a day at Panera

How often are you spending the day sitting and studying at an eatery, when a random woman comes up and asks you if you mind her taking pictures of you? It was a first for me. But she was kind enough to share the pictures. (Me and my friend May studying urinary physiology).

What's a vet student to do when she can't fall asleep? Also, a dream.

Last night I couldn't fall asleep. Words that I never used to know were running through my head.


When I finally did fall asleep, I had a dream that was also a dream I probably never would have had before. I dreamt that I was learning how to inseminate cows again. The woman who was showing us, stuck her arm into the cow's rectum, and got very surprised. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed as she pulled out a big fish. The fish was still alive! But it was really sick and very fat from eating so much cow ingesta--you could hold it up to the light and see just how full it was. We put it in a bucket of water, but it just sort of floated, so we got some euthanasia medicine to put into the water to put it out of its misery. Back to the cow: you could feel not only the placentomes (spots on the uterus where an egg attached) but also all these little miliary lesions where the fish's spines had injured the reproductive tract as it swam downstream. Ew!!!

Slaughter

I guess you can't spell slaughter without laughter, but I felt slaughtered this morning during our Micro exam and don't feel like laughing.
300 pages of microbes and everything about them--Genus, species, virulence factors, diseases they cause, clinical signs they cause, pathogenesis of their virulence factors, species affected, reservoir of that microbe, what diseases are similar to them, what they look like under microscopes, grossly, whether they are gram positive or negative....and so on.
I had my mnemonics to remember all the facultative intracellulars, the obligate intracellulars, the gram positives, the obligate anaerobes. I knew all the diseases/clinical signs caused by all the microbes.
And that translated to about 1/3 of the test questions.
Shit.

Epiphany

This epiphany brought to you by my friend May, who has excellent (and funny) insight.


"Southern and Midwestern people (sample size: 2) have a regular accent, that they use for talking, and a drawl, that they use when they're joking.

So... probably the people who have heavy Southern or weird midWestern accents all the time, are just always joking.

So... Republican votes are probably just meant as a joke.

Great big joke."

Sometimes...

I want to drop everything and become a lichen expert. They're so varied and amazing and beautiful and have such good names. Yay for fungus/algal symbionts!

Up a cow's butt

Guess what i did last night and today? I learned and practiced AI-ing a cow! not Avian Influenza, nor Artificial Intelligence, but Artificial Insemination. Whoo, i had no idea how friggin strong cow anus sphincters were! She cut my blood circulation off, had me pinned in there....worst massage i've ever had Ha ha ha!!! My left arm is SO sore. But it was a really exciting, interesting experience and now I know how to feel for a cow's cervix, how to direct an AI gun into it, and how to feel when it is in the exact right 5/8" space within the uterus in which to inject the semen. Maybe that sounds pretty weird, I think my standards for normal/acceptable are pretty much out the window by this point. Anyway, I had a good time. And I am now certified to artificially inseminate any cows you would like. I'm your girl.
[learning how on a fake cow butt (plywood, nylon stocking, and reproductive tract from the slaughter house).
Is that a smile? or disgust? I can't tell]

why Sir Elton John rules

excerpt: "organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate." Therefore, let's ban it.

Busted!

I would like to direct your attention, dear reader, to a story about my downstairs neighbors. They're rednecks through and through and it makes me feel at home somehow knowing they're around. (story written up by Jessamyn, my roommate.---it's funny, go look!).

#&%* too late

too late to get my absentee ballot in. GRRRRRR!!!!!! Makes me feel sarcastic.

VOTE!

WARMTH!

I got myself an electric blanket to curl up in while I study because I was perpetually cold otherwise. Mmmmmmm, warmmmmm. (As an example of how cold my blood runs, my massage was cut short last weekend because I was too cold, even with 3 blankets over me...)

quick break

Open Mic held at school last night marked the first time I've taken some time for Me and dance this semester (I love teaching, it provides fresh air and sanity...but it's still a job. This was just for me). A few hours of preparation, watching and enjoying, performing, followed by dinner with most of the performers----it was great. A bunch of my students from the YMCA came to see me dance which was very sweet and encouraging. At the end of the open mic, Heather was playing her penny whistle, and the audience asked if she could play something I could dance to. So we tried it! It was very fun, and good to dance to live music again. The audience loved it and Heather was really excited about it too. Maybe it'll become a 'from now on' sort of thing. Fun!

(took an exam in pharmacology that morning, and have another exam on wednesday. the exams are never ending. the fun factor has to just get stuck in there somewhere!).