I could start this post out with my normal pleasantries about what I've done in the (relatively) long time since I last posted, but honestly, I have something to talk about today - two somethings, really, but one of them will be saved for the debut of my August mini-resolution.

Last Friday, my boss volunteered me to demonstrate the use of a captive bolt to another veterinarian, the farm manager, the PI of a study and various technicians. A captive bolt is a tool used to stun and/or kill an animal (almost always livestock). There are two forms of captive bolt: penetrating, in which a steel rod penetrates the skull, and non-penetrating in which a concussive blow is delivered by a blunt-ended rod. Even when a penetrating gun is used, a secondary method of death is delivered, such as ex-sanguination (cutting the throat) or pithing (using a rod to break up brain tissue). The advantage of using a captive bolt instead of the more common injectable barbituate overdose is that it is a very rapid means of euthanizing an animal (really important in a mass casualty event like a fire or trailer accident) and it allows for euthanization of an animal that may be otherwise dangerous to approach or handle (like a large animal that is down or particularly aggressive).

It was not my first time euthanizing an animal - I have euthanized a mouse using carbon dioxide asphyxiation - but it was my first time euthanizing something "more" than a mouse, with observers present and in a teaching environment - teaching those with a heckuva lot more experience than me, too! Because the animal was not first sedated, the residual neuronal activity (which leads to varying intensity twitching and spasms) was strong and I think it freaked a lot of people out. I was told afterward that I handled it all really well, which made me proud, but I still felt weird about it all. People have asked me if it bothered me and in all honesty: no, euthanizing an animal, while sad, was not upsetting to me. It was the fact that others were upset about it that made me feel sad. I think all veterinarians strive to make euthanasias as smooth and stress-free (for both animal and people!) as possible. Not that I think I totally failed that - the animal was gone instantly - but if I could go back, I would have sedated the animal first (as it was just a demonstration) to reduce the movement to ease the people's minds.

As a vet student, something I hear a lot is, "I always wanted to be a vet...but I just couldn't deal with putting an animal down!" Death, we have been trained by society, is a bad, sad thing. I think, through my work, I've become more immune to it than most people, but this is because (I think) I understand it better than most people. Yes, it is a sad time for everyone involved. But frequently, the animal is being euthanized to end its suffering and I would always rather end an animal's life as peacefully and humanely as possible than to let it die on its own because I'm too upset to pull the trigger (literally sometimes as well as figuratively).

In research, though, animals are not always euthanized to end their suffering. Some studies require sacrifice of animals that may be perfectly healthy in order to obtain tissue samples; some studies require that animals be kept alive even when they might otherwise be euthanized. It all depends on the study and the "end points" that it provides. There is always veterinary and IACUC oversight - researchers cannot just decide to prolong an animal's life as long as necessary for their study - but it is not always as cut and dry as a small animal clinic in which the owner makes the decision.

So it's been an introspective time for me since last Friday. I feel like I gained a valuable experience in more ways than one.

I'm home sick today. So I wrote out a half-hearted blog post and then deleted it because really, who wants to read that crap? Instead, I will answer these questions I found when I googled "questions about yourself" so that you all can get to know me a little better while reading something more interesting than just boring drivel about how I don't feel good and life is stressful.

What are your nicknames? What do you prefer to be called?
My nickname is "Red" because (surprise!) I have red hair. I don't mind being called Red at all, but prefer people stick to that or my real name and not just make stuff up.

What books on your shelf are begging to be read?
After I finish God of Small Things I'll be moving on to The Birth of Venus.

How often do you doodle? What do your doodles look like?
I'm not a big doodler - only when I'm really bored in class or when I'm on the phone with someone unfamiliar. My doodles are usually nothing specific, just arrows, circles, shapes, etc.

What do you do if you can’t sleep at night? Do you count sheep? Toss and Turn? Try to get up and do something productive?
 I'm fortunate that I usually fall asleep without issue. When I can't fall asleep, it's usually because I'm really stressed about something. So I do some deep breathing and imagine that I'm inhaling the bad stuff and then exhaling it out. Seems to work.

How many days could you last in solitary confinement? How would you do it?
 I'm an introvert by nature, so I think I would do OK in solitary confinement for the first couple weeks. I'd probably do a lot of sleeping and reading to pass the time.

Do you save old greeting cards and letters? Throw them away?
I do, but eventually throw away the "less important" ones. I still have a birthday card I got from my grandmother when I was, what, ten? It had a sparkly unicorn on it and I thought it was awesome. I also kept a Valentines Day card from my mom with a dog on it that looks a little like my dog.

When making an entrance in to a party, do you make your presence known? Do you slip in and look for someone you know? Do you sneak in quietly and find a safe spot to roost?
When I go to any kind of function, I make sure I make the rounds and greet the people that I know. If I only know a couple of people, I do gravitate towards them until people get comfortable with each other.

What is your strongest sense? If you had to give one up, which would it be?
 Well, I wear glasses to correct my awful vision and I have some hearing loss in my right ear/tinnitus, so neither of those, haha. Out of the remaining senses I don't consider myself to be super-sensitive in one particular area, but I do love food. So I'll go with taste as my strongest. As for which I'd give up...probably smell.

How many times a day do you look at yourself in the mirror?
 When I happen to be standing in front of a mirror - usually while washing my hands.

What is one guilty pleasure you enjoy too much to give up?
 Diet Pepsi! I know it's bad for me and I've given it up before, but ugh, I keep coming back.

 How often do you read the newspaper? Which paper? Which sections?
 I read the Washington Post because my mom has a paid subscription. I always read the sports section but usually read local and national stuff too. I really enjoy reading the classified ads, too.

Which animals scare you most? Why?
Bugs, but mostly spiders. I think it's probably just societal conditioning to dislike bugs, but their jumping and legginess doesn't help either...

Are you a creature of habit? Explain.
Yes, definitely. I get up at the same time almost every weekday for school or work, I go to bed around the same time every weeknight unless there's an upcoming exam or Monday Night Football on. I think having a routine helps me be productive but also appreciate the big, out-of-routine stuff like parties or club meetings.

Do you prefer that people shoot straight with you or temper their words? Why?
I prefer people to be not only honest, but forthcoming. Don't sit and stew - just tell me what's wrong and I will do my best to fix it so that we're both happy.

How and where do you prefer to study?
I need a quiet study environment and generally study at home. Last semester, though, I started studying with two good friends and it was actually really helpful, so I may be changing.

What position do you sleep in?
Usually on my side, sometimes on my stomach.

What’s your all-time favorite town or city? Why?
 I really enjoy Portland, Maine, probably because it's where my husband and I meet up during the school year and I associate it with seeing him again. It's also a really fun town with a lot going on - I just wish we were there more in the "on-season"!

When do you find yourself singing?
In the car frequently; sometimes in the shower, if there's a song stuck in my head.

About these adW

I have the day off today, despite the fact that I took Wednesday off to play with monkeys. Fortunately, being on a two week pay schedule, I can make it up by working all five days next week. So I can enjoy my day off guilt-free!

Being the sort of person that I am, I like to make my days off productive. Crossing things off of a to-do list is probably one of my favorite things to do. So today I have a couple of things lined up to check off: laundry, making an oil change appointment for the car (which may be its last before making the trek up to the Great White North, eek), calling Verizon about a billing question and potentially more minutes and meeting my sister for lunch before a doctor's appointment. I got my student loans finished yesterday, which is the most important thing to have lined up before I go back to school.

And holy crap, but I only have four weeks of work left and one more week after that to pack up and then I'll be going back to school. I can't believe that it was two years go that I was preparing to make the trip for the first time: getting all of my paperwork in order, fretting about what stuff to bring, moving out of my apartment at the time...ugh, what a hassle it all was. It's become a much more streamlined process now that I've done it a few times: get rid of unnecessary clothing and stuff, pack desired clothes in vacuum-sealed bags, make sure containers are stocked with toiletries/etc and pack that stuff up. I've been doing a mental inventory and have bought a couple things that I'll need before I go back up but there's still a bit to be done yet.

So that's creeping onto my radar lately, which is both exciting and not exciting. I'm eager to get up there and settle in but I'm going to be sad leaving my husband, family and friends behind. I expect this year to be the most challenging yet, but fourth year is already on my horizon mentally - I've started to contact places about rotations and will need to have those nailed down by February.

It's hard to think about February when it's 95F outside with a heat index of 110F. But it'll be here before I know it. Eek!

In my quest to become a lab animal vet, I've made an effort this summer to gain experiences (within LAM) that I haven't had before through networking. The biggest experience I lack is with non-human primates (NHP) - known to the rest of the world simply as "monkeys."

I'm of the opinion that the general public cares about animals on a spectrum directly correlated with how "human-like" they perceive the specie to be. So while you pretty much never see PETA ads focusing on fish, you've probably all seen plenty of PETA material on chimpanzees or other NHP. Cats, dogs and pigs are usually closer to the NHP end while mice and rats are more toward the fish end of things. And honestly, it makes sense - we as humans have some level of understanding of animals' sentience (their ability to suffer). And so the general public's view seems to be that the more sentient the animal, the more human-like it is and the more likely it is to be suffering in a research setting because we project ourselves into that animal's place.

In my attempt to gain experience this summer, especially in the NHP section of lab animal medicine, I had to look myself in the eye first. As a human, I'm prone to putting myself in the animal's place and thinking it over from that perspective. With primates, it's very easy to do that - they're eerily human-like in their appearance, behavior and mannerisms. They require arguably the most enrichment to even come close to a normal stimulating environment. I wasn't sure how I would feel about seeing creatures like primates housed in comparatively small cages, isolated from their natural group housing dynamics. But I knew I had to try before I could pass judgement.

My time at the university a few weeks ago, and my half-day at an NIH facility today allowed me to gain a better understanding of NHP in research. This particular facility had singly house primates but it also had accommodation for group housing on many levels - the "highest" being a very naturalistic outdoor environment that was, frankly, huge. The people there realize not everything is perfect, but I know that they do their very best to make it as good an environment as they can within the limits of the study. And I think that commitment to doing the best you can with what you have is key. Another benefit of the NHP experiences has been to feed my interest in the behavior and enrichment part of LAM - an interest I developed while working with the lab animals in undergrad. So maybe I have a career focus building?

Last week, I gave a talk to our new undergraduate employees about applying to vet school. One of the things we got to talking about on a tangent was those behavior-style questions applicants are often asked to answer for undergraduate applications: what color crayon would you be? What part of a sandwich would you be?

One of the girls, in response to the latter question, responded immediately: "The meat!" But as I drove home from work today, I got to thinking (no, I cannot re-create my train of thought on that one) and realized that I have no idea what part of the sandwich I'd be. I think my first draft to that question would be to ramble on about how much I love sandwiches (and man, I do love sandwiches.) I'm just not super introspective. Which ties into my thoughts earlier today at work while I was perusing other blogs (both veterinary and non-veterinary based) that a lot of people write, like, meaningful stuff. They reflect on their lives and the issues pertinent to their lives and it just all sounds so eloquent and thoughtful and grown-up.

And here I am in my corner of the internet, babbling on about what I did over the weekend and how, omg u guyz, i loooooove lab animal!!1! And yeah, it's my blog and I'll write whatever I damn well please, but I feel like I should make more of an effort to be an introspective blogger. I should write about issues and profound thoughts. I'll probably still end up writing "what I did the past few days" posts, but that's okay too.

So today: what part of a sandwich would I be?

First, let us (lettuce! ha!) break down the parts to a common sandwich.

There is, of course, the bread. I'd argue that the bread is what makes a sandwich a Sandwich and not just a pile of stuff thrown together. But claiming to be the bread seems pretty lofty to me. You're pretty much saying how awesome and crucial to everything you are. But I can identify with the bread - you aren't always flashy but if chosen correctly, you can really compliment everything else going on.

There is usually some sort of bulky substance in the middle. If you're an omnivore, this is the meat. If you're a vegetarian, this is likely something with a little more authority than just lettuce and tomato - maybe eggplant or a hunk of tofu. It might even be cheese (which I see as either the "meat" or as an addition. But we'll get there. ) This main attraction is a really important part to the sandwich's identity. You may be a common place workhouse, like turkey or ham. You may be showy and unique or even downright weird, like spam. But whatever you are, you know you're the main event, no matter how plain you are. That's a lot of responsibility to be carrying on your shoulders, but you're totally cool with the spotlight. I don't really identify with the meat of the sandwich.

Last, the garnishes. These range from the standard (lettuce, tomato, onion) to the strange (mango chutney, banana peppers). I see garnishes as the most flexible part of the sandwich - you can order a burger without tomato, but you can't order a burger without a burger. What I identify with in garnishes is their ability to be really amazing if you just give them a shot. They're usually selected very carefully to compliment the meat and bread - not too much but enough to give a little unexpected pow of flavor. And I'm the sort of person that warms up to others after spending some time together - I consider my "true" personality to be pretty different than I might first outwardly appear. So like spicy hummus, you might not be expecting what you get, but it's likely to be a pleasant surprise (or at least I hope so!)

There - my first introspective post. I don't know if you learned anything about me and I'm not sure if this was really profound but it's a start. Since a lot of readers come from pre-vet backgrounds, it would probably be well-received to write about the veterinary field, too. But I guess you'll just have to tune in for next time!

The biggest story of this weekend: tomatoes. You recall that I took over tomato growing responsibilities from my well-meaning but plant-killing mother? Well, Friday afternoon I picked (and promptly ate) my very first tomato from the garden! That makes one more tomato than we've grown in the past, I dunno, ten years? Not only that, but there are a ton of green ones waiting to ripen and at least two of my nine plants are just about to top the six foot fence! We had a minor debacle last week where something (some rotten scoundrel deer, I think) came by and took out the top of one of my plants. There was also a bitten-into green one on the ground inside the pen, which I think may have been a squirrel or even raccoon - I don't envision deer chomping tomatoes. So Danny and I upped the security on the two tomato pens this weekend with some light-weight netting that completely covers the enclosures but allows the plants to still grow vertically. I also pruned off the stalks lower than the first fruit-bearing branches (source: the internet) to channel the plants' energy into the fruit instead of bushing out. Honestly, I'm not really bothered by how much I produce, so long as I get a couple of tomatoes out of the deal, but Danny wanted to try it so we did ;)

The rest of our weekend was relatively laid back. We had friends over for a crab-feast and catch-up on Saturday night, we slept in ridiculously late both days and saw The Heat (Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthey[?]) last night. Next weekend we have a cookout with friends/family so I expect it will be a bit busier than this one was. I can't believe the summer is flying by so quickly! There were a couple of times that our friends mentioned "next summer" and I have to remind them (and myself!) that I don't have next summer off - I'll be in rotations! Hopefully I'll be able to schedule my externals all near home and have my break times so that I can see family and friends but still...crazy.

Oh my 'lanta, have I been busy.

Work has me meeting with PI's (principal investigators) and facilities managers left right and center for easily an hour and a half each day. I enjoy getting to interact with different people every day and learn about different management styles within the same institution, but I'm getting behind with transcribing my written notes into their respective Word documents. So instead of planning more meetings, my goal is to finish getting everything typed up so that when others come in behind me, they don't have to sift through my notes and try to decipher what was written and what I was trying to say and then meet with more people. Except that my boss has signed us up for two more facilities to visit next week! Ack. One of them is right across the street from campus but the other is a solid drive to a completely separate facility (dairy) so that should be interesting.

But man oh man, I am loving work. I love the people I work with, I love learning about the administrative process and AAALAC, I love that my boss constantly invites me to do other things outside of the administrative realm. For example, I got to do the initial physical exams on six new ferrets (still in quarantine) and one ferret getting spayed (general population) - by myself! It was a bit intimidating at first but I realized that - surprise! - I know how to do these things. I found a skin rash on one and enlarged popliteal lymph nodes on the other and while neither were severe, I was glad I was able to pick up on those kinds of things. (I got to observe the spay this morning, but all of my time in the small animal clinic has made routine surgery a little plain. That is, until I'm the one at the helm - eek!)

Another awesome thing? My boss has hooked me up with one of his people over at another research facility and I'm going to get to go hang out with them next week! I think the exposure to different facilities, different management styles and perhaps some new species will be great. I'm finding that literally every thing I do in this field makes me fall even more in love with it. And I'm sure I'll look back on this post ten years from now and chuckle or roll my eyes but right now it's hitting me like a teenage romance and it's glorious.

My monthly resolution for July had been to create and stick to a budget. I hate to do this, but I'm going to switch because I feel like that's a task better suited for when I'm up and school and actively spending money (right now it's just groceries and random stuff). Plus, I feel like it isn't exactly a great resolution. Helpful and useful, yes. But not something to devote an entire month to. (As a side note, I seriously need to get my butt in gear with picking out resolutions before the second day of the month. Oops.)

Anyway, I'd like to switch my resolution something both broad and simple: expanding my horizons. I know it sounds rather Disney-fied, but I think I can accomplish so much with this one resolution. My ideas include new recipes (of which I have already made two successfully - woohoo!), thinking outside of the box when it comes to money saving, planning new fun things to do with the people I love to spend time with, staying up to date on current events, etc. Let's see how it shapes up!

More summer fun

Behold: the "weekend" tag!

Yesterday was incredibly busy. Spent the late morning and early afternoon at an AKC dog show, run by my supervisor at work. It was so neat to see so many different breeds of dog - most recognizable, some not so much - in one area in such great shape. Beautiful dogs everywhere! However, it still pains my heart to see dogs cosmetically altered for what has simply become tradition. Yes, your (insert breed here) needed its tail docked and ears cut when it was hunting rapid jackelopes in the wilds of Tanzania. But today, most individuals of most breeds are not used for their original purposes. They are the treasured pets of families, young people, old people, comfort dogs in hospitals, aids to physically impaired persons, etc. They absolutely may retain their working nature (Border collies, anyone?) or they may be excellent couch potatoes. Either way, I do not think it necessary or humane to continue to subscribe to a breed standard created who knows how long ago for outdated purposes. Just because you think something looks nice (and have been taught to think that way by people seeking to preserve only the aesthetics of a breed) does not mean it should be done. I really wish they'd knock it off with that. And don't get me started on not fixing your dogs. You animal can be just as beautiful an example of the breed as it can be with its testicles or ovaries intact - you just wouldn't make the megabucks from breeding them out. (Yes, I understand that they seek to breed the very best of the breed to advance the breed genetics. I get it. But why not breed a litter or two and then cut them off? Ugh.) So it was a general mixed-feelings experience.

That afternoon, I whipped up some dessert things (phyllo dough cups, whipped cream with fruit on top) for the cookout we were attending. The food there was excellent, the company was even better and it made for a truly wonderful night. I have awesome friends.

Today is going to be productive, despite the fact that we slept in until 11am. We've already gotten lunch and done some shopping (can I argue "back to school stuff"?) and now Danny's mowing/edging the lawn before we hit up Home Depot and the grocery store. I'm going to make a pot of black bean soup that I can hopefully bring to work for lunch for a few days this week.

(Home Depot is a story for another day - some creature has eaten the tops off one of my tomato plants and half of one of my green tomatoes. Grrrr.)

Fourth of July

Fourth of July is one of my very favorite holidays. I love Christmas and Thanksgiving because you get to stuff yourself shamelessly with amazing food and be around family and watch football. (I haven't spent a Thanksgiving with my family since going away to Canada for vet school - it's just too expensive to travel down for one day, plus we still have class! - but my surrogate family (vet school friends and their families) have made my Thanksgivings a little less sad.) But the Fourth of July is something completely different. There's something so wonderful about everyone feeling all patriotic and wearing red white and blue and silly jewelry and those garishly bedazzled themed shirts from QVC. (Calm down - I adore QVC.)

Danny is a building engineer in DC, and therefore has all of the secret keys to everything. For a number of Fourths, we have gone down to DC, climbed up onto the roof and watched the national fireworks in peaceful solitude. Last night was no different. Imagine: the Capitol building on one side, the Washington monument on the other, the city skyline around you, humid night air that makes your hair frizz, helicopters circling, police zooming around with their sirens and lights going, the too-loud conversations of drunk 20-somethings twelve stories below...it's giving me goosebumps just thinking about it. You can see the fireworks from at least thirty other sites from that one rooftop - I counted. And when the fireworks are over and the smoke is clearing and the sirens kick back up, you can hear people from around you (on the street down below, on other darkened rooftops) clapping.

And its at those times that I just want to give a Jersey Shore fist pump and dump some tea into the Boston harbor and say "Fuck yeah, America." (I don't do that, I promise. But it's really tempting at that exact moment in time.) I also feel thankful for those things that I have here that I don't have in Canada: Chipotle. Cheap milk. Cheap(er) gas (which can be pumped with a locking mechanism so that you can sit your lazy ass in your car while your 26 gallon F-150 gas tank fills up). Words without the letter "u" thrown in for funsies. Miles, Farenheit, gallons, inches. My family. My husband. I've developed a tolerance for Canada (and I love my friends up there, Canadian or otherwise) but as Dorothy said, "There's no place like home."

Why do I have to title posts now?

July arrived yesterday but I was too busy rambling about my awesome day of shadowing to talk about my mini-resolution for the month. June's resolution to be healthier was neither a complete bust nor a raging success. I did succeed in being more active - Danny and I went on walks around the neighborhood most nights after dinner - and I started to track my daily calorie intake on My Fitness Pal (actually sticking to my set calorie goal each day has been variable...) which made me more aware and careful of what I put in my mouth. I'm still a major work in progress but I feel like I've been taking steps in the right direction, so that's a positive.

As usual, I have procrastinated brainstorming for the up-coming month's resolution and come to you with couple of measly, poorly thought out ideas. One of these ideas is to create (and stick to) a budget for myself. You may remember my March(?) resolution to save money in various specific ways, so I realize that this concept isn't exactly new to my personal resolution scene. But I think actually creating a budget would be an exercise that, if successful, would be an amazing "experience" to have under my belt. (For those of you gaping at the screen wondering why I don't have a budget - I don't just spend money willy-nilly. But I never actually have tracked where my money is going, and that in itself might help me save.) So basically I'd create a spreadsheet and start tracking and classifying my purchases and target the "problem areas" (I'm looking at you, Chipotle).

Another thought has been to spoil my relationship and plan out some more structured dates to places that I want to see. The drawbacks with this are: cost (although DC does have a lot of sweet free stuff) and time (Danny is usually super busy on the weekends and even four days a month - one each weekend - might be a bit steep to ask.) My modification on this was to plan more stuff with friends, but that's always based on availability and such and would be tricky to map out as easily as, say, a budget.

And the last thought is volunteering my time to some good cause. Since I only work four days a week, I have one extra day a week that I could (hypothetically) "donate" to a charitable organization. My problems with this are that it takes time to learn the ropes at those places and I leave for Canada in what, seven weeks?(!) AND I've been hatching a plot to do more lab animal shadowing on my off days. So that's tricky.

Now that I've essentially brainstormed outloud, I think the budget idea is the best one for me to tackle this month. Time to dust off Excel (just kidding - I use it every day at work!) and get cracking.

I am now required to title my posts. Grr.

Time is flying by so quickly - I know it's so cliche to say, but I really can't believe it's already July 1st. I feel like I just got home from school a couple of weeks ago! (Which may or may not have to do with the fact that my crap is all over my parents house still. Oops.)

Anyway, today I want to tell you about the amazing experience I had at a very prominent local university on Friday.

First, you should know that I originally emailed them in the hope that they would offer me some sort of summer opportunity after my incredible-sounding summer gig at Fort Detrick with the army fell through. I desperately wanted to do something lab animal related because a) I freaking love lab animal and b) it would be good to show continued interest for my residency applications. (I also asked about information on their externship program since I want to do my external rotations close to home.) I got an email back from one of their administrative assistants saying they had one day they could fit me in to shadow. Was it what I was hoping for? No. But shortly thereafter I got a job offer with my current place and so it all worked out.

This particular university offers a lab animal residency program, and since it's the closest to home I could possibly get, it would be so awesome if I go there for my residency. So I went into the experience hoping to both experience a larger facility than I've worked in and to learn about the program at this particular school. Both of these goals were met and exceeded.

The people in the lab animal program were so kind, welcoming, accommodating and informative. (I'm trying not to gush here...) I really got the sense that they're all like a super-prestigious family there, which is the sort of environment that I'm in now (at my summer job) that I love. The day started off a bit rocky, as I had to navigate downtown Baltimore and numerous one-way streets (whose purpose I may have changed a couple of times. Ahem.) but I got there in time. Then, the woman who was my point of contact there...wasn't there. Cue freak out. But once I got plugged into the right place, it was fine.

I got to sit in on pathology rounds (which included lab animal people), lab animal rounds and a pig surgery. Around 11am I went with a current resident to check up on a rabbit, who allowed me to palpate it (a.k.a: prod gently around near its abdomen with a concentrated look on my face.) Then I went to "slide conference" which was basically a re-enactment of my histology course; the focus of that particular day was renal stuff. After that I got to speak to the program director (!!!) about their program and applications. The last hurrah of my day was following the enrichment coordinator tech around and dishing out the weekend's enrichment. (Enrichment is pretty well summarized as "food and toys" and it's a big deal in lab animal. It's a big deal to me too, actually: I'd really like to focus my first authorship paper required for certification on enrichment, should I be so lucky to be in that position!) so I was really excited to see what they did and see some more animals.

All in all it was a very information-dense day but I feel great having made some connections there. I get all bubbly just thinking about being in that position one day!

Edit: Lest you think I forgot, I will have July's mini-resolution posted soon. I just didn't want to ruin the continuity of this post.