Exams are OVER!!!! Now, to start studying for the next exams...

Woohoo! Exams are finally over! I have never felt so antisocial in my life for the last few weeks. Basically, most of my days consisted of sitting in the living room or my room and studying for 12 hours non-stop (except when I was eating). This was probably the most intense studying I have ever done in my life. Kristen and I haven't been able to do a whole lot like going on random trips because we have both been so busy. She made me a bunch of pre-made dinners so that I would have dinner for the whole week. She is amazing! The dinners were curry and rice, so I was eating quite healthy too. So, for this exam, we were basically examined on the entire animal body (neurology, urinary, digestive, cardiopulmonary, metabolism (with a lot of biochemistry, blah!), reproduction, auditory and visual. I started out studying and thought that there would be no way I would be able to fit all that information in a couple of weeks. I basically went through the notes and shortened the professor's lecture notes from about 60 pages to about 28 pages. There really was a lot of fluff in the professors notes that we didn't need to know and a lot of pictures as well. It's always nice to cut back on the professors notes and go from 60 to 28 pages, what a feeling of relief! I managed to get through all of my self-typed notes and answer past-exam questions, which were very helpful.

The exam on Tuesday was the essay questions and I am hoping I did good on them. I managed to answer all 4 with no major problems. There was one question on describing the respiratory system of mammals and the structures throughout and describing what the major structures functioned to do. The next question asked for the mechanisms by which calcium homeostasis is regulated. The third question was asking to describe the conscious proprioception, unconscious proprioception and pain pathways from the limb to the brain. The last question asked about Glomerular Filtration Rate. I remembered information for all of the questions and did not get stumped once. Hopefully all of the information I wrote down was correct. Before Tuesday's exam began, there was a girl outside of the exam hall doors that was on the floor crying. I felt so bad for her, can you imagine how embarrassing that would be? Apparently she did not have major exams back at her last university and instead they had the students do projects and papers. That's horrible to do to students and not expose them to an exam, because that's usually what grad school is going to give you, LOTS OF EXAMS! I went to lunch with a couple of people after Tuesday's exam and as we were waiting outside of this cafe, there was a very cute dog walking by. It almost looked like a black lab/corgi mix. I made a very light whistle and the dog looked up. I didn't think it would come over, so I began talking to Nicole and all of a sudden I felt this paw on my leg. I looked down and it was the dog I had whistled at and he was sitting on his back legs in a begging position. He was extremely cute and very friendly. His owners were walking away and weren't paying attention, except for the little girl that was with them, she was calling out for her little dog to come back. This dog was enjoying all of this attention and forgot that it's owners were way ahead. The dog finally noticed that the owners were far away and he scurried off in a hurry to catch up.

Yesterdays exams were the short answer and multiple choice question. The multiple choice question section was slightly horrific, with a lot of biochemistry questions. Out of everything we learned over the past few months, they want us to know the recycling carrier molecule in the urea cycle? Really? Come on! I would think questions pertaining to cardiopulmonary or neurology would have been more important for us to know. The short answer was okay. I answered all questions and left none blank, so that is good. The question that I had been hoping would show up, did show up on the short answer portion. It was to describe the path of CSF flow from the site of production to the site of absorption. EASY! There were 5 other questions as well. I left about 30 minutes before the exam was over and went straight to the gym since I hadn't been since before Christmas! I am now regretting that I worked out so hard because I am extremely sore today... I now have to begin packing for North Yorkshire because I am leaving at 8.35am on Saturday. I also have to begin organizing my lectures from the Animal Health Welfare and Food Safety lectures because as soon as I get back from lambing, we have another big exam...ugh! I am done with exams already, jeesh! Well, I better get going, will try and post some more pictures today while I have a chance. Talk to you all later!

Revision Week...

So, a little over a week and I will be taking my third major exam for this semester. The exam encompasses neurology, urinary, endocrinology, cardiopulmonary, digestion, reproduction, metabolism and histology... Wow, basically the entire animal body for one exam... Why do they do this to us? Beginning to get slightly stressed with all of the information we must know. I will be going over past exam questions tomorrow and hopefully similar questions to those will show up on this exam. The weather has been great this past weekend and it looks like it will be good weather all this week as well (according to the forecast). You know how Scottish weather is... I finished cardiopulmonary today and will start digestion or metabolism tomorrow, not quite sure. I will most likely be sitting in my room this entire week studying...Actually, I have been using the sun room (when my flat mate doesn't take over the room) and the sun comes right through the big window and heats up the entire room. I manage to get up much earlier than my flat mate so I am down there first and get to take over the room before he does. Anyway, I am going to head off and upload some more photos. Hope everyone is doing well!

Finally, initiation into vet school...

It's about time that they initiate us students into the veterinary program! Today was very cold and I had a dissection lab where I dissected a lamb from the uterus and dissected the lamb once removed. Afterwards, there was a 4 hour break until our practical. We took the bus to Langhill Farm where there were many cows waiting for us...

We walked into the teaching shed and they proceeded to discuss the uterus of the cow and palpating the cervix and uterine horns and ovaries. How do you palpate for the uterus you ask? Well, it involved me getting a plastic apron on and putting on this very LONG blue plastic glove. I walked into the shed where there were about 20 cows all lined up next to each other. I squirted some lubricant onto my arm and proceeded to insert my arm into the cows rectum...

All I have to say is that it felt very warm inside and thawed my arm quite nicely from the cold weather. Apparently my arm had been so cold that when I was palpating the cow's rectum, the warm temperature actually made my arm sting a bit at first. They said that the ovaries would be the most difficult to palpate but that was the first thing that I felt. The contractions of the rectum were so strong that my arm was getting very tired after a while and the cow I had was moving quite a bit, which meant that I moved with it. Quite a bit of students got a lot of gas expulsion in their face, I was lucky enough where that didn't happen to me... So I can successfully say that I have been properly initiated into vet school! Now it actually feels like I am in vet school and not just studying lecture after lecture... Sorry everybody, no pictures were taken for obvious reasons...my phone could have easily been mucked up quite a bit. Well, I must continue with the studying of neurology. Only two weeks remain until the next set of exams and only 2.5 weeks until I begin my lambing placement in North Yorkshire, England. Hope everyone is doing well and I posted more pictures of things through the photo link. I will keep adding more as I get free time here and there.

Mary King's Close

One thing I did forget to mention that I did on Saturday evening was that I went to Mary King's Close with Kristen and a couple of her friends. It was a tour of the underground city where the black plaque took place. Apparently 1/3 of the population died in just a few days, which is absolutely crazy! The tour started at 9pm and lasted until 10pm. The tour guide was a student and was hilarious. I recorded the tour on my iphone voice recorder, so I'll try and upload the file so you can hear it. There was a funny part of the tour when the tour guide warned us of the metal hanging from the top of the door frame and I looked up to see where it was and he looked at me and said that I need not to worry about hitting my head...short jokes...really? Was a lot of fun though. Scary at times but the room that was Annie the ghost, which was filled with dolls was really cool and creepy at the same time. Anyway, back to studying...

Beautiful Day...FINALLY!

So I managed to get out this weekend and take a break from studying. I've gotten halfway through neurology stuff and still have cardiopulmonary, reproduction, digestion and histology to review. There is quite a bit of histology to review too...A LOT of reproduction slides that I need to review. Histology for reproduction is VERY important to know because you never know, ONE day, I just MIGHT be looking at the slide of a cross-section of the epididymis...you NEVER know!

This week is slightly laid back with lectures. Two lectures in the morning with a 4 hour break in between (time to study neurology at least) and then two lectures at the end of the day. On Friday, we had a lamb handling practical that was awesome. We went out to the Easter Bush Veterinary School's sheep flock. Well, half of us went to the sheep shed and the other half went to the teaching shed where there were giant tubs (simulating a pregnant sheep) and a lot of water inside. Inside of the tub, there was a bag, representing the uterus and the bodies of lambs (they used lambs that were still-born for us to use, for those of you feeling sad about the dead lambs). We had to practice pulling lambs out using rope around the head/legs and how to orientate the lambs when they were in a breached presentation or if the legs/head were not presenting correctly. It was a lot of fun maneuvering the lambs around and trying to figure out how to get the head and front legs in the correct position. After we were finished doing that, it was our turn to go to the sheep shed and learn lamb handling.

The shepherd was there describing how to handle the lambs and giving us tips for when we are doing our lambing placements over the Easter break. We then got to practice feeding the lambs with bottles. In the beginning, there were several students that jumped forward when the shepherd asked if anyone wanted to practice placing a feeding tube in the lamb...there were too many and I didn't have a chance to, however, near the end I felt that it was something that I needed to do and experience. So I asked the shepherd if I could place a stomach tube in one of the lambs. So he picked out a lamb that had a semi-empty stomach. The tube was VERY easy to place and the lamb just swallowed the tube with no problem. I was the only one that got to actually put milk down into the tube, which was very cool. Afterwards, the lamb's stomach was nice and full and it looked like the lamb was going to go into a food coma! It burped a couple of times and then plopped down and decided to go to sleep... Gotta admit, lambs are extremely cute!

Well, I better get going so I can work on studying, have to be up for lectures in the AM and prepare myself for a long week of studying. Hope everyone is doing well and I will try and post a video of the sheep shed that I was at.

The Story of Haggis...

So at the end of our reproduction lecture this past week, Alastaire (man teaching lecture) told the class the story of the Haggis. If I can get it right, this is what it was:

So, way back when the ocean was above the mountains existed large amounts of sea life and large sea creatures. As time progressed, the ocean receded and the mountains that we see today in the Highlands began to show. Some sea creatures adapted to land and were required to endure the harsh climate. One such creature took to the mountains for protection and spent a large amount of its time grazing. Because it lived on the mountains and the mountains were mostly cone-shaped, the creature "Haggis" adapted a unique physiological feature. On one side it would have long legs and on the other, short legs. Because of this adaptation, the Haggis could only walk around the mountain in one direction.

Man came along and discovered this creature when hiking through the mountains one day. The first Haggis was caught and killed and man realized that the Haggis was a prized catch. More and more Haggis were captured and killed for food. Man realized that the easiest way to catch a Haggis was to use it's own physiological advantage against it. The method for catching a Haggis involves three men, usually. One chases the Haggis around the mountain, another hides in a bush and the third waits downhill with a bag near the bush the second man is hiding in. When the Haggis gets close enough to the bush, the second man would jump out and scare the Haggis. The Haggis would then get frightened and turn around......

Now, the Haggis has two long legs on one side and two short legs on the other, so when the Haggis would turn around after being frightened, the short legs would be going downhill instead of uphill and would tip over into the bag the third man was holding.

Ok, not sure if that is 100% correct, but fairly close, I am sure of it. Anyway, sorry for the delay in posting, have been busy studying and preparing for exams that are in 3 weeks. Have a lot to review and am getting stressed. Trying to finish Neurology right now, and there is quite a bit to review too. The weather this past weekend was absolutely rubbish! The weekend before that was absolutely beautiful and Kristen and I were unable to go out because we both needed to study. Go figure, this whole week has been completely sunny out and getting warmer. Who knows, I may even start getting a slight tan back.... I'm going to need to get rid of this paleness I have developed since I have been in Scotland. Darn clouds.......

This last weekend I made Kristen and I a beef roast with red wine and shallot sauce, which was amazing! Sunday we made fresh crepes for dinner and watched Big Daddy. Have been going to reproduction lectures all week and next week we get to do our cattle rectal exams. Unfortunately, I think they are having us use a fake cow rectum, which I find to be completely pointless as we should be examining a real cow. Oh well, maybe they don't trust us quite yet and are going to have us wait until next year. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY AUNT LORIE today!!! I miss you and hope you are doing well! I have added more photos to my Picasa web albums from the zoo and Norway, enjoy! I will keep uploading more photos when I have time. Hope everyone is doing well and will talk soon!