7/8 of the way done with second year!

I know the blog hasn't been very exciting this year so far lol. We have just been very busy with classes. Our midterms were last week and they were extremely stressful. Someone calculated it out and we had like 94 hours worth of class in 3.5 weeks on a two-day test (and in undergrad we only had like 50 hours in 16 weeks:/)...butt these second 4 weeks are a somewhat lighter load so hopefully finals won't be as stressful. The froggies are still doing good. I started doing the tadpoles on the weekends too (because the normal person who took care of them quit) so I have been a little busier with work too. Other than that these first 4 weeks have been pretty uneventful. We did get our rotation schedule for the second 8 weeks of this semester and I am veryyy excited!! Here's what I will be doing: Dentistry, Wildlife & Exotic Medicine and Surgery, Small Animal Emergency Medicine, Clinical Toxicology & Pharmacology, Regulatory Medicine, Small Animal Soft Tissue Surgery, and Imaging! I know I will really enjoy almost all of those so that is what I will be looking forward to the next 4 weeks. Guess that's about it for now!

Kiira

Second Year!!

It's been a while!! I hope everyone had a good summer..I know mine was very relaxing! Today was our first day back at school so i'm officially a second-year vet student. We haven't really done much yet lol but I wanted to let everyone know that the first day went well. I also found out I got on the Dean's List last semester so that was a good way to start the morning. Other than that it's been a pretty uneventful day. I'm sure future posts will be a little longer and more exciting:) Goodnight everyone!

25% veterinarian

Well I am now 1/4 of the way done with vet school!! If the next 3 years go by this quickly I'll be a vet in no time!! The last couple of weeks were really busy with studying and work and running 2 half-marathons (one in champaign & one in quincy). Our finals covered a lot of material dealing with the kidneys and the brain. On our Day 2 for example, we were given a scenario of a dog coming into the clinic presenting with certain problems and we had to do a full cranial nerve exam/say what we were doing and what we were testing and everything. Interesting but a little difficult. Overall I think I did pretty well on all parts of the finals. Now I am back in quincy for the weekend then heading back to champaign. I'll continue working with the frogs and Purina throughout the summer and am also trying to find a job at a clinic to gain more experience. I probably will not post during the summer (unless I see a lot of interesting things in either of my job) so I will talk to you all again in August when i'm a 2nd year!!!

Kiira

almost done!!

I'm almost done with my first year woo woo!!!! We just got back the grades for our midterms (I did very well!)..Now we have moved on to renal physiology (the kidney). It's very complex/now I realize why your kidneys are so important/it's actually very interesting. It would be really hard too but our professor is amazing!!! He teaches at the medical school as well & is very good at making sure we understand all the concepts before moving on to new ones. We have also been learning about the head in anatomy and neurobiology. I know we are supposed to do no harm to animals but it was kind of cool cutting off the heads of our cadavers and dissecting them:) My favorite part was the eyeball. I literally got to cut eyeballs in half and see all the aqueous jelly-like substance in the middle and then I held the lens in my hand!!! Ok, so that might sound disgusting to some people but I found it to be realllllly cool. The inside of the eyes in animals are really pretty too! They have blue and green iridescent colors on the inside and that's what you see when their eyes "glow" in the dark...Besides class, I have just been training for my half-marathon (which is this saturday!!). We also have a wildlife clinic at school that students can sign up to help with in the beginning of the year. I didn't do it this year because I wasn't sure how much time I would have. My friends Ashley & Kim did it though and I went with them today just to help out. We had to feed baby raccoons! They were soooooo cute. They look like cute little fuzzy puppies. I almost wanted to take one home but realized that one animal is probably enough for now, right mom and dad;) Ok well I guess that's it for now, back to studying!

busy, busy, busy

Well this has certainly been a busy week. We had class basically 8-5 everyday with a quiz Wednesday morning. Again, this stuff is basically all a review at least so it is not that difficult. I also finished training for the frog job and did it the first time by myself Friday. I started the Purina job Wednesday too so now am doing that about once or twice a week (usually people pick up their food once a week & I get a shipment in/have to put it away once a week). Then Thursday night we had our "Vetscapades" which is basically a night where vet students from all classes do skits/songs/presentations that are making fun of different things that are vet school related. It was a nice break and nice to have all the classes together (and they also served really good food!). Finally, this morning I went on a trip with the Non-Traditional Species club to the Exotic Feline Rescue in Centerpoint, Indiana. They have over 200 tigers & lions so it was really cool to see all of them (even in the rain lol). I am posting some of the pictures I took so you can see the beautiful animals! Guess that's it for now:)
Kiira

Frog job!

I got a job at the medical sciences lab working with/caring for their research jobs. I started training this week! It's actually kind of fun. I just have to change out their water and switch them over to new tanks but it is quite amusing trying to catch the little slippery suckers (they're aquatic frogs). If you google "Xenopus frogs" you can see what they look like. Also I set up my first mating with them last night, for that I had to pick out a male and female and give them both an injection of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). I think that part will definitely help me improve my skills in giving IV injections etc. because the space that I have to give it in is a lot smaller than on a dog or cat & like I said they are very slippery little things lol. In terms of school, we're still learning about reproduction and nutrition so it's actually been pretty easy which is nice. We also had our "Vet Med Olympics" this week. I was the coach of the tug-of-war team for the first years. I had to play today because we were short people, I don't think I really helped all that much though lol. Our team ended up getting last but it was a lot of fun (especially our match against the faculty). I think that's all about it for now! Back to studying:)

time flies..

It's crazy how quickly this year has gone by! We just finished out third quarter Friday and started our fourth quarter on Monday. In just a few short weeks i'll be done with my first year of veterinary school!! This quarter we are learning about reproduction (physiology, histology and anatomy), nutrition, and renal aka kidney (physiology, histology and anatomy). I'm actually looking forward to this quarter because it will probably be my easiest one. They said if you went to undergrad here and took reproduction (which I took two classes) then you already know everything plus more. Also, our nutrition teacher is the same teacher I had for companion animal nutrition last year and he said it's basically the exact same class. So...hopefully it will be less stressful lol. I know my dad knows, but my computer didn't work wednesday when I went to study for my final thursday and I just about lost it. Thankfully my awesome dad knew how to fix it!! Anyways...one more day of class and then spring break! Oh & Happy St. Patrick's Day:)

Kiira