no such thing as "definite"

So much for "definitely meeting in the anatomy lab on Saturday." I'm back in Dallas to celebrate Emily's nativity, see the husband, see Jackass number two, etc. Hopefully much anatomy studying will occur this weekend as well. Also, the anatomy lab is open until 9pm on Sunday, so I will go in once we get back to College Station to brush up on things. I discovered on Thursday that I don't so much need Tigger to study ID - I pretty much have those down - I just need to memorize actions, origins, insertions of muscles, which nerves innervate what, the developement of bone, and things of that nature. Fun times.

Study break

I just finished reading some histology and it seemed like a good time to take a break. Today was great - we had amusing lecturers in both classes (histo and physiology), I had my three hour break from 10-1, histo lab was short, and my last class of the day, clinical correlates, was in the Medical Sciences Library and only lasted 45 minutes. So, I got home at 4:00! Unheard of!

Dr. Cudd, the less than inspiring physiology lecturer, has been replaced for three days by Dr. Wassar, as fast-talking New Yorker who is much more fun to listen to. He also always adds "on this planet" whenever he makes generalizations about animals (example: "all skeletal muscle contracts this way in animals on this planet") because he says he doesn't think we're alone in the universe and that veterinarians, especially ones engaged in comparative studies between species such as himself, will be the most suited to study aliens when they are found.

We opened the chest cavity in anatomy lab yesterday. It was wonderful to see the boys transform from sleepy and slightly bored (I can only make things so amusing) to completely fascinated as we cut into the ribs and opened up the chest. They got to poke the lungs and ogle the heart and whatnot, and it was neat to see their interest. We are definitely meeting on Saturday to review because we have a test a week from Friday and it will cover a ridiculous amount of material (it is 50% old, 50% new, and the test lasts 4 hours!).

It was beautiful and cool this morning when we left for school. It didn't really stay that way, but it does make me think that fall is just around the corner. Too bad I'm outside for so little time each day. I suppose I can study with the window open when it cools down or something.

89, whoop!

Greetings from Dallas

This update is coming to you live from Susie's iMac in Dallas. I had a lovely evening sitting on the couch with Matt watching "House" from Tuesday and a "Cheap Seats" off the TiVo. Oh, and eating Mr Gatti's Pizza. Yum!

My week of school was pretty good. Highlights included going to the Bryan Auction Barn for my Clinical Correlates class and Mom's visit, as well as the last celebration of knowledge in the first round of tests, and my first physical in ten years. Mom rolled into town on Wednesday in time to take me to my doctor's appointment - I hadn't gotten a physical and regular check-up type thing since, I believe, I needed one for middle school basketball tryouts. I had gotten the name of Johnny and Cindy's primary care physician and made an appointment with that office, although it was a different doctor. I was a little nervous, but the doctor, Dr. Neal, was very nice and I liked him a lot. The visit was uneventful, although he did take blood to check my thyroid and kidneys (when I had bloodwork after the first College Station seizure they sad my creatinine was high, so we were rechecking it). I should get the results Monday. Mom returned me to school in time for anatomy lab and I got a ride home with Christi. Mom cooked Emily and me a fabulous meal and then went to work making curtains while I tried to study for microbiology. She poked around the duplex and College Station while I was at class on Thursday and then came up to the school to catch the end of my anatomy lab. She got to meet "The Boys" and Christi, and I showed her the cooler and a group's dog that was out (we had already put Tigger away for the week). Then we walked around the vet school a bit and I got to introduce her to Dr. H before we left. I came home to the wonderful aroma of pot roast and Mom and I had dinner before I retreated to study for the next day's test.

So my microbiology test was this morning, and it went okay. It was multiple choice, and tricky at that (the scantron had A-J and some answers required bubbling in more than one answer at a time, and there were lots of "EXCEPT" questions which are not fun). But I think I passed. Hopefully I did so I can say I survived my first round of tests with little-to-no failure :) I scurried out as soon as I was done with the test and hopped in the car with Mom to head to Dallas. We saw the mini-horses on OSR and stopped at the Sonic at Buffalo for lunch but had no other adventures. My appointment with Dr. Z went well, and that was good to check off the list. I got to chat with Mom and Dad while waiting for Matt to get off work, which was nice. Tomorrow's plans include studying while Matt is at work (yeah, on a Saturday) and then hanging out with the Roberts family tomorrow night, and probably watching the A&M game.

69.5 is totally passing

Yeah, I got a 69.5 on my physiology test that I took today. I think that's technically passing, if you round =D Honestly, with the amount I studied, I would've taken anything over 50%. I got an 87 on my histo test though. Go me. I wonder how anatomy will turn out (I'll know tomorrow). I was just burned out after the two tests last week and my phys prof sucks the wonder and joy out of the subject, and ... yeah, I'll study more next time. The 69.5% I got right was all due to knowledge garnered from undergrad anyway.

So last week sucked a lot. It was all leading up to Thursday's histology test and Friday's anatomy test. The anticipation was awful, and we were all blowing off physiology and micro to study for these classes. Anyway, the tests went okay and then it was Friday, which meant CALF FRY! I ate calf balls. Four of them. So did Emily. They were fried and battered, and tasted like a cross between fried chicken and fried catfish. I mean, I wouldn't eat them every day, but they weren't gross. Christi had met us at the duplex and the three of us (her, me, Em) rode over together. It was at an outdoor pavilion. We chatted with some classmates, including my wonderful lab partners Justin and Brandon and ate some testicles and burgers, and left about an hour later. Apparently most of the people who stayed ended up getting completely trashed. Vet students seem to have the motto: "work hard, study hard, play hard."

Matt got in Friday night and we went to bed at the respectable hour of 9:20. Saturday I studied (sort of) while Matt watched football. He and Emily went to the Aggie game that night while I stayed home and tried to study but mostly sat around. I wasn't feeling like being around 70,000 other people. They came back bearing Sonic (vanilla malt joy!). On Sunday Matt took me to the grocery store and went back to Dallas (to work!) after lunch. I studied (played Warcraft) the rest of the day, went to bed early, and woke up at the ungodly hour of 5am this morning (that was NOT intentional). Anatomy lab was fun today - we finished the pelvic limb and started on the trunk. And finally I was trusted with a scalpel so I hacked away happily for 2 hours. =D

I'm writing this at the vet school computer lab actually. I had something to do at 6, and Emily has a Judo meeting at 7:30, so I am killing time until my awesome lab partner Brandon comes to pick me up. He and Justin both told me that if I ever needed a ride, I could ask them. Such gentlemen!

Other news...Mom is coming down on Wednesday, just in time to take me to my doctor's appointment (I'm missing micro lab for it, how naughty). Then I have a micro test on Friday, followed immediately by Mom driving us back to Dallas so I can make an afternoon appointment with Dr. Z. Then I get to have fun in Dallas and not study for tests all weekend! Christi is going home (Lewisville) that weekend too so I am riding back with her.

not the smartest move

In a not so brilliant move on my part, I decided I didn't want to take my seizure medicine because of the side effects. I mean, they are awful and I find it very hard to concentrate or study while on Keppra, but just not taking them wasn't necessarily the best idea. I know this because after about five days of slacking on the meds, I had another seizure. Yeah yeah, it's my fault. I was in the small anatomy lab attending one of Dr. Hoffman's Friday lunchtime review sessions, and about 10-15 minutes into it...down I went. The girl behind me mostly caught me as I toppled off my stool, and the first memory I have is me laying on the lab floor (ew) with my head laying on Dr. Hoffman's crossed-legged knee and him patting me on the side, which was really comforting. This would be the second time he's played a role in my brain adventures...it was really helpful to figure out what had happened while staying calm thanks to him. So yeah, off I went to the hospital again, which I said I wouldn't do but post-seizure I think I'd forgotten that.

My classmates were very nice. One borrowed my phone and called Matt and Emily, another made sure my stuff made it to the Dean's office for safekeeping. I went to St Joseph's in Bryan instead of The Med in CS and it was much faster and nicer. Emily and Johnny came up to be with me, I learned nothing new; mostly the message that I needed to go to a neurologist got reinforced through lectures by many people, including Matt, Emily, the ER doctor, and Dr. Hoffman.

Yeah, I went back up to the vet school about 2.5 hours after I'd had the seizure because I needed to check my locker and I wanted to see if I could catch the professor of the class I missed to get any make-up work. Emily and I walked all around, first to see Dr. Hoffman. He gave me a very fatherly look and ... mini-lecture when I confirmed I hadn't taken my seizure medicine (apparently he'd asked if I was taking it after the seizure but it was during my confusion stage). Then I picked my stuff up from the dean's office and we went to find my classmates. I talked with Christi and she thought she just hadn't been able to find me for class. I said "um, I was in the hospital."

Matt was coming for the Labor Day weekend anyway, but he left as soon as I had the seizure, so he got to the duplex around 4. We watched some tv and he watched football while I messed around in WoW. We went to bed at 9:20 to facilitate my ridiculously early awakenings. Good thing too, because I was wide awake at 5:00 but I was able to just get up and not feel like I'd only gotten a tiny bit of sleep. Today I studied some anatomy in the lab with Justin, Brandon, Christi, and Christina (Matt got to meet them) and then came back here and managed to be very unproductive. Now I have about an hour to study before we leave for the A&M game. Oh well, tomorrow's another day.

I took the night off

Last night I gave myself my first break from studying. There have been nights where I haven't gotten much done, of course, but I got home and thought "I'm not opening my backpack up tonight." I had been hitting the anatomy books pretty hard and we had a really good lab yesterday afternoon. We completed our study of all the muscles and bones of the thoracic limb, leaning everything past the elbow that day. Justin, Brandon, and I quizzed each other and tried to make sure we would retain some of the information for more than an hour. I think we succeeded. I also got a really nice little e-mail from Brandon later thanking me for my hard work in lab and telling me that if I ever needed a ride I could ask him. Have I mentioned that I love my lab partners?

Other excitement of the day: physiology lab. It was about placing catheters and drawing blood to run it for some basic bloodwork (PCV, total protein, serum protein, glucose). There were 8 of us in our group, and our less-than-enthusiastic lab dog was named Colorado. Half of us had plenty of experience doing that stuff, so we mostly sat back and assisted the newbies try to get it done. I learned that one of the girls in my group went to SMU and has eaten at all the restaurants. And she worked at Hillside Veterinary Clinic for years so she knows Sarpong. Small world =P I ended up eating lunch in the "grasshopper room" with her and another of my labmates, which was actually really nice - we didn't know each other that well, but we're in all the same classes and obviously have at least one interest in common, so we had plenty to talk about. After lunch was histology lab where we had a practice test and I was reminded that I should probably try to learn some of this stuff. The real test is next Thursday. Eek! Then it was time for the best part of the day - anatomy lab, which I've already discussed. :)

Getting home from school proved to be tricky yesterday. After Emily picked me up from the vet school around 5:10, we had to go get Rick (her boytoy) from the Bright Building, which is right in the middle campus, i.e. major traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian. And then getting from the Bright Building to home...goodness. We got to the duplex around 6 (it usually takes us 10 minutes to go between the duplex to the vet school). Poor Emily, it was not a fun driving experience.

So I arrived home and puttered for a bit, playing with Piper and poking the internet. Then I logged on to World of Warcraft for a real gaming session, my first in two weeks. It was nice to be greeted happily by my guildmates. I messed around with my druid Camali, getting her halfway to level 55 (which is 5 long levels from the end goal of 60). I also got to chat on Ventrilo with everyone and catch up on what they'd been up to. And I commiserated with Trisha/Atsukana about A&M having class on Labor Day.

I played "late" - past 10! - to try a new sleeping experiment. I haven't slept well in a few nights, the issue mostly being that I am waking up between 4-5:30 and not really being able to go back to sleep. So, I thought maybe I was just going to bed too early and my body was getting enough rest by then that it wanted me to get up. Well, I still work up somewhere around 4:30 despite not turning out the light until 11:20. So the *new* plan is to go to bed really early and just accept that I may be getting up at 5. *shrug* we'll see.

Matt comes in tonight! Yay! And he gets to stay until Monday since *he* doesn't have to go to work on Monday.

Oh, I'm writing this from the A-T lab in the basement of the vet school. I ended up here because I had 2.5 hours to kill before class (Emily has to work at 8 so I figured I'd come along with her), so I watched the video I needed to watch for Clinical Correlates on Tuesday: "The Restraint and Physical Examination of the Equine" or something like that. My group in that class has our horse case on Tuesday and I needed to learn that stuff. Although the prof is telling us now we might do a cow instead, which is really not cool. 1) cows aren't as interesting, and 2) I've already prepared for the horse! Oh well. I really would like to know by today because there is also some written homework I have to do beforehand. Grr.

PS: It is September! Ridiculous!