I'm not good about talking about feelings and stuff, so suffice to say I've been feeling as though I'm on a rollercoaster of emotion/feeling lately (I'm also clearly not very inventive with the metaphors). Certain parts of the day I feel borderline depressed: I don't want to do anything, I don't want to talk to anyone and my mental energy seems glued to my imperfections. I want to crawl into bed and read and sleep and let the time pass. Other times I feel positive and am able to focus on the good changes I've made recently. Throw in the whole rotations deal (with two of mine falling through recently) and missing my husband and my family and wanting the companionship of another dog but unable to reconcile that desire with the need to still remember Ella and it's just gobbledegook.

I look at the year ahead of me (a month already gone) and it's exciting: I will be done forever (fingers crossed!) with sitting in a lecture hall all day watching Powerpoint presentations and listening to people talk at me. I'll start in on rotations - get to go home and see family, get to do hands-on stuff (which helps me learn more than any lecture-test and cram-regurgitate-forget cycle can ever hope to do). I'll take my North American Veterinary Licensing Exam (NAVLE) and hopefully pass. And I'll be applying to residencies. Everything seems to close at hand, causing me to stress and fret about it all coming together properly, and then it all seems so far away, so that I feel like I'm going to scream if I have to get up and sit in a classroom again and again and again.

I look at the people who are in first year and the people who are interviewing for vet school and I think about how they must be feeling and how I felt at that time. With such a poor cumulative GPA (2.98), I was begging for an interview - somewhere, anywhere! And when my only one was in Canada I didn't care because someone was giving me a chance. And when I got it, I was terrified of going to another country so far from home and all that it entailed but I took it because this was what I wanted. Most of first year was spent adjusting, feeling miserable but forcing myself out there so that I wouldn't be quite so miserable. And it paid off, because I have some amazing friends.

But now, closing in on the end of third year, I'm so ready to be done. I'm ready to emerge from the chrysallis that is my veterinary training and become the beautiful butterfly/veterinarian. I want to come home to my husband every night instead of having to see him over a shitty Facetime connection. I want to go to my parents' house for dinner or play with my sister's dog. I don't want holidays to be such a big ordeal because of all the travel and because I know it's only a matter of time before I have to "go back". If I never see that stretch of 95 ever again in my life, I won't miss it.

I don't think it's really burn-out, either. I don't feel like studying, of course, but I never feel like studying. After first year I became an expert crammer and it's worked swimmingly for me. I'll probably retain 1% of everything they've thrown at us, but that's what rotations are for, right? Remembering and cementing the important stuff. So even though I'm excited for the break next week, I don't know how much it will really help because I know I'll have to come back.

All of this sounds so pathetic and sad reading it back over. I try to stick to the positives as much as possible - I went for a run with a friend at the gym last night, and it was pure magic despite being awfully out of shape. I started reading Water for Elephants, which I sense is going to be a good one. And of course, break is in a week. So I just keep putting one foot in front of the other; there is a light at the end of the tunnel.