30 November 2011

Whoops...I did that.

Today, in lieu of going to my Veterinary Ethics lectures, I went in to London to shop. So much to buy, so little time. I figured, maybe if I go early, I'll have time to come back and write some of my paper.

Nope. That did not happen.

Basically, I left my house at 20 past nine in the morning and got back just after 4pm. So pretty much a full day of shopping/traveling back and forth. From where I am now, I'm only about a 40 minute train ride into the city, but today I opted to get off at Finsbury Park and take the Victoria line into Oxford Street, where all the best shops are. The Christmas decorations are up to, although it was day so it wasn't quite as spectacular.

Unfortunately, I didn't really get that much shopping done. I mean, I managed to buy a dress for Christmas Ball, and get some costume stuff for a friend's fancy dress (costume) party on Friday, and some gifts for family, and my Secret Santa gift...

Ok...maybe I did get a lot of shopping done. But I still have so much to buy! And I still need to make a trip to Borough Market before I leave. Absolute necessity to visit it during the Christmas season.

As for my paper? Well, I pretty much got home at 4, had a snack, tried to take a nap, showed my dress and shoes off to my roommate, tried to take a nap, and then kicked myself out of bed so I could go to dinner with a bunch of friends for one of their birthdays. Delicious delicious dinner. Complete with wine and creme brulee as dessert.

Speaking of school...we've started our Principles of Surgery thread? module? whatever. I've started to look at videos of sutures and suture handling, how to hold a needle, different suture techniques, mayo versus metzenbaum scissors (who knew there were different kinds?), etc etc. Kind of exciting, but a bit overwhelming. There is a lot to learn. I'm going to have to do a lot of catching up over Christmas break, or else I'll be screwed when May rolls around.

And on that note...time to go do some work before bed.

23 November 2011

Sweet Anatomy

Recently the RVC had a baking competition called Sweet Anatomy, which I sadly did not participate in (beacause my baking is less than stellar). It was really fun to see how people shaped cakes and things to form histology slides, whole animals, a dog undergoing GI surgery, etc etc. Even vets can be creative in the kitchen! Maybe next year I'll participate. If you want to read a snippet the BVA wrote about it, you can click here.

22 November 2011

Feeling official.

3rd years got name badges today. It's strange getting an official "you're a clinical vet student" when I'm really only in my second year of vet school. But here it is. Be jealous:


I feel so official!! And I can't wait to wear it on my first clinical placement in March.

20 November 2011

Just keep writing, just keep writing...

Still hitting walls with this AHEMS report that I should be writing instead of writing this post. I have so much to write about I can't seem to get it organized in my head.

I should mention that I'm writing about horse slaughter in the US. It's a really delicate topic, and people on either side of the debate are vicious about their opinions. I'm trying not to get invested in either side with this paper, but when it the debate comes down to the welfare of these horses well...I have to say that it clears up a lot of things. But the reason I bring it up is the fact that the topic has been in the news recently, since Congress reversed the ag appropriations bill and reinstated the ability of the USDA to use funds to inspect horse slaughter facilities. This is a big deal, since this bill essentially is what stopped slaughter of horses intended for human consumption in the US. And to be honest, it's going to help improve the welfare of the horse intended for slaughter since this allows more money to be used to inspect shipments of horses for slaughter to Canada and Mexico. BIG deal.

Anyway, I guess my real point of this post was to say that it's really cool to be writing an evaluative essay on such a relevant topic. Except I keep having to tweak it to make it accurate...

In other news, Turkey Day this week! Very excited. I've made glög, which is the Scandinavian version of mulled wine, for the occasion. It's delicious (I had to drink some since I ran out of space in the bottles I used for storage). I'm also going to make myself some gluten-free friendly sausage stuffing, and probably eat it all of it on Thursday. Can't wait for Thursday!!

08 November 2011

Quizlet is my friend.

Seriously, though. It is. I've been making flashcards online through Quizlet and importing them onto my iPad with the Flashcardlet app. It's ah-may-zing. It's also available for iPhones. I'm hoping the fact that I've got flashcards made up already will help me when I start to study for exams (which aren't until the beginning of May).

In the meantime, we got our results last week for the DOPS (animal handling) exam I took at the end of September. It was mixed across the class, but I'm very thankful that I passed all 5 stations and I don't need to re-sit any of them. Some of my friends weren't so lucky and my heart goes out to them. I know they'll pass second time around...it just really stinks to have to redo any exam.

Looking forward to tomorrow! Half-day Wednesday.

06 November 2011

Paper of DOOM

Haha, just kidding. Sort of.

Our last act of our AHEMS is writing a research report. I had three options to choose from: enterprise evaluation (no way), an investigative report (another no, since that involved statistics, something that I have no joy or skill in), or an evaluative essay (which essentially is a literature review). I chose the evaluative essay, since I didn't have the time or the forethought to do any research on farms, or to find some raw data to work with. So essay it is.

It's been much harder than I thought (or wanted) it to be, writing this paper. The last time I actually sat down to write something of a similar scale, I was probably 20. Or 19. Which basically means it's been 5-6 years since I've written something like this. And all skill that I used to have has left me.

I've tried various methods to start writing this paper. Yesterday, I ended up writing 2 or 3 really awesome but disjointed sentences, so I started re-reading and highlighting all my sources on my iPad, hoping that would help. Today, I tried to type some things out, and ended up with a pen and notebook free-handing it. That seemed to help for a little while, but has now ceased to do much of anything.

Where, oh where, have my writing skills gone?

If you find them, please let me know. I'm lost without them.