5 days down, 1349 to go

I don't know why I torture myself, I really don't. A member of the class of 2009 had a countdown to their graduation going so I thought... sure, why not have a giggle and see what it is for 2010. How utterly depressing... see for yourself at:

Countdown To VMRCVM Class of 2010 Graduation

Anyway, week 1 went pretty well. Glad its under our belts and we can move on.
On Thursday we began our dog dissections... and they let us play with scapels. You know we all had mad-surgeon fantasies with our gloves and dissection kits open! Anyway, our dog is Gooey- her name comes from the fact that she is, well, gooey. She's a black shepherd mix who will be with us all semester. We didn't do very much on Thursday except begin our basic dissections and locate external features. I think Gooey will become one of our closet friends in the coming months!

This weeked I spent relaxing. Friday, Heather and I went to the dog park with Tahlia and Oakland. We had to wait for the silly C'burg High School Cross Country team to finish practicing, but the kids waited patiently on leash until they left. By that point, about 15 dogs were running around the park. This is only the second time Tahlia's been here, so I was a little nervous, but no need- she immediately forgot about me and ran around like a crazy puppy. She found the little section of the Duck Pond and immediately dove in. While every other dog would hop in for a moment and then run out, my little water retriever refused to get out. About 25 minutes or so later, she was bouncing around in the water with a boxer puppy when she let out a loud YELP. Then she comes slinking out of the water, non-weight bearing on her left rear leg, it just kind of flopping behind her. Greattttttttttttttttttttttttt. Instead of panicing, I palpated her leg and checked her range of motion- her response was only to lick my hand and wag her tail. A young guy who had been there awhile came over to check on her, and couldn't see anything visibly wrong either- except that her leg was still floppy. No worries, despite the near heart attack on my part, Tahlia rolled on the ground for a minute or two, then bounded up and ran away like nothing had happened. Jeez. At least she's okay- although smelled pretty darned awful!

Saturday, Sara came down to play. She helped me put my new bed together, then we had a classic undergrad-esque night of O'Charlies and some TV. Unfortunately, we're now old people and we were asleep by 11:45. Hahaha. Up early this morning, we went out for breakfast and then watched some more TV. i tried to do as little as possible until this afternoon, because I know my weekends will be getting progressively more stressful. Might as well enjoy it while I can!

Anyway, tomorrow is a pretty light day! Anatomy at 10 and Physio at 11... and thats it. I have to come back for a SCAVMA meeting (student chapter of the american veterinary medical association) that's pretty much mandatory at 5, but until then I'm free!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Two of my favorite pictures that my dad took when Tahlia was just a baby! Man, she used to be so cute!

First full day of class

Well I finally made it through a full day of vet school, without crazy murderers running around.
The day started off bright and early (okay, 9:30) arriving on campus to once again find no parking spaces. How annoying. Vindication came only slightly when I saw that about 40 or so orange VT parking tickets littered the windshields of the Resident pass holders. That'll teach 'em!
Today we had Biochem and Histology. I'm a little nervous about biochem only because I had a lot of difficulty with it last semester as an undergrad. However, with Dr. Eng teaching, I think it will go a lot more smoothly! Histology I'm rather excited about- being the nerd I am, I'm actually excited about learning a skill completely foreign to me as of now.
Following lectures, I had a three hour break for lunch, because my lab didn't start until 3. Tomorrow I'll have it at 1 and be done at 3, and Thursday I'll have one lab at 1 and another at 3. As you can see, our schedules aren't very consistent. Anyway, it was nice to come home and relax a little, and I was able to take Tahlia on a nice long walk. She hasn't been out much since her spay 10 days ago- her incision is just now starting to really heal. So she enjoyed it greatly, chasing the butterflies and smelling every mailbox along Sandy Circle and Walls Branch. Goofy kid.
Following our break, Katie and I headed back to VMRCVM for our three oclock lab. Being the nerds we are, we were secretly thrilled once again at putting on our white lab coats :) Then we spent the next two hours learning every bump, angle, ridge, foramen, and tuberosity on various bones- or at least attempting to. Katie is one of my dissection partners, along with Sarah whom I met today for the first time. It should be a good semester as we're all pretty willing to venture guesses and admit our mistakes. I'm actually quite excited!
Okay, off to do some studying and prepare for day 3 of vet school!

First day of class.... kind of.

Well things never go quite as smoothly as you anticipate. I had everything all planned out- left my house in plenty of time, had everything packed and ready to go. Then the day started laughing at me.
First, upon pulling up to the intersection of Duckpond and Washington St., I was instructed by a VT employee to either go right or left. Southgate (straight ahead) was blocked off by a series of police cars. Curious. As I proceeded to pull into the Cage (the huge resident/commuter lot next to the vet school) I noticed many of my classmates circling, looking for parking spots. Even more curious. Turns out all 400+ spots reserved for vet students were full- mainly because a huge quantity of stupid resident freshmen parked in our half of the lot. So after having parked in the Litton Reeves lot (something I swore I would never have to do after graduation), I hiked to the vet school and arrived just in time for class. Phew. We had claimed seats last Friday with sticky notes, so I had anticipated my seat to be open- hahaha, not so fast missy. Someone evidently did away with the system and I was stuck in one of the few open seats in the very last row. Bummer.
Dr. Eng begins lecturing our very first anatomy class ever. 45 minutes into it (with 5 to go), a VMRCVM administrator enters and walks up to speak to a perturbed Dr. Eng. Thinking it was related to nametags or lab times, etc., I don't think any of us were prepared for what followed.
Sunday morning, an inmate, (William Morva, 24) from Mont. Co. Jail was transported to Mont. Co Regional Hospital for treatment. While there he managed to overcome the deputy, wrestled his gun away, shot the deputy and then shot and killed a hospital security guard. Then he escaped towards Blacksburg. This morning, around 7:15, he was sighted on the Huckleberry trail, a popular hiking trail that extends from the edge of campus to Christiansburg. He was confronted by a police officer who he then shot and killed. Then he vanished. Someone reportedly saw him in Squires Student Center, on campus, and prompted an emergency closing of the university. We were then instructed to return home and stay inside with the doors locked.
So my entire first of my veterinary career consisted of a 45 minute anatomy lecture and a lot of worrying.
Thankfully they captured him this evening without anyone else being injured. Quite an adrenaline filled morning! To read the whole story, click here.
Now it's off to bed to try again tomorrow- a whole day filled with histology, immunology, and some fun Anatomy labs!

Orientation week/ First day of class.

Hello all!

Since everyone at school keeps warning us that we're going to disappear off the radar once classes start and I'm horrible at keeping in touch regardless, I thought I'd give this blog thing a try once again. Check back frequently- I'll try to update at least once a week so you all know what's going on down here in Blacksburg as I begin this new adventure.

Class begins tomorrow, but let me first tell you all a little about Orientation Week. In Australia, we called it O-week- here it's nowhere near as glamorous- or fun. Monday began by herding all of us little scared first years into room 125, aka The Dungeon. It's in the basement of Phase IV of the vet school, where we will be spending the next year. Like the nerd I am, I arrived very early, having been told by my Big Sister (Erin, a second year I knew from Town and Country Vet Clinic) that we chose seats on the first day. At 8 am, everyone else had arrived and we sat through a morning of intro speeches, followed by lunch provided by Hills Pet Nutrition, then a tour of the hospital. Then we had a bit of a break and returned to the Commons (the cafeteria) at 6 for dinner and a panel discussion in which we were able to ask questions to faculty, graduates, and current vet students. Following this period, we attended the bonfire- which was really nothing more than a fire around which we roasted some marshmellows for S'mores. I think the highlight of the day for everyone was a) surviving and b) receiving our fancy schmancy name tags.

Tuesday was the day we were all dreading. Katie, my roommate and another first year (I knew her also from Town and Country) drove the 30 minute drive to Shawsville in almost complete silence- we were exaughsted from the night before. We had to spend the entire day at Camp Alta Mons, which is an "adventure" camp with high and low ropes courses etc. What was intresting was the fact that also attending the camp was Hayfield Secondary, a rival highschool located about 15 minutes from my Burke home. Small world. Anyway, the day kicked off with an awkward breakfast, followed by an awkward get-to-know-each-other game, only to be followed by an entire two hours of awkward games. I think the real bonding occurred in trying to avoid playing the awkward games. The morning session was spent doing various activities such as "Take these 6 sticks and arrange them in an equalateral triangle." "While blindfolded, build something out of boxes." Yes. I'm not kidding. When looking at the prompts, it clearly stated that the target age range was "elementary-junior high". Sort of humorous to picture 91 doctor of veterinary medicine students (ages 20-45) playing with sticks, but nonetheless torturous. After a peculiar lunch and more awkward group games (we had to pass a frisbee from person to person using nothing but our backs... simple enough if you're 10, not to easy at 22!!!), our instructors put their feet down and insisted we spend the afternoon on the ropes course. By this time its close to 90 degrees with the humidity so high we might as well be swimming through it, and we're cranky. Our first activity consisted of standing on a moldy damp log in random order and having to arrange ourselves according to birthdays without stepping off the log. If three people fell off, you had to start over. Again, most of us aren't the same size we were when we were 12 and did this game, and the log was slippery! After 15 tries and some very cranky outbursts, we finally succeeded. The rest of the afternoon went better, although I didn't participate very much due to the extreme pain in my left foot from my severe plantar faciitis. Lucky me. When I got back to Blacksburg my foot was twice the size of my right one. Delightful.

Wednesday: Another morning of speeches, a lovely lunch from the business club, then an afternoon of picking up our class notes, buying unattractive coveralls for large animal husbandry, taking official pictures, picking up dissection kits, and renting microscopes. Incredibly expensive afternoon! Luckily we were done by 1:30 which was a nice break!

Thursday: A really nice breakfast by Purine, more speeches. Then Dr. Eng, our anatomy professor, spoke to us about the realities of vet school and how hard it would be. He told us that it wasnt that the information was difficult, but that the quantity and time in which we had to absorb it was the problem. He told us that there were oceans of information to learn= and illustrated this with a massive crashing wave. "This is what it will feel like... and that's you," pointing to a spot at the very point where the crest crashed to the ocean floor. Greeeeeeeeeeeat. By this point we're all considering dropping out and becoming Wal-Mart check out clerks. We all waited for the upbeat lesson at the end- but it never came. Basically we learned that we will have no free time, our families will forget what we look like, and that while this semester will be hard, first semester of second year is incredibly more difficult. I can't wait. ha. Following this uplifting talk, we had a diversity workshop which was interesting in that we were able to meet more people and got to see some of the true personalities of our classmates come out. I won't say anymore than it should be an interesting year!

Friday: We were all excited to be finally finishing up the week! After a few more speeches, we had lunch in the Oak Grove (a big stand of oaks on the campus, with a catered lunch) and had the opportunity to meet some more people as well as some faculty members. Then we had our matriculation ceremony. Each person had their name called and were then "coated" by Dean Shurig and officially welcomed to the profession. As dorky as we all felt, secretly we were all thrilled to have our starched white coats on. We're on our way to becoming doctors at last!
Then some of us who thought we knew things about large animals took the Large Animal Husbandry course pre-test. If you pass, you don't have to take the class- needless to say I will be taking it this fall. Of all I know about horses, 10 out of the 75 questions covered equines. The rest was on sheep, pigs and cows. White, pink, black/white- that's all I know about the aforementioned creatures. Haha, oh well. At least I know what to expect of the course because the pre-test is evidently very similar to the final!
(pictures are class of 2010 after our white coat ceremony, and some of my classmates and I at the luncheon)



This weekend has been very relaxing with finishing setting up the house, hanging out with friends, and taking Tahlia on playdates. Tomorrow classes begin and my life is forever changed! If you want to know my schedule at every waking moment, you can find it here. It's going to certainly be an adventure!

Well, bedtime is calling! I will try to post as frequently as I can on this, but we all know how that goes. Please email me your contact info- I'm trying to update my address book now that everyone has moved away and started new jobs!

Wish me luck!