No More Class And Only One Week To Go!

Classes have ended for my first year of veterinary school. We had our last lecture yesterday at 1pm so we are officially done with classes!  However, we still have one week to go and the week is going to be extremely intense.  I was in the anatomy lab every day this past week starting on Monday and will spend almost the entire day in it today along with the whole afternoon/evening tomorrow.  No one in our class is ready for the lab exam on Monday.  It ha been bumped up from the normal 80 questions to 100 questions and to say our class is stressed would probably be an understatement.  I have heard the statement already in lab, "I'm almost in tears right now."  There really is an overwhelming amount of information to know for Monday but I am to the point where I just want to be done so I am making the final push.  After Monday's exam then we have two days off before we take day one of the final.  The final is going to be a beast.  Let's just say that kidney physiology and neurobiology of the cranial nerves and their functions are not the easiest subjects I have ever encountered!  So, this week, starting right now, will consist of long hours of studying every single day.  But, the light is present at the end of the tunnel which makes this week seem not as bad.  Funny story from yesterday's lecture.  The lecture yesterday was about testing different cranial nerves.  Cranial nerve 2 is responsible for eyesight so one of our professors Dr. Coleman stood in the back of the room, told us to look at the professor up front (Dr. Mahoney) and then he threw a ball to the front of the room to see if we saw it even though we didn't see it coming.  With that, Dr. Mahoney threw one back at him just for fun.  Well, one of these balls ended up by a kid named Matt in the front row and he took it and tossed it at Dr. Mahoney to hit her in the back.  Now, Dr. Mahoney is a fun-loving professor who doesn't have a problem with that.  However, right as he threw it, she bent down to pick one of the balls up and as she stood up, the ball thrown by Matt nailed her right in the nose.  Needless to say, there was a lot of laughter going on after that one!  Finally, here's a photo to end the post.  This is Dr. Coleman (the same one from the previous story) and I.  Dr. Coleman was our anatomy professor for the last quarter of veterinary school.  He taught us anatomy of the pelvic cavity and anatomy of the head.  Everyone calls me his son or his twin because we share first names, he is a veterinary pathologist and I have a high interest in pathology, and they say I look like him.  I'm not totally sure that I see a real close resemblance but some of the other kids think they do.  So I had to get my picture with him while holding our wonderful signs:

Weekend

This past weekend was a good time, a nice break from the stresses of the final weeks of my first year of veterinary school.  Friday night I studied for awhile and then headed off to Eureka to my cousins.  Upon entering their house I was somewhat taken aback at what appeared to be a meal waiting to be prepared.  I think you will understand why I was taken aback.  Here is exclusive footage of what I saw on their counter:

Even though the chef on the counter is holding a berry smoothie sign, I'm pretty sure those items on the counter do not constitute a berry smoothie! 

Saturday afternoon my cousins, uncle and I headed off to Bradford and had a nice evening with some family there.  I stayed overnight and went to Bradford church which was nice.  After church I headed back to Eureka and ate dinner with my cousins and uncle and some others.  Then it was back to their place for desert and visiting (or was that dog stew and visiting?)  It was a nice, relaxing weekend even though I did study a decent amount on Saturday. 

Now, here at the end of the post I must make a confession in order to not make my cousins look bad.  Heather was out mowing the lawn and Andrea was sleeping (she works third shift) Saturday afternoon and I took the opportunity to pile some of my dog bones on the counter along with a pan and some spices.  So no we did not have dog stew (that I'm aware of anyways!). 

4-25

Well, I can tell the school year is coming to a close.  Today we had our LAST quiz as well as our LAST histology lecture and LAST histology lab.  While I still have the rest of this week and next week for classes, the end is slowly but surely coming into sight.  The quiz was tough, kidney physiology is not exactly the easiest subject in the world!  Now, it is time to focus in anatomy lab, where every group that I know of is behind.  We are working on our dog, horse, and cow heads and learning all the glands, muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and bones in the head.  We also have a half head of a dog in which we are focusing on structures of the throat.  There are countless terms/structures we must know, the most of anything in anatomy lab this year.  It is going to take hours and hours of studying and time spent in the anatomy lab to get ready for the lab exam next Monday! 

4-23

This past weekend was a whirlwind, I can't believe it's come and gone.  I arrived, with my uncle and aunt at Newark airport a little after 10pm Friday night and got home around 115am Saturday morning.  By the time I actually got to sleep it was 2-230AM or so.  Saturday morning was a nice breakfast with some of the family and then it was off to church for the afternoon and evening.  Sunday consisted of going to church, being there for the baptisms and then immediately going off to the airport.  Though it was short, it was a great weekend, and a tremendous encouragement for me!  Now, I'm back at school for three more weeks.  Even though it feels like the time is going by so slow right now, I know that in reality it is going to fly by and that before I know it school will be out! 

4-18

Three weeks and three days left of school!! The end is (almost) in sight!  However, after classes yesterday I decided that it's going to be a grueling last three and a half weeks.  We started physiology of the kidney in physiology.  We will finish the semester learning about how the kidney works.  Altogether we will have 14 hours of learning how the kidney does its job. Then we had neurobiology in which we are beginning to learn the cranial nerves (there are 12 cranial nerves coming off of your brain and brainstem) and what they do.  I believe that it is going to be challenging trying to remember what each nerve does.  Then, we finished the morning with the worst lecture so far in veterinary school.  It was 2 hours of nutrition.  We have a different nutrition professor then we did before our midterm exam as the one now is teaching us vitamins and minerals.  He flew through 175 slides or so in 2 hours out of a 228 slide powerpoint.  That's a whopping 85-90 slides an hour!  He skimmed a ton of stuff and skipped stuff on his slides.  Now, our whole class is wondering how we study the material and what is he going to want us to know for the exam since he barely talked about anything in any detail.  I have another two hours tomorrow with him but the slideshow for tomorrow only has 217 slides.  Then next Tuesday and Thursday I have two hours each day with him.  That's one class that I can't wait to be done with for sure!  I have received my histology lab exam grade back as well as anatomy lab exam grade and day 1 of my midterm grade.  My anatomy lab exam grade was actually the lowest I have received so far in school however, the histo lab exam grade and day 1 midterm exam grade were fine and will pull my grade to where I would rather have it.  Today we have three hours of anatomy lecture which will be a real thriller and then in anatomy lab we start the last phase of our cadavers, the head.  From the looks of it, the head is going to be a real beast, lots and lots and lots of memorization!  Oh well, thus it goes, it will keep me busy for the last few weeks of school!

Weekend

This past weekend was very busy but really nice at the same time.  Friday night, Josh (my roommate), Calvin (someone from church here in Champaign), and I went to a large indoor flea market/sale.  It was a lot of fun to walk around and check things out.  There was everything from a stop sign to puppies to food to a book on how to grow marijuana (I did NOT purchase the book just in case you were wondering!).  Then Saturday morning it was up bright and early to head to West Lafayette church for college weekend.  It was the first one I had every been to and I really enjoyed it.  There was a lot of good food for thought brought out by the men who spoke.  Then, today I was in West Lafayette for church.  Right after church I came home (with a couple other guys) and got changed and headed to my friends to study.  Tomorrow is day 2 of our midterm exam, the written part.  Not looking forward to it, I can tell you that much!  Anyways, I am glad to have friends to study with so I'm not always studying by myself.  This Friday night I head out for a very quick trip home for Heidi's and Laura's baptisms.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone!  Now, to end this post I will post a picture that I just acquired this evening.  This picture shows myself between my two classmates who are alphabetically (last name) on either side of me.  The one on my right is Brittany and the one on my left is also Brittany.  They live together and also have one other roommate from our vet school class and her name is..... yup, you guessed it, Brittany also!  It was a random housing assignment and all three Brittany's from our vet school class ended up in the same apartment (with a girl named Lindsay who is a masters student in animal nutrition.)  What are the odds of that?  You know what else is weird?  Two of the Brittanys have the same middle name, two of the Brittanys are from Illinois, two of the Brittanys have the same anniversary with their boyfriends (except one is a year ahead of the other), two of the Brittany's fathers have the same name, two of the Brittany's boyfriends have the same name.  Isn't that wild?  I thinks it's just crazy how similar they are to each other!  Because they all live together, I call them BBanning (the one on my right in this picture), BBlack (the one on my left in this picture), and BMac (not pictured).  I graduated UCONN with BBanning, both of us with a BS in pathobiology, and we also worked in the necropsy lab together and now we go to vet school together.  One girl in our class calls us siblings due to our similar pasts.   My study partners are BMac and BBlack.  BBlack is also in my anatomy lab group.  Needless to say, I know the Brittanys the best out of anyone in my class!  So, here is the picture for real this time (courtesy of BBlack's father and taken at our Blue Coat Ceremony last August)!

One Month To Go!

Only one more month of school to go!  I cannot wait!  Today we had our lab exam.  It consisted of thirty histology questions, ten radiology questions, and forty anatomy questions.  The histology and radiology questions seemed pretty easy however the anatomy portion was another story.  There were times when  there were multiple answers that seemed like they would fit where the pin was poking (the pin identifies the structures of interest).  At that point, I just put one and hoped that was the one they were looking for.  It will be interesting to get my grade back.  Tonight and tomorrow will consist of studying for day 1 of our midterm exam which is Friday.  I am definitely not a fan of these intense weeks of studying! Oh well, only one more month and I will have completed my first year of veterinary school!