Late night anatomy

So it's 2 a.m. right now and I just got home from the anatomy lab. Late nights in the anatomy lab are so much fun. Admittedly, sometimes having too much fun in anatomy lab can be distracting and take away from my productivity level but it's still more effective and efficient for me to spend my time in lab than at home (where I get distracted by other things like River....and food....and TV.....and outside....). Anyway, I promise I will try to at some point in the near future (hopefully) give a longer and more informative update about vet school. I can't promise it will be a well organized thought/post, though.

Countdown to my first anatomy exam: 3 days!

Still behind....

So I still feel kind of (but not badly) behind in Anatomy but that's mainly because yesterday evening (after classes) I went and picked up my bookshelves that had finally gotten in AND assembled them. Assembling them took me about 3 hours.....and then add in the time it took me to make dinner, etc. so that I basically didn't study at all last night and believe it or not, that's enough to get you behind in vet school. But on the upside, now I have somewhere to put my books!


First anatomy exam countdown: 6 days!

Not knowing what to expect...

Not knowing what to expect for the first anatomy exam is killing me. So last week was my first week in vet school. Technically, it was only half a week so I'm actually considering tomorrow the start of my ACTUAL first week in vet school. Either way though, I have completed 3 full days of vet school and so far I enjoy tremendously. Unfortunately, I'm freaking out on the inside not because I'm super stressed about how much  we need to know for anatomy (which is a lot) but more because I just don't know what to expect. Basically, I don't know enough about what to expect to be any more descriptive than just "a lot" when describing what we need to know. Of what we've gone over so far in class, I know we'll need to know the bones of the thoracic limb, each part of each bone, the muscles, the muscle attachments, the muscle actions, the joints, but where does it end? Do we need to know the fascia? Do we need to know (for the first exam) the muscle attachments that are not on the thoracic limb (like the sternebrae ones)? When it comes to the muscle actions, will it be sufficient to know just whether it extends or flexes that particular joint or will we have to know all the other minor actions as well? My assumption (both a safe, and probably accurate assumption) is that we will need to know everything in as much detail as possible. And that's okay with me - I truly do enjoy learning about this stuff. I just wish I knew what to expect for the test. The anticipation of the first anatomy exam (in a week and a half) is almost too much to handle.


With that being said, I honestly do feel behind. I feel like I probably know about 75% of what I should know if I were on a good pace. Being behind isn't really stressing me out though. I think I just feel behind because it's been a WHOLE 2 DAYS since our last "official" anatomy lab and I definitely think our scheduled anatomy labs help me a lot. I used the words "official" and "scheduled" to describe the anatomy labs that I was referring to because there have also been a few times already that I have gone to the anatomy lab during off hours just to review/study. Tomorrow is Monday though, which means it's time for 4 (possibly more depending how I spend my weekend(s)) straight days of anatomy lab this week and every week following. So after tomorrow I'm hoping to feel on track again.


I started this post with no particular ideas or organization in mind and it has led me to this....

"It's gonna be awesome...."

So the title of this post is a quote from a classmate and it actually was not related to vet school BUT the conversation was hilarious so it is definitely quote-worthy and in this case, I feel this way about vet school so it applies....

Anyway, yesterday was my last day of a 3 day Orientation and a 1/2 day for the White Coat Ceremony. Orientation was long and quite boring at times and in my opinion, not particularly informative about anything we didn't already know BUT I'm not really complaining because it was fun meeting my classmates and everything. The White Coat Ceremony was pretty awkward, in my opinion, so that was a lot of fun too :p

I have to go pick up my books and supplies and ID card today around 2:30-3 but other than that today is our "day off" before classes start tomorrow. So yeah, classes start tomorrow and I'm pretty sure it's gonna be awesome.

Right now I am updating this blog just for the sake of "updating". I would write more but I really don't feel much like "writing" right now. 

Early mornings start soon

So this summer I have naturally been waking up around 9:30am every morning. To many of my college friends, this would be considered getting up early but to many others I have had the pleasure of "sleeping in" most of the summer. On Thursday, however, I will basically be starting a 8-5 job (plus all the extra hours that will go into studying). My first day of Orientation is on Thursday from 8am until 5:15pm. The second day of Orientation (Friday) is from 7:30am until 3:20pm and then return for dinner from 5:30pm until 7:30. We then have our White Coat Ceremony on Saturday from 2pm until 5pm. Finally, the last day of Orientation is Monday from 7:30am until 5pm. Then classes (from 8:05am until 4:30pm most days, I think) start that Wednesday! I'm pretty excited to start classes. As for Orientation, I am both excited and dreading it. Orientation is SO long and a lot of it is just person after person talking to us about topic after topic of this giant load of information. Sure, that's what classes will be like but at least that information will be more interesting. Based on our Orientation schedule, I wish some of the stuff they have scheduled for us was optional since I don't feel like it's all things that I necessarily need to know right now. Nevertheless, I am super excited to meet ALL of my classmates and do all the cheesy ice-breaker games that I'm sure we'll play. Also, I'm really looking forward to meeting all the faculty.


Anyway, time to get ready for a movie at the $1.50 theater tonight with some of my awesome classmates! :)

One Week!

I will hopefully update soon with more than just a couple sentences (maybe talk about my Orientation schedule or something) but for now I just wanted to say:


One week from today I'll be sitting at Orientation - starting vet school!

3 weeks and counting(down)!

My first day of orientation is August 5th. Three weeks from tomorrow I officially start vet school. I'm so excited!!!!


I came back up to NC, finally, about a week ago. Since I've gotten back I've mainly been trying to finish unpacking (which is difficult since I've reached the point now where nothing is really in my way anymore - so I've lost a lot of motivation to continue unpacking the more minor stuff) and meet people! So far I've met some of my classmates and they all seem pretty cool. I've also met some Class of 2013 people who seem really nice too.


The day after I got back up I went and got my car registration and now I think I've completed everything I need to do right away for getting residency next year. I'm going to try to make an appointment with or send an email to the lawyer that handles residency questions and just make sure there's nothing else I need to get done before classes start.


Hmmmm...what else? Oh, today I applied for a job. I need to get a job to help with getting residency and if I could get one before classes start then I could put in some more hours/make a little extra money before I get busy with classes and can't work more than a few hours a week. If this job doesn't work out, then I might look into some other jobs but I also might just wait until orientation and try to get one of the jobs that are offered through the school. The job I applied to today is at a veterinary clinic but I don't necessarily care if I get a veterinary related job (since I can always volunteer for a variety of veterinary related activities to get more experience in the field). I could also tutor math or something as well. My main criteria for a job is that it needs to be something that I can just do on weekends, probably - maybe one night during the week. I'm not particularly looking forward to working while in school but I think I can handle it, as long as I'm not working too many hours.


As for the area: I love it up here! It might be just as hot as Florida right now, but it's far less humid so the weather is slightly nicer. Also, up here it does stay "cooler" a little bit in the morning and it cools down a little at night - whereas in Florida I feel like it doesn't matter the time of day. Plus, there are hills and "winding roads" so driving can be a little less "boring". The hills are going to be an issue when I try to start running again (which I am going to do right after this post) since my endurance is pretty low right now. They make walking River more interesting, though, so I bet they'll have the same effect on running. My favorite thing about being up here so far? The fact that I saw a deer at 2:45 in the afternoon. Sure, I saw deer a few times in Gainesville but only in the dead of night. Never in the daylight. I probably won't appreciate the deer population here as much after the first time I almost hit a deer late at night, though. I didn't think about that before today.


I think River is adjusting pretty well. She doesn't seem particularly anxious or anything. She loved the hike I took her on at Umstead Park. I'll have to do one of those again soon - maybe a longer one this time. Oh, I took River on a "play date" with one of my classmate's girlfriend's dogs (and his dog a little too) and that was really good for her. She was actually pretty good. It went pretty well.


Oh, and while I was there I got to see my classmate's snakes. That was really NEAT because I know next to nothing about snakes and haven't seen too many close up. He was really nice and took out almost every snake for me to see and told me a little bit about each species. It was pretty cool. Man, I can't wait to learn more about all the different animals we're going to be exposed to while in vet school. It's going to be awesome!