Thanksgiving abroad

This weekend I had two (count them, TWO) Thanksgivings. First on Friday night, a 4th year by the name of Jeni invited us for dinner at her flat. Now, a note about Jeni = nicest person ever! I met her as she was talking to Jessica outside Summerhall one day, and within minutes I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner. So, at first I was a wee bit nervous, because the only person I would really know there would be Jessica, but everyone was unbelievably nice and friendly, and plus, there were CHILDREN!

I walked in the door, and was greeted by Jeni's adorable son, Hosea (15 months old), who promptly handed me a bib as a welcome gift. I met Jeni's husband, Matt, and I'm not sure who he reminds me of, but he definitely reminds me of someone. But it might just be that he's one of those people that you feel like you know as soon as you meet him. Anyway, he was so nice, and we all chatted while Jeni & Matt finished up the last minute details. I took over baby-amusement duty, which was amazing. It's been so long since I've interacted with a toddler, and it made me really happy.

Anyway, so dinner was absolutely delicious, with everything I'm accustomed to having at Thanksgiving. It was a bit odd, not doing it at home, and having it be a much less formal affair than what I'm used to at home with the fine china and everything, but at the same time it was nice to have it be a come as you are kind of thing.

So then moving on, on Saturday we had planned our own Thanksgiving with Jessica, Pookish, Anik, Jessica A., Kyle, Lydia, and Lindzie. Everyone made or brought something, and some people wore PJs :)

I chose to bring champagne, and I also made homemade Cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. It was actually extremely delicious, and I think I'm going to have to save this recipe, because it was fantastic. For anyone else interested, here's how I did it.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 (12 ounce) bag fresh cranberries
• 165 g (or 3/4 c.) packed dark brown sugar
• 1 large orange, juiced and zested
• 135 ml (or 9 Tbsp) port wine

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a large saucepan, combine the cranberries, brown sugar, orange zest and juice, and port wine.
   
2. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
   
3. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the cranberries have popped and the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes.
   
4. Cool, and refrigerate overnight before serving.

I didn't cool it overnight, but rather I just stuck it in the fridge till we were ready to eat, and I think it was kind of nice to have it a bit warm instead of cold. But perhaps that was just me. I also found that putting a big chunk of the orange rind in the saucepan helped get more of the orange flavour into it. I really like the port wine added to it as well.

We also had mashed sweet potatoes (Lindzie), Cuban cornbread stuffing (Anik), Meat stuffing (Anik), Green-bean casserole (Lindzie?), and dinner rolls (Kyle). For dessert we had pumpkin pie (Jessica), Mince pies (Lydia), and wine.

Oh, and of course, I can't forget about the Turkey. Jessica spent ALL day cooking this turkey. Literally she had to get up at 6am to start defrosting this thing, so major Kudos to her for doing that all by herself.

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Kyle carves the turkey
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The rest of the food
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My masterpiece of a dinner plate
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Me & Jessica, the hostess with the mostest
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Anik in her PJs Digesting while Lindzie looks on.
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So now the Christmas season can officially start. And, of course, now that Thanksgiving is over I am officially going to be studying nonstop until exams. Ok, well not nonstop, but I will be studying a lot. It's amazing how when I'm going over my notes I realize how much I still have to learn. It's a very daunting task. Somehow I'll get through it though.

Also, on a side note, I can hear someone playing the bagpipes from my open window (because it's GORGEOUS out today), and it makes me incredibly happy. Every day I'm here I realize how much I love it here, despite the fact that I am in an extremely demanding program, I'm so happy to be here. :)

November Birthdays, and Lighting of the Christmas Lights!

So this week has been full of many things.

First off, last Sunday was my birthday. To celebrate, on Saturday night we went to Koi, a Japanese restaurant in town, and had Teppenyaki. This is basically the same as a Hibachi table back home. Then afterward we went to the Brass Monkey (also known as the Metallic Simeon) for drinks.

Highlights of my birthday:

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Me trying (and failing) to catch an egg in my hat. Pookish actually did catch the egg in his hat, and won us sake.
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All of us together!
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Anik's meal had a face. Funny how ironic it is that they do this with the vegetarian meal...
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This week has been pretty good. I've been studying a lot, and that pretty much takes up most of the time I'm not actually in class.

Highlight of the week up till now:

I bought my very own keyboard! It is sooo nice to actually play again! Now all I need is a pedal and a pair of headphones that will fit in the jack....
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Earlier tonight a bunch of us (Pookish, Alan, Avril, Carol, Barbara, Kyle, Me and a few others) went out to see the lighting of the Christmas lights up on Princes Street, and then out to dinner for Carol's birthday at Ciao Roma.

Highlights of the night:

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The ferris wheel, pre lighting ceremony
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This was still about all I could see, but I did discover that there is an ice-skating rink down there, and there's also some nice carnival-type rides like bumper cars.
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Finally after a countdown, the lights are lit, and the ferris wheel began to turn.
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And of course, being the children that we are, my friend Kyle and I pushed through the crowd of people, braved the cold, wind, and rain for the very first ride in the ferris wheel.
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Pretty view from the top. It's actually quite scary, but still awesome
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View of the lights from the bridge.
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That is all thus far. This weekend we're having Thanksgiving dinner at Jessica's flat, and on Sunday I'm trying to see if I can get to Inverness for the day to see a concert by my new obsession, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers (yes, PIPERS, click HERE for awesome taste of their music), but it would require staying the night and missing some classes the next day. I still think it would be worth it, but I also don't want to go alone, and have to find someone to accompany me. Hmm. If not they're playing in Glasgow in January on Burns Night, so I may just try and be patient for that.

Anyway, I should get to bed, even though I just watched that music video I posted, and now am wide awake. Hmm.

Dick Day!

So the Dick Vets have this day every year, where we get together with the Weegie vets, and kick their butts in sports, called Dick Day. For background, there is a HUGE rivalry between Edinburghians (Edinbuggers) and Glaswegians (Weegies), especially in sports, but also just in life. I personally have nothing against the wee Weegies, but we totally have the better city and the better vet school :-P No I'm just joking, I didn't even get a chance to see the vet school, or much of the city. The part we were in for sports happened to be a bit sketchy, but once we got into the city itself later in the evening it really looked like a great place. I look forward to going there in the daytime sometime.

I didn't actually play in the football game, cause it was freezing, and also because I'm no good at it, and we needed to keep up our winning streak (I think this was the 13th year in a row that we've won), but I had fun watching the game and cheering our team on, despite the ref being a completely biased scumbag (hired of course, by the Weegies). He really was awful. Whenever we "fouled" the weegies (a.k.a. happened to be near one when she tripped), he would give free kicks from directly in front of our goal. Yet whenever one of the weegies clearly shoved one of our teammates down as she was about to kick a goal, he seemed to be looking elsewhere. Also he kept the game going on a good 5 minutes longer than necessary, and gave another direct free kick in the last minute and a half that could have lost the game for us. But, despite this, we still kicked their butts 3-2. Go Dicks!

We also won in boys rugby, which is pretty much the main event. Also so much fun to watch. Guys in tight shorts running into each other trying to cause concussions just never gets old. I also find it (morbidly) amusing to watch someone who's just gotten a concussion, because you can tell they've got one when it takes them 5 seconds or so to figure out which side their tryline is on again, and they're just sort of dazed for a few minutes. I know, that's kind of weird. This time we didn't have any serious injuries, though, other than I think a broken ankle for one of the Guvs (Glasgow University Veterinary Students), so that was good.

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Me on the sidelines of the rugby match, looking chilly
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Watching the rugby game. Clockwise from L: Pookish, Anik, Laura, Jo, Cara, Pam, Katie, Me
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Pookish became "that guy" with his new camera lens....
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Which resulted in creepy pictures like this one of Anik and Me being taken without our knowledge, from across the pitch.
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After the game we all headed to the "Walkabout" pub/grill, where we had some yummy food (kangaroo burgers!), and some drinks. It was supposed to be a pub crawl, but it ended up being stationary for 3-ish hours, so my friends and I decided to bail. We walked around Glasgow a bit, then headed for the train home.

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Walkabout Pub/Grill, where they served ACTUAL kangaroo burgers
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Lindzie, Me, and Jessica on the train home.
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It is also worth mentioning that we decided to bail at about 21:30. This is early. Granted, this was (again) a Wednesday night, and we had class the next day, but all the same this tells me that we are getting old. I can no longer keep up with the college freshers. This is all the more apparent because my birthday is tomorrow (23!) and I feel like that's almost 25, which is 1/4 of my life. Ahhh!

Ok I'm done, sorry. I haven't figured out what to do for my birthday this year. I don't know why but I'm just not really into it. I've celebrated my birthday away from home before, so it's not that. It's just like, big whoop. I'm 23. Also I was thinking of going out for Japanese food tonight with my close friends, but then I remember how much studying I haven't yet done and need to do. Meh. I dunno. Maybe by this evening I'll be more into it. We'll see.

Anyway, on to studying before perhaps having some birthday fun later.

007 and my resulting shiner

So Wednesday night was our Football's 007 Cocktail Party. We sold tickets to pretty much everyone, and it was actually really fun. Most of my friends were there, and I met some new and interesting people in the years above me, and good times were had by all. The guys pretty much all wore tuxedos (awesome), and most of the girls wore cocktail dresses. And there was one random guy in a gorilla suit, I'm not quite sure why.

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I forgot to take a picture of my hair, but it looked something like this. My dress is on the wall in the background. It was pretty :)
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Jessica and Me, looking beautious!
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Alan Poon and Me
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My vet mother Carin and Me.
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So besides the fact that the party was held at a bar/club with the least classy name I have ever heard (Vodka Revolution), it was pretty awesome. On the way home, however, I managed to get a nice shiner, a sprained (?) wrist, a bruised shoulder, and a bump the size of a baseball on my knee.

I'm not sure what happened after college, but I guess I became accident prone. Granted, the hayloft thing wasn't really my fault, and this wasn't either. Maybe I am just accident-people prone. Anyhoo, so one of my friends, who shall remain nameless, walked out of the club with me at approximately 2am, and grabbed my arm and began to run. However, she wasn't so steady on her feet, and thus she tripped, and fell, still holding onto my arm. And so down I went. My face hit the cobblestones with a resounding crack, and a cab driver had to stop so as not to run us over, laughing at us all the while. We got up (more cautiously this time), and walked back to her flat, and then I made my way back to mine.

So the next day being Thursday (I don't know why people here party on Wednesday night, but it seems a pretty terrible idea to me), I dragged myself to class, and suffered through the day, pretty convinced that my wrist was fractured at least. I don't think it is, because it feels much better now and the swelling is pretty much gone. I probably just sprained it. My face however, still has a nice abrasion on it and is a bit puffy, but it's already going away.

I think it makes for a fantastic story anyway, so totally worth the pain. :)

Other than that, we had a great couple of practical lessons, involving the oral cavity and the digestive system. We walked into the dissection room, with tables full of things like this:

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I'm not quite sure why this was necessary to our learning, but it was awesome anyway.
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And this:

Tongues and Pharynxes
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We also had a really awesome practical on ventilation, which sadly I didn't take any pictures of, but it involved hooking each other up to ventilation moniters and subjecting each other to experiments. I got to watch how my breathing changed when I was breathing from a bag full of pure oxygen for 4 minutes, and as the CO2 in your blood builds up you start breathing really fast and your tidal volume (the volume of air you inspire and expire) goes up. Then we did the same thing with just plain air, but also hooked up to a thing that absorbs CO2. So that way the CO2 in your blood isn't creating the signal to your brain to breathe faster. Thus you breathe normally until you pass out. I did not pass out, because we weren't allowed to keep the experiment up that long. That's basically what happens in altitude sickness. So that was pretty awesome, especially because we got to do it to each other, haha.

Anyhoo, not much is up for this weekend. Pretty much just hanging out and studying, since exams are beginning to look frighteningly close. (Eek!) Also we are going shopping for our rat babies. Mine is named Scabbers, and it's going to be living with Anik's rat babies, Rattikus and Ezekial Rage.

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My rat baby, Scabbers. He's so cute!
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Anyway, I'm off to begin the day. Bye!

Halloween, Football Socials and an Ikea Christmas

So this week has been fun. It was a bit difficult cause we didn't have Wednesday off, but we have today and tuesday off to make up for it. We had some fun practicals, like our live dog and cat heart practical, where we listened to the hearts of cats and dogs, and looked at some radiographs as well, and learned how to use an ECG. We also had a practical on some diagnostic testing, which realistically we don't need to ever do in practice, but it's the basis of all the "snap" tests we will use, so it's good to know how those work.

Then Friday was Halloween, and so I dressed up for class all day, which was fun. I was Hermione from Harry Potter, and got a few looks from people all day, but it was good fun, and I wish I could wear a robe like that to class all the time. No one else dressed up until later for our friend's party, but their costumes were pretty spectacular. Lydia was a cow, and Jessica was a unicorn.

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Jessica, Lydia and Me!
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So after the party, I went back to my flat. Jessica decided to stay at Lydia's for the night, which led to much hilarity the next morning when she had to walk back from Lydia's in her halloween costume (minus the horn and wig), because everyone honked at her, thinking it was a "walk of shame." Automatic Awesome for Jessica :-P

The next day, Saturday, was the football curry-night social with the boys team. I decided not to quit after all, because I like having the option of going to practice when I'm not exhausted, and now that the paper is done I figure it'll be less of a time issue. The football social was at King Balti, an Indian restaurant, and I got a delicious Lamb Balti Pasanda, which was something to do with almonds. Very yummy. The thing was BYOB, so the rest of the teams brought more alcohol than I have ever seen in my life. I stuck with water, and I have to say I felt bad for the rest of the people in the restaurant, cause our table had to be shushed several times, because 30-some-odd drunk kids in a restaurant makes for much loudness. But apparently that's the restaurant that all the sports teams have socials at, so the manager was used to it, and welcomed the business. He even came and said so, and was very good humoured about the whole thing.

After the social we went to Potterrow, which is sort of the student union. It's got a cafe, pub, bank, dance club, and lots of tables and cushy chairs. It's a very nice place, actually. We hung out downstairs in the pub area for awhile, then we went upstairs to the dance party. It was actually really fun. I got to dance with a guy on the boys team who knew how to swing dance, who I recognized from the ceilidh we had earlier in the year. It was quite fun! I sadly don't have pictures of the social, because I didn't have my camera with me, but I'm sure someone else took pictures that hopefully I'll be able to nick from the internet. We shall see!

Yesterday Jessica, Pookish and I went to Adele's house, out in Dumfermline, where she lives with her husband. We took the train over the Firth of Forth Rail Bridge, it was so pretty! The weather was gorgeous this weekend!

The Forth
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Adele lives in this adorable house with her husband, who is quite nice. We rented two movies and she cooked us dinner. It was fantastic. We also went exploring a bit, first to her mum's house, where her little brother demonstrated his bagpipes for us, and let us try it! It was SO hard! I couldn't even get the bag to inflate all the way, much less make any sort of note come out. Pookish got a few notes, and Jessica got a squeak or two. I was lightheaded after trying. Everyone always makes it look so easy when they play it, but it's actually really hard!

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Jessica & Me in Drumfermline (not sure how to spell that?)
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Pookish attemps the bagpipes. Jessica took a pic of me, so hopefully I'll get that pic from her soon.

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We explored a Loch near Adele's house, which was gorgeous!
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We stayed the night at Adele's, and then this morning went to IKEA, where we had breakfast and picked up a few things, like I got a spatula, a new light (since I accidentally knocked my other one over and broke it), a wok, and a bowl to replace one of mine that got broken. I also indulged in some cheap fairy lights (what they call christmas lights in the US), and strung them up as decoration in my room. I was tempted to get an IKEA Christmas tree, but since I'm not going to be here over Christmas, that'd be silly, so instead I got a string of stars and hung them over my bed.

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Fairy lights!
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That's about all that's been going on. We had today off, and tomorrow we've got off as well, so I think I'm going to try and spend the whole day studying. But I'm glad I took the last few days off because after stressing about that essay I just needed to take a break and not think about school for a bit. But tomorrow the studiousness begins again!

Ah, the life of a vet student!

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 :)