I passed my NAVLE! I have also officially changed my last name to my husband's (almost two years after getting married, whoops). I now have two case reports to work on (one for my clinical conference, one for an award I'd like to be considered for) and twelve weeks left of vet school, all of which will be at external sites (mostly lab animal but also an exotics only practice).

Feeling pretty good :)

So I've since finished Dances With Wolves and The Dressmaker, discarded Lincoln after a valiant effort and begun A Separate Country.

Dances With Wolves was a good book. It had a Pocohontas feel to it: military white man (in this case, Lieutenant John Dunbar) learns the ways of the Native Americans (in this case, Comanche), falls in love with Native American girl (Christine/Stands with a Fist, who is actually white herself but adopted by the Comanche) and observes the destructive powers of white people from his new vantage point as an adopted Native American.

Nothing novel in itself, but the story flowed well, the main character was dynamic and while the expected things happened, it was still a powerful message from the past about acceptance of other people and cultures and just how destructive people can be. We look at that part as something of our past: we would never slaughter all those buffalo now! We would never hack down all those trees without reason! But really, we are doing that all over the world, just in different media - species are made extinct by hunters, development of rural land is unashamed, etc. It makes you sad to think that we really haven't learned anything after all that time. Sobering.

Anyway, I'll see how I feel about writing more book reviews. I'll obviously exceed my goal of two for the month - easily done with nothing else to do right now. Life will kick in soon with my external rotations beginning January 26th. I interviewed with a third residency program last Friday and ranked the three that interviewed me yesterday morning. My list is finalized and while I have one program that I like particularly well, I'll be happy to be paired with any of them. Results February 9th!

As promised, my first book review: Postcards, by Annie Proulx.

I should begin by saying I hate Annie Proulx. I first read The Shipping News as a young teenager; it was one of the very few books I ever didn't finish. The most I remember of it was how achingly depressing it was. Not that everything had to be rainbows and unicorns, but there's something about an incessantly down-hearted book that I just couldn't wrestle with anymore.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. My mother is talking about Proulx. My mother loves Proulx's writing, her stories. She had finished Postcards and I, being hungry for a book after finishing a pile of library books, decided I would revisit this author. Give her another chance so to speak.

Postcards was just as relentlessly sad as I remember The Shipping News to be. It follows the life of one Loyal Blood, a farm boy who ditches home after murdering his girlfriend in the woods while having sex (?!). The stories of his mother, brother and sister (and, indirectly, his father) are all interspersed. Loyal, perhaps suffering PTSD from his crime, cannot get close to women without having some strange, asthmatic-like response slash panic attack and instead, he forms relationships with various people in his travels - essentially all men he finds work with along the way - but they never last as his life continues to unravel at the cruel hand of fate.

That one person is so continually shat upon by the universe is depressing. That he continues to write postcards to his family, ever assuming they're all still happily together and living life on the farm, is heartbreaking. The book ends with Loyal dying - alone, homeless and broken. Sheesh.

So needless to say, my dislike of Proulx was only confirmed. I didn't much care for her literary style; though I tolerate even the vaguest of ramblings by some authors, she was consistently hazy, leading you almost blindly through the story. Just not my cup of tea. I also never actually liked any of the characters, never really connected with any of them. To me, with characters being a drawing point of a particular book or author, that's tough to overcome.

Unfortunately, would not recommend.

Next on the list (I'm nearly done, whoops): Dances With Wolves.

I've been reading so much about New Year's resolutions, and it always brings out the angst in me. On the one hand, I love setting goals for myself. I like to plan, to organize, to break things down to the nitty gritty. On the other hand, I've learned that you really cannot plan for life. It does what it will and the best you can do it be adaptable enough to roll with the punches and make your own successes. (Even that sentence was so angsty-teen-vibe, ugh.) Anyway, I remembered that in 2013, I made a new resolution each month and had some good success with that until I ran out of ideas for resolutions. I considered doing that again because it was the most successful I've been with NYR in my memory, ever. So here we are.

For January, I've decided to read at least two books and write a little review of them on the blog. (Not because anyone cares what I have to say about them, but because it will help me be more accountable to have written that review.) I started the first book on New Year's Day: Postcards by Annie Proulx. Thoughts to come.

In other life news, I got some good news from one of my two residency interviewers. I'm waiting to hear back from the second place, which I expect sometime this week. Our rank lists are due January 16th! As soon as I know where I'll end up, I can enter crazy planning mode.

I am also (finally) embarking on changing my last name after getting married in May 2013. To be honest, I feel a little twinge of sadness at the thought of adding a new last name that I hadn't expected. But I'll be going ahead with it anyway, and I know my husband will certainly be excited :)

Anyway, that's all for me for now. Stay tuned for the book review!