Monday, September 28, 2009

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 :)

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Japan and crazy kitty!

Hey Everyone!

So the Japan trip is wayyyyy too much to possibly write about in a blog entry, so instead, go HERE to see my pictures!

In a nutshell though, Japan was absolutely amazing! The first two weeks we were in Hokkaido mostly (that's the Northernmost island of Japan) with some other vet students, and we went on a tour of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, and Shiretoko nature preserve, Arashiyama Zoo, and various farms in Hokkaido specialising in Wagyu beef cattle. The last week Anik and I were on our own in Kyoto. It was absolutely fantastic. We saw so many temples and shrines, and I feel like that last week was probably the best trip I've been on in my life. Especially because after seeing and studying all this stuff in textbooks at Colby, finally seeing them in person was really spectacular. My favourites were Sanjusangen-do Temple, Kinkaku-ji, and Tenryu-ji. We also went to a monkey park where you can get up close and personal with 'wild' Japanese monkeys. It was very cool!

On a completely different note, a few days after getting back from Japan, Anik and I got a kitten! Her name is Tsuki (which is Japanese for 'Moon'), and she is adorable. Here is a picture of her!
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Tsuki the crazy cat!
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She is just about 9 weeks old, and incredibly friendly and curious, and even after only 2 days she's completely at home in our flat. She purrs like a motor boat, and is very playful! She's so cute!! :)