Blustery Days

Hello again everyone!

I am currently procrastinating finishing my paper, so with any luck this will be short, but, knowing me, it will be another novel.

In the last week or so, it's been quite busy with studying and paper-writing as usual. I've gotten a lot done, but I still constantly feel like I have so much studying to do that I'm not sure how I'm going to learn it all. I'm sure it'll all work out eventually, especially once we hand in our papers on Friday and I can get back to the work at hand.

Earlier today we had a practical on the cardiorespiratory system, and we spent 3 hours looking at hearts and lungs of various animals. It was actually quite cool, and the session was organized in such a way that each little group of students had an instructor helping them, and our instructor (who unfortunately I cannot remember what his name was) walked us through the function of the heart and the reasoning behind the different morphologies of the different sides and such. I actually left the lab feeling like I had learned SO much, which usually isn't the case, because I'm usually so overwhelmed with information. I think that's why this system of practicals is better than what we had the first 5 weeks, where we whizzed through the dissection of the entire dog. We're focusing on one thing and learning it well instead of just briefly glancing over it. So overall a productive day.

The weekend was pretty low-key. Jessica, Lydia and I went over to Lydia's flat on Friday night to have dinner and watch "Lars and the Real Girl," which is a fantastic movie, and on Saturday night we all went to the Brass Monkey to hang out and have a pint or two. Then on Sunday we went to the Metropole cafe and worked on our papers for a few hours, then went back to Lydia's for more studying and then some television. All in all a good weekend that even managed to be somewhat productive.

Other than that, I've put football on hold for the moment, because half the time I just am so exhausted from everything else that the last thing I want to do after it all is go run around. Also it was just becoming a time issue, and becoming more of a hassle than fun, despite the fact that I enjoy hanging out with all the football girls. Oh well, hopefully I'll be able to learn time-management better and get back into it, but until then school takes priority.

The weather has been crazy windy lately, and I've taken to avoiding walking down the path from my flat to school because I'm afraid a tree branch is going to decapitate me. Seriously it's kind of ridiculous.

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A broken baby tree up by my flat
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This is the main reason I am scared to walk on this path. The pic doesn't even include like 3/4 of the branch extending to the right of the picture, and there were about 2 more branches off in the distance that you can't see in the darkness. Crazy!
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I've also sadly not been able to bike as much, partly because class always seems to be up in the center of town in the morning, which means that it's all uphill on the way there, and it requires a bit more biking skill than I have in me. Also with the weather there are wet leaves everywhere that I'm afraid of killing myself on. Blah, hopefully I'll get more chances to bike that don't involve me exhausting myself on the way to class, cause I do enjoy it.

Anyhoo, the week ahead looks crazy busy. We don't get Wednesday off this week, probably because they're making up for the bank holiday next week, or at least I think that's what it is. We get Monday and Tuesday off. I think my friends and I are thinking of going to Stirling for a visit of the castle, or maybe we'll take a trip to Glasgow or something. Either way, I am looking forward to the small break!

And lastly, in other news, I may have a lambing placement for Easter! We're still waiting to hear the final confirmation from the farmer, in the next two weeks, but there is a strong possibility that I will get a week of lambing in over easter! Yay!

Anyway, back to a bit more paper writing, then bed. Night!

Piping Society

I joined the Dick Vet Piping Society today! Every Tuesday evening, Jessica and I will be learning to play the bagpipes! Jessica is borrowing a practice chanter from the school, and she has named it McGregor. I will be purchasing a cheap-ish chanter tomorrow during my break between classes, since the society doesn't own enough chanters for everyone (or have not gotten them back from past members), and it will be named McKracken.

In our first lesson today, we met the other new and old members of the club, and learned how to play a scale! We're not actually playing with real bagpipes yet, because (a) it's way too loud to play inside, much less with 6 people playing at once, and (b) there's no point until you know fingering and have the breath control and whatnot. It's a bit different playing on the practice chanters, which are something like if a recorder and a clarinet had offspring, it would look and sound something like this:

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It comes in two pieces, plus a reed, and you fit the reed in between the two pieces, and blow through the skinny end. Your fingers go over the holes, but must be kept straight, which is slightly awkward and makes my hand hurt after a little while, but I think I'll get the hang of it.

Other than that, I apologize for not updating as often, I'm trying to balance being social with studying, but I'll try and go over a few highlights.

Today we had a urinalysis practical, also known as the "playing with pee" lab. We had lots of different urine to choose from: cat or dog with chronic renal insufficiency (CRI), dog or cat with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), horse, rabbit, cat with urinary crystals. I never realized pee could come in so many different colors or have so many varieties of smell. So what we did during this practical is we looked at pee under the microscope, and read urine dipsticks, which tell whether urine has things like red or white blood cells, glucose, pH, presence of ketones or proteins. We also learned how to use a refractometer to read specific gravities (which is a measure of the concentration of urine). Things like this are important to know because you can tell if an animal might have CRI (can't concentrate its urine), or perhaps is diabetic (so will have glucose and potentially ketones in there as well).

Now, granted, I already knew how to do both of these things, having worked in a vet hospital since I was 16, but it was cool to do it wearing a white lab coat and in vet school. We also learned about how if you do have an animal with glucose in the urine, it can mess up the specific gravity measurement, which I had not known before.

We also last week had a bunch of lectures on "professional and personal development," which are sort of common sense. I guess it's good to cover all the bases just in case, but it seems like we should already know this stuff already. I will say that it has led to some hilarious lectures, where we get little interactive websites that go through scenarios with horrible actors, and when you click on something that is clearly wrong, like saying to a client: "Well, maybe you shouldn't have gotten the horse if you can't afford to take care of it!" you get to see the fake actress storm offscreen in a huff. We also saw a raunchy advert for men's workwear that featured a woman (who has since become famous because of this), Sara Green, who then decided she wanted to be a teacher, and almost got fired because a video of it surfaced while she was teaching. It was pretty funny (the advert, not her situation).

What else.. We went out to the farm one afternoon to learn the different types of feeds for livestock and horses. I never realized there were so many different things you could feed an animal! You've got your standard maize, oats, barley, wheat, and grass pellets, but then you've also got rolled oats, bruised barley, citrus pulp (byproduct of juice business), sugar beet (coming in either pulp, flakes, or nuts form), dark grains (byproduct of whiskey business), bran (byproduct of flower business), linseed (byproduct of linseed oil), soya meal (byproduct of soy beans), maize gluten (byproduct of cornflour), rapeseed meal (from rapeseed oil), wholecrop wheat silage, and grass silage. Then there's wheat straw, barley straw, and grass hay.

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Some shots of different feeds follow so you know what I'm up against here..
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barley
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wheat
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oats
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bran
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rapeseed meal
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soyabean meal
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grass silage
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wholecrop wheat silage
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THEN we attempted to learn the breeds of sheep and cattle. I'm hoping that by some miracle I develop a photographic memory between now and when I need to know this stuff, because they all look the same to me. A sheep is a sheep is a sheep is a sheep, and the only cows I can differentiate are the Holstein-Fresian (typical black/white dairy cow), and the Highland 'Coo' which is big and hairy and awesome.

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Highland Coo!
(not my picture)
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Holstein-Friesian Cow
(also not my picture)
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Other than classes we've all pretty much been hanging out on the weekends. Dominic and I went walking on the Salisbury Crags last Sunday, which was pretty awesome. Here are some pictures from that.

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And of course, one gratuitous (and awful) tourist shot of me at the top of the crags.
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Well, that's about all I have for my updates. I'll try to be better about uploading more often so I don't have to write novels like this in the future :)

Another week gone by

So another week of classes has passed. This week was pretty good in terms of pace. All the classes we had seemed to go at the right pace, and Wednesday we had pretty much completely off. We had a meeting with our DoS (Director of Studies--kind of like an advisor), and then an address by the president of the BVA (British Veterinary Association). Thursday and Friday we had more classes, and today (Friday) we even started late at 11:10, so we got to sleep in a wee bit!

We also met some amazing teachers this week. We have a wide range of professors at this school, from ones that you just want to hug because they're adorable, to ones that scare you, to ones that have you almost wetting yourself from laughing so hard, and we met at least one teacher from each category this week.

The first was the professor who gave us a lecture on communication skills, and he made the stupidest jokes that only vet students would understand, that were, nonetheless, adorable, and we all agreed that we hope he teaches us more.

The second category I'll not go into, but suffice it to say that professors here like to start lectures 5 minutes early, and yet they will also consistently get angry at people who walk in after they've started, even if technically you are still early by any normal standards. Go figure.

The last category's professor is one David Argyle, who is the funniest professor I think I've ever had. I like him because not only is he funny, but he calls out people who are BSing him in the middle of class. The strategy with him is that if you don't know the answer, don't guess, just say you don't know and he'll move on and pick on someone else. Give a wrong/stupid answer and he'll never leave you alone. This is also good though because it motivates me to actually pay attention learn what he's lecturing us about so that if he does call on me I can answer his questions. He's a little un-PC, but I think we need a bit more of that in this day and age. If you can't laugh at life, what's the point? I think we've got him for a few more lectures, which I am looking forward to!

Also, on Wednesdays in the UK, students typically get out around 1pm in order to pursue extracurriculars, so on Wednesday I went to football (soccer) practice, cause I joined the Dick Vet Ladies Football Club! So far it's very fun and the girls are all quite nice, even though I am complete rubbish at the sport. It is quite fun despite that I don't like running at all. I even went to the meadows with Anik, Adrian, and Alan Poon and kicked the ball back and forth for awhile today. So perhaps it'll motivate me to get at least somewhat in shape. But we'll see.

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Me in my football gear, looking like a total nerd, but that's ok!
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On the way to get our football gear on Princes Street we spotted a Scientology tent.. and I was just starting to like it here too... (apologies to any cult members who happen to read this)
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So despite the fact that this week was low-key in terms of classes, I feel like I've been busier than ever. In between classes we usually have lunch, study, or run errands, and then after classes on Monday and Wednesday Anik and I go to football practice, and then each of our group of friends has a dinner night where we all go over and eat at each other's flats. Jessica's night is Wednesday, Anik's is Thursday, Pookish's is Sunday, and mine is floating between Friday and Saturday, depending on everyone's weekend plans.

So because of all this it is rare that I get back to my flat until dinner or afterwards, because I don't see the point of trekking all the way back to my flat during the short breaks we have between classes. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if it weren't for the hot water situation. In the UK apparently they don't believe in keeping water heaters running all the time, and instead they opperate on timers. Now, while I see this as beneficial in terms of energy saving, the timers are set in such a way that we cannot change the settings. So our flat is stuck forever on hot water in the mornings only. Again, wouldn't be such a bad thing except that I am not a morning person and I refuse to get up any earlier than I have to, to do something so silly as showering.

Now, to counteract this problem, the boiler timer has a button called a 'Boost Button,' that you can press to temporarily boost the water heater. Again, this would be fine and dandy in a flat like Jessica's, where the boost button takes approximately 15 minutes to heat the water. In my flat, however, it takes 1-2 hours. Uncool. I have had 2 hot showers since I've been here. The rest have been ice cold. Again, uncool, because normally I love showering. It's one of the highlights of my day and it relaxes my muscles and is comforting before I go to bed. Ice cold water, on the other hand, does not really make one sleepy, and usually means that I'm not really getting clean because I'm just trying to hurry up so I can spend as little time in the cold water as possible.. Brr.

Anyway, enough ranting. Moving on.

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Dinner at Anik's flat. She made something Cuban that I don't remember, but it was made with pork and beans and rice and olives. Very yummy, despite the olives ;-P
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Other than that not much excitement has been going on. We got our exam results back, and while I passed my oral exam (8/10) with flying colors, I was 1.5 points away from passing the written (you need a 50/100 to pass, you do the math)!

But, on the other hand, I did better than a lot of people who didn't have a family crisis and have to miss a week. And while I didn't really want to have to use that as an excuse, it is a legit one, and I figure if I can get that close without studying and with being an emotional wreck, I'm sure that had I actually put the effort in, I would have been fine.

Fortunately the test didn't count anyway, so come December's exam I should be golden!

That's all really, but I'll end with some pictures highlighting this week's events!

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In other news, our Pegifunticorn has been immortalised in Elephants and Bagels. We have officially taken our place in Edinburgh society.
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Closeup! I also think that of the money I've spent here, most of it has gone to this cafe (not seriously, but it feels like it), so it is only fitting that my name be on the wall.
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We also visited the Elephant House (sister shop to Elephants and Bagels), which is renowned for being the birthplace of Harry Potter. J.K.Rowling actually wrote the first book here!
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Inside of the Elephant House
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Anyway, it's late, and I should go to bed. Goodnight!