Happy Thanksgiving!

Well its not really a thing here, but damnit we're having one! Well two actually, a small one today and a bigger one on Sunday, we even invited one of our American professors, so hopefully he comes! It'll also be my gentleman callers first Thanksgiving, as, again, its not a thing here, and it was really fun last year, so it'll be a good break before we really start stressing! And since its Thanksgiving I should give thanks for all the great things in my life. I'm thankful for the friends I've made, both here and stateside and my amazing family who have supported me through my life and have allowed me to move here and follow my dream of being a vet and believed in me even when I didn't think I was going to get in. And lastly, and this ones REALLY important, I'm thankful that my friends are babysitting a kitten tonight, so I can play with it while we watch Mary-Kate and Ashley movies! Its the little things! :) I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, even though I wish we could all be together! Think of me when you eat your Tofurkey! (ya right!)

Sick, and sick of studying!

I finally succumbed to the plague AGAIN, so I was a tad under the weather the past week, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was last time, just a terrible sounding cough, but its mostly gone now, just in time for exams! Well those are 2 weeks away now, so its getting down to crunch time, hopefully I get everything done! The joys of having cumulative exams, but it should be ok. I did a large animal exam last week, which was basically us oscultating a cow, taking his temp, and general poking and prodding, poor guy, but he was being really cooperative, and so sweet. Though he was castrated, I probably wouldn't say that about an intact bull. So that was fun, we got to do some hands on stuff! Fri I was a Cochno and we basically did a walk around talking about feed stuffs, milking, etc, again highlighting all the weird stuff we need to know as vets (how the entire milking system works, so we're mechanics now apparently). I've also come to the realisation that I may want to do large animal medicine, or mixed practise, so I can still get my small animal fix. I'll have to line up some more EMS to get more experience, but cows are actually really fun to work with, and so cute! Who knew! Sat I more or less took a break from studying and went to a Pharoh exhibit with my friend at the Kelvingrove. It was small, but a fun change of pace. Then we went to late lunch at the 78, so noms, and headed home. I studied a bit and then it was 2 friends of mine birthdays, so we all went over to one of their flats and played some games, it was ridiculous. Definitely a good laugh. Today I've just been studying metabolism, and then I'm heading to my friends flat for pizza and movie night, since I haven't seen her in ages, and she lives at the end of the street, which is ridiculous! Also this week I saw the last Twilight, at midnight. I planned it with my old flatmate last year when we went to the 1st one. It surprisingly wasn't terrible. I wouldn't go so far as to recommend it (since I don't like the series) but it didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out and the acting was actually good, surprising. It also got excessively violent towards the end, which was a surprise to me and my friend, so that was cool. Other than that not much doing here. It hailed yesterday, so I"m just holding my breath for snow, hopefully not during exams so we don't all slip on our way to exams!

Jack White!

We saw Jack White on Wed and he was amazing! His opener was Willie Moon (we'd never heard of him before) but he was very entertaining and enthusiastic (may or may not have been on a good amount of drugs), but he seemed to be having a good time. The only thing that kind of sucked was he opened with a great Jack White song cover, so it meant that Jack wasn't going to play it, but still great! Willie Moons back up band were to kick-ass rocking chicks who were absolutely amazing! One on guitar and the other on drums, they were rocking! Then Jack White came on with his all girl band and they were absolutely phenomenal. He had a good array of instruments, and was just amazing. They played for about an hour, and then he brought out his all male band to finish up the album, they played some Raconteurs, and 7 Nation Army (which is the football chant here and all over Europe so the crowd was having a great time). So they played for about another hour and then the girls came back on and they all played together until the end. It was literally 2 hours of just non-stop music, he barely stopped to talk. Seriously one of, if not THE, best concert I've ever been to. So glad that we were able to go see such an icon play!

One Lucky Lady

That's pretty much how I've been these past few weeks, I just realised that it's been a while since I last blogged, but I don't even realise that it;s been that long! Well since I posted its been Halloween, which was super fun! We had 2 parties, the vet one was in a new place and was pretty fun, though a lot of people were gone so it wasn't as much fun as usual. I was the Swedish chef, which came together well and quickly and seemed to be a hit, my flatmate was Rufio, which  was amazing, and my other friends were a cat, penguin, Rafiki, and there was a whole bunch of other costumes there. Say what you will about vet students, we certainly are creative!
This past weekend was AVS, which is a 'sports weekend' and I used that term loosely, but it certainly was amazingly fun! There were vets from all over the UK and each school, and also each schools 5th year vets, have themes. They were:
Liverpool: noahs ark
RVC: vikings
Cambridge: where's wally
Dublin: Indians (native americans)
Nottingham: 1-2 years foxes, 3-4 hunters
Bristol: mimes
Edinburgh: Penguins
Glasgow: gnomes

Usually its away, but this year it was in Glasgow so I figured I had to go, since it would never be cheaper or easier for me to go while I'm here. It was great fun and I'm really glad that I went, though I have to say it totally kicked my ass, but it's supposed. It was really an amazing weekend! And to top it all off it we celebrated my birthday too. That was pretty chill, just brunch with my friends at one of our favourite restaurants and then home to have home made vegan beer cake (courtesy of my flatmate) decorated with Dexter murdering someone (that someone was Bilbo Baggins, since there were no other action figures small enough to kill), which is probably one of the best gifts I have ever received! Amazing. I seriously have the best friends. Afterwards we all just hung out and watched TV all day, so a perfect day after a great weekend!
Today we had dissection of the face muscles, which wouldn't have been too bad, except we had a cat, so everything was really small and hard to see. Also cats have really thin skin so its really easy to accidentally cut off the superficial muscles with the skin. BUT, because I'm a surgery pro I didn't (and subsequently got praised by my professor who rarely gives praise and then I subsequently turned a violent shade of red, happy but a bit embarrassed). And that's pretty much me for now!

A little repost from the AVS fb page.

'We are about to embark on a journey of truly epic proportions. It wont always be easy - there may be casualties along the way to nausea, dehydration, sleep deprivation - but we must stand strong and party on. United, together, we will sing loudly, we will dance crazily, we will drink heavily, we will laugh wholeheartedly,
we will pull prolifically. The list goes on, but we must make this weekend go down in history as one of the most legendary we experience during our short time at this vet school. We must let the random banter flow as we ride the unpredictable rapids of AVS'

WE LOVE YOU GLAAAAASGOW...