Week 2 and still alive.

So I've already broken my promise and went three days over my proposed blog-writing schedule. Sorry.

A few updates...


The White Coat Ceremony was held the first day of school, and my precious little vet preppers from last semester were officially inducted into The Welcome-to-the-Rest-of-Your-Life-HA! Club. Little do they know what is in store for them....

Kristen (#3), Chris, and Nicole. Triple Dose of Trouble.

I finally took a few minutes and snapped some shots of the apartment. I have a STOVE!! Yay for baking! So far we've had very few problems (knock on wood)....the plumbing is a bit noisy (I can hear the kitchen water gurgling in my shower) but otherwise all is good. I especially like the ceilings, which are like that throughout the apartment (even in the bathrooms!). I haven't taken any shots of my room yet; as most of you who know me know, I take my time getting sorted in new environments. Translation: my room is a mess.

Not a great environment for anyone on LSD probably, but it works for us!

Living room. Spacious enough for us not to tumble over each other. The TV is just a prop, no cable and we can't get the DVD player to work. The couches all fold down to flat pillow-top beds. And under those horrendous covers they are really quite nice-looking. Maybe we'll bother to take the covers off one of these days.

View of living room/kitchen from the K/Cristin's wing. You can see my room's door just to the right of the kitchen. I have putrid hospital green curtains.

Our fabulous ceiling!

In keeping with my attempt to be more open and get to know more people in life, I have met a number of nice nubes (short for newbies) through Jen. The firsties are an interesting bunch; most are seriously young (fresh out of undergrad) and act like they've never had to work hard a day in their life (in school, that is). They already have one prof ready to fly away (quite literally). Normally this semester is typically the largest due to May/June being when people normally graduate, however this group of firsties is abnormally large at 137 people. They are literally falling over one another. It will be interesting to see how their semester pans out.

Also through Jen I've met another current vet prepper in her class named Mark. Mark's birthday (23, what a young'n) was this past weekend, and we celebrated by attending Mr. RUSVM on Saturday night. Mr. RUSVM is a pageant of sorts held each semester. One male is nominated from each semester of students and they compete pagent-style. The judges are made up of professors from Ross. Things can get quite interesting, and as always in life...sex sells. Mothers, you might want to sheild your children from the following pics.

This is James, our semester's contribution to Mr. RUSVM. Here he is displaying his goods for the Swim Suit competition.

Apperantly he wasn't being entirely honest with his "goods". And yes, he threw that sock into the cheering crowd. Mmmmm.

It's getting hot in there. Gotta grab someone's beer.

This was a 'member' from one of the upper classes. His mother should be proud.

James in the talent portion of the night. He sang Total Eclipse of the Heart with gusto.

One of the upperclassmen, who had to be carried on-stage. He sang Under the Sea.

Evening Wear and final interview. I think the bowtie really spruces up the speedo.

Some final group entertainment.

Sadly, our James did not win (his title was certainly stolen from him). The guy in pink above won (3rd semester, I believe).

Back to Mark's birthday. Since I have a nice gas stove to work with now, I attempted to make Mark as birthday cake. As always, to make things hard on myself, I chose to make something from scratch. And even more difficult, to make Angel Food Cake from scratch. I call it "Ghetto Food Stamps Cake". I had to make a number of substitutions due to living on a rock in the middle of the sea AND choosing to bake a cake on a Sunday afternoon when NOTHING is open.

For those of you who bake (Tanya and Karola especially!), here are a few substitutions I made:

Recipe called for......................My substitution
Cream of Tartar.................................White vinegar
Vanilla Extract....................................Vanilla Rum
Sift dry ingredients with sifter.........Sift dry ingredients with a collander
Bake in a round bundt pan................Bake in a square cake pan with coffee mug in the middle

Initially the cake seemed to be coming around nicely. It didn't rise as high as expected, but the crust on the top seemed promising for success.

Action shot of cake cooking. The cup kept migrating up as the cake expanded. Hope there wasn't any lead paint present.

Post-bake shot of cake with cup.

Dissection of cup successful.

Mark at the ice cream shop with his cake and balloons (the people running the shop gave them to him...I love the color, goes great with his eyes).

Action shot of Mark cutting his cake. It was pretty spongy and resistant to cutting. Not a good sign.

Lateral view of cut piece showing completely NOT cooked well insides of cake. Despite this, these three hungry vet students ate every bite. Mark even had seconds, though I can't be sure that wasn't just an attempt to make me happy.

Myself, Mark, and Jen. Overall a successful birthday.

Just as another example of the twisted island I live on....

"A friend" went to the ATM the other night and got quite the surprise. Having just deposited his financial aid check, he was expecting a nice wad of cash available at his fingertips...somewhere in the ballpark of $15,000 EC. It seems the bank had another number in mind:

Yes, that is ONE MILLION THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY NINE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TWO DOLLARS. And twenty cents. Converted to US, that's $510,871.18. Unfortunately for my friend, the next day his account was back to normal. But for that few hours, he was a millionaire!

And with that, I sign off. Hope all of you have a wonderful week! Until next time, I leave you with my view at lunch this afternoon:

Don't hate me. I only get to enjoy this less than one hour a day. If I'm lucky.