Snow Day!!!! Classes Cancelled Today and Possibly Tomorrow!

So today's classes were cancelled because of all of the snow we have been getting. So the buses were not running out to the campus and the parking lot there was too full of snow for any of the professors to park! There has been close to 2.5-3ft of snowfall so far since Saturday. According to the Scotsman:

SCOTLAND came to a near standstill today as severe winter weather forced schools to close and caused havoc for road and rail travellers. Much of the country remains under snow with more flurries predicted throughout the day. The Met Office issued severe weather warnings of heavy snow and icy roads in Grampian, Strathclyde, Central, Tayside, Fife, Lothian and Borders and South West Scotland. Around 3,000 homes in Tayside and Central have lost electricity.

Schools
All schools in the Lothians, Fife, Dundee, Perth and Kinross and the Shetland Islands are closed to pupils.

Trains
ScotRail warned those travelling by train to expect disruption, particularly in the central belt where further heavy snowfalls were forecast.

The main Glasgow-Edinburgh service has been reduced to twice per hour.
Trains between Perth and Aberdeen are also disrupted.


When it snows in Edinburgh, EVERYTHING comes to a standstill! I received another e-mail a short while ago stating that classes for tomorrow may be cancelled as well. I hiked up to Arthur's Seat yesterday and got to play in the snow! I hiked all the way up to the top. I think I was the second crazy person that decided to ascend the icy steps of Arthur's Seat. Once at the top, it was blizzard-like conditions for about 20 minutes. After that, it cleared up and the sun came out. At that point, I was able to get some really good pictures of the city and the mountains to the South with clouds hanging in the mountains. Wearing jeans was not the brightest idea either. By the end of my hike, the bottoms of my jeans were stuffed with snow and were soaking! I apparently kept myself nice and warm too! I had on an under armor shirt, a long sleeved shirt over that, my ski jacket, ski mask, hat, gloves and ski socks. Walking to Arthur's Seat, my body was so warm from all of the insulation that when the snow fell on my jacket, it melted instantly. My jacket was absolutely soaking by the time I got to the top of Arthur's Seat! There must have been hundreds of people sledding! There were even skiers and snowboarders at the top going down small hills.

The pictures that I took are uploaded into my picassa web album. Click on the link to the left if you want to check them out! Two more weeks and exams! Ahhh! I am almost finished memorizing Pharmacology and I think I'm going to go crazy! I still have Pathology to review. Only three more weeks and I'll be back in AZ! Am looking forward to the warmer weather. I do love the snow though, it gets me in the mood for skiing. Hope you all have a great day and I'll post again soon!

Christmas Market in Edinburgh and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

So the German Christmas market opened tonight. I went for the lighting of the tree and for the fireworks. The fireworks were quite amazing and they shot them off from below the castle. The temperature outside tonight was very cold, about 31 degrees. I managed to squeeze through the crowd of thousands to a smaller area of the market where they were serving mulled meade (spiced fermented honey wine) in a nice hot mug. There was such a large crowd of people on opening night. It literally took me 20 minutes to get out. The entire time I was wedged between several people. Was not very fun...

I may go tomorrow morning since they open at 10am and it will be less busy. That will give me a chance to go see the different stands that are there and I might be able to find a few presents there. Finished this week of lectures and next week is revision week for everything we have done. They are going to give us revision lectures. The week after is a self-revision week and the following week will be exam week! Ahhh! I've got tomorrow off, so have a three day weekend to get some good studying in.

I hope everyone has plans to eat delicious turkey? I miss being back home for Thanksgiving with the family. I will be having my big dinner on Saturday. There is a group of people hosting a party on Saturday and there should be around 18 people or so. I can't wait to fill my belly with yummy turkey! I'm going to prepare smoked salmon rolls for appetizers. Should be delicious! Anyway, hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!!

Dan = Winner, Mouse = Loser (and back out into the frigid streets)...

So, today I worked on memorizing Anthelmintics and have now finished about 1/4 of my notecard stack (and that's just for pharmacology). I have yet to begin studying pathology, but hopefully that will all come to me during the exam. I put together all of the images from our lectures and will study those in hopes that they will pick pictures that we have already seen in lecture.

So around 1.30pm, I was getting my shoes on while I sat at the edge of my bed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement on the chair in front of me. When I looked up, there was a little mouse, no more than 2 inches long (he was a fat little mouse though), and it was sniffing the blanket on the back of the chair. When I moved, he jumped down and crawled into my jacket. I grabbed a metal bar and hit my jacket and he hopped out and under the bed he went! Ahhh! So I removed everything from under the bed, put the big chair on top of my bed so it couldn't crawl under that and took everything off my floor so I could see where it was. I could see everywhere he went and he was so quick the little bugger! I finally trapped him in a corner. In a frenzied panic, the mouse shot out from behind my backpack and slammed into the glass shelf that I had propped up to trap him. I think he was very confused at what he hit. He was running so fast before he slammed into the glass shelf that I thought he had gotten away, but then I saw that he had stopped at the glass. As I reached over to grab the garbage can to trap him, he shot out between the pillow and the glass shelf! Doh! I was so angry because it took me a while to corner it. Then it snuck out under my room door into the hallway of the flat.

So, I put a blanket against the crack of the door and left to go pick up a weather strip for the door so these little mice can no longer sneak into my room. I decided not to get a weather strip after I spoke with the landlord, as she has one that can be slipped under the door instead of me screwing a new weather strip on. So, I got back about an hour ago. I have been sitting here working on notes and about 15 minutes ago, I noticed the mouse was back in my room! How did that happen? This time, I learned. I blocked his little escape route and repeated the same thing as before. He stopped by the desk chair behind a shoe. I grabbed the garbage can and shoved it against the wall along with the shoe (and hopefully the mouse). My idea was that the mouse would get so scared if I moved fast enough, that it would just run forward into the trash bin. Low and behold, my plan worked because inside the trash can was the little mouse trying to get out. Ha! Success! So I walked outside and let the mouse go into the street. So it will have to go find somewhere else to live. So, now that the mouse is back out on the streets, I'm going to continue studying. Hopefully that was the only one in the flat... It's getting very cold outside now (28 degrees yesterday) so I'm thinking that more of these blasted mice will try and get into the flat...

Warren Miller...Now I Am Ready For Ski Season!

So on Thursday, I went to the Dominion Cinema to go watch a Warren Miller film. Warren Miller is this guy who began filming skiing back in the 60's and he has continued to make movies since then. These films are documentary-style and include some of the most well-known skiers and snowboarders from around the world. This year's film was titled "Wintervention". It included areas such as Antarctica, Alaska, Colorado, Argentina and Georgia (the country). The theatre that we went to was the most comfortable theatre I have ever been in. It's a smaller theatre and the screens are small, but the seats are absolutely amazing! The theatre we were in seated about 200+ people. The chairs were black leather reclining chairs with nice wooden tables next to them for your drinks and in between every other chair was a huge black leather couch! Talk about comfort! I highly recommend this little theatre over the huge theatre downtown. They don't show all of the new releases as readily as the larger theatre, but they eventually come out. It just takes slightly longer. Anyway, it was a blast! The movie got me very excited for ski season, which will be in January or February sometime. I think I am looking at either booking a trip to Zermatt, Switzerland or going to Norway again. Norway was cheap and was a blast! I really want to go skiing now!!! The addiction has resurfaced once again, as it usually does around this time of year... I think Bill would agree with me on this, if I had all the money in the world I would be a professional ski bum! I would be chasing winter all year round, even if that meant going to Antarctica! Of course, my awesome girlfriend Kristen would have to join me, however, first she would have to learn to not fall into orange fencing ;)

So, 4.5 weeks and I will be in AZ!!! Getting excited! In about 6 weeks Kristen will be in AZ too!!! Double exciting!!! Ahhh! This also means exams are coming up quickly! I better memorize all of these drugs! I've gotten the Parasympathetic Nervous System drugs committed to memory so far, I have so many more to go though... Shouldn't be too bad if I memorize a class of drugs every day. Anyway, I should get going and continue on studying. Hope everyone is doing well! Can't wait to see you all very soon!!!

Reunited With My Macbook At Last!

So I failed to mention that my laptop (Macbook) was having issues last week. I had to get on the train last Friday and go to Glasgow because the only Apple store in Scotland is in Glasgow. That is stupid, I think Steve Jobs needs to address this situation seeing that Edinburgh is quite a big city in itself and it is the capital. Get on that Steve! Anyway, it rained the entire time I was in Glasgow, boo! I went to Starbucks for a latte and the line was so long, however, I noticed another Starbucks about 100 yards away that was down this narrow street. So I walked into that one and there was no one in line! I ordered my latte and then went to the Apple store to pick up my Macbook. The technician went over the bill with me. At first, I saw the total amount in repairs, which was about £536! I thought that was how much I owed and I was about to throw a fit because I have coverage and when I looked at the column next to that amount, it said that a £0 amount was due. Woohoo! Thank you Applecare! I got an entire new display (which is great because the old one had a small dent on the cover), a brand new trackpad and a brand new battery for FREE! I am just very happy that I have been reunited with my computer. I walked around Glasgow for a bit and went to some shopping malls and decided to go home after about an hour. I did some shopping around Edinburgh and am now working on studying for exams. I have to read this huge Fossums Small Animal Surgery book and the things in the first few chapters I have to read are like review. Tells you how to fold gowns, surgery towels, wrap instrument packs, how to scrub in for surgery, etc. Like I said, basic review. Well, I should get back to studying. Hope everyone is doing well and will talk to you soon!

Halloween and The Past Week

So Halloween has come and gone and I didn't even dress up this year. For starters, I had a good short week this past week. Unfortunately I missed a day of lectures because I was sick again (not shingles, thank god!), just a cold. I must have caught the bug from the 50 other people that were sick in class! There were a couple of days where I just could not hear the lecturer over everyone coughing! Ridiculous! The day I stayed at home, I worked on those day's lectures and kept myself caught up so I wouldn't fall behind. That's the last thing I want to do with all of the material that we are covering this year. I am loving every lecture, but sometimes the Pharmacology lectures are so boring. I suppose you can't make a Pharmacology lecture exciting though. This week has started off with Pharmacology yet again (antimicrobials) and Liver Pathology. I love all of the pathology lectures and the pictures that are shown are the best part! On Saturday, I carved a pumpkin with some people from class and yesterday I put my pumpkin out and picked up some candy for trick or treaters. I had 4 trick or treaters come by. It also must be a UK thing, but every trick or treater had to tell me a joke before they endulged themselves in a couple of handfuls of candy. One joke from a little girl was, "what do polar bears eat?", to which I replied, "sea lions", she then said, "nope, ICEBURGers!" (the drums played afterwards...bu dum dum ch!) So today, we had 4 lectures and now I am trying to keep up and rewrite them all before the long day that lies ahead of me for tomorrow. Hope all is well and I will start writing more often, I just got swamped with notes!