it is all about and why you MUST attend one :)

We actually learned this particular dance:

I forgot to mention, my roommates and I have joined the mountaineering club!  Last weekend we went on a trip to the Lake District in England and went hiking up Helvellyn, one of the tallest mountains in the UK. Here they call it walking, but don't let that fool you.  They mean extremely steep hiking and "scrambling" using your hands to climb boulders for about five hours in rain and fog before you even reach the peak.  But we had a blast and then walked down the other side of the mountain to a small town and had tea.

A view from maybe 1/3 the way up. 

Yeah, we climbed that!

Sheep! 

Note the fog: You couldn't see very far ahead near the peak.

Waterfall near the bottom on the back side of the mountain.

Later that evening we went to a little pub to have dinner.  I must say, the English are not quite as friendly as the Scottish.  There my roommate and I decided to be adventurous and order the steak and kidney pie.  And yes, it does indeed have kidney in it, and I actually ate it (though probably not again).  It tasted fine, but the kidney has a texture that reminds me of mushrooms.  Kinda weird.  Being nerdy vet students, we identified the renal cortex and the medulla.

Kidney anatomy - in case you were curious.

The next day, we took a three hour walk to the next town by walking over a mountain and through a forest.  The forest was soooo steep on the descent that we just ended up sliding down the mountain through the mud as if we were surfing.  Thank goodness for waterproof clothes and shoes!  We met two other vet students in upper years through the club as well as many other international students.  We hiked with two from Poland, one from Spain and two from Norway and had a great time.

Day 2: hiking through the woods.  It was so dense, we had to use flashlights.  Hard to believe that this was at around noon.

The town of Keswell, we stopped and had some tea :)  How very Scottish of us

I definitely have to say, that having been here for almost 8 weeks (yikes, when did that happen?) Glasgow is starting to feel like home.  While little things throw me off (they don't have canned pumpkin or applesauce??), I don't really feel like I'm living thousands of mile from home.  Sometimes, I don't even feel like I'm living in another country.  The locals here are so nice and everything is so convenient from the train to the busses to the walking distances.  It only takes about 5 minutes to walk to the grocery store and the nearest pub is only two minutes away (not that I measured, or anything. . .).  I am truly grateful for Skype though, it has definitely made the transition a lot easier.   Being able to see people back home is very nice.  So if you all reading this have Skype; please feel free to contact me!