On the drive home from school today, I gave myself a bit of a talking-to. Essentially: control the factors you are able to control to the best of your ability and forget everything else.

I like to set goals for myself, to plan ahead instead of just letting life sweep me along. But if there's any lesson we all know too well it is that life doesn't always unfold the way you expect it to, regardless of the amount of planning you put into it. Never in a million years did I expect to be in vet school in Canada. But you can't flounce and stress about everything that isn't carefully aligned with your plans - you've got to roll with the punches sometimes. So the last two years I've been doing just that, with moderate successes along the way.

After spending the week feeling bummed out and angsty, today managed to swing in the upward direction. I got to declaw a cadaver cat, did well on my first shot at a tricky tendon suturing pattern and got a skill signed off in my sugery skills booklet (sterile draping). And yeah, my lunch break was only about 10 minutes because our group was in charge of cleaning up the lab space after everyone left. And yeah, I didn't get to go to the lunch lecture on camelids that I wanted to go to. And yeah, I had to sit through three more hours of class. Yesterday those little losses would have dragged me down even further. But today I chose to look on the bright side and that made a difference. Interestingly enough, I feel a tiny flame of motivation to study for our rabbit quiz tomorrow.

Maybe counting the good things every day is what I need for a little while. I've also thought of googling meditation and trying to work a little of that into my routine every night, or yoga or something. If doing mini-resolutions has taught me anything, it's that I can change myself for the better with just a little effort.