Three down, two to go

Definitely on the down-hill part of finals week, and I can't be more excited for 48 hours from now when I'll be done with my first semester of classes!

Not much new to report as I've been spending most of my time studying in my apartment and trying to not be tooooo distracted with Facebook, YouTube, NetFlix, etc.  I'm mostly successful...

We had our big (163 questions!) physiology exam this morning on repro and endocrine stuff.  And boy am I glad that I started studying earlier than this weekend!  It was pretty specific, nitty-gritty information, and if you didn't know it frontwards and backwards it was tough.  I actually felt really confident going in, and I think I did well enough to keep the grade I had in the class.

The only two we have left are histology tomorrow and bacteriology on Wednesday, and I've started work for them already so there isn't too much reason to panic yet.  I don't think either will be too bad, and the professors were awesome enough to provide us with previous exams to study from.  A HUGE help!  I'm also meeting with Dr. Sannes tomorrow after histology to go over to his lab.  He's one of the mentors who is sponsoring a project through the Merck/Merial summer research program, and I think I'll be applying to enter his lab.  He does a lot of work with respiratory systems and lung fibrosis, which is pretty cool stuff.  Inflammation is the coolest process ever!  I figure between that application and applying for the pathology program here at school, I should have somewhere to go this summer to get some experience and a little money.

Going to take a little break (and maybe a short nap?) before starting in with histology.  Freedom is soooo close! :)

I survived!

First semester of vet school anatomy?  CHECK!

We had our final exam this afternoon, and I think it went pretty well.  And that's great, but just being able to walk out of that lab knowing I wouldn't have to smell tons of formalin for almost two months was the best feeling.  I actually really like the study of anatomy - finding out how things are put together and work and contribute to an organism's function is pretty sweet.  But the constant stream of seemingly minute details that you have to memorize in order to succeed in the class is tiring.  Even worse is the knowledge that a lot of what we're learning is is not going to be remembered by clinics or even clinically relevant to our cases. 

Still, small animal anatomy is now finished!  We also finished our production medicine exam on Thursday.  It's just a pass-fail course, and I managed to pass with room to spare. 

Two down, three to go.  I'm taking it easy tonight (baked some cookies to send to the boy for his birthday) but tomorrow starts a pretty hard-core studying weekend.  Physiology is the other biggie, and that's on Monday followed by histology and bacteriology, which aren't quite as scary.  And then we're home free for the Thanksgiving holiday!  Definitely need to do some Christmas shopping too because I haven't gotten much accomplished in that department yet.

Oh, and "Harry Potter" at midnight the night before my exam dressed in full costume?  FREAKING AWESOME!  An incredible movie that really captured a lot of what made the book and entire series amazing.  Can't wait to see it again soon, and it really gave me the itch to re-read the entire series before next semester starts.

Last day of classes! What???

Hard to believe that today is our last day of classes in our first semester of vet school!  I don't know where the time has gone!  And I feel like instead of getting closer to being a doctor, my head is just full of a bunch of stuff that I don't fully  understand...

Anyway, last day of class and Thursday marks our first day of finals which then last until Wednesday of next week.  I still have a lot of preparation to do, but I'm definitely feeling okay about them.  Getting anatomy out of the way this Friday will be great because physiology is still kind of looming out there, and it's hard to focus on much else when that neuroanatomy exam is in the way.  Still, I have started preparing for physio and am actually feeling like I've passed the halfway mark of being ready for the exam, but there's still a long way to go until taking it on Monday morning.  I'm just super-thankful that both histology and bacteriology (T and W) aren't going to require nearly as much work to get ready.

And have I mentioned the food in vet school?  I know I have (because it's one of my favorite things), but free food = awesome.  And during finals week, the students get free breakfast provided by different drug and food companies.  Brueggers, Bojangles, Chick-Fil-A, Panera, etc.  Can't freaking wait!  Plus it forces me to get into school a little early to do a last minute read-through of my notes before the exams.  Win-win!

Other than that I'm getting pretty excited for a break from school at Thanskgiving.  Even though we're feeling the crunch of finals now, we're all incredibly thankful that we can actually enjoy our few days of break without worrying about tests, studying, or schoolwork.  I get to see my family, Grandpa, pets, boy, and the boy's family over break - and I can't wait!!!

And Mom asked me what I want for Christmas.  Honestly, aside from money and Walmart/Target cards, I don't need anything else.  Pretty sad that I've officially become a boring adult.  Even worse, a boring adult who is also a poor doctorate student. :(((  I'm thinking of adding some Disney DVDs to the list just to keep it from being the lamest Christmas ever.

T-Minus One Week

This time next week I'll be at the movie theater waiting for the midnight showing of "Harry Potter 7"!!!  And...probably with my anatomy notes in tow seeing as how my final in that class is the next day at noon.  Here's my logic on this one, because I know it probably sounds really irresponsible of me to be doing this.  I don't really study that much from about 10 pm onwards anyway, so going to a movie starting at 10 pm isn't cutting into any study time.  What about sleep you say?  Well, I should get home from the showing at around 3 am.  I plan on falling right asleep (should be a cinch), sleeping for six hours (typical school night of sleep for me), get up at 9:30 or so, and have another hour or two to do some last minute note-reading before the exam.  No problem!  Honestly, if I don't know something by 11 pm the night before an exam, it probably ain't going to happen.  I don't do all-nighters and don't absorb a lot of academic stuff once my brain starts going fuzzy at night.

This week went waaaaay too fast, and it's definitely crunch time for finals.  They're coming up quickly, and I still have a lot to do.  We blew through the anatomy of the entire brain and spinal cord this week, and I think it goes without saying that your central nervous system is slightly complicated.  Definitely going to be studying for that exam a lot this weekend.  It's tough to focus on everything else that comes after just because of how overwhelming that single subject and single exam can be.

But in two weeks I'll be at home, probably going to bed, with a full belly of Thanksgiving dinner.  Can't wait!

Also had lots of fun in physiology lab today where we got to focus on both mammalian and avian reproduction with some hands-on stuff.  There were reproductive tracts to palpate, aborted cattle fetuses to examine and age, ovaries to study, chicks to necropsy, and lots of other fun stuff!  It was definitely a really nice break from lecture after lecture. 

I also made a huge pot of potato soup which should feed me for the next week - so tasty!  Figured I'd better prepare my little study hole of despair with some good rations to give me brain power.  Might also need to run for an emergency ice cream supply too...

Crunch Time!

I got to spend this past weekend with the boy out in Pittsburgh, and it looks like that'll be the last "fun" thing I do for the next 2.5 weeks.  We had a blast, though!  I flew out on Friday and promised to treat him to a birthday weekend since I won't see him until after his actual day later in the month.  I took him to a tasty breakfast, cleaned the apartment and cooked dinner, took him to see "Due Date", and surprised him with tickets to the circus.  And then on Sunday, I had made reservations at an ATV site about an hour away.  Didn't tell him where we were going or what we were doing, so it was a total surprise.  And a huge success!  Really glad that he had such a good time.

And subsequently between being super-busy and having tons of fun over the weekend, I didn't get any studying done.

Not sure if that will be a problem or not...

This week we have an anatomy quiz which looks to be pretty awful.  The professor showed us a sample quiz from years past to give us an idea, and there was stunned silence throughout the lab.  Really, really tough questions that require a LOT of thinking and problem-solving, which is tough to do in only 15 minutes.  The histology quiz on Friday shouldn't be quite so bad, but I still need to do some reviewing of slides to prepare.  Plus we get our second evidence-based medicine exam this week to finish.  It's a take-home test but it actually does take a few hours to complete in its entirety.

And between all of that stuff, we have to really start worrying and buckling down for finals which start in about 9 days.  SO.  NOT.  READY!!!!!!!!  And we have a good handful to worry about...

Production Medicine - Thursday.  Should be okay.  Just a lot of basic stuff on food animal production.

Anatomy - Friday.  WORRIED AS CRAP (I think that's the theme of every vet school anatomy course).  Focuses mostly on head, cranium, nervous system, brain, reflexes, etc. but there's cumulative stuff from anywhere in the class on there as well.  Definitely going to be a huuuuge time sink to prepare for this, and I'm not at all confident that I won't too terribly on this one despite lots of preparation.

Physiology - Monday.  I have a LOT to do still, but I think it's do-able.  It's everything on endocrinology and reproduction, so there are lots of pathways and hormones to learn.  I've heard at least parts of it all before in other classes, read all of the notes, made my study sheets, and have gotten through about 1/3 of them.  Worried, but it'll come together.

Histology - Tuesday.  I think a solid day or two of work will make this one okay.  I didn't have a problem with the last practical or written exam, so I hope this will be the same.

Bacteriology - Wednesday.  Sad to say, but this will be the lowest on the totem pole.  Past evaluations have taught me that reviewing my outlines and old exams/quizzes will be sufficient to get the main points of the material.  No problem.

And that's it!  Thanksgiving break is coming up fast!!!

Plus, I bought my ticket for the Harry Potter 7 midnight showing!  Can't wait!

And, vet school isn't all bad.  We're all in this together, I still am having lots of fun despite the stress, and tonight I got free dinner and six months of Advantix for each of my dogs at home just for attending an informative lecture on the Bayer products.  Pretty sweet!

It's the final countdown...

Only ten days of class left of my first semester of vet school - can't even begin to describe how fast it has gone!  After tomorrow we only have three quizzes total to worry about before our exams start, which will feel amazing.  Our last day of classes is two Tuesdays from now followed by a study day followed by our finals week.  Definitely am feeling like I will not be ready for those exams and have to keep reminding myself how far away those really are.  Plenty of time to get prepared!

Tomorrow we have our fourth anatomy quiz on the head and cranium structures, and we started cranial nerves and the central nervous system this week in lecture.  Looooots to learn but at least it's interesting stuff!  We're continuing with endocrinology in physiology, and we're specifically learning about reproductive physio.  I'm super-thankful that I took a pretty in-depth repro class in undergrad, so I've at least heard all of this before (even if it was a while ago).  The last bacteriology quiz of the semester was also this week, and we've started working on the mycology (fungi) aspect of the course.  Today he mentioned that we only have four of those classes left before finals...it's seriously difficult to comprehend that I'll be 1/8th finished this program in just a few weeks.

It's also finally starting to feel like fall outside!  Beautiful chilly weather, and the leaves are changing colors.  Can't wait to start making tons of soups for winter dinners!  I've also got to get working on Christmas and birthday shopping since I have no idea what I'm going to get most people in my family.  I feel like some people can be extremely difficult to shop for; I hate getting a gift for someone simply because it fills that gift requirement.  I wish I was good at finding that "perfect" item or experience or whatever for everyone on my list.

Other than that I've been starting to think about summer employment and what to do over my breaks.  For Christmas I think I'll be heading home for the holiday itself for about five days and then going out to see the boy for another five or so.  That means that I'll be here in Raleigh for over two weeks of my break with nothing to do.  In the next few days I want to start contacting some of the clinicians in the hospital to set up some shadowing experiences.  Since specialization is something I may be interested in, I want to experience as much as I can as early as possible and also get some quality time with clinicians before fourth year.  There's also a meeting next week about summer research opportunities, which are compensated projects that you complete with an assigned PI (usually a clinician or researcher at the school).  I'll definitely be applying to the clinical pathology externship here at the school, but some of the projects are pretty interesting as well.  I figure it can't hurt to put in multiple applications to ensure I get a job or project that I'll be happy with.

Two more days left of this week before I get to spend a weekend with the boy.  Unfortunately I have a weird, funny feeling that my body is fighting something off right now and that it's on the brink of losing.  Hopefully my immune system does it's job so I can enjoy my time before the craziness of finals sets in!

Happy Halloween!

All I'm going to say is that vet school students certainly know how to party it up.  The Halloween party on Saturday night was sooooo much fun!  There must have been about 200 of us there, and the costumes were fantastic!  Some of the best were a group of Jetsons characters, Paul Bunyan and Babe the ox, a goldfish, car insurance characters (Flo, the Gecko, etc.), Avatar, and the Ninja Turtles.  There was definitely a lot of creativity and thought put into everyone's costumes, and it was sooooo much fun to hang out with people from school without a single thought given to schoolwork. 

Yesterday I got some studying done in the morning and was actually somewhat productive.  Go me!  Last night I made the drive over to Carrboro to visit with a Penn State friend who is down here now to study architecture and planning at UNC.  She had a few of her program friends over as well, so I got to hear a bit about how their program works, their classes, and their fellow classmates.  It's funny how similar their conversations are to those within the vet school.  Seems like students in advanced programs everywhere have the same sort of experiences no matter what they're studying!