Visit To New York City

Me and my niece. I spent the night in New York city on my way to California. It was great to have a chance to catch up with my sister and aunt (who was also visiting) and play with my niece, who is at a very cute age where she likes to imitate much of what you do. I'm wearing a purple superwoman cape that I had as a kid that now belongs to Talia. You might note the black eye, she fell on the corner of the scale at the midwife's office. Nothing that won't heal.


Below: My sister and Talia. Like mother like daughter! Debating what to order.

Block 4: Peace Out!

My semester is almost over! I finished block 4 today. The final exam consisted of two 8 hour written exams, given on back to back days (well, technically 9 hours since they were 8-5 but they expect you to eat lunch and take occasional breaks). Typical Cornell. Parts of it were hard and parts of it I knew really well. Yesterday was better than today. When I picked up the second section of the exam at nine a.m. today (it's case based and so is given in sections and you pick up the next section when you turn in the previous one, complicated, I know) I realized I had no idea how to answer several of the questions. So I lay down on the comfortable black couch in the library and took an hour nap (aside: we can take the exam anywhere in the veterinary college, we're on the honor code not to cheat, it's a nice system and I think cheating is quite rare). I mean, I had all day. I had tried napping the previous day during the afternoon but couldn't fall asleep. Unfortunately for my classmate hard at work at the table next to me, I snore, an embarrassingly unfeminine trait.
At any rate, I woke up without having had any flash of inspiration, sadly, but much less anxious. And I still finished the exam with half an hour to spare, at 4:30 p.m.
Block 4 has the reputation of being the hardest semester in vet school. It was a lot of hours sitting in lecture and a lot of memorization but I can honestly say I found it quite interesting and mostly enjoyed it. Except for immunology. Frustratingly, I continue to find immunology to be confusing. I'm planning to read some immunology over break to see if I can begin to consolidate what I learned this semester.
One more exam, in parasitology, and then I'm done and I can get out of here, head to New York city and from there to California. YAY!
It feels good to be almost done but I'm also exhausted and my brain feels like silly putty (perhaps someday I can turn that into a poem).

Cornell University Hospital For Animals On Television

There will be a segment filmed in the CUHA on television tonight:

For everyone who is an American Chopper fan (or a CUHA supporter!), we hope you will tune into American Chopper on Monday, December 13, at 9pm. We believe that the Cornell University Hospital for Animals will be included in a segment on this Monday’s episode of American Chopper on the Discovery Channel.

We expect that the episode will feature Gus, a bull mastiff who is the long-time companion of Paul, Sr. Gus was here this past summer for a procedure.

You can find a sneak preview at http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/american-chopper-sneak-peek/

You should definitely check it out as there is a lot of footage of my awesome advisor, Dr. Dan Fletcher.

Winter Jewels

Normally she spends her time outside looking up, scanning subconsciously for birds. This morning, taking out the kitchen scraps to the compost pile, she has to watch her step so as not to slip on the hidden steps and logs. On close inspection, the snow glitters in the wan winter sunlight, a blanket of hundreds of tiny sparkling crystals. She's never noticed this before, used to seeing snow reflecting sunlight as one large blinding flash of light, ecstatic to discover so many jewels underfoot.

Winter Tomato

She buys the last container of green tomatoes of the year at the farmer's market. Her Thanksgiving attempt at fried green tomatoes ends up a gloppy mush of undercooked tomato, bread crumbs and egg whites. She puts the remaining ones in the refrigerator, forgets they are there until one day in December when she stumbles on a bright red tomato in the back corner of a shelf, as out of place as a hummingbird in snow.
She takes it out, cuts it up. The first bite of salty, meaty flesh brings back memories of summer, fresh succulent vegetables abundant. The gooey pulp of the inside a luscious cool wet aftertaste.

Winter Sun

Mid-afternoon, the sun already setting, one week until solstice.

The winter sun slants through the trees, casting long shadows. Walking up the stairs to her room, light illuminates the landing. Bright and airy, she can imagine for a moment it is summer, can imagine how the house will feel open and alive then. The problem with day after day of grey is that it starts to feel like it will be winter forever. She begins to believe she has imagined spring, imagined summer, that they are simply a figment of her overactive mind.

When her college roommate was ten months pregnant with her son, long overdue, she told her, 'I feel like I've always been pregnant. I can't even remember how it feels to not be pregnant.' She knows that once the sun goes down she too will forget the feel of summer, forget how it feels not to carry an extra weight, but for now she hold onto hope, sun soaked memories.
*

The next day is even sunnier, brighter than it has been in weeks. She exclaims to her friends, 'Look at how gloriously blue the sky is. I wish I could capture it and put it in a bottle, take it out and put it in my window at night to remind me what sun feels like.' They respond, 'How poetic.' The irony is she isn't trying to be poetic at all.

It's on days like this, when she feels her heart finally beginning to unclench and a surge of energy and enthusiasm rush through her, that she realizes she's only just surviving the rest of the time, on what she considers her 'good' days. Last winter she was moribund, limp, lifeless. The improvement between this year and last is the difference between sinking and treading water. She pictures a white-tailed kite, wings fluttering while it hovers in one spot like an oversized hummingbird.

Kite, n. lit. the hovering bird; a rapacious bird of the hawk kind: a rapacious person: a paper toy for flying in the air, so called for its flying like a kite. {A.S. cyta; W. cod; Bret, kidel, 'a hawk,' from cudio, to hover.}

She's neither soaring nor swooping downward, she's treading air, suspended in space.

We Interrupt The Creative Writing Program To Resume Memorizing: Systemic Infections Differentials

Cows:
A Big Brown Bovine And Ebullient Cow
Anaplasma marginale
Borrelia burgdorferi-- Lyme disease
Bacillus anthracis-- anthrax
Bovine viral diarrhea virus
Anaplasma phagocytophilum-- tick-borne fever
Ehrlichia ruminatum-- African heartwater disease
Chlamydophila pecorum

Horses:
A Big Brown Belgian Equine And Nervous Equine
Actinobacillus equuli-- sleepy foal disease, navel ill, shigellosis of foals
Burkholderia mallei-- glanders
Burkholderia pseudomallei-- melioidosis
Borrelia burgdorferi-- Lyme disease
Equine infectious anemia
Anaplamsa phagoctyophilum
Neorickettsia risticii-- Potomac horse fever
Eastern, Western and Venezuelan encephalitides

Swine:
My, My, My Holy Big Bad Francisella
Mycoplasma hyosynoviae
Mycoplasma suis
Mycoplasma hyorhinis
Haemophilus parasuis-- Glasser's disease
Burkholderia pseudomallei-- melioidosis
Bacillus anthrax-- antrhax
Francisella tularensis-- tularemia

Sheep and Goats:
A Big Bad Crop And Bold Francisella
Anaplamsa ovis
Burkholderia mallei-- glanders
Burkholderia pseudomallei-- melioidosis
Chlamydophila pecorum-- stiff lamb disease
Anaplasma phagoctyophilum-- tick-borne fever
Francisella tularensis

Dogs:
Another Big Bad Neutered Rottweiler, Holy Infectious Crazy Canine Coccidiodes

Anaplasma phagocytophilum
Borrelia burgoderferi-- Lyme disease
Blastomyces dermatitidis
Neorickettsia helminthoeca-- salmon disease, salmon poisoning disease
Rickettsia rickettsii-- Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Histoplasma capsulatum var capsulatum
Infectious canine hepatitis
Canine parvovirus
Canine distemper
Coccidiodes immitis

Cats:
Yucky Muddy Hissing Bad Fat Frowning Felines
Yersinia pestis-- plague
Mycoplasma haemofelis
Histoplasma capsulatumm var capsulatum
Burkholderia mallei-- glanders
Feline Leukemia virus
Feline panleukopenia
Feline acquired immunodeficiency virus

Birds:
My New Parrot Bird
Mycoplasma synoviae
Newcastle disease
Pastereulla multocida subspecies gallicida-- fowl cholera
Borrelia anserina

Zoonotic:
Yersinia pestis-- plague
Francisella tularensis-- tularemia
Burkholderia mallei-- glanders
Burkholderia pseudomallei-- melioidosis
Chalmydophila pecorum
Borrelia burgdorferi-- Lyme disease
Rickettsia rickettsii-- Rocky Mountain spotted fever
Bacillus anthracis-- anthrax
West Nile virus
Colorado tick fever