Dreams and Longings

Perhaps it’s because I grew up with horses.  It could be due to my new-found love of working with cattle.  Or it could just be I’ve stumbled across the Pioneer Woman’s blog.  Whatever it is, there is something deeply romantic and appealing of the country life.

Yesterday, some random stranger waved to me as we passed each other on the road.  The road, running between the airport and an open field that occasionally has some random cows.  On my way to school, I pass the dairy farm and the horse pastures.  And I never get tired of it.

Sure, I love visiting the city.  I’m still a girl, and I still need my shopping fixes.  And I’ll never get tired of wearing my red heels.  I love symphonies and opera and coffee shops and bookstores and I can’t imagine a life where these aren’t at least a part of the fun things I can do.  But when I daydream to escape the craziness and frustrations of the day, I always find myself sitting in a field of tall grass that goes on forever, under a blue sky watching the clouds move across the expanse.  I can hear the horses nearby and smell the open clean fresh air, free from car exhaust and pollution.  And when I have to return to reality, the image still lingers in my mind, reminding me of life’s simple pleasures.

And let’s not forget my love of Alaska.  The beauty of an unspoiled wilderness nestled at the base of the mountains, where moose wander and wolves howl in the night, the crispness of the air, the aurora borealis.  I could live there too, and everytime I remember my too-short trips to the last frontier, my heart aches to return.

Nature is so beautiful.  There are so many who can’t appreciate it, who are so used to a fast-paced life that they can’t enjoy the beauty that exists before the stores and fast-food chains overrun the land like a plague.  Too many who have to be “doing something” to just sit and take in the world around them.  Don’t misread me — I definitely appreciate the malls and take-out that urban life provides.  I just pray that I never lose sight of the natural elegance of the simple life.

Relief

I took my licensing boards yesterday.  It is such a relief to have those over with.  I didn’t realize just how stressed I was yesterday until I was home, sat down, and felt the tension leave my shoulders.  (Some of that could have been from leaning toward a computer screen for nearly 6 hours too.)  Now I just have to focus on getting through each rotation at a time.  I won’t get my scores for another month or two, but I felt better about it than I did last week.  Hopefully that’s a good sign. 

Now I can focus on the holidays!!!!  2 birthdays and Christmas!!!  YAY!!!!

Panic Mode Setting In

NAVLE in 3 days! Definitely feel like I haven’t studied enough. Probably because it’s the biggest test of my life. AAAHHHH!!! I cannot wait for Monday to be over.

New Moon, Madeline Pickens, and Saddness: A random assortment

More of a random post, but a list of various events:

New Moon:  I was lucky enough to see this movie with two awesome friends the day after it was released.  Theatre was packed, and they even opened up a second theatre for the showing!  It was a lot of fun being there with all the other Twilight fans.  And the director did an infinitely better job on this one than the first movie.  I felt like it followed the book much better, and there was no wasting 10 minutes of lying in a field staring at each other.  Very awesome.  (And for the record:  I was Team Jacob before he was hot.  Just sayin’.)

In other news, Madeline Pickens is once influencing policies at the OSU vet school.  Someone really needs to tell that woman that having money doesn’t make you intelligent.  I just don’t understand why one person can have more influence than a multitude of highly trained (emphasis on the TRAINED) professionals who deal with public health and animal welfare issues.  (Well, I understand it, but it’s embarrassing.)  Heaven forbid controversial issues be driven more by facts and investigation than opinionated millionaires.  I wonder how PETA feels about Madeline Pickens’ race horses.  (Or more importantly, how they would feel if she wasn’t rich.)

Lastly:  prayers for my dear friend Stacy who recently experienced an unspeakable tragedy.  She is a beautiful, intelligent, strong woman who should not have been made to face such saddness.  Sending prayers and love her way.

Until next time…

How quickly time flies when you’re panicking

Oh wow, I missed an entire rotation of updating. Oops. Sorry everyone. My last rotation kept me busy, but mainly I’ve been studying for my national boards licensing exam. Next Monday will determine whether or not I can practice medicine. It’s a little scary to think about how quickly this snuck up on me. It seems like yesterday I had plenty of time to study and prepare and now I have a week. Eeep!

My studying has consisted mostly of taking practice quizzes and reading notes on an online review site. I’m hoping this will be enough. If my scores are an indicator of anything, I should pass. Of course, there is no guarantee on anything. Hence why I’m starting to feel the pressure. I feel like I have a lot still to get through and now I’m almost out of time. So it’s a little scary. We shall see how things go.

The worst part? I won’t know if I passed for about 2 months.

Next steps

I start my next rotation tomorrow.  I managed to do very well on my anesthesia exam, so I’m hoping for a decent grade.  I start Community Practice tomorrow which, despite being the most like what I want to do with my life, the rotation itself somewhat scares me.  Lots of busy work, from my understanding.  Hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Yesterday was a fantastic day.  In the morning, I got to go on a B-17 flight with my dad.  That was really cool.  It’s the 2nd time we’ve had the opportunity to do this, so it’s very special to me.  Then, after spending the day with my parents, I went to a Halloween party at my professor’s house with two of my really good friends.  I had a lot of fun doing all the makeup for our costumes.  I even got to do a butterfly mask for one of my friends!  The party was tons of fun too.  It could only have been better if we’d made it to the haunted house we’d planned to go to.

And I am thoroughly enjoying the end of daylight savings time.

Reflections

I woke up this morning to the sound of birds singing.  It was a beautiful sound and took me back to the days of childhood, where waking up to singing birds was a daily occurrence.  The cool weather just adds to the nostalgia.  This is my favorite time of year.  My 3 favorite holidays in a row, beautiful weather, the atmosphere and energy in the air is the most enjoyable feeling in the world.  It makes me long for the simpler days of childhood, when this season could be enjoyed without the stresses of everyday adulthood.

I have my Halloween costume.  I’m branching out from my usual costumes and reaching into the world of the fantastic.  I’m very excited to have all the pieces and see it finalized.  I will post pictures once it is done.

I’m really enjoying anesthesia.  The clinician pushes the philosophy of the anesthetist as the patient advocate, and I definitely feel like that.  I cringe anytime a surgeon manipulates an animal with more purpose than compassion.  I get frustrated when I can’t have full access to the patient or my monitoring equipment.  I really enjoy being able to focus on the patient’s vitals and how they are doing during the procedure.  It will be interesting to see things from the other side of the table when I have my surgery rotation.

A full day of studying awaits me.  Perhaps the birds will keep singing for me.

Glad I’m not on call tonight…

Whew!  Today was a busy day in anesthesia.  We had several cases today that were in surgery.  Amazingly, we had a lot of horses.  5, to be exact.  I got out of my surgery at 6pm and they were in the middle of one horse surgery and planned at least one more tonight.  Eek!  Talk about a long night!  At least it’s a rotation I’m enjoying.  Hopefully I will feel the same way tomorrow after mid-block reviews.

7am rounds are exhausting!  Looking forward to sleep tonight!

Halfway There

I’m nearly halfway through my final year of vet school.  I can honestly say that God knew what He was doing when He put my schedule together.  Going from the nightmare of ICU to a wonderful relaxing vacation made coming back extremely difficult.  Thankfully, anesthesia has been a wonderful rotation.  I really enjoy a rotation where I don’t have to worry about a lot of paperwork but I still get to take care of the patient.  It’s a good feeling.  I did have one case that kept me at school until 1am (emergency back surgery), but even then I didn’t mind.  And the clinician let me go home early the next day because they didn’t have any cases.  Sadly, I missed out on 2 hours of catchphrase.  Dang.

Amazingly, I somehow got a B in ICU.  I also received some rather nasty comments, several with falsehoods included, but whatever.  I know of at least one other person in the same situation as me (good grade, bad comments), and basically it’s just one more thing to brush off.  I’ll take comments seriously when they aren’t personal attacks.  Until then, I’m going to laugh at the pettiness and immaturity of it all.

I also find it extremely difficult to be told by people that I need to work on my professionalism when one of the technicians started dating one of the students on the rotation.  Somehow, the hypocrisy of that is just a little overwhelming.

Boards are coming up, much faster than I would like.  Studying isn’t going as well as it should either.  Eek!

Vacation

So I’m on vacation from vet school, which is the most amazing feeling in the world.  It feels so good to be away from school, especially with the drama that happened on my last rotation.  (Haven’t gotten my grades yet, so no clue how that affected me.  Not looking forward to getting them either.)  But right now, I’m in the beautiful South Dakota with my wonderful husband where the only association I have with anything vet-related is when I have to study for boards.  My wonderful, amazing husband spent a day planning and organizing my whole trip so that I didn’t have to worry about anything and could just enjoy vacation without worrying about school.  He surprised me with a 3-day trip through the west part of South Dakota, complete with a ride on an old train, a *very* nice dinner in Deadwood, and a drive through the beautiful Spearfish Canyon.  It was so nice and relaxing to just be along for the ride, not have to make decisions, just chill and be pampered.  *sigh*  Did I mention I have a wonderful, amazing husband?

The downside to my vacation is that I found out another one of my kitties died today.   Taylor was the 4th cat I got in Oklahoma.  She was 11 years old, which quite frankly, was 11 years older than the initial vet predicted she would survive.  She had been very malnourished when we got her, and she had a lot of health problems.  She did very well for her 11 years, but she developed pancreatitis not too long ago.  She recovered from that, but it came back a few weeks ago.  I’m guessing she had several problems going on stemming from developmental problems as a kitten.  She had a very good life though.  She will be deeply missed.

I go back to school in 2 weeks and then I’m stuck until graduation.  This is going to be a long trip.