Ode to a Haggis

Wow! It’s been a long time since I’ve posted.  Clearly things are busy here.  I actually only have one week (when the heck did that happen?) left of classes and then one exam.  Then I’m off to Yorkshire to go lambing and then two weeks in Portugal and Spain with my friend from undergrad.  After that we have a couple weeks to study before exams. 

I am happy to say that I passed all my winter exams, most of them by a decent margin.  We also had practice OSCEs (hands on practicals).  I also passed all of those stations (microscopes, suturing, communication skills, and flipping sheep).  We have our real OSCEs in April. 

This term we have covered neuroanatomy (which I LOVE) and the central nervous system.  We also had some lectures on Genetics (also love it, I taught a lab class in undergrad on genetics) that were taught by a young professor from Spain.  It was so nice to hear a Spanish accent again!  We have also had several lectures and hands on practicals with chickens and horses.  We learned how to tie knots that are commonly used on the farm.  Here is how we practiced on our “cow” :

'Betsy' the clothes rack cow

This week we had a practical on the farm for learning how to deliver lambs.  We had metal “uteruses” (metal boxes) that had holes in them.  We got to practice pulling out dead lambs (naturally deceased) from different positions and orientations.  It was a BLAST!  I learned a lot and am super excited for lambing in March!!

I have decided that in April I will be attending an Emergency and Critical Care conference in Birmingham with some friends.  It will be quite the experience as we will be renting a car to make the trek down to England, but I’m sure it will be fantastic.

At the beginning of February, about twenty vet students went down to Edinburgh for the day to see the Black Keys concert.  It was a great show and we ended up being super close to the stage: See the pic below.

Also in February was Robert Burns Day: essentially a celebration of the Scottish poet who wrote Auld Lang Syne.  It’s tradition to have a big celebration where “Ode to a Haggis” is read and the dean of the school stabs a Haggis with a giant knife!  We went to the Lock for dinner and had Haggis: a mixture of organ meats ground together in a sheep’s stomach.  I know it sounds gross, but it actually was really good – it tastes like spicy meatloaf.  It came with a side of neeps and tatties: potatoes and turnips.

We also discovered a new club called the Arches.  It is a two story club underneath the subway in the City Centre.  It has a bounce house, two dance rooms, a pool, a hot tub, and multiple bars. 

Well, I’m off to be a good little vet student and study the anatomy of the inner ear! 

This is how cold it was: The Lock froze!!

Cheers!