Football heartbreak

2006-11-19

So I know y’all are going to think that I’m speaking about being all broken up about the Stamps yet again not making it to the Grey Cup… but to tell you the truth I’m getting kind of used to it. 😉

No, I’m talking about my final footie match, which went down yesterday… (my soccer match for those of you who insist on using the wrong terminology!). Playing our arch-nemesis we went 75 minutes of regular time and then 10 minutes of Golden Goal overtime… scoreless. It came down to penalty kicks and they won by one, on an unlucky bounce… We spent 60 out of the 75 minutes in their half, and just couldn’t find the net… I think we need to practice shooting – all summer. I almost vomited because I got stuck marking this girl with legs as long as I am tall – my teammates were joking that I should just scoot between them. We had no subs for midfield or defense (ie no one with a strong enough throw or kick) so the 5 of us (we play with 9 on the pitch) had to just rotate back and forth.

I know the burning question is why they are our arch-nemesis… we were playing the girls from Medicine. So… 1) they are the only team to beat us all year; 2) They get really physical (some would say – they know how to play dirty…) and the last game we played with them, they took out our goalie and the ref didn’t even penalise them! and 3) (the worst of all!) They don’t consider us real doctors, because we only work with ‘animals’ (and they SAY so…). Forget the fact that it’s much tougher to remember the internal workings of more than 1 species AND that you’re working with a patient who can’t tell you what’s wrong (and 90% of the time the owner can’t give a history – “yeah… I went to work and came home – poofball was lying in her own vomit”). Okay… enough ranting… so… we lost. But I got a hat! It’s too big for my head and really ugly, but I got a hat! 🙂

This week we have been studying birds. It culminated in killing birds. Wednesday we had 2 day old chicks… which were euthanized by manual cervical dislocation (ie breaking their necks). That wasn’t too bad – everyone managed to do it the first time around (that young their neck vertebrae are still flexible enough that it’s a simple twist of the wrist) and we were all capable of completing the lab.

Then we had adult chickens on Friday. They were dying by lethal injection. After examining all of the ‘living’ things (like blinking so you could see their 3rd eyelid – the nictitating membrane, etc), you were to find the brachial vein, have your partner stabilize the wing, and insert the needle and slowly release the barbiturate and anaesthetic cocktail. We did just fine, it was like our bird went to sleep – I ended up with half a syringe left of stuff. But some people had their birds so wound up before they even went looking for the vein, that they ended up blowing both brachials and they having to try and resort to breaking their necks (Maria and Jamie in our class both worked in a poultry barn last summer, so they tried to do that for them – and succeeded in most cases). I finally looked up, realised what was going on and went and slit some jugulars. Several of the girls are now traumatised and have decided that they never want to eat chicken aga
in… 🙂 They are quickly running out of food sources. ;p

I did a sheep necropsy last week too as part of a pathology club lab. It was the coolest! Our sheep (we worked in groups of two) had surgery the month before, so we could see where all the stitches were (they hadn’t turned fibrous yet) and so we pulled them out. And she had mastitis when we opened up her udder, and the pus was all green and milky – kind of like dyeing milk for St Patrick’s Day! And it didn’t even smell! There must have been a litre at least. Then we took out the eyeball – eyeballs are really cool… and they bounce! Ang dropped it by accident, and I had to chase it half way across the room! So now maybe I’ve crossed the line… if you want to hear more about my necropsy experiences, let me know – I’ve done swine, equine and bovine as well this semester. 🙂

I felt that I should honour the ovine necropsy though, because I just finished a genetics
 paper on sheep. F%$&a^R paper. That’s what I have to say. My original paper was on llamas… and I was really excited. Congenital deafness – cool topic eh? But my genetics prof doesn’t like camelids and when I went to hand in my paper I made the mistake of asking a wee question. She told me to rewrite on a new topic. So… lysosomal storage diseases in sheep… whooohooo… and yeehaw… eyeroll… if you’ve ever heard of Batten’s disease in people? That’s my topic. Which is really interesting in people. But there’s not a lot to find in sheep. It’s due tomorrow. 😡

But – I get to do an equine hock bandaging lab this week – yeah! SO I’ll be bandaging every horse I know over winter break to practise… 🙂

I have to go study for the 2 exams I have this week… have a great one guys!

love  j ox

The big ketchup

2006-11-12

so…. it’s been awhile… 🙂

That means I have a lot to catch up on (or ketchup as my friend Haley says). But I have this problem. Lots of work… a foot of snow to shovel… a house to clean… and a Christmas letter to write. Those of you who receive our annual family Christmas epistle will understand what I am talking about. Those of you who don’t… you will this year. So I apolgise if some of what I say ends up being redundant later on – even I get writer’s block (and carpal tunnel!).

Let’s start by saying that Maya Angelou has become my daily mantra… not her name per se, but one of her quotations (and for those of you saying Maya who? shame on you! Google her!). A specific quote – ‘The main thing in one’s own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry‘. I spend lots of time these days trying to remember why I thought this was a good idea, that I can do this, and… to breathe. 🙂 Apparently that takes more concentration than I have at times! And why would I need to do this you ask? Forget all the other stressors in my life – I am staring straight into the face of an 80% final exam for BChem. Yes… my final exam is going to be worth 80%. There doesn’t seem to be an innate understanding of biochemistry willing to stay in my brain.

On that note (those of you who’ve been paying attention remember that if I did well on my midterm my final was only worth 60% – so you know what that means) I found a new tutor. He’s nice. He tells me that I’m much smarter than all the brainiacs studying for mcat and the med students that he tutors, because at least I know something. He reassures me that at some point it will all fall into place – I’m just worried that it will fall like Jenga, instead of like dominos! 😛 And it’s coming… but sooooo slowly. I’m not sure that I have time for the processing to all take place before I have to write the exam! See now I have to remember to breathe… this is where yoga comes in very handy.

My husband came out to visit last week… 🙂 he was here for 5 WHOLE DAYS!!!!! Now I don’t see him till the 11th… 😦 But then I get to have him here for a whole month!!!! Okay. I think I’ve calmed down from the BChem trauma and can write about something else now. 🙂

So I haven’t had any real contact with living creatures lately… unless you count the meal worms at school (this month I deal with meal worms since my hawk died, and the other one that I was temporarily taking care of got shipped off 😦 ). Did you know that meal worms need a good spritz twice a day? I didn’t… did I care? Hmmmm…. up for debate. 😉 on a side bar – For those of you with budgies they also like to be spritzed – not too hard, but they’ll spread their wings and dance for you. 🙂

So that just leaves the cats… I’m not sure that they love me right now – they miss Jason so much because of all the attention that he lavished on them, that Mirage can’t be bothered to talk to me (unless he’s getting fed), and Echo literally smacks me when I walk in (I think he thinks that I’m away too much… so he runs up, growls, leaps onto the bench by the door and bats me before sprinting off and hiding). I think they think I made Jay disappear, so now they’re punishing me. Echo has even now engaged me in a very violent game of fetch – I get smacked if I don’t immediately pick up the mouse and I get nipped if I pick up the mouse. Quite the punishment from my sweet, love-hungry cat eh? In retaliation I spend lots of time palpating parts that I’m sure they wish I’d never touch – of course eventually I may wish I had never touched too…

This is getting long and I haven’t covered half of what need to say! Ah well… I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am still breathing… though I try and only breathe through my mouth during exams – have you ever been in a room where everyone is so afraid that they start to get that musky fear sweat happening? It takes less than 5 minutes for the room to smell worse than the men’s hockey locker room… brutal. 🙂

lots of love to everyone!

j ox

Time crunch

2020-11-26

Okay peeps,

So here we go… this will be the last contact until the evening of December 20th. I hope you are all prepared. Until then I am going to take a page from my sister’s book, and be dead to the world. On that day though (or maybe the next day – that’s my last exam), you’ll get your big Christmas edition. 🙂

Luckily Jason arrives on the 11th, so hopefully I won’t be dead in real life – he might deign to cook and clean for me, while I ignore him completely, other than using him as a bed warmer. I really need to get out and buy myself either a) a new temperature controlled blanket, or b) a hot water bottle. Maybe I’m keeping my house too cold… the cats have started sleeping in the bathroom (which is the warmest room in the house). Either that or they’re tired of me coaxing them onto the bed, only to stuff them under the bedcovers (you know – to heat them up). 🙂

Speaking of whom – I am going to write a book on neurotic companion animals. I’ll make a mint. I bought new kitty litter – I had been doing some light reading on litter (my entertainment knows no bounds!) and how the really fine grained clumping stuff can actually be bad for your cats because they don’t manage to get it all off their paws and then they lick their paws and it gets into their intestinal tract, etc, etc. The problem is the other stuff is bigger (I know – that’s the point right?). So we did the whole 10%, 
25%, 50%, etc gradual weekly change… Apparently Echo likes to feel that he’s at the beach when he goes to the washroom. He has stopped burying all materials, AND to make matters worse, he is taking out his displeasure on me. Previously the only time we ever had a problem with either of the boys having an ‘accident’ was when Jay would go several days without doing the litter box. Echo would get mad, pee on Jay’s stuff, Jay would do the litter and the world would be right again. I do the litter every day, so we know that isn’t the issue. The other day I came home and something wasn’t quite right… I have a cold, so it took me a few breaths to realise that it was the smell. My bedroom smelled like male cat. I groaned before I looked because some 6th sense told me – I had brought up the basket of clean laundry that morning – a full, clean basket (and it goes to my hip!)… when I lifted it up, it was dripping. He must have saved every drop and peed in there every time he had to go. I ended up throwing it all into the old-fashioned soaking laundry tub for 2 days to try and break the disulfide bridges (it’s kind of complicated, but once cats or dogs pee in one area they are more likely to pee over and over in the same area because the smell remains unless you can break all of the chemical bonds).
The clean laundry came back upstairs today… and I watched as I was putting it away. Echo gets in the litter box, hops around, refuses to do anything, and gets out. I turn around and he’s urinating on the freshly folded laundry. He’s lucky he’s not dead. :{

So I finished my big BChem presentation. I don’t know what I got… but it’s over. And I answered all the questions. Did I mention that somehow instead of being my group’s weak link I ended up knowing stuff? It was really weird… and my tutor continues to be reassuring. Of course every now and then he bangs his head on the table, but I think that’s for dramatic effect. 🙂

I think I mentioned my stupid genetics assignment last week. I’ve attached it just so y’all can become more informed about Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis in sheep too. I know that it’s been a burning question in your minds since I mentioned it. I can tell. 🙂

So my neighbours… Have I mentioned that my neighbours across the alley are insane? Because they are. Especially when it comes to football. And Grey Cup was last week.
 But the Riders weren’t even in it! Yet they were all outside watching the game, honking and playing drums everytime there was some sort of exciting play. It was annoying – I ended up reading the same paragraph for 2 hours I think. I tried different places in the house… I tried earplugs, music, riding the bike. I finally gave up – and they were done. But by then my concentration was shot. I think I’ve figured out why they’re relegated to the back yard – despite the fact that it was -20. 🙂

This week we got to dissect the male reproductive system… :)And my professor got to play with the male reproductive system of a dog, a ram and a bull. In the interests of professionalism I will refrain from mentioning the comments that the students made about how much Dr Adams seemed to be enjoying himself.

I also arm-wrestled one of the guys in class. Any bets on who won? 😉

That’s all for now! lots of love to everyone!

j ox

ps just a reminder that we’re having a silent auction in March, so if you have anything to donate it would be hugely appreciated!

The grind…

2006-10-21

hey there peeps,

I want to start by thanking all of those people who have sent me cheery, uplifting messages over the last couple of weeks. 🙂 I haven’t had the time even to read many of them, so answering them is kind of hard – I try and do 1 or 2 a day – which means I’m still working on September’s backlog!!! But they definitely help. Especially when all I dream about lately is schoolwork (which isn’t really conducive to a good night’s rest when you’re quizzing yourself and panicking in your dreams because you don’t know the answers!), or else dying in my sleep and being found days/weeks later with my face eaten off because the cats got hungry and couldn’t help themselves. Gruesome eh?

So imagine sinking into a morass of failure, stress, caffeine overload, lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of exercise… that pretty much sums up the last 2 weeks. Midterms hit with a vengeance, leaving me feeling as though I’d been kicked in the teeth and stomped on by a wild bull. For those of you who have seen me on a little bit of caffeine… magnify that by a factor of about a billion. Add in the no exercise, and I’m probably a wee bit edgy… 🙂 um… put it mildly. 

Jenna (one of my classmates) told Tyra and I to go climb one of the trees in front of the school yesterday to work off some nervous energy (Tyra is probably the only other person in class as hyper as me – and weget each other a bit wound up). We thought it would be a good idea, but it was snow-raining (you know – where it wants to snow, isn
‘t sleet, but isn’t rain – yes we’ve had snow here for the last week and a half… stupid weather!) so we did burpees up and down the hall instead. Then I got all dizzy because I hadn’t eaten since 4:30am (it was 8:30am) so I had to sit down on the floor. The 2nd years came along and because they were heading into a parasitology exam decided to inform us all about the nasty diseases that I was in danger of acquiring. I’m sure they would have been horrified had they seen Tyra walking on her hands 2 minutes before that and then wiping the sweat off of her face before washing those same hands! 🙂

Anyway… midterms… not going well. I can’t imagine what things would be like if I was behind in my classes. But definitely increasing my stress exponentially, like by about a gazillion. So I have spent numerous hours wondering if I had somehow been a mistaken acceptance (apparently I’m not the only one!). Can they come up to me and say “whoops- that letter we sent you? It was meant for a DIFFERENT Jasmine Dhillon. We’re sorry. Please get out of our school before you embarrass us all!“?

We haven’t had labs for the last 1 1/2 weeks either, so nothing to feel good about doing well. And to make matters worse, Rufus (the juvenile Swainson’s hawk that I had been caring for), was doing well enough that he got moved outside for flight training – this was good. We were hoping he’d be strong enough to go south this fall instead of having to spend the winter cooped up inside. But… he got eaten. 😦 Somehow the predator became the prey… we think a fox or something got into the barn (which needs to be condemned). All that was left was a few feathers… you can picture it I’m sure – me with my bucket of water and bowl of cut up chicks and mice, opening the pen door… expecting a swoop of wings… silence.
 
‘Rufus?’

‘Rufus? Where are you hiding?’ (incidentally there is nowhere to hide. Each flight pen is a big open room with a chicken wire mesh ceiling, and wooden panelled walls. There’s a few perches, branches, and that’s about it).

‘Rufus? Oh… oh s&%t!’

Then, the icing on the cake… my ‘almost 3 years old’ nephew told me off (his birthday is next week) because I stood him up. Nathaniel (my cousin’s son) and I have a standing date at noon on Saturdays – after Kindermusic he comes and terrorizes my cats while I attempt to visit with his mother. It’s quite entertaining really. But last Saturday I got held up at the University waiting for a classmate who was supposed to be returning some notes that she had borrowed. I waited 2.5 hours for her to show up, which meant that I missed my ‘play date’. Talk about guilt! And reasoning with someone that age? He just patted me on the shoulder “It’s okay Auntie, just don’t let it happen again.” 🙂

So that’s been my amazing 2 weeks… lovely eh? And I have BChem on Tuesday… sigh…

At least my cats might start talking to me again. They have been quite upset and insulted lately. They even spent 2 days running away from me (except at night when they thought I was asleep and wouldn’t notice them sneaking in to bed to cuddle – almost like errant spouses!). I think they were feeling neglected and abused – I was spending so little time at home, and then cuddle time was ‘palpation practise’. (Can you tell Anatomy, Physiology and Histology have all been in the last 1.5 weeks?). So everytime I touched them I was checking something out… I always did some ‘forgive me’ pats after… but they let me know they were displeased. They vomited on my homework… literally… and both the same night! First Mirage did on my Behaviour paper – so I reprinted it and put it into my backpack. Thirty minutes later Echo puked in the backpack. hmmm choices…

a) strangle the cats and go to jail

b) laugh and clean up the mess

c) tell off the cats and reprint the assignment

d) give up and have a bath

I went for a run before I ended up drop kicking either of the cats. Luckily it was a ‘dry’ vomit, so not much mess when I got back. Needless to say I waited until I got to school before printing it again. Funny that it was probably the one class where I could have gotten away with the excuse ‘but my dog ate my homework’ (subbing in real events). I just would have had to write an appendix to my paper (with lit cited!) on why I thought it happened! Now the first thing I do when I get home is spend 5 minutes of quality ‘petting’ time with them, and the last thing I do is tell them where I’m going and how long I’ll be. Hopefully it will prevent any future issues… 🙂

So kiddos, I have a lot of BChem to learn in a very short timeframe, so must go. One last 
piece of information before I go though – Did you know that it now costs 89 cents to send a letter to the US? And $1.49 overseas? What is the world coming to???

Lots of love and hugs to everyone!

j ox

I got to go home….!

2006-10-09

Hello everyone,

So this will not be a very long letter – I am sitting in the Calgary airport waiting to go back to Saskatoon. I came home for a grand total of 60 hours… if you calculate that out, I paid about $4 per hour (so cheap! I got a seat sale… 🙂 ) and it was worth every minute. Though I spent an awful lot of those hours with my nose buried in my books, at least my feet were in my husband’s lap 😉

We did the Thanksgiving thing with both sides of the family – and while out at the farm, I got to spend some time with the horses. Funny thing – now my opinion counts!

The week leading up to my flight was harsh and disheartening… so much so that I contemplated taking a plane to nowhereland and not coming back. That whole ‘what the hell am I doing here – I don’t deserve to be here‘ had definitely settled in. 3 tests and a midterm exam later I was even more depressed – I had a session with the associate dean of academics (one of my professors sent me) to deal with my learning disabilities and what they could do to help me. Now I have to go to the learning centre and take some more tests… :{

Not only that but I had two very frustrating sessions with the juvenile Swainson’s hawk Rufus my team is supposed to be feeding. He has started to imprint on us and so will only eat from the tweezers – almost a force feeding. And it becomes almost like a game to him! Sometime soon he’s going to manage to take my hand off thinking that it’s his dinner. Not to mention I end up wandering around with hands smelling like dead chicks and mice all the time – no wonder the cats have changed their behaviour and they actually lick me these days! ðŸ™‚

I had an awesome exotic animals session – birds and reptiles. I spent 45 minutes with a 5 foot constrictor wrapped around my arm because everyone else was freaking it out and trying to strangle it. Our prof for that lab happens to be the supervisor of one of the special interest groups I’m in (incidentally Wild and Exotic Animals Management) so she’s seen my work with the above mentioned Rufus. Maybe she took pity or something but she requested that I hold on to him till he calmed down. I must have been good because he went to sleep. 🙂

My other hands on lab involved steering cattle down the chutes (which I did without any help from the rest of the group because they were all flailing around like headless chickens – man were the guys impressed with l’il ole me…) and then taking blood samples. The prof got to do some learning too as he tried to teach me how to do it left-handed! As it was, I did it 4 times (2 times each hand) and I think I could do it right-handed if needed. One of the guys came out smelling like “roses”, when he went to herd an ornery heifer in and ended up slipping in a cow patty. He did the pinwheeling thing for about a full 30s and I thought he’d caught himself but then he went down. To top it off? The cow ambled over and drooled on his face… ;P

Anyway… I feel replete, so am moving more slowly – the flight was just called and I should probably visit the loo first – these window seats are great, except when you have to use the washroom!

More next week – hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving!!!

love j ox

Wow… it’s almost been a month!

2006-09-23

So… I’m typing this from home – my email is FINALLY hooked up!!! 🙂 I am again part of the real world – Thank God. And I batted my eyes at the installation guy and he hooked up my wireless router for me too – even though he’s not supposed to. I could have done it, but this way was much faster – and I got my laundry done too! 😉

It’s amazing what we consider to be necessary these days. But I have to admit that spending 14+ hours at school so that I could have access to all of the stuff the profs put on the school computers or on line, or getting stuff from the library, not to mention classes, plus another 3 or 4 at home studying was starting to wear thin. Now at least I can get a large portion of my work done from home.

Of course that means that I have to spend longer in my house with a very smelly turtle tank. I have become a model turtle keeper in recent weeks because for some reason standing water here in Saskatoon really smells. So while he is normally supposed to get a 25% water change every week (he used to be lucky to get it done once a month!) – it’s more like every 4 days because then I can’t stand the pervasive odour any more! I’m wondering if there is some special bacteria that I’m supposed to be adding to the water here that we didn’t have to at home. Hey! Now that I have internet I can research it! 😉

My tenant is driving me crazy. This being a landlord business kind of sucks. For example, in the last 20 minutes she has gone in and out 3 times. I am on the other side of the house – but I know because she is slamming the door so loud. Given I was told that she was ‘quiet’ and ‘the best tenant’ that the last owner ever had I think that the last owner had really bad taste in tenants! I’ve also had to remind her that closing and locking the back door is a good idea, and that her dog can’t go to the bathroom on my plants in writing. Sigh… 
I may be looking for another tenant pretty soon… anybody have any great advice?

We had a crazy frost this week where I had to chip the bits and pieces of ice off of the windshield. So I’ve started practising parking in the garage. I have to practise because I only have 2″ of clearance on either side when there isn’t snow…. I’m just waiting for winter when I end up with only 1/2″! I’m going to pay my next door neighbour in rye – apparently he has a snowblower… and I have a loooong driveway.

Other than milking (in which I did NOT wind up with manure in my ear this time! 🙂 ) I only had a couple of hands-on labs this week. Our equine lab was again awesome – even in the rain… we had a mare who was rather gender biased – she allowed me to do whatever I needed to, including a rectal temp (we were practising TPR’s = temp/pulse/respirations) but when my partner Mike tried to listen to bowel sounds (he hadn’t even gotten to the temperature taking stage!) he got kicked… even when I held a foreleg! Then the TA tried to help and he got kicked… so the prof came over and he got kicked! 🙂 She just liked me 
best… that gentle touch you know – that and maybe she couldn’t see where to kick given that I am at least a foot shorter than all three of them. ;P

Then we had a cattle lab yesterday – and yet again the same guy who always manhandles the animals tried to ‘mix it up’. We do a section where we halter and tie the cow and then ‘drop’ them. He happens to be one of the few of us in our lab group who has NO cattle experience, so he decided that he should be the one to drop her. But instead of applying steady, gentle traction, he decided that he needed to engage a sawing action… until I told him that he wouldn’t get her dropped because the technique was releasing the pressure off of the nerve every time he moved (it needs to stay compressed for about 30s so that their legs buckle). Not only that but he managed with all of his jerking the rope around to get an udder caught under the rope and it got cut up too. So we learned some minor surgery (of course kneeling in 3 inches of mud and manure – yay!). By the time he was done I wanted to smack him upside the head. I’m hoping that when we go and work with the bulls that one of them puts the squeeze on him so that he learns it doesn’t have to be about brute force.

Of course he might be rebelling against our behaviour class – our prof’s PhD student came in and did a lecture on animal welfare – man was she opinionated. To the point where she really offended some of the class. It’s one thing to have an opinion. It’s another to offer the opportunity to consider lots of different schools of thought. It’s another altogether to come in and say that everything in veterinary medicine and especially with large animals is done is wrong but have no alternatives – for example the branding of cattle is apparently inhumane (which if you’re selling across the border is currently mandatory – and she didn’t have any other options). But for someone who is totally about animal welfare she cares little about the environment – her handouts will only print single sided and 3 to a page, and she refuses to save them in another format so they come to 14 pages per student every lecture – where we could make them 3 pages each otherwise.

We have all been roped in to being a representative of something or other, or else being on our executive. This way all the work gets shared I guess. So I am somehow on the fundraising committee. I figured that it would be easiest since I have some past experience. We have to raise $20,000 by the time we graduate – some goes towards paying for our graduation and some goes to paying for our licensing fees (it’s $1,000 each to write our exams). Our first big fundraiser is going to be a silent auction in March. So if any of you have anything that you’re willing to donate, or any contacts who are willing to donate something – obviously we will be doing lots of promotional stuff for sponsors, etc. I’ll make sure that they’re appropriately recognised! 🙂

I guess I should think about calling it a night – it’s been a long week and I have furniture being delivered bright and early in the morning!!!

lots of love j ox

The weather rivals home!

2006-09-16

I still don’t have Internet…sigh.

The SaskTel guy came out yesterday and when he looked at my cable (I was getting the student package that included my phone, cable and internet) I had the wrong cable type (I didn’t even know that there was more than one type of cable) and he was going to have to either a) drill through my beautiful hardwood floors or b) drill through my finished ceilings because of where my intake vents are, blah, blah, blah… SO now I have to wait for an appointment with Shaw. They’re supposed to call me today since they didn’t yesterday. But at least my freezer was delivered with no excitement! 🙂

So we’re coming to the end of week 3… the first week I was here we set records for how hot it was – I seriously contemplated installing air conditioning for probably one of the first times in my life in Canada, and melted. This week we have rain – record breaking rain. I rode my bicycle once and almost got washed off of the road (even at 6am!). So I am driving or taking the bus (thank you Michelle… my wonderful, beautiful, fantabulous cousin for sharing your pass so I don’t have to pay $5/day every time I come!). In between we had perfect combining weather, so half of our professors were ‘temporarily unavailable’ 🙂 That’s what happens when you go to a school where people have real life experience.

Speaking of my cycling experience – that afternoon I was so desperate to get home that I made it in 10 minutes! (let’s not mention the fact that I also left at the same time as 3 of the guys from the class and I couldn’t let them get ahead of me… so I ended up catching up with one of the other guys, and then beating… 🙂 ) Of course I then had to rest for 30 minutes when I got home because my legs felt like jello!

My tenant has been away this week so there has been no more thumping and bumping… except for Tuesday night – the day of my cycling sprint. So I didn’t feel like getting up… I should have. It turns out that one of the plecos (algae eaters) in the turtle tank had made a wild bid for freedom and ended up on the turtle’s sunning rock. When I got up in the morning there it was… I wasn’t sure when he had jumped out, so since I was in a rush I just put him back in the tank hoping that it had been recent and he could rehydrate (they’re pretty hardy). However when I got home Red (the turtle) was using him as a lever to try and move rocks around his tank (ie he was still stiff as a board)… I’m wondering if Red didn’t just toss/drive him out because he needed some sort of tool. 😛 Now I can’t get at him, but the catfish is slowly eating away at him so either it will eventually smell so putrid that I’ll give in and go ‘fishing’ so to speak, or I’ll end up with a beautifully cleaned skeleton.

My animal herding experiences this week deserve an entire page of their own, but I’ll try and keep them short… Sheep… man they’re fast! And can they jump! I finally understand why when you’re having trouble falling asleep you’re supposed to count them jumping over the moon – they probably could! We had to wrestle them to the ground and then sit them up to examine them and trim their hooves. The first one I tried literally jumped over my head. It’s a good thing I’m short, I still had to duck! They smell better than swine (though I have a mental block about working with pigs I think… ever since my interview last year).

Then I got to work with the horses Wednesday afternoon. As one of the few students in class with any real horse experience I got to catch and halter lots… mostly because everyone was approaching way too fast and making their animals jittery (and these horses are used to being worked with!). Those 2 hours of this week have probably been the most rewarding – they were so relaxing… 🙂 In 3rd year we have the opportunity to go down to Kentucky to check out the World Equine Vet Conference… that would be cool.

I also got a 5am milking shift yesterday – and I’m still cleaning manure out of my ears… I felt sorry for all of the people sitting beside me in class – man did we smell. BUT we were the most efficient couple and managed to get finished all of our 60 in under 2 hours. 🙂 I have decided however, that I probably don’t want to deal with mastitis in dairy cattle day in, day out for a living. The head of post graduate studies came to talk to us and there are some really cool opportunities for our residencies and internships… but I have to pass my BChem first. I’m a little freaked because you have to go and talk to your faculty advisor if you get a mark of 65% or less on any assignment. What pressure!

Here in Saskatoon they have something called ‘late night shopping night’. i.e. you can’t always remember at 7pm that you need something from the store because the stores are not always open at 7pm – it depends on the night. Some stores it is just Wednesday and Friday, some it is Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. So… grocery shopping… let’s just say that I have given up on eating any fresh anything because the last time I bought fruit and vegetables I got strawberries and spinach, both of which went off within 36 hours but I couldn’t get back to the store in time to return them because of the late night shopping thing. I’m sure you can see me pleading with the store clerk at 5:58 – “but I just need to return this rotten produce that I bought on Sunday… yes from this store… yes I understand that you’re closing but I was at school and then had to ride my bike home to get it from my fridge to bring to you… yes… okay… tomorrow? But!” On the bright side I hardly ever raise my head from the books so it’s been relatively cheap so far… other than that I seem to be relying more on caffeine than I ever have and since I don’t drink black tea or coffee I may have to resort to some sort of IV injection to save my teeth and sugar levels from diet Pepsi.

Did I mention that gasoline went down to 88.9 cents per litre last week? 🙂

Anyway… this has become incredibly long. More next week!

love j ox

oof… what a week….

2006-09-08

So…
Hope everyone is doing well!

What a long week it’s been, and it’s only been 4 days. I find myself falling asleep everywhere – in class, on study breaks, on my books at home, eating dinner, cycling on my way to school, walking home from school because I decided it was too dangerous to cycle home because I was so tired… 😉

I managed to get all of my assignments done early, which meant that I could concentrate on getting my readings done. Needless to say with soo much falling asleep it didn’t happen. But at least I seem to be keeping pace with everyone else. In fact I think compared to some people I might actually be ahead – mostly because I understand a lot more than some of the students right now in most of the classes. Now if only that were the case with BChem. I think we’re going to have to actually break down and group together to get a tutor – the prof doesn’t much care that 65 out of the 70 students in class have no idea what the hell he’s talking about right now so…

My lab partner passed out in Anatomy this week – the fumes from the formaldehyded dog got to her – I tried to catch her but she’s 5’10” and I didn’t see it coming. I now have a big bruise all over the right side of my back where I connected with the dissecting tab
le. And she has a concussion from hitting the right side of her face on a stool – but she didn’t make contact with the floor! 🙂 I also have smelled like formalin all week from kneeling in it holding c-spine while waiting for her to regain consciousness. We’re going back to lab today to ‘review’ what we missed Wednesday, since we have
 3 anatomy labs a week and now we’re a bit behind. ;P

Yesterday’s herd management was ‘interesting’. We herded swine. Of course I ended up going home with feed in my clothes and smelling like crap – and I got run over so there was dirt in my hair, but still. Much better than Wednesday’s. Wednesday we learned how to take care of lab animals because the Bovine teaching unit has been taken over by the small animal clinic since half of our building is currently under construction/renovations. A white lab rat decided that he liked me and wouldn’t get out of my lab coat pocket.
 I’m not squeamish but didn’t really feel like taking the rat home. The instructor tried to convince me that I should adopt it – this of course was after the anatomy lab where I’d been kneeling on the floor. I was kind of cranky and just wanted the rat out. When the tech tried to get into my pocket to get the rat she got bitten. So for 2 hours I had a lab rat that chirruped and dug in when I put my hand in my pocket and bit everyone else… sigh…

At home – I still have half my boxes left to unpack, and am living in darkness because I only have one lamp. My furniture gets delivered at the end of the month – then I’ll have something to sit on. My aunt and uncle gave us a chair, but the cats have taken ownership and unless I’m feeling really energetic it’s not worth the argument. Did I mention that I found out that there was a break in last year? So my uncle is getting the windows on the 2 old-fashioned ones changed ASAP. And there’s been lots of weird thumping, banging and crashing coming from downstairs – maybe my tenant is getting beaten every night and I don’t recognise the sounds… Last night there was crash at midnight of glass breaking. I got up to check everything – and it wasn’t the cats! (they always get the blame first, but they were fast asleep at the end of the bed for once… 🙂 I checked windows, doors, china, crockery, the dishwasher (it was midnight!) and the bathroom… nothing. so?

Anyway… gotta run to class… have a great weekend and chat to you all next week! Sorry if I haven’t responded if you’ve written an email… I still don’t have it hooked up. Count the days with me – Sept 14th!!!

love

j ox

So the first week is over….

2006-09-04

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Okay…

Only quick updates for everyone because my brain is already imploding from all of the stress. My internet doesn’t get hooked up until the 14th so I don’t have much time.

My first week of school is over – The bad news – I am already 4 chapters behind in Physiology (but at least I understand what we’re doing… past TAing experience apparently has some uses!), I have no idea what we’re doing in BChem (so have no idea how many chapters behind I am – but I remember why I hated it the first time I took it!) and I have two assignments due this week and an exam. The good news – I rock at Anatomy (so far) and Herd Management (what a name for a course eh?). Histo seems okay so far and my survey of vet med class seems kind of cool. The profs seem nice and very supportive. They actually want everyone to finish their degree!!! We got froshed this week, which was an interesting experience – being dressed up like a baby and paraded around to various local establishments was not something I thought I would ever have to do after the age of 30. I am the second oldest person in my class – but about the average age for the class ahead of me – it really depends on what year you’re in what the age of the students are.

We got possession of our place on Friday and Jay was amazing – he did errands all week and got stuff ready so that there would be electricity, gas, a phone, a bank account, etc when we moved in. And then he didn’t leave until last night despite the fact that he goes back to school tomorrow (I miss him already!!!) just so he could help me unpack as much as possible. Despite all of that I think that I’ll be living out of boxes for the next couple of weeks at least. Which reminds me – I better go to the grocery store – all I have in the fridge is fruit and chocolate milk. 🙂  For those of you who are interested in keeping in touch via something other than email – the snail mail address is 2421 Cairns Av, Saskatoon, S7J 1V2… and message me for my phone number…

I think I hate banks… new thought. I am really having issues concentrating – my ADHDness has been worse than ever. Maybe that’s my issue in BChem. The Henderson-Hasselbach equation really does deserve my full concentration.

We also have a conditional sale on our place in Calgary. Keep your fingers crossed for us – I find out on Sept 8. The $240K wasn’t quite our asking – but I’m okay with it.

The route I took only took me 17 minutes to ride to school today (I’m here doing research for my papers on the holiday – we have keys to our building! I’m so important now!) and then it took me 10 minutes to lock up my bike. Sometimes I’m really ridiculous… you have to lock the bike to the rack Jasmine… okay now you have to lock your lock Jasmine…

Anyway – hope you’re all having a great day.

Lots of love – I’ll write more next weekend!

j ox