Morning's a flop

How stupid is it to forget to put sugar in the baking of a cake? That' s precisely what happened this morning. As the first month of school draws to an end, I thought I would do something different, something I like to do but can't allocate enough time to. So I was surfing for recipes online to try, and decided to make a yoghurt cake and some cookies. Turns out, somewhere in the midst of preparation, I was so preoccupied with finding an alternative to veg oil as an ingredient, that I completely forgot about sugar, till I took a bite out of the finished product. ARGHz. And the cookies were a tad too sweet.

Maybe I should produce a cookake?

I need more practice!!

It's the start of a one week "study break" for us students, but for the first time I won't be nuahing at home, like I always did. While others view it as an opportunity to catch up on all those lectures that they fell asleep at, I will find myself doing my first week of clinical experience attachment at a vet hospital nearby. Hopefully I have learnt enuff over the past few years to apply some of the acquired knowledge, compared to 3 years ago in Singapore where I spent 2 weeks at a clinic not knowing anything, and mainly cleaning equipment and sorting x-rays. Got to finish 10 weeks in total... my rough plan is to complete 1 week now, 3 weeks in July, 3 weeks in Australia immediately after exams, go back Singapore and do 2 weeks there, and finish up 1 more week in June 2007. For a long time, it really bugged me that I couldn't exactly plan my time ahead because allocations for end of year attachments at my uni's vet hospital won't be up till a few weeks earlier to that. Ah well. Out of my control, so not going to think about it.

Had my horse rotation prac class just 2 days ago. I really tried revising as much as I could before the class so that hopefully I won't feel too lost. Perhaps it kind of helped, in terms of knowing the anatomy of the horse, but in the end, the lecturer still went at a faster pace than I could process the information. I realise, developing better observational skills would help heaps. After all, to be able to observe all the signs of abnormality in an animal requires a quick mind and processing ability. Anyway, the prac class was on lameness of the horse. We are required to go through the various steps of finding out where exactly the problem lies, because most of the time, the client would not be able to provide the right information. I feel like we're all playing detective here... need to carry out the right tests to find the right clues and think quick. After all the horse can't speak! and it doesn't help that the animals all think u're trying to hurt them... and end up hurting u in self-defence. =( There has to be a way to get round the problem of girls struggling against the weight of a large animal. If a girl not much bigger sized than us can handle a horse with ease, why can't we? You simply wonder how incredible it is, that they say animals will bully you upon sensing your fear and apprehension. How DO they know?? They must have a better 6th sense than we do. We have live proof right in front of our eyes all the time, at every prac. All the subtle movements and gestures that we send out are just picked up by the animals better than we are actually aware of them...

Time to do some work, before ktv session ;)

May everyday be a feel-good day

Wonder how there are just some days when u feel it's been a good day, even though nothing significant has happened? Today just happens to be one of them. On the way to school, I was driving me and my housemates when we discovered that the extension of the highway which we had been waiting for was open. That made quite a nice surprise, and meant that we didn't have to weave through as much traffic as we usually do, and so we got to school earlier than usual. The 2 repro lectures we had today were also hilarious... well, I probably found the lecturer's jokes funnier than usual because I was in a good mood to begin with. Know how there are lecturers who are funny by nature and do not have to try very hard to amuse his/her students? My lecturer, who's just like that, managed to turn all the dry facts of reproduction into the funniest imageries in a matter-of-factly way. Although today was the longest day so far that we had to stay back in school for, imaging pracs in the afternoon turned out to be more interesting than i thought, making the long afternoon pass rather quickly. Of cuz, I was pretty happy to find out that we were to do our afternoon pracs with our surgery group members.

But I really think what set off my good mood today were those games of mindsweeper I played with somebody yesterday night.... ;)

I need to practise squirting stuff up a moving nose...any volunteers?

Finally survived those 5 hours of Imaging lectures today! Actually it's pretty interesting, come to think of it. I'm kinda amused everytime the lecturer goes at such a fast speed that u could just feel this uneasiness in the air, and the LT becomes really quiet.. and u could tell that everybody is just dying to get out of there as soon as they can. The remaining 3 hours of imaging rotation pracs comprised partially of manoevuring a gigantic soft toy dummy dog and cat under the Xray machine so as to teach us accurate positioning.. Hmmm... I think I would like to own one of those big soft toys for my own practice as well... My previously owned soft toy dog, which I attempted to pass off as a sheep so that I could practise tying knots on its legs, is now lying on the floor outdoors, somewhere. All thanks to leaving it behind at the cat boarding hotel over summer so that Misha can continue licking it and feel 'more at home'. Now I haven't dared to reintroduce it back into my room ever since V found dead maggots on her towel left at the same location as well...

Went to the RSPCA yesterday with the rest of my prac rotation group. According to the book we were given beforehand, we're supposed to be excited that we're finally "there in the role of veterinarians for possibly the first time!!!". Errr. Based on our current state of inexperience, I don't even feel comfortable saying that we're there as 4th year students! haha.. anyway, we were split into smaller groups again and asked to give a physical examination to the dogs, which I presumed, just came into the place. My group got this little scrawny terrier while the others got mainly staffys and bull terriers. Cute little thing, but at the end, when we were required to give it its vaccinations and pills. I decided to go for this intranasal injection. Ended up squirting everywhere... should have known it doesn't feel nice to have someone squirt something up your nose. I would struggle too, if I were the dog.

That's it! No more visits to the RSPCA... I think. No more simple handling and giving physical examinations. I suspect things can only get more complicated, involving BLOOD........ and more needles.

Being ambitious kills....

I'm going crazy wanting to do a milion things at the same time. Starting this year, I had set goals of wanting to keep up with the lectures as the semester progresses. Better yet, I wanted to have the time to prepare ahead of lectures, or at least read up on previous notes before attending the relevant lecture. Ideally, revise the previous year's notes because I had forgotten most of it, and read additional material to supplement the lack of practical experience. But what I found out was that, what the lecturer covered in an hour's time, I spend triple of that amount of time trying to understand while going through it. There are only so many hours in one night, and while I am already not doing anything else but study other than preparing meals, there is only so much I can do.

What to do!?!?!?!? Sacrifice quality for quantity? Sacrifice preparing ahead for revising notes of the day itself? Sacrifice detail for a broad overview?

Then I tell myself.. maybe I am just not studying efficiently enough.. n I suspect this is true. What is scary is that I am sleeping my standard usual hours and yet, I struggle to keep my eyes open at lectures. I look forward to going home each day knowing that at last, I have some hours ahead to read and understand what I wasn't able to comprehend in the day. So NERDY.

Tired of feeling that I shouldn't feel stressed but I still do. Knowing that I shouldn't complain but not having the energy to act like it doesn't bother me.

Like this how to cope under future pressure? *shake head*. I need some time to think things through. Need to re-evaluate what's really necessary and what's not...

Try this...

I am so so so sleeeepy........... and it's only Tuesday!

New piece of fact learnt today at Obstetric lectures. Have you ever tried shitting with your mouth open? That is supposedly a difficult thing to do. To be more exact, you need to have your epiglottis (the structure that blocks off your trachea when u swallow/eat) closed so that the pressure from straining is maintained and helps u do ur shit. If u can shit with your mouth open, u are probably not breathing.

My friends and I were pondering over this fact at the dinner table. Imagine a table of pple mentally visualizing if they could strain with their mouth open at the same time.

Thank god for 'tidbits' like that during lectures. Helps to reduce the number of times one nods off.

A new lifestyle

It's coming to the end of the 2nd week of school now... and i suppose that I'm settling in to the new routine lifestyle. Every morning, wake up , spend 5 minutes saya-ing Misha, then do toilet sutff and then check that lal the books/notes for the day have been placed in the bag before dressing up to go to school. Give hay and water to guinea pigs, breakfast to Misha, then if there's time, have my breakfast. If not, there's my great theory of being actually more awake during lectures wthout breakfast in the stomach! All the better. Bring muesli bar to school just in case halfway during lectures cannot tahan anymore. Next is to drive to school in moderate to heavy traffic.. I'm trying to improve my cutting lane skills and I've got good reason to do so.. it's embarassing how I can leave the house early and reach sch later than my housemates who left much later!

Following that, we'll have 4 hours of different lectures till 12.30 in the same lectures... between lectures, I'll just sit there, stone and watch everyone get out their own stuff to eat, or go toilet, talk, whatever... when lunchtime finally comes, some of us would bring our prepacked lunch into the vet common room, either wait for the use of hte 2 microwaves or just eat some dry/cold food. Other whod are more 'lazy' would walk 5 minutes to buy lunch from nearby.. and I'm beginning to fall into this category. Following a one hour break, we then proceed to whatever afternoon pracs that we've been assigned to, which would usually drag on till 4.30. Then, still must drive about 20+ minutes to get home, or rather, a big oven. Summer's officially over, but the weather obviously decided that it wants to cook us a little longer.

nice life? i know it isn't too bad, compared to some other pple, maybe those in the medicine field. Definitely good that our lectures are packed together, and that we don't have any night classes. It's just that we have been too slack for the past 3 years it takes a little bit of adjustment to get used to.

Events from this afternoon.. I was doing small animal medicine rotation with V and M. Our coordinator PI, assigned us to this dog in the hospital, for which we were supposed to identify the breed at the very least, and then find out what's wrong with it. So there we were, 3 pple with the dog in the X-ray room. We looked at it, and thought it looked like a terrier cross with poodle. (actually come to think of it, the poodle bit was added by me... )... PI came back into the room after a few minutes to ask what breed we thought it was. Turns out, it is a purebred terrier, possibly worth over a thousand dollars because it's a rare breed. So he went away, and we were left to do a physical examination on the dog. After listening to the heart and lungs, we thought we heard heart beat irregularities and crackling sound over the lungs. PI came back and told us that there weren't problems with either the heart or the lungs. So there goes our diagnosis. Next we said that the chest area felt spongy, so perhaps there could be oedema, or fluid accumulation. He palpated the dog's chest, and told us that what we are feeling is pretty much fat. Shot down again. Turns out that the dog's real problem was with his abdomen, but we didn't realise it. As it was, the dog was under pain relief, and we couldn't see his flinch/reaction to abdominal palpation at all.

I'm looking forward to Friday... time passes pretty quickly after all.