House work

So far Thanksgiving break is going well. I've had time to catch up on sleep, which has been really nice. I'm still really busy - we're doing various home improvement projects and I'm trying to get some notes together for the finals that are a mere 2 weeks away(!)

Thursday we have a nice dinner planned - here's the menu:

Roast turkey
Mashed potatoes with goat cheese
Mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar, pecans, orange and bourbon
Mashed sweet potatoes with chipotle and adobo
Steamed green beans with cheddar cheese topping
Maple pumpkin pie

Can't wait!

Break!

Today was the last in a 6-or-7-week series of exam hellaciousness. I think we had 11 or 12 exams total? Not sure. We have class tomorrow and Friday, then we're off for a week (Thanksgiving break), then in class for a week, then finals. The up-side of the past month and a half of hell is that we only have 3 finals.

In 3 weeks this quarter will be over!

Don't be that guy (or girl)

It happened in our class, it happened this year, and I suspect it happens every year. A small number of first-year veterinary students make a name for themselves - in a bad way. They become infamous for aggressive questioning of professors and guest speakers, raising their hand in class simply to make a comment to highlight how smart they are, telling everyone else what to do and how to do it (even if they've only done an activity once before and the other people have done it several times), and so on.

If you are applying to veterinary school or just thinking about it, please don't be one of these people. You will end up having very few friends because people will just plain not want to be around you, and as a result you won't have a lot of much-needed help (academic, moral support, or both) from said friends.

I don't know if this kind of behavior is driven from insecurity, arrogance, or something else entirely, but I do know that it is obnoxious and makes pretty much everyone avoid you. If you've been accepted to vet school, you've already proven you're smart and talented. There isn't much more to prove. Even if you want to go on to an internship or residency, there's a high likelihood that there will be at least 1 class you need help in, and if you alienate everyone then it's a problem.

So don't be that person, please!

Trudging

We got our pharmacology exams back. One person in the class got the highest grade - 92%. You can imagine how the rest of us fared. My grade was a full 15% below what I usually get on exams. Although I passed, it still rattled me. I studied hard, I know the material, and yet ...

Of course this has happened at the start of a 4-exam series - just in time to demoralize everyone. Tomorrow is pathology, Monday is virology, and Wednesday is microbiology. It has been really hard to muster the energy to study. The pessimistic (and lazy) part of me says why bother going to lots of extra effort if you're just going to be disappointed? Of course I'm totally overgeneralizing. Pharmacology is probably the exception rather than the rule (even the dreaded cardiology didn't decimate our class like this has).

We just have to keep trudging along. In about a month this quarter will be OVER!

Bits of good news

One of the exams from our upcoming Thursday/Friday/Monday exam extravaganza has been moved to a later date, which gives us a little more breathing room!

2 of my latest foster kittens have been adopted and a third may get adopted tomorrow.

Oh, and I have a massage appointment booked for the first day of Thanksgiving break.

Now, back to studying for tomorrow's pharmacology exam ...

No time for this!

Before vet school, I've never experienced a time where I literally didn't have time to handle home-type things ... cleaning, cooking, auto maintenance, and so on. Naturally during the craziest time of the quarter, the following has happened (so far):
- the air mattress I've been sleeping on developed a leak
- my front bike tire is damaged and flat
- one of my front car tires has a slow leak

and this is what I've done about it:
- borrowed cushions from the living room chairs to sleep on
- driven to school
- periodically added air to my car tire

Hopefully if I can just get through this next burst of exams (4 more to go over the next 13 days), I can then address all the other crap that seems to be falling apart.

p.s. Why an air mattress? I needed something cheap and futons hurt my back terribly.

Safety nets

I've lost count of the number of exams done in the past 2-3 weeks. Pharmacology was incredibly hard, oncology was ok, both microbiology ones were ok, and virology tripped me up a little. I think we had a couple of take-home exams as well? Anyway, I believe there are "only" 5 more exams to go until Thanksgiving.

Sometimes I get really frustrated sitting in lecture all the time. Some classes are better than others - the ones with a more clinical focus (like oncology) are ok, while others that are not (like virology) seem like a waste of time. Is it really going to help me be a better doctor to know the person at Plum Island who developed the such-and-such test? I think not.

Fortunately, my hip has healed enough that I can run once in a while. Without that and cooking my head would probably implode from the stress! Back when I was interviewing at veterinary schools, I thought it was interesting that one school asked everyone what they did to relieve stress. Let me tell you - if you don't have a good outlet for stress in veterinary school, you're screwed. Some people are lucky enough to have family and/or significant others nearby, others exercise, still others knit or invent new cupcake recipes - doesn't matter. You have to have something (other than drinking, drugs, smoking, etc.) to get through. It also helps when your friends and classmates are in the same boat so that you can commiserate!