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.

Back in the desert

Well, it's been a while since I've posted.  Exams have come and gone and went pretty well.  We ventured down to the main university each day to take our exams.  We took them in Bute Hall -- an incredible room that almost distracted us from our exams!

Exam room!!!

Lucky for us, these exams only count for 10-15% of our grades.  This lets us ease into the UK testing style.  One of our exams was cancelled and rescheduled for January. This was because of "Hurricane Bawbag."  We experienced 100mph winds that shut down the city -- no trains or busses.  Roofs of building were blown off and school busses were blown over.

T-shirts already!!

Last Friday we celebrated the end of classes by going to Lock 27 for a celebratory pint and then to the Walkabout Bar for the Vet School Christmas party. It was a great way to blow off some exam stress.  We finally got home at about 3am and I left for the airport at 4am.  I had layovers in Amsterdam and Philadelphia and finally made it to Phoenix about 17 hours later.  We went straight to a friends birthday party and had a blast.

I spent the past four days at Twin Peaks Veterinary Center and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  It was so nice to be back in a clinic, especially with people I know.  I learned how to extract teeth using an elevator and got to practice scaling and polishing teeth.  I also got to scrub in on several surgeries including a spay, and two abdominal exploratories.  One of which was a suspected abdominal mass that end up being lymphoma.  We ended up euthanising the cat on the table (for the best) but I was able to perform the necropsy and identified enlarged lymph nodes, several intestinal masses at the level of the jejunum, and cystic kidneys.  I was then able to practice my simple interrupted sutures to close the abdomen.   The second abdominal exploratory involved a dog that had eaten a leash!  Three enterotomies (opening of the intestines), a gastronomy (opening up the stomach) and an intussusception (telescoping of the intestines) later, all the foreign bodies were removed.

Enterotomy

Intussusception

I was also able to go into an exam room with the doctor and learn about the diagnostic plans.  It was very cool to be introduced as the vet student :)

La Llibertat de les Llagostes: Freedom for Lobsters

The semester is quickly winding to a close.  Yesterday marked the last full week of classes and now we only have two or three classes next week with exams the following week.  In exactly two weeks I will be back in the States.  Exams seemed to pop up out of nowhere!  However, having all of next week to study will really help.  We have been trying to make studying fun and had a blast during our anatomy lab review yesterday making up pneumonic devices and dancing around,  I'm pretty sure all the other groups thought we were crazy, but it worked for us.

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving.  We still had classes and review sessions, so we are having Thanksgiving today.  However, the wonderful ladies in the Ref decorated with American flags and turkeys and we had a wonderful thanksgiving lunch with turkey, stuffing, potatoes and pumpkin pie!  Today's Thanksgiving should be awesome.  I think approximately 25 people will be coming over to celebrate pot-luck style!!

Last weekend I went to Barcelona, Spain to visit a friend.  It was so beautiful and is definitely one of my most favourite cities.  We saw La Sagrada Familia, a church that was originally started in the 1800s and has not yet been completed.  Designed by Gaudi, the church is full of colour and so intricate.  Highly recommended.

One of the stations of the cross on the facade. 

Cubo magico - all directions add up to 33

The grey portions have already been completed, while the white still has to be constructed.

Ceiling

We also went and saw El Palau de la Musica Catalan - a concert hall for every type of music you could think of.

The ceiling - beautiful with natural light

The Foyer

 Park Guell - also designed by Gaudi - was also amazing.

I loved using my Spanish and was even able to whip out my Portuguese to speak to some Brazilians we met at a club :)  In Barcelona, the main language spoken is Catalan - which I don't speak (a mixture of Spanish and French).  However, in the city anyone that speaks Catalan also speaks Spanish so we were fine.  The title of this post comes from our map from our hostel that had random phrases in Catalan  - including Freedom for Lobsters.

The one where we play Guess Who at a brewery. . .

This week we learned how to do equine nerve blocks.  These are useful in determining the cause of lameness and pinpoint where exactly on the leg the pain is coming from.  There are three different ones each done going higher (more proximal) up the leg if the previous block does not solve the lameness.  We got to practice this on horse legs (detached from the horse).  We also learned how to remove a horseshoe and how to ultrasound the tendons (superficial digital flexor, deep digital flexor, suspensory) on a horse forelimb as well.

We have also had several suturing labs (wet labs) these past couple weeks.  I have sutured different wounds on cats and dogs (albeit dead).  We also had a pathology wet lab where I got to perform a postmortem on an otter!  I determined the cause of death to be severe trauma (likely hit by car or boat) due to macerated liver lobes, haemorrhage on the lungs, diaphragmatic hernia, a fractured left femur and fractured pelvis.

Not really sure what an otter was doing in the middle of the road. . .

We have finished up the horse forelimb and are now moving on to the pelvic limb (which I like so much better) and have also started histology.  Histology is essentially micro-anatomy where we look at tissues under microscopes.

CBC differentials -- my favourite!

We recently had cat/dog/reptile handling class.  I missed hanging out with animals so much!  It was great to work with a real dog.  I helped demonstrate some basic handling techniques.  In the reptile portion we got to hold a bunch of different kinds of snakes and an iguana!

This past week a friend from elementary/middle school came to visit.  We had a great time and I was even able to bring her to the Vet School Halloween party at the Walkabout Bar - which was a blast.  Vet students truly know how to have a good time.  We also went to a pub called Brew Dog which only serves locally made brews.  I recommend the Punk IPA (a bit of a fruitier beer) but not the Trashy Blonde (a bit too bitter for my taste).  The bar was neat and had a bunch of board games.  We played Guess Who and Jenga.  We also met some interesting guys from Aberdeen who introduced us to the "awkward snail".  Which as the name suggests, is super awkward.  But overall a great night.

Brew Dog

I think I am officially assimilating into British culture.   I know spell things -re instead or -er or with and 's' instead of a 'z' without even thinking about it!  Scary.

Exams are coming fast - 1 more month!  I will be states bound in just over  4 weeks :)

But before then, I will be visiting my friend from undergrad in Barcelona, Spain!  Can't wait!!!