Time for another update as I am stuck at the vet school waiting for the zoology association meeting at 5:30pm. Of course, the only day I have something to attend directly after lectures are finished, the lectures get out early. Tonight's topic is on reptile handling. Not something I am overly excited about, but it could be important in practice later on.

I think I am still asleep from my lectures today; six hours of animal husbandry. Lots of riveting material on feed protein values and lowland sheep farming cost analysis. It would be interesting material to look through, but not to hear hours of lecture on.

This has to be the coldest day yet. Temperatures when I walked to classes this morning were at 34 degrees. Farther north in Scotland, the first snow of the year has fallen. The walk to class is really better than waiting for a bus, as I keep moving and stay quite warm. As long as it is still light, I plan on walking everywhere. Later in the year, it may not be practical. Walking to the vet school takes me about 35 minutes and has one BIG hill. The worst thing, is that the hill isn't at the end, but on the way so I have to go up and down both coming and going (there is a path that avoids the hill, but it is rather sketchy so I only walk it in large groups). After the hill, I avoid traffic by taking a path along a canal which is home to several pairs of swans. All in all, it is a pleasant walk.

Time lapse --- one week later ----

The world has come crashing down around me, or more specifically, my internet connection has been down. Some worm got into the dorm's network and its been down about 5 days. I never realized just how much I used the internet until I spent hours sitting in my room this week constantly thinking of what I needed to do that involved the internet. From simple things like getting directions to a store, to arranging dinner with friends from church, to getting updates on meetings at the vet school. Oh well, its back up for now.

I have the flu. Or perhaps I should say THE flu. Almost all of the other American vet students have had a terrible flu for weeks. I managed to hold it off for about a month, but it finally made it through my defenses. Mostly a sore throat and stuffy nose today, but yesterday I ached all over. Hopefully I can avoid the coughing. My flat mate Naoko gave me some "gargling medicine" from Japan that is really popular there for sore throats.

For the past few weeks, I have been attending a very small church called Glasgow Community Church. There are only about 20 members, but they are really wonderful and sincere. I had corresponded with one of the members, Eileen, about the church when I first arrived in Glasgow and had some difficulty locating the church the first week. The next week, Eileen picked me up at the metro stop and everyone in church knew my whole story of going to the wrong place the week before. Eileen and her husband Gordon have had me over to their house several times already. Last Friday I went over for dinner and made a batch of chocolate chip cookies to take along. Hannah and Ben, their two teenagers are now my fast friends. I also seem to be a big hit with their Jack Russell terrier, Lucas, which is great because I can practice my live anatomy on him.

Those of you who don't want to know all the gory anatomy details may want to skip this paragraph. I don't think I have written about my anatomy lab yet, so for those of you who are interested, we are starting with the fore leg of dogs. During our first lab we picked out our front half of a dog (my group got a German Shepard cross we named Rosco), skinned it, and separated the front limb from the trunk. It certainly wasn't as hard as I thought it could be. I guess all the cats I have helped with in other anatomy courses has hardened me to the whole idea. Only one guy in the class fainted; hit his head pretty hard on the cement floor. Over the last few weeks we have been working our way down the limb studying muscles, bones, and joints. Currently we are isolating the tendons in the paw. Later this term we will be working on horse forelimbs, and next term we start the hind limb. This was my first experience working on a specimen that had not been preserved. It wasn't a bloody as I thought it would be. The smell isn't a whole lot better though.

I have to admit, I have skipped my first class. The US vs. Scotland World Cup Rugby game was on at 10:30am last Monday. About 10 of us North Americans took off after physiology and went to the post-graduate club to catch the game. The US Eagles lost terribly, but it was still fun to watch. Much more interesting that the apoptosis biomolecular lecture. That professor is the worst we have, and it is all material that I covered in my first year at Hillsdale.

Wow, I'm really skipping through random topics.

The magazines are really interesting here. They often have extra goodies that come with them. For example, I bought a cooking magazine (not as good as Cooking Light) and it came with three wooden spoons. I have also seen music magazines that come with CDs, fashion magazines with tote bags and clothing, and computer magazines with software. The size of the magazines is quite different also. They are huge. Most run about 9x12 inches.

On Saturday I walked down to a farmers market in Partick, a region of Glasgow. There isn't a lot of produce now, but lots of meat and other misc items. I picked up two types of soup - Cream of Carrot with Coriander, and Cream of Turnip with Ginger. Then on the walk back, I stopped and bought a really good loaf of whole grain bread. Well, I had to get some cheese to go with it, so I wondered down to my favorite cheesemongers and bought a wonderful soft, nutty cheese. A superb lunch. Much better than anything store bought. The turnip soup was simply fantastic. Very habit forming. The carrot soup I stored in the freezer for the next cold, dreary day

God bless
Rebecca