Conjoined Twins

In our neurobiology class today we watched this video which really impressed me. I am posting the link to it at the end of my rambling.  These two girls are conjoined at the head and have what is called a neural, or thalamic bridge.  Although they each have their own brains, their thalami (singular = thalamus) are connected to each other.  The thalamus is the portion of the brain which receives most of the sensory information from the rest of the body (vision, touch, etc).  So, because of this, when one of the girls sees something that the other girl cannot, the second girl knows what the first one is seeing.  This works because when the first girl sees the pony, the information is sent to the thalamus and is then processed as the object being a pony.  However, because of the bridge between their thalami, the second girl also receives the exact same information even though she is not seeing the pony.  This is why she can tell what her sister is seeing even though she herself cannot see it. The same goes for the tickling of the toes by the auntie.  I was definitely impressed with the video and how the two girls live together, joined at the head like they do.
Here's the link:    Conjoined Twins

3rd Quarter Grades

Our third quarter grades were posted last week and I did fine which I am glad for.  This week has really been cruising along.  Our classes haven't unbearable although anatomy is pretty tough right now.  We are learning the anatomy of the reproductive systems.  We have to know male and female dog, male and female horse, and male and female cow.  What makes it so difficult is that none of them are the same.  They all differ in some ways.  Oh well, it will be over before I know it.  Only six weeks and two days left in the school year!

Why Everyone Should Go To Vet School

Why should everyone go to vet school?  So that everyone can have their very own "Fecal Scoring Chart"!

This was in my school mailbox this morning.  What an exciting find!  When I got back to my apartment I hung it on our fridge to see if my roommates will notice!

I'm sure you're all jealous of my new possession.  All you have to do is apply to veterinary school, gain admission, and you will be good to go!

Spring Break!

Wow, after a two week break from updating my blog I am back at it (so you can all now breathe a sigh of relief ;)  I saw that my last post was after day one of our fourth quarter.  That week (two weeks ago now) was pretty relaxed as it was all new material and we had spring break coming up.  Many of my fellow students did very little if any studying, however I studied so I wouldn't have to over spring break.  Then, Friday afternoon it was time for spring break!

Here's a quick rundown of my spring break festivities:

Friday 3-16:

Studied for a bit after school then headed to sort clothes in the Goodfield world relief center with the Congerville young group.  Then I headed to my cousins in Eureka and met my mom, dad, and sister (Heidi) there after they flew into Chicago and drove to Eureka

Saturday 3-17:

Visited some family in Eureka and then headed to Tremont to my grandparents.  Saturday night was the Beutel Spring Fling at the Tremont Fellowship Hall.  It was nice to see a bunch of the family.

Sunday 3-18:

My Grandpa Beutel (Gram wasn't feeling good so she stayed home), Gramp and Gram Gerber, Mom, Dad, and Heidi and I drove to Champaign for church.  It was nice because my Gramp Gerber, who is a retired minister, actually went on the pulpit in the afternoon to help out the minister who was by himself since the other three ministers were all gone elsewhere.  While he did not have the sermon, he did finish up and had the closing prayer.  After church we went the vet school and then out to dinner with Josh and a couple others.  Then we headed back to Tremont for the night.  Here are a few photos from Sunday:

Gramp, Mom, Josh

Gramp, Gram, and I

Heidi, Dad, Mom, and I

Monday 3-19:

Hung around Tremont.  Dad left late in the afternoon to head back to Chicago to fly home.  Monday evening, Mom, Heidi, and I drove to Champaign for dinner and then spent the night at my apartment. Here's a photo of Heidi and Mom working hard:

Tuesday 3-20:

Did some cleaning at my apartment, went to a friends for lunch then headed back to Tremont in the afternoon.

Wednesday 3-21:

Went to Forrest and Fairbury to visit some family.  Had a nice lunch with some of my mom's cousins and uncles and aunts.  We went to Tremont for church in the evening.

Thursday 3-22:

Went with Mom, Heidi, and Gram Beutel to do some shopping in Eureka and Washington.  We visited exciting places such as the Skirt Outlet, and Catos (an all womans clothes store).  Also stopped to visit a friend who used to live in Connecticut. Had dinner with Uncle Mark, Aunt Colleen, and family in Tremont.

Friday 3-23:

Brought Mom and Heidi to Roanoke to meet up with Gramp and Gram Gerber so they could head back to Chicago to fly home.  Spent some more time in Tremont with my Beutel grandparents and also visited someone from Connecticut who was visiting family in Illinois.  Later on, I drove to Bradford to visit some family and had a nice dinner and quartet singing. 

Saturday 3-24:

Spent some time with my family in Bradford then headed back to Tremont so I could go with my grandparents to Morton to hear my great uncle talk about his WWII experiences.  Then I went to Tremont church for Communion in the evening.

Sunday 3-25:

Went to Eureka for church as my uncle and cousins were serving.  Went out with some family for dinner and then took a walk before driving back down to Champaign. 

As you can tell, I was pretty busy however the week was relaxing as I did NO studying over break.  That is soon to change!  Tomorrow I have class again at 8AM.  I am not pumped about starting up again but am excited to know that I only have 7 weeks before summer break! 

4th Quarter Day 1

Today was the first day of our fourth (and final!) quarter of the year.  It was a pretty easy day as a lot of the information we went over was stuff I have already learned so that was nice.  You can tell that people are not into school this week since spring break is next week.  People were leaving anatomy lab earlier than normal because no one really feels like being there right now.  The fact that it is 75 degrees and sunny probably doesn't help matters either!  Four more days until spring break, I cannot wait!

3-11

Today was a fun day.  My great uncle and aunt and their daughter, her husband, and son came down to Champaign to visit me and my roommates.  We went to Champaign church, toured the vet school and had a delicious meal (thanks in large part to Mama Schmidgall, my roommates mother).  Then, we played a game before dessert and then they took off to head back home.  It was a lot of fun and was a nice break from schoolwork.  Here's a few photos from the evening:

Josh and Uncle Roy hit it off pretty good (nice smile Josh!):

At the table playing Apples to Apples Bible Edition:

Here's me and Jim, Jeanette, and Joe:

Finally, here's me and my Uncle Roy and Aunt Helen:

Funny story about the chocolate on Uncle Roy's shirt.  He had dripped the chocolate on his shirt while we ate desert.  When we went to take the picture, someone asked him if he wanted to put a napkin over it.  His response?  "No, it will show up just fine without it." 

A Free Weekend At Last!

No more studying until Monday!  I took the second part of our final exam this morning and now have the whole weekend off!  The exam was extremely long.  It was 13 pages of short-answer questions.  Needless to say, people were not too happy coming out of the exam.  Then to top it all off, after we handed in our exams we had to fill out 13 professor evaluations, not a good idea to have us do that after giving us a long and challenging exam!  But, it's over so now I can relax for the weekend!  After our exam there was a small group of us that went to lunch at Cracker Barrel for one of our classmates birthdays.  It was a nice way to kick off our free weekend!  I do have some family coming from Gridley, Illinois Sunday which will be nice.  Other than that I don't have a whole lot planned other then eating and sleeping!   

Studying, Studying, Studying!

This week is a real killer as I have my lab exam today, my palpation exam tomorrow and my final exam Thursday and Friday.  I pretty much don't have a real life at this present moment and will not have one until Friday afternoon at which point my third quarter will be over!  That means NO, I repeat NO, studying this coming weekend!  I'm not even sure that I remember what that's like ;)  Anyways, here's just a teeny glimpse at what I'm studying this wonderful Monday morning:

These are the artery paths for the dog, horse, and cow abdomens which we have to know for our exam today.  It shows where each artery comes from and then what part of the abdomen it is supplying.  For example: The gastroduodenal artery comes from the hepatic artery which comes from the celiac artery which comes from the aorta.  The gastroduodenal artery in the dog then splits into the right gastroepiploic artery and the cranial pancreaticoduodenal artery.  So, that's the path, never mind what organ each supplies blood to!  Anyone want to trade places?

Quiz 2

We got our quiz two grades back today.  As expected, the average was around 58.  I am glad that I received the grade I got, so I cannot complain.  However, there is one question on the quiz that I am considering fighting but we will see.

3-1

Our quizzes from Monday have been graded however individual grades have not yet been released.  However, the average for the quiz was a 23/40 which is a whopping 57.5%.  So, knowing that, I'm not so sure I want to see my grade!  There is going to be a LOT of upset people after that!

Two days ago (Tuesday) our class found out that our histology lab exam which takes place on Monday is no longer going to be multiple choice  like it always has been but is now going to be short answer.  You want to talk about ruffling some feathers, boy oh boy, the reaction of many of the class members was less than joyful.  While I am not excited about it, I am just going with the flow.  There's is nothing I can do to change it, so why complain, whine, post things on facebook like how we should protest and refuse to take the exam, etc.  It will definitely require more studying than I normally put in for the histology lab exam but so be it. 

Wednesday morning our class was severely reprimanded for ten straight minutes by the doctor who is the coordinator for this quarter's classes and grades for the unprofessional behavior exhibited when we had a doctor from the community come lecture us on animal behavioral classes.  She also discussed the histo lab exam which was still quite fresh in many people's minds.  Needless to say, between the reprimandation and the reminder of the histo lab exam change, yesterday had everyone in not the best moods. 

Finally, on a more positive note, today was our comparative anatomy final lab exam.  Our multiple choice was take home while the lab exam part was this afternoon.  My first station asked a question concerning the movie, "Jaw" which I had never seen before.  I was like, uh oh, this is not a good way to start an exam!  Well, as I moved from station to station and found numerous questions like that interspersed amongst actual legitimate questions I figured out that this exam was probably not that serious.  Sure enought, after the exam they had us clean up the stations while they graded the papers.  Then, one of the instructors came out and said, "The good news is everyone passed (they did not grade the papers) and the better news is we (him and the other two instructors) made food associated with exotic animals (turtle cake, goldfish, chocolate covered marshmallow eggs, etc) and now we're gonna have a party!  What a nice surprise!  Now that class is over so I will gain three hours of studying time on Thursday afternoons which will be very nice.

This weekend will consist of mostly studying as we have our week of exams next week.  Yippee!!!