Deep breaths

Hey all. I am taking a quick break from studying, as I need to wake myself up before I have another go at learning all the stuff we're meant to know. So I figured I'd make myself a coffee, and update here, and then get back to it!

First, for the 2nd part of my birthday 'shenanigans', Andrew took me out to dinner at the pub/restaurant where we had our first date (awwww!). It was very delicious and yummy. He also gave me the last of my presents, which was an awesome coaster which reads "It's my birthday, so I can put ketchup on whatever I want!" and then a small bottle of ketchup. It's sort of an inside joke, but really it's just that I drown pretty much any acceptable food in the stuff, so it was a perfect gift! Haha. :) His parents gave me a lovely scented candle, which smells like pomegranate!

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Andrew and I took a trip up to St. Andrew's for the night, where we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with Andrew's friend from uni. I've already mentioned her in this blog back on the entry about our first trip to St. A's, but anyway, she is from America, and single-handedly cooked us an entire Thanksgiving feast, with all the trimmings. It was absolutely fantastic, and I wished I had a bigger stomach to eat it all!

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The whole group at Beth's! Beth is the second from the left!

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Queuing up for food!

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Then, unfortunately, after all the festivities, the real studying began. But Anik and I still found some time to decorate the flat, and wrap some presents. And we even made a quick trip to the Christmas market to find some gifts for our friends (and the kitteh!)

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The kitteh gets a new collar! She immediately ripped off about 1/3 of the bells, but oh well, it was fun for 5 minutes!

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A bad quality, but nonetheless hilarious picture of the kitteh discovering fairy lights!

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The pile of presents under our little tree has slowly grown!

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The Christmas Market always has a festive atmosphere!

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Also, in other news, the kitteh had a mini vacation at Andrew's flat at the weekend. This was because she is going to be staying with Andrew while I'm home for a week over Christmas, and we wanted to make sure that I could be there the first time she was, so she got used to the new environment with her momma and didn't stress out :) Also, it's always good to have an animal go into a carrier without the vet being the destination, because then they don't associate the carrier with bad evil vets (ha!). And also we thought Anik could use a break from Tornado Tsuki!

So I mostly just studied all day and made sure the cat didn't destroy anything in the room she was confined to. Overall she was very good, in fact better behaved than she usually is. I suspect not having to salivate over the rats and hamster (and constantly be thrown out of the room when she antagonises them) had something to do with it :) She is a great traveller and didn't get car sick or freak out about being put in her carrier.

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While we were there I helped put up Andrew's Christmas tree! I particularly like the mini 'Queen Elizabeth' on the top (although I suspect it's not meant to actually be the Queen)

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This past Monday (cue scary music) exams began! The first exam was a practical exam, and was thus very straightforward. We were given a case example where a dog has stepped on some glass, and we needed to insert a single simple interrupted suture. Anik and I had practiced on our crazy fake skin pads the night before, so we think we did fairly well. I was nervous (as always in the practical situation), but as far as I can tell I did everything right, and tied my knots properly.

Tuesday's exam was another practical. Everyone thought, judging on previous years, that it would be scrubbing in, or handwashing, which was pretty straightforward, but it turns out we were examined on instrumentation! Fortunately someone tipped us off after their exam early in the morning, and we were able to study well enough to do really well.

Now, I'm going to rant for a minute here. While I understand why instruments are very very important in all kinds of medicine, and I also understand why you need to know which instruments are for what (i.e. using something that causes puncture wounds on a hollow organ would be bad), I think it is stupid to learn the names of these instruments. Now, if these intruments were called things like "soft-tissue forceps" or "intestinal forceps" or "arteriole haemostats" then I would gladly name them all. However, here is a small smattering of the names of instruments we had to know:

• Kelly haemostats
• Crile haemostats
• Mayo (Mosquito) haemostats
• Rochester-Carmalt haemostats
• Rongeurs
• Balfour retractor
• Gusset retractor
• Finochetto retractor
• Gilleys
• Mayo-Hegar needle holders
• Olsen-Hegar needle holders
• Debakey forceps
• Rat-toothed forceps (which as least describe it's appearance)
• Allis tissue forceps
• Adson-Brown tissue forceps

Why is it that instruments are named after silly old farts in human medicine? It would be so so so much more straightforward to name them as they are, rather than give some old dude a feeling of fame and accomplishment by naming something after him.

Ok, rant over. Moving on. Today's exam was a 'Spot' exam, which is sort of like a practical knowledge exam. We were shown pictures of post-mortem specimens (or in one case, living animal with an obvious problem), and asked to describe the abnormalities, and then describe possible causes or pathogenesis of these conditions. This one was hard, I'll admit, because I think it's a very subjective thing (and I'm convinced everyone sees colours differently), but fortunately most of the points were in the descriptions, which were fairly straightforward. I did know a few of the causes, but most of that was just guessing.

Tomorrow's exam is the really terrifying one. Tomorrow's exam covers drugs, anaesthesia, diagnostic imaging, surgical principles, and clinical oncology. Basically, everything that is most difficult to learn is piled up in one exam. Joy. So I may be back in August for this one. But similar to last year when I retook Animal Husbandry, this is one of those subjects that I would probably benefit from relearning over the summer, and I may just do that regardless of whether I pass or not. In fact, most of the people I know retaking this course are glad they are, because they understand it so much better. But obviously I'm going to try my best, and hopefully do well on the first try!

Friday's exam is another scary one, which is pathology. This is so detail oriented that it's frightening, but at least most of the time the pathogenesis is fairly straightforward and even if you don't know what the cause is, you can usually work backwards to figure at least most of it out.

Friday after my exams I'm going straight to the doctor for my last Rabies vaccine (yay!) and then hopefully I will still feel well enough to do some last minute Christmas shopping before going out for Andrew's work's holiday dinner. Then Saturday is a day full of relaxing and packing before heading home on Sunday!

Birthday Shenanigans Pt 1

This weekend has been fantastic. Today will be spent studying in order to make up for it, but I have to do something fun for my birthday, right?

So first, on Friday night, was the reunion dinner for our Japan trip. We went to Koi, a Japanese Teppenyaki restaurant, and had delicious delicious food. Definitely not as good as in Japan, but good anyway. :P

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Anik and I got dressed all fancy.
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After dinner, I headed off to George Street to meet Andrew and a few of his friends for a ceilidh. If you don't know, a ceilidh is sort of like American square dancing, only with men in kilts, and it's a lot cooler. :P We had a lot of fun dancing and being spun about on the dance floor. The dances are quite cool, with everyone sort of dancing with everyone else, and so the dance is full of motion and aside from your partner(s), you rarely dance with the same couple again.

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Unfortunately I couldn't get any pictures of us dancing, but here is a picture of Andrew and I, looking all spiffy. :P
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Saturday, I made 2 pumpkin pies, and went shopping for party supplies like chips and dip, drinks, and cleaning supplies. At 5pm we headed out to meet a bunch of my friends at Fountain Park, which is an entertainment centre in Edinburgh with bowling, an arcade, and lots of other stuff.

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Playing Mario Kart while waiting for our bowling time
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Ahh, the memories of my childhood birthday parties are coming back to me now :P
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Kirsten, Kyle and Me!
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After bowling, we headed off to Pizza Express for some delicious pizza dinner! Despite the name, it's actually quite a nice restaurant. My friends very kindly paid for my dinner, and then we headed back to my house for some drinks, some pie, and some fun.

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Andrew bought THE cutest birthday cake I have ever seen.
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Closeup of the awesome birthday cake.

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Opening presents!
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Andrew commissioned the cutest birthday cake for me, which was so sweet (literally and figuratively), and then surprised me with some presents that made the night! He got me the Wii Mario Kart game, which he had one of his friends get on her trip to America (only American games work on American Wiis), and a giant pack of batteries (because he knows me well enough to know that when I plan a 'Wii night' party, I will undoubtedly forget the batteries, hahaha!). So we all played Mario Kart for a few hours while eating cake and pie, and it was a lot of fun. Anik got me a couple presents as well, which were things I'd actually needed like index cards and whiteboard markers (I know, we're dorks!), and also a cute little Hello Kitty Beanie Baby. My friends rock!

To end the night, I broke open a pack of indoor sparklers that Andrew's parents got me (along with a present which I can't open till Monday!), so we lit a few and enjoyed the sparkling!

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I heart my friends :)
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All in all, I think this might be the best birthday party I've ever had. I had so much fun, and got to have an awesome night with my friends :) I say this was Part 1 because Andrew is taking me out to dinner on Monday night. I feel extremely lucky this weekend to have such good friends and such an awesome boyfriend :)

Anyway, now it is time to get back to studying, gotta make up for the fun with some hard work now. So I am off to a cafe to get away from the internet. Ta ta!

Orienteering!

Hey, Folks!

So this last week has been largely uneventful. Mostly just studying and more studying.

The one fun thing I did do was go with Andrew to an orienteering event. Andrew is an avid orienteer(er?), and I'd gone to events before and just hung out in the car studying while he and his parents went out running, but this last Saturday was an event that was in a fairly straightforward area, so I decided to try it!

So, in case you don't know what orienteering is, and you don't feel like clicking the link above, it's basically a navigation race. You are handed a map at the start, with red circles representing each control, which you have to hit in a certain order, either using an electronic reader or, in this case, a card that you punch with each control's unique hole punch.

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The map! The little table on the left represents each control, and what it looks like. For example: control 1 is a path bend, 2 is the east side of a tree stump, 3 is the west side of a tree stump, etc. On the map itself, the line is the 'as the crow flies' route, which you may or may not be able to do depending on what's in your way!
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Andrew followed me making sure I knew what I was doing, and helping me figure out what everything on the map meant. I didn't need TOO much help though, so I mostly just enjoyed his company :P
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Trying to find the next control
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It's quite an interesting concept, and I enjoyed it a lot, even though I wasn't really doing it in a competitive fashion, and was just walking it instead of running. The only downside was that something got stuck in my contact about 2/3 of the way through, and I couldn't get it out, so had to just throw the contact away, and do the rest semi-blind. Still managed it though, and got a fairly decent time (49:20 and 16th out of 30).

Anyway, next Monday is my birthday, so the Saturday before I'm going to be going bowling with my friends, which should be fun. Not sure I want to be another year older, but I'm still excited anyway. :)

St. Andrews and Hallowe'en!

So last weekend, aside from studying, Andrew took me to see St. Andrews. We went first to visit his friend Beth, who is also from America, and her boyfriend. Beth has been in Scotland for something like 9 years doing undergrad, masters and PhD, so it was nice to see her seemingly so at home here. But it was fun bonding with her over things we miss from the US (like Root Beer, and pumpkin pie, marshmallow fluff, Thanksgiving). And then she said that there was a shop nearby that sold some of those things, so of course we hit that up before heading out to explore.

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Andrew posing in front of a tower of canned Libby's Pumpkin!
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So after buying a can of root beer for me and one for Andrew (who'd NEVER experienced the joy that is root beer), we set off to explore St. Andrews. Andrew went to uni here for undergrad, so he showed me places he stayed and studied at. We passed by the ruins of the cathedral and also the castle, although we didn't go inside the castle cause you had to pay some obscene amount. Perhaps another time.

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The ruins of St. Andrews Cathedral
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Andrew eating ice cream, in the way of my picture. :)
*View of St. Andrews Castle from the cliff
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Beach by St. Andrews with some seagulls!
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Then we took a walk around the famous golf course, and posed for a picture on the famous Swilken Bridge. Apparently anyone who knows golf knows this bridge, but I had never heard of it before. Nonetheless, it was a pretty little bridge, and the course was very pretty right by the water and all.

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Andrew and I on the Swilken Bridge
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Close up shot... Awwww...
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So the week was fairly uneventful, just classes, studying and more classes. Last night was Aletheia, Elisa, Lisa and Lydia's Hallowe'en party, which was quite fun, so in between being studious we were preparing for Hallowe'en by making costumes. I volunteered to make Andrew's costume, cause mine was really easy, and Anik and I are costume-crazy, so I turned a convict's orange jumpsuit into a tiger costume! So about an hour before the party I set about getting myself and Andrew ready to become Calvin and Hobbes!

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Me in my costume!
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Making sure Andrew's hood fits
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Calvin and Hobbes! Andrew was an incredible sport and let me paint his face. That's a couple hundred awesome-boyfriend points. :P
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My mini duplicator. (If you don't know what it references, it's this: Calvin and Hobbes: Scientific Progress Goes Boink)
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I'd never been able to go to any of Aletheia, Elisa, Lisa and Lydia's previous parties or BBQs, so it was nice to actually go this time. As it was a costume party, there was lots of hilarity to go around.

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Elisa, Lydia, Lisa and Aletheia as the elements (Fire, Water, Earth, and Ice)
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Lynn as a Strawberry, and Jessica as Robin Hood
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Kate (Bermuda Triangle), Jen (Little Bo Peep), Katheryn (pregnant prom queen)
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Alison as Big Bird
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Pookish as cameraman & cowboy
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And another one of Andrew and Me, cause it's a cute one. :)
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Anyway so the party was lots of fun. Tonight we're having a few people over for pumpkin cake, apple punch and candy! I'm hoping we get some trick or treaters, but I'm not sure people trick-or-treat much here, especially in such a studenty area. We'll see I guess.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Livingston with Andrew and his parents. He and his parents are all running in an orienteering event in the morning (during which I'll be studying, since there's not much to see), and then we'll all go to Livingston, which is filled with outlet stores and such. It should be a fun morning/afternoon, and then I'll be studying all night. Woo! I'm almost sort of caught up with pharmacology lectures at least. That's not to say I've memorised anything, but I've been going over notes and rewriting the important bits, which I'll go over when I do my actual studying in a few weeks. I was just told yesterday that exams are in something like 5 weeks, so I am going to have to start being less fun and cracking down on the studying. I'm not really worried about anything but pharmacology, which is going to be tortuous to memorise all the drugs. Pathology is a little bit more intuitive, although still very detail oriented, but if I've got those two covered I should be fine.

Anyway, off to clean a bit before our Hallowe'en 'do this evening! :)

Another weekend adventure!

So last week, almost at the last minute, I was invited to go down to England for this past weekend, with Andrew and a group of his friends and most of their wives/girlfriends/boyfriends/husbands for their 5th annual 'Forest Lodge', which is a tradition they have since graduating from uni, pretty much. So after my lectures on friday, Andrew picked me up, and drove us, along with his friend G and G's girlfriend, down to Tebay, and arrived a few hours later at a lovely cottage called Fawcett Mill Fields. It's set in the sheep-filled hills right near the north-western end of the Yorkshire Dales. From the outside front it looks rather nondescript, but inside there were something like 15 bedrooms and 3 huge lounges with couches and a fireplace, and a huge dining room, and a sauna! A pretty good deal if you ask me!

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Sort of nondescript front entrance... but wait!
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View from the back garden
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Another view from the back garden
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A small waterfall where an old mill once ran.
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A pretty bridge over the stream!
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A view from the porch through the leaves.
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The porch looking out over the garden
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Most of the weekend was spent just hanging out in the lounges reading, talking, and putting together puzzles, or exploring the surrounding area, or sitting on the porch drinking tea and coffee in the crisp fall air. Every night we all ate dinner together (cooked by some of Andrew's friends), and then had fun after dinner in the form of "pub quiz" type games, scrabble, twister, and other games. A bunch of people brought musical instruments, so usually at some point every day/night there would be singalongs and mini concerts. Saturday night was a 'fancy dress' night (which for all you American folk is not fancy as in 'black tie,' but rather as in costumes). So since I didn't really have much notice, and forgot the crucial parts of my Hallowe'en costume from last year (i.e. robe and wand). I ended up looking more like a random schoolgirl than Hermione from Harry Potter, but it was still fantastic. Everyone's costumes were amazing. My favourite was Andrew's friend Al, who dressed up as Jamie Oliver (the chef), and looked EXACTLY like him.

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Jam session
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Waiting for hors d'oevres on fancy dress night in the largest lounge.
Note Andrew as the banana.
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Making our way to the dining room with Archie.
* Fancy dress dinner
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A bunch of us on a walk through the hills.
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One afternoon we walked a little ways away, through cow fields and sheep pastures, to a tiny farmer's market, which had lots of fresh produce and cheese for sale, as well as a craft booth. It was very fun. On the way back, Andrew and I hung back to stop into a local pub for some delicious burgers before walking back.

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Walking to the farmer's market. That's me and Andrew at the back of the queue.
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At first I was a little nervous. After all, aside from G's girlfriend, who also was new, everyone else already knew each other. But I needn't have worried, because everyone was incredibly nice, and I felt right at home with all of them. It was so hard to come back to Edinburgh and get back to lectures and studying! But it was also a nice relaxing weekend. So now it's back to the books!

One week, down!

So I have officially survived one week of 3rd year. So far it is actually really great. We have two main courses this semester: Pathology and Clinical Foundations. Pathology is extremely interesting because we're actually learning about diseases and learning post-mortem stuff, and in clinical foundations we're learning about surgery principles, anaesthesia, etc. So everything we're learning this year is extremely relevant, which I think is most of the reasons I'm enjoying it so much. Come exam time I'll probably be singing a different tune, but for now, so far it's interesting, and I seem to be getting it. Yay!

After my first week, my boyfriend Andrew and I took a camping trip out in Glencoe, which is on the west coast of Scotland, slightly north of Edinburgh. On Saturday we drove out to Fort William (yellow dot on the map below), and had lunch in a little restaurant on the coast. Then we drove down to Glenetive, (blue dot), which was our camping site, right by a loch and a river. We explored a little bit after setting up our tent, but at that point it was starting to rain, and getting very windy and dark, so we headed back to the tent, and made a dinner of PB&J (Andrew's very first PB&J sandwich! I'm told it was edible).

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Map of our adventure!
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The weather on the way was lovely!
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Loch Etive, near our campsite. The weather started getting gross, which was great for photo taking until it started raining. Boo.
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Andrew and me! :D
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On Sunday morning, we packed up our camping gear and drove out to Oban (green dot), which is another little coastal town. Unfortunately the weather was pretty horrible on Sunday, so we didn't do too much exploring, but we got to see most of the main part of Oban, and then ate brunch at a delicious pancake restaurant called the Pancake Place, which had American-style pancakes. Yum!

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Oban!
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So anyway, the camping trip, aside from the weather being less than ideal, was really fun. Hopefully we'll get to go on another adventure soon!

This week looks much the same with lectures. Today we had a practical in small animal bandaging, which was pretty fun, as we got to play with live animals for an hour. Lol. We've got a few lectures on anaesthesia, a few on pathology, and a few practicals in both scattered here and there. Should be interesting!

In other news, our kitten Tsuki had her first trip to the vet, and she was very well behaved and didn't even flinch for the vaccine (although that might have been due to the treats she was given at the same time). After the vet was done looking at her, she jumped up onto my shoulder and sat there while we chatted. I think maybe she was a parrot in her last life.

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Tsuki getting ready to cause trouble
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Tsuki playing with her new cat tree!
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We also got her a new 'cat tree,' which is basically what it sounds like. She loves it! I am very much enjoying spoiling my kitty. I definitely look forward to her calming down a bit, cause she's very hyper, but she's a lot of fun!

Anyway, I'm off to chill a bit before bedtime. Now that classes have started up again I'll hopefully be updating more regularly as it is one of my preferred procrastination methods :)