Blogging Finals: Day 7

Last exam is complete. Time to party.

(censored photo)

Blogging Finals: Day 6

This morning’s cumulative Small Animal Medicine exam went pretty well. I thought most of the teachers did a good job of hitting the high points and avoiding the pure-memorization little factoids. It’s a huge weight to have off my shoulders; this exam has been a source of constant, low level stress for weeks! Tomorrow’s exam is in Lab Animal and Special Species Medicine; it covers avian medicine and the care of orphaned wildlife. I feel pretty good about this exam. Volunteering at the Carolina Raptor Center for several years, plus having previously taken an avian medicine selective, has prepared me quite well. Most of the material is a review for me. As such, it’s been a very relaxing day. It’s been difficult to not go ahead and get started on the post-exams celebrations! But I can wait and I will wait: tomorrow is going to be awesome!

I am really enjoying this warm weather! The cats are, too. They spent most of the day hanging out on the porch. There are definitely some things we miss about Texas – warm winters are a big one! We’ll keep enjoying the mild days for as long as they last here. I know the cold weather snuggling will be here soon enough…

How I'll know when it's time to turn the heat on.

Blogging Finals: Days 3-5

My equine medicine exam was on Saturday morning. My current inability to recall anything for more than 1 minute after learning it hurt me a bit, but I was so happy to be done with horses that I didn’t really care. I left the exam to find a voice mail message from my sister-in-law, inviting me over for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. Since they live an hour and half away and I was in the middle of finals, my acceptance was kind of a surprise to all of us.

Hanging out with this kid instead of studying? Heck yeah!

I had a productive studying afternoon so I headed out to the Stell mini-farm feeling pretty guilt-free. Dinner was delicious and it was great to see everyone. I ate a lot and drank a lot, played with my niece, looked at stars with my brother’s telescope, chased chickens around the backyard, and helped my sister-in-law treat a cut on her horse’s leg. Who would have thought that on the same day I said goodbye to equine medicine, I would be doing a little equine medicine?!

I stayed up late and slept late, and I was reluctant to leave on Sunday morning. But I had to get back home and back to studying! Sadly, I did more napping and watching football than I did studying, so I went to bed early so I could get up early on Monday morning to finish studying for the Tox exam.

Monday morning Toxicology exam: The exam was fine, although I struggled a little to recall some facts. It’s amazing how quickly memorization-heavy material vacates your brain in times like these. (ETA: Our professor already graded our exams! What a shining example of the way things should be done, especially in a semester where most of our exams haven’t come back to us for 2-3 weeks!)

Since the Monday afternoon exam was open book, I spent the time in between exams studying for tomorrow’s Small Animal Medicine exam. Except I fell asleep about 30 minutes into it… I suffer from Studying-Induced Narcolepsy Syndrome (SINS).

Monday afternoon Exotic & Emerging Diseases exam: took 1.5 hours, which is 50-100% more time than I’ve spent on all the other exams in much higher credit hour classes. And it didn’t take long because it was open book: all the answers were easy to find. Really, really should have been a take-home exam. Instead, it pretty much ruined my whole afternoon, the day before my biggest exam.

I’m not very good at evening studying. My brain just works better in the morning. I don’t feel like mastering the details for tomorrow’s exam. I’m not sure I could, even if I wanted to – that whole “brain is full” feeling is really kicking in right about now. Since the exam is cumulative and is on material I actually really care about, I already know enough to do pretty well. If I could just get those last few items stashed somewhere safe in my brain…. damn broken Memorizer! It looks like it’s turning into another Netflix/early bedtime/get up early to cram kind of thing…

Blogging Finals: Day 2

Today’s exam was in Theriogenology (basically, that’s reproductive medicine for all you non-vet/animal science folks). This has been my least favorite class this semester – probably my least favorite class in all of vet school. Of course that’s easy to say with some of the stinkers of the past a distant memory… The exam went fine. I’m happy it is over. I’m thrilled to pack those notes away forever! Except for studying for those sneaky Therio questions on boards next year…

I do not care how to get you pregnant.

The results of all those theriogenologists' hard work are pretty cute, though.

It’s been an exceptionally unproductive studying day so far. And I’m okay with that.

Blogging Finals: Day 1

Written portion of the comprehensive TAU exam began at 8am with 60 multiple choice questions. Teacher jokingly said it could be done in 6 minutes. Challenge accepted. 8:05 = exam complete. Reading fast is my Super Power! Instructions for the practical portion were given at 8:45. Fire alarm goes off, so we move outside; we were going there anyway... It is 48 degrees and raining. (Yesterday, it was 79 degrees.) Nice teachers refuse to let us fail by coaxing and hinting us through stations with tests on dairy cattle, beef cattle, small ruminants, pigs, and horses. No poultry, because this season’s turkeys are already dead (yay, Thanksgiving!) and next semester’s chickens haven’t arrived yet. I stay dry in my raincoat but my toes are frozen by the end. Something about rubber boots just sucks the warmth right out. I had to go through 3 rope halters to find one I could work to halter and tie up a cow, but I passed! Back home to put on fleece, sweatpants, and slippers: study, study, study – right after I watch some Netflix and take a nap…

Your giant head cannot defeat me and my rope.

Final Exams, for the Next-to-Last Time

It’s that time of the semester: final exams start tomorrow. I was stressed about it a couple of weeks ago, but started studying early and now I feel pretty on top of things. The only class that’s giving me any trouble is Companion Animal Medicine, because the exam is cumulative. I know the material pretty well, so when I try to study I get bored and quit.

Finals Schedule

• Thursday: Farm animal knowledge and production. Comprehensive final covering our first 3 years with pigs, poultry, goats & sheep, horses, dairy cattle & beef cattle. It includes a practical. It’s pass/fail, so I’m going on faith that I’ve retained enough information about how to body condition score a beef cow and harness a horse that I can pass.

• Friday: Theriogenology. My least favorite class ever. It’s almost over.

• Saturday: Equine Medicine. Bye, bye, horseys.

• Monday: Toxicology (a.m.) and Exotic & Emerging Diseases (p.m.)

• Tuesday: Companion Animal Medicine. Stuff relevant to my career – yay!

• Wednesday: Lab Animal and Special Species Medicine

Other Stuff…

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been scheduling our 4^th year clinical rotations. I’m really pleased with how my schedule has turned out. It’s a nice mix of easy (okay, not necessarily easy, per se, but at least not too hard) and hard, with my vacation blocks spread out at good times. I’m really excited about the two extramural externships I have planned. One will be at a high volume, high quality spay & neuter facility in the mountains. The other will be at a local feline-only practice. I can’t believe clinics are less than 6 months away!

Fun Stuff…

For Halloween, a group of friends and I dressed up as the Zanesville, Ohio wild animal escape. I went as a gunshot tiger. We also had a monkey with herpes B and a bear. The shining star was our giraffe. True, there was no giraffe in the Ohio escape, but the costume idea was too awesome to pass up. This was the most effort I’ve ever put into a costume. Painting my face took an hour! It was worth it, though. (And of course, my effort paled in comparison to the hours and hours it took to make the giraffe.)

The giraffe was very tall!

Missing: one monkey with Herpes B.

Santa gets a kiss from giraffe: my favorite Halloween 2011 picture.

I went to my first NCSU tailgate and football game. It was fun. It would have probably been more fun if I could get into the NCSU cheers and traditions. NCSU won (beat rival UNC) so the fans were happy. I think I prefer watching SEC games from the comfort of my couch.

NCSU vs. UNC tailgate