Greetings from Glasgow! The past four weeks have flown by and we’re now almost halfway through the term. So far we have covered respiratory diseases, causes of diarrhoea, causes of skin lesions, causes of oral lesions, and field surgery in cows. In companion animals we have primarily covered anaesthesia and orthopaedics (bone diseases). This year runs a bit differently as we don’t have any exams till our large animal exams in February. Companion Animal exams aren’t until June so we don’t have any term exams to help with our final marks in either class. And we don't have resits this year so these exams are very important (I'm gonna be so stressed!) Thankfully, although we have a huge class load this year, much of the material is simply a new approach to stuff we have already covered.
Practical classes have also increased and we switch off every two weeks between food animal and companion animals. This week I've had two practicals in ruminant clinical exams, and the last few weeks I’ve had practicals in prescription writing, running a urinalysis, interpreting EKG’s, and analyzing lameness in dogs.
Can you believe I’ve already used a full ream of paper printing off the lecture PowerPoints? That doesn’t include the 300 pages of written notes that I have printed off up at the vet school! I think I should buy stock in a paper company. One bonus for the year is the free print credits I will receive since, as riding club president, I am on GUVMA, the student government of the vet school. All GUVMA members receive unlimited free print credits – once they kick in I’ll really go to town printing off the notes! Yeah, there are plenty more to print off!
So far this year Glasgow has been very warm. Last week I walked home several times with just my short-sleeve shirt. It’s been about 55°F today. And it hasn’t really been that wet. Only a couple of times have I been rained on walking to/from the vet school (although it did rain on the picture frames I was trying to spray paint yesterday.)
Seems like I am busier out of class as well this year. I’m involved with an Alpha Course that my Church is putting on which meets every Thursday night and my new flatmate is leading the Christian Union on campus so I always try to attend their meetings on Monday nights. Last Thursday was the Welcome Back Ceilidh at the vet school (a ceilidh is a bit like a square dance with people dancing in groups with set patterns. The band goes over the steps with you before each dance, but its usually still chaos for the first few minutes until everyone gets the pattern right.) If you every have the chance, you have got to attend a ceilidh. The music is traditional Celtic music so you can’t keep still even if you are sitting out a dance.
My legs not yet having recovered from dancing at the ceilidh, I went to a Delirious concert (a British Christian rock group) on Friday night, which was standing only. The music was great, but we had a fire alarm right before Delirious came on and we had to file outside for about 15 minutes till the fire dept gave the all clear. Thankfully it was warm and dry outside!
Additionally, running the riding club is providing many headaches. We had our team tryouts Wednesday with a good showing of about 12 riders. I decided not to tryout this year, as I don’t really have time to compete. I’m also trying to organize lessons for beginner, intermediate, and advanced riders at two different stables with only a few riders having cars! Augh!!! Fund raising is also a nightmare as our big plan for a race night fund raiser was stolen by the rugby club (the GUVMA president is on the rugby team, so do I smell a bit of favoritism?) Gotta love politics.
All in all, the term is going well and I'm thrilled to be in my forth year.