And When Vet School Isn't So Fun (i.e. Totally Sucks)

The peripheral nervous system of the thorax can bite me. That is how much I care.
I noticed in my bleakness that although the student who owned my color anatomy book prior to me had highlighted every structure of the heart, she had left the pages corresponding to the PNS of the thorax completely untouched. I'm guessing that, like me, she took one look at them and ran screaming.

It's not just that I'm feeling completely overwhelmed academically (everyone is, even those people who didn't spend all of last week moving, sigh), I haven't gotten in a good run or swim in weeks, I haven't found time to prepare meals in advance so my meals are a hodge podge of frozen dinners and raw vegetables from the farmers markets in no particular ratio.

On the up side, I slept in a bed last night for the first time in a week.

On the down side, it is typical Ithaca weather this afternoon: grey and rainy.

If I could have one magical wish, I would like to be temporarily teletransported back to the heavenly outdoor saltwater pool that I swam in in California. Or warm ocean with no undertow. Or the lovely lake in the Sierras. I want to submerge in water, to forget about everything on land for a little while.

Maybe tomorrow. I have to check out where the nearest pool is to my new abode. Or maybe go swimming in a finger lake? It's getting to be chilly, brisk, almost autumn, but cold water can be invigorating...

Support Harvey Milk Day In California

At heart, I am still a California girl.

And I am sick and tired of seeing conservatives' homophobic attitudes prevail in my state.

So, support Harvey Milk Day. With all the problems in CA, this is something small that you can actually do something about. Those of you who saw the movie MILK (or who are otherwise informed about history) know that Harvey Milk was the an openly gay San Francisco city supervisor who was assasinated in 1978.

Call the governor's hotline at 916-445-2841 (option 1 for English then option 2 for bills).

Thanks in advance Coyote, DashingBoiSuperTech and all my friends.

Alpaca And Llama Handling 101

Above: Me learning to trim alpaca nails. Below: Waiting for class to begin (my other classmates are scrubbing their overboots so as not to bring any diseases into the farm).


Below: Making friends with the farm cat, who looks a lot like Lindy (it isn't Lindy, I promise Coyote!) My friend in these pictures with me is the wonderful woman who kept Lindy well hydrated and alive while I was back in California two weeks ago.


Below: Alpacas and crias. I didn't get any llama photos.

Take One, Take Two AND Finally, Take Three

I've moved three times in less than three months.

Yup, that might yet be a personal record. It's a whole new level of being a transient.

Due to some rather unfortunate miscommunication, I left my current housing practically overnight. (Trust me, it was not my idea of fun to move during my first full week of vet school. Life was not exactly boring to begin with...)

I have landed with a truly magnamious fourth year vet student. It's a bit more of a drive, but just as lovely and wooded and peaceful (only the crows aren't tagged with identifying numbers on their wings, like Condors are tagged in California).

My favorite line of the evening:

My new landlord, helping me move out of my current room, surveying the situation,

"So what of this furniture is yours?"

Me: "None. I don't have any furniture. The bed, the mattress, the pillow, the pillowcase, the sheets, the blanket, the dresser, the desk, the bed stand-- none of it is mine. The place came fully furnished."

I think he was, perhaps, a bit surprised. But he replied, "Well, that makes things easier."

Unfortunately, as his place is not fully furnished and Simon peed on my air mattress (one of my most treasured possessions), thereby ruining it, this summer, I am now sleeping on my landlord's air mattress. I am debating buying another air mattress, buying a real mattress, or just sleeping on the floor.

At least for now I have a place to sleep.

More updates in awhile.

First Week Of Vet School

One week ago, Friday night, I was saying goodbye to Dr. Pull-My-Leg over tea in Millbrae, minutes from the airport. When my plane took off from San Francisco I cried inconsolably.

One week later, it's Friday night. I'm sitting at my computer in Ithaca, the window's open, it's warm, the house is perfectly quiet and I am tired but happy.

The first week of vet school was a whirlwind of orientation activities and classes. I think that next week, when we have five full days of classes instead of two, it will be even more of a whirlwind!

It's a bit intimidating, a bit overwhelming, but more than anything else it is truly exciting and wonderful.

The part I was most worried about was gross anatomy laboratory. I like dissection, but I am painfully slow at it. I'm a perfectionist by nature, and I am always afraid to cut the wrong thing. When I was on the necropsy floor this summer, the clinicians would yell at me, 'This isn't surgery, just start cutting!'

Well, I absolutely love gross lab. It is so much fun to have everything literally at your fingertips. It is way easier to understand the body when you can touch it. It's one thing to read about a body part. It is another thing completely to feel it and peel back the layers one by one.

Everthing we are learning is super fascinating and directly applicable to medicine.

This is what I have been waiting for. This is my dream.

And my goal is to enjoy every minute of it, to realize every day how lucky I am to be getting the chance to do this, even when I do get stressed and tired and overwhelmed.

It's hard to believe last week I was sitting on a plane in San Francisco crying. One week in my life has started to feel like one year lately. Things are happening so fast. But in a good way finally.

Some Photos Of The Vet School

This is what the spiffiest veterinary hospital in the country looks like on a sparkling day. Because the weather is so bad here for most of the year, all of the buildings are connected (yay). On the far right of the picture is the entrance to the large animal hospital. And towards the middle is the entrance to the companion animal hospital.

Below: View from the veterinary research tower on a typical day this summer:


View of the courtyard of the entrance to the veterinary learning center on a stormy day this summer:


View of the East Campus Research Facility that abuts the vet school on another typical summer's day (also known as the 'Mouse House'):


If you're lucky sometimes there will be a rainbow after a storm. This is the B parking lot where I will park my car if I choose not to walk or take the bus:

Save The Boreal Forest-- Stop Your Bulk Mail And Unwanted Catalogs

One of the great pleasures of having mountains of schoolwork looming before me is...

the joys of procrastination!

Now procrastination has never been a major problem for me, but I do indulge in it from time to time.

This week I have decided to take on many projects that I have long put off. One of them is stopping junk mail.

One of my favorite bloggers, Nuthatch at Bootstrap Analysis, wrote a post called 'Kick the Catalog Habit' detailing both how to do this and the importance of doing so. Let me just recapitulate: Boreal forest is being destroyed to produce catalogs that most of us never read. It's not enough to recycle, people. It's better yet to stop the generation of junk mail in the first place.

So how do you do that?

First, go to the Direct Marketing Association and print out a DMAchoice registration form for mailing preference. The easiset thing to do is to download the registration form, print it out, fill it in and mail it in with a $1 check to the DMA.

Then, contact any catalogs you no longer want to receive. When you call you will want to ask them to not add you back to their mailing list in the event that you place future orders. Or you can go to a website called Catalog Choice, which was featured in this New York Times' article called 'Deforest Your Mailbox.'

Thanks folks!