Wednesday, March 18, 2009

1 more test until Spring Break

Even though spring break will not be much of a vacation for me, I am excited for a change of pace. We are all starting to get tired of studying. I am looking forward to a little time to spend outside and catching up on some much needed sleep. I truly wish we did not have 2 exams the week we return, but such is life. And upon return there will only be 4 weeks of class until finals, yeah!!

Due to the SAVMA symposium, which I am excited to go to, I will only have a few days to spend at home in Washington DC. They will be filled with doctor's appointments, yard work, a trip to the DMV for a new license, and planning out the summer, and studying. Hopefully, I'll get to see a few friends and family too and go for a bike ride.

Well, study break is over and it's time to get back to how to conduct a thorough Orthopedic horse exam.

Friday, March 13, 2009

The Semester is Flying!

With 1 week and 3 exams until spring break, I can taste it! Spring also arrived, and then left.

Anyway, it's the Friday after a 3 exam week and I survived. While I do not have confirmation, I believe I passed. Next week is another 3 exam week, starting out rough with Virology on Monday. Monday exams make for excellent weekends!

On a slightly different note, my summer is shaping up to be very busy. Perhaps too busy. My summer job decisions came down to 3 amazing choices: Pathology externship at John's Hopkins University, Research at the NIH National Cancer Institute in lab animal medicine, and a very lucrative lab animal internship at Merck in NJ. After deliberation, due to location and connections I have chosen to work at NIH this summer. The 4th year externship door is open at JHU, and hopefully I can keep the door open at Merck as well. In addition, I have the RAVS trip to Washington State, possibly working a weekend shift at The HOPE Center Emergency clinic, and I was recently awarded the Veterinary Pet Insurance Externship/vacation to Orange County, CA. If somehow I manage to do all of these things, it will be quite the resume and experience-building summer.

I am a little overwhelmed, but hopefully over spring break I can start planning out how all of these jobs will come together. I also have to (boo) study for 2 exams when I get back and attend the SAVMA symposium at Ohio State.

I will be one happy and tired vet student next Friday. But as a good friend always told me...next Friday never comes, and with a summer like this he is most likely correct!

Sunday, March 1, 2009

The tough get going

It's been a little while, in fact it's now March, and I apologize. Clearly, the lack of blog entries is symbolic of the increasing amount of exams as the semester progresses. So far so good, but so much further to go..in fact 3 weeks until spring break. 3 very intense weeks of 2-3 exams each week. And spring break, what spring break? We return to 2 exams the first week back! I am going to the SAVMA symposium at Ohio State, though, for a memorable experience.

This weekend the snow ruined my fun and sent my husband leaving a day early for fear he may not return to work for days otherwise. It was the first time in a while the distance has really hurt me. I am trying to work through it as best I can, to study for the looming toxicology and general medicine exams. It is snowing like a beast out there. I am very sick of winter and now have another reason to hate snow!

Thankfully, we had a good, albeit short, weekend. Friday night I made dinner (after deciding not to go to the VA VMA conference in Roanoke and forfeiting the well-worth it $25) and we watched an excellent episode of Lost. Saturday we both did work together, Matt went to the VT v. Duke basketball game, and then we saw a terrific play, The Thistle at Pope Creek.

While I tried to get a lot of work done, as usual somewhere I fell short and now it will be cram, cram, cram until spring break (which will be catch up, catch up, catch up).

Okay on with the herbicide toxicoses!