Rainbows, parasites, and candy. Mmmmm.

Woke up to my first day of second semester around 7am...rolled over and glanced out of my window to a GORGEOUS rainbow stretching from the mountains to the sea. It was absolutely perfect, really well defined, and full of colors. There is seriously no other way to start out a super scary semester than with an omen full of happiness and color.

School has started off with a bang, three exams already coming in week #3. That's our hell week. From there they will come about once per week. Just happy we aren't scheduled to walk the clinic dogs that week!

Made friends with my parasitology prof today, discussed some of my parasite books with her. She mentioned an interesting one I'd like to find, Jewish Grandmothers and New Guinea Worms. Seems Jewish grandmothers used to make some crazy fish dish and sample it without checking the temp. Then they'd become infected with a parasite from the fish. Kinda makes me think twice about sampling raw hamburger before cooking it. Relax, I used to do that when I was a kid...before I became obsessed with parasites.

Physiology is everything I thought it would be and more. I cannot tell you how much I love that class. The prof is fantastic, a total ham, and the subject matter is surprisingly interesting. Who knew urine and kidneys could be so fun?

Gross Anatomy is basically same as last semester, thought with donkeys. Unfortunately we had to inherit donkeys from last semseter's group, so we will be dissecting the other side of the head, neck, and thoracic limb this week. They smell and squirt yucky liquid out at us frequently. Thank heavens I have my fancy schmancy new bright red coveralls that actually fit!

Haven't had the pleasure of Immunology yet, we start that class tomorrow. But I'm sure it will be a barrel full of laughs. (can you hear the sarcasm across the ocean?)

For those who care (and there are surprisingly a lot of you!), the car is all good now. Started up fine from the mechanic's, but the battery wouldn't hold a charge due to the 4 weeks of no use. So we spent the morning before our first day of school getting Kristin's car from the police station (I think most of you know THAT story!) and having a new battery installed in our "communal" car. We are now a 2 car household!

The apartment is super nice but could use some AC. We keep the doors/windows open when we're home, but now we have a major mosquito problem that quite often interrupts my sleep. I've taken to spraying myself down with OFF at night. Super attractive, but not nearly as bad as walking around looking like I have chicken pox because of all of the bites. And yes, I've fully investigated all of the wonderful parasites I can get from those bites. You don't want to know.

Lastly, but certainly NOT least....we found a secret treasure trove in the midst of dirty Basterre. A nice little shop that sells all of the candy from home, including my all time favorites:

Haribo Gummy Bears

Sour Patch Kids

Toblerone

Life is Good!

I will try to update the blog every Sunday night, and stay on top of it with the news of the week. But I can't make any promises, especially with hell week looming over my head. I enjoyed seeing everyone over break, and hope all of you are doing well!

Back to the Grind.

After a seemingly endless travel day (yay for 9 hour layovers in San Juan!), a few days of move-in madness, and a nice relaxing day at the Marriott that ended in a dead-battery car....we are all ready to tackle 2nd semester.

It's funny how I see people again and it feels like we've been apart for soooo long as opposed to only 2 weeks. This place is definitely some sort of Time Warp.

Even funnier is watching the Newbies wander around with wide fearful eyes! It seems like so long ago that we were those kids. I promise we've kept the hazing to a minimum. For now.

Speaking of Newbies, my best friend Jen from Florida is now a vet prepper here and I'm SO happy to have her here! She's really enjoying herself despite some very entertaining stories of her own adventures during orientation. My particular favorite is her ceiling deciding to pee all over her bed one day after a particularly nasty rainstorm. 2/3 of her bed was soaked through to the bed frame. But all is well, she contacted admin and much to our surprise they had a brand new mattress at her room in 45 minutes. And they paid for her to launder all of her bed linens (which led to some additional amusing anecdotes I won't go into)! All is well for now, however I'm not sure they've done much to patch the hole...

That's all for now, have to get moving and run lots of pre-school errands. IF we can get the car started. Yay for the Kitts!

Fin.

I PASSED.

EVERYTHING.

YAY!!

Think they'll withhold my deposit for this?

So....I'm lying there minding my own business sleeping in a little bit when I hear this loud thump. Not from outside....from inside my room. One of those noises that was loud enough to wake me up but strange enough that you can convince yourself you were dreaming. So I look around, nothing is out of miss, and I close my eyes and start to drift off again. A few minutes later, in my drifting state, I head a louder and more obvious Whump. Now my heart starts beating a little fast, I'm looking around wondering what animal or person is hiding in my room, and considering calling security when I look UP. And see that a very large chunk of plaster has FALLEN FROM THE CEILING just shy of the foot of my bed.

Hmmm, looks like the patch finally gave out...

OH the carnage!

This would not have been a fun wake up call. On my face.

Now it's raining in my room.

Look at that yummy green fuzz tucked in there.....

My new indoor swimming pool.

Think they'll dock my deposit if I just leave this mess for THEM to clean up? To be honest, it's been plastered over once before so I KNOW it's not MY fault.

2/5 DONE.

Two down, three to go.

Anatomy was my biggest concern, so now that it's out of the way bring on the final finals!

In case you guys were curious....here's a smattering of questions from my anat lecture final:

#1. Which of the following is correct?
A. Large volumes of local anesthetics injected into the epidural space can reach nerves proximal to the site of injection. This is not the case for agents injected into the subarachnoid space.
B. The cheif advantage to obtaining a cerebral spinal fluid sample at the lumbosacral junction is that the lumbar intumescence is easily accessible.
C. The subarachnoid space exists by virtue of the cerebral spinal fluid that fills it.
D. In order to avoid inserting a CSF tap needle into a patient's brainstem or spinal cord, the needle should be directed toward the pedicle of the vertebral foramen.
E. Cerebral spinal fluid results help veterinarians to determine the nature of lesions, particularly those that cause vascular damage.

#2. An anesthetic agent that "shuts down" the output of the reticular formation to the cerebral cortex would be expected to:
A. result in paralysis of striated muscle
B. result in atrophy of striated muscle
C. affect the animal's awareness of stimuli
D. affect all sensory neurons
E. affest all lower motor neurons (neurons innervating striated muscle)

#3. A horses's loss of awareness of the position of its joints (for example, the horse's being unaware of the knuckling of the metatarsophalangeal joint of a pelvic limb) could be the result of damage to its:
A. olfactory cortex
B. somatosensory cortex
C. visual (optic) cortex
D. auditory cortex
E. motor cortex

#4. A complete transverse fracture of the olecranon bone will affect the dog's ability to:
A. extend the elbow joint
B. extend the digits
C. extend the shoulder joint
D. flex the elbow joint

#5. T/F. The large intestine of the dog contains haustra and tenia. (I wrote a big WTF next to this one).

#6. Matching the following functions to the appropriate nerves below.
A. Purely motor function
B. Mixed function
C. Special sensory ensory function
Nerves:
1. Olfactory CN
2. Trigeminal CN
3. Trochlear CN

*Extra credit from me if you can number the CNs correctly without cheating!! :)

Alright, guess that's all I'll share. You guys probably already think I'm nutty enough. Just keep in mind that I had 125 of those questions. And I reallllly had to pee around #68.

For those of you who are curious, our retarded school does not release final exam or final course grades until Saturday 8/16 at noon. Which means just before I get on the plane home I'll know whether I should pack light or heavy. No reason to stress about it now!

Have a great week!! :)