Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. . .

I should be studying for my physiology exam on Friday, but alas, here I am, on blogger, figuring out my photo page.  At least I accomplished something, I suppose.

Check out the photo tab to see uploaded photo albums from this year!

I won't be on much for the next month or so.  I leave on Saturday for England to go lambing and two weeks later leave for Portugal!!

I'm off to study so that I can pass this test.  CNS, here I come!

Weekend of Dreams

This past week has been a blast!

To start off with school related things, we finished up blood physiology and histology and are now working our way through endocrinology.  I'm finding endocrinology to be fascinating and it makes a lot of cases that I saw in practice make more sense.

Last Thursday was the 10th annual Mr. Vet School.  Essentially male students and professors compete in silly competitions to be crowned King.  There were several different rounds.  Round one was women's evening wear, round two was women's lingerie or swimwear and round three was talent.  First years put on an awesome show and one of them won!  Apparently this is very unheard of.  The whole night was a blast and I can't go into too much detail without being crude, but I can say that you are definitely missing out if your vet school doesn't have an event where you see your male physiology professor dance around in a bikini singing "Sex Bomb."  HA!

Friday I stayed in with my roommates and had movie night.  Saturday was Vet Ball (a very classy version of prom that included an AMAZING dinner!!)  So we moved right from a trashy night on Thursday to a classy one on Saturday (that's the way we do things here in Scotland). The ball was a blast, it was great to see everyone all dressed up; ladies in their dresses and the men in their kilts instead of boiler suits and wellies.

Yummy mozzarella appetiser!

Lots of wine :)

Roomie love!

Yesterday, my roommates and I went out for breakfast and then went to watch the Carling Cup (football) at the Lock.  Liverpool beat Cardiff -- YEA!  It was fun to watch in the pub environment.

Today marked the last week of classes of first year!!!!  It's hard to think we are almost done already.

Summer time plans

I just heard back today that I have been accepted as an intern at the Clearwater Aquarium in their Sea Turtle Rehabilitation department!  I will be spending the summer in Clearwater, Florida working with resident and rehabilitation turtles.  It's really exciting as my grandparents live only a five minute walk away from the aquarium!

I get to work with these guys!

Here is the aquarium:

If you have seen the movie Dolphin Tale about Winter, the dolphin with a prosthetic tale, this is where it took place.

I will get to see this every day!  Quite a change from the scenery in Glasgow!

I'll update more about this once I know more details about the internship :)

Happy belated Valentine's day from a vet student

Cake baked by me, decorated by Caitlin for the the pathology bake club.

A day in the life of a vet student

Hehehehe.

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!

The one where we learn about Braveheart. . .

"Aye, fight and you may die, run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!"

So this weekend, my roommate and I went to Stirling to explore the castle and see the Wallace Monument.  It was really interesting to learn a bit about Scottish history (of which I know surprisingly little).  There were more than 16 battles for Stirling Castle between the Scots and Brits.  In 1297, William Wallace (Braveheart) led the Scots to victory on the Stirling bridge, visible from the castle.

So green!

The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestry -- anyone recognise as the tapestry in front of the Room of Requirement? 

Bridge between the palace and the Great Hall.

The Star Pyramid

The town of Stirling was so quaint.  I can't wait to go back and possible stay over night. 

Today we had another class on skin histology (which while I find it interesting, I'm sure you will not) and three classes on the equine industry and reduction of disease risk factors.  I actually really enjoyed the horse lectures, especially considering that I know next to nothing about horses.  They started with the basics (thank goodness!) and did a great job summarising the role of the horse in the UK.

Horses are measured by hands.  A horse is defined as having a height greater or equal to 14.3 hands where as a pony is 14.2 hands or shorter.

Measure to the withers as indicated

We also learned the different breeds and terminology for horses based on stage of life and reproductive capabilities.  So many different terms compared to cats and dogs.  It's kind of like a different language.

Today I booked my train tickets to go lambing.  We are taking a train through Edinburgh to Darlington on the 10th of March and will return the 25th of March.  We will start the first few days by calving the Belgian Blue cows.  These cows are double muscled and all calves need to be pulled (assisted in exiting the birth canal).  These cows can weigh more than 2500 pounds and calves can be around 100 pounds!!!!  Then we will move on to the lambing of pedigree sheep!

Big ass cow :)

And for your entertainment; a video about sheep that we vet students found hilarious:

Start of term 2!

Classes started on Wednesday and so far seem to be pretty good.  We had a couple of classes on Nitrogen metabolism, skin histology, thermoregulation and started some embryology.  I have decided that I LOVE embryology (early development of the embryo) and can't wait to get to reproduction next year :)

Gastrulation 

I haven't done much this weekend -- just trying to keep up with notes and attempting (not very well, I may add) to study for our rescheduled biomolec exam this week.

This week I will be going out to the farm to review cattle and sheep handling and then going back to campus to review dog and cat handling.  Tomorrow we start our equine classes!  I know virtually nothing about horses and I am excited to learn.  We are getting a lot more practical experience this term too.  We have a class this week on blood smears (something I learned working as a tech).  In two week we start our surgical approaches lectures!

Looks like this term is shaping up to be even better than last term!

Happy Hogmanay!!

Well everyone, I'm back in Glasgow again.  Gearing up for term two (just under two months long)!  We will only have classes through the beginning of March after which we have a one month spring break.  I will be using the first two weeks to go lambing and calving with a friend down in England.  The last two weeks will hopefully be spent visiting a friend in Spain.  After break we have a month of review sessions and study time and then exams in May!  Crazy.

I'm very excited for 2012 to start.  I rang in the New Year at a friends get together here in Glasgow and had a blast.  In the UK, especially Scotland, the New Year celebrations are intense!  So much so that they have their own name for it: Hogmanay.  And they also have January 2nd off as a bank holiday!  There were fireworks set off all over (they are legal here and I'm not talking about the wimpy backyard fireworks) and paper lanterns released.  Think the end of the Hangover 2.

Paper lanterns

Yes, this movie.

Today I went to Edinburgh for the day (just an hour train ride away) with my friends and explored the city.  We walked up the Royal Mile, saw the castle, and looked over the ocean. 

Edinburgh Castle

Royal Mile

We also had a very yummy lunch at a pub called "Dirty Dick's."  No joke.   It was great and the pub had such character.  

Yes, those are pots and tankards on the ceiling.

The inside

Outside.

Afterwards we went on a tour of the Mary King's Close.  A close is essentially a small street or walkway that separated buildings.  About 300 years ago, some buildings adjacent to the Royal Mile were demolished to make room for a trading centre.  However, only the top of the buildings were demolished thus creating an underground city.  This was blocked off during the plague and reopened later allowing people to live underneath the city!  It was quite an interesting tour with some very, well, crazy Scottish facts.  

Well, classes start on Wednesday and we have our rescheduled Biomolec exam next week.  My roommates and I are planning on going to Stirling next weekend to go see the castle and explore the town to celebrate finishing the exam.  I'll post pictures if we go.