Winding Up and Winding Down

Well the semester is almost over; only three papers and three exams stand between me and Winter break. I have been finishing my cartilage and bone staining of the chick embryos, and have collected most of my data. I have been having some issues with the embryos taking much longer than predicted to dehydrate and rehydrate so I have been a little bit crazy with my schedule. I even slept over at the Science Center last night, and will be going in every day even though I am technically on break. Yay, Science!! But it has been a really neat process to learn how to do this, as well as to learn how to work with embryos. I freaking love science. It is the coolest thing to learn how and why certain solutions can turn cartilage and bone a certain color, can turn muscles and organs translucent, can make skin brittle.

I need to buckle down and do really well this final cycle; I am on the border of an A in all three of my science classes. This will probably end up being my worst semester grade-wise of college, but definitely the one in which I have learned the most, and I think that is the more important thing.

I submitted my supplement for Wisconsin today, which means that I really have nothing to do except wait. I won't find out about VMRCVM until the end of December, and may not even hear from Wisconsin until March! It will be what it will be...

~Melissa

Today was a bit rough. A&P exam in the morning, Biochem exam in the afternoon. I have been studying for both since last Friday but I don't feel great about either exam. I guess we will see what Monday and the grades bring... On the upside, we have a wet lab with Doc tomorrow, where the pre-vetters will be learning more about equine dentistry and veterinary work. I'm sure it will be fun! And I have work, which always cheers my soul even as it exhausts my body. Being around animals all day is a balm for my stressed out self; it reminds me why I do what I do, and even allows me the rare opportunity to apply the things I am learning in the classroom to the the things in the field and the barn.

~Melissa

Crazy Week

This week has been an interesting one, only promising to get more stressful as it goes. Monday started the kick off of our research study after finally getting IUCUC approval. We recorded three dogs, and have more set up in the coming weeks. Monday also started the individual capstone research project that I am conducting, which involves shooting lufenuron (an active ingredient in flea and tick meds as well as a hugely industrial pesticide) into eggs to see the effect on embryo growth. That has been a shit show, as one could say. I was in the lab until eleven last night getting it all set up and all of my eggs injected... The biggest problem was that my drug refused to be soluble in anything! Finally got it in a 3:1 ethanol:water mix, but we will see if any of my eggs live after that...

Got home with half an hour to spare before course re-registration opened. I switched some classes around, and ended up in Vertebrate Zoology, Neuroscience, Microbiology and Anatomy and Physiology 2. Can you say hellooooo stress? Three of those have labs, while vert zoo is a combine 3 hr lecture/lab. This will be my first time taking 4 science courses in a semester (I really like to hold on to just one non-science), but I'm not too too worried. 

Tonight marks the continuance of more intense studying for my two exams on Friday; Anatomy and Physiology and Biochemistry. I really need to do well on both; my grade could go either way (A-/B+) in both classes, and having a good exam score would put it on the higher end!

Anyway, out the door!

~Melissa

I took this during a gelding a couple of weeks ago. For some reason it just struck me as being very beautiful. The outlining of the vein, the bright colors, the angle of the light. I suppose this is my repressed artist self coming out for a moment.

 Where am I? Sitting between the two back legs, holding one at the correct angle for the vet.

No, I'm not a serial killer.

I got invited to interview at Missouri! :)

Triplets!

I got to the farm this morning just in time to watch  a ewe, Pineapple, give birth to the first lamb of the season... and then two more! Who doesn't love cute baby lambs? :)

Regrets

This is one of those nights that, seeing everyone else out having fun for Halloween, I wish my life wasn't so busy and I didn't care so much about grades. Some things you can't get back, like time spent with those you love. Maybe I'm just feeling sentimental because I'm a senior, and I know that this coming Spring will see me separated from the friends whom I have made in college and who have made their way deep into my heart. But sometimes it's really hard to sit at home and work on my papers while everyone I know is at a gathering on campus, talking and laughing and enjoying themselves.

On the upside, I dressed up as a phospholipid for Halloween. I put on a hood that was polar-bear-esque in order to make the pun of having a "polar head" and covered myself in the chemical equation for a phosphatidylcholine phospholipid. Perhaps not super imaginative, but it did win me an extension on biochem assignments.

~Melissa