Okay, so I posted yesterday about considering a new direction for my blog now that patient confidentiality, client privacy, public scrutiny and all that kind of fun thing is a bigger part of my life now. But where to start?

I find so many things out there in the world to be fascinating that I don't think my blog could ever be a one pony show. There are so many wonderful blogs floating around the vast space of the interwebz devoted to a particular topic - cooking, health/fitness, schooling of various ilks, DIYing, parenting, etc - and they're really useful for when you want a step-by-step tutorial on how to bake perfect raw quinoa pies or how to build your very own rain barrel or whatever. The photography is always flawless, the people are always these superstar women (from what I've noticed, anyway; must have to do with our love of babbling) and I always get insanely jealous of their beautifully honed talent, no matter what it is.

If you hadn't guessed from the off-topic rambles I sneak it from time to time, I have an idealist streak. I fall in love with certain ideas and ways of living and I want to be those people from the blogs who have this amazing ability to do whatever it is that they do (the astoundingly photogenic nature of their everyday lives is another perhaps more superficial want of mine, but I digress). I have a handful of broad ideas that I want to incorporate into my life that all very loosely fit into the concept of "modern homesteading." Which means I want to have a compost bin and raise chickens and make my own furniture and learn how to quilt and plant gardens full of herbs and vegetables to make amazingfood from and also be a badass home-maker/wife/mother that is still an independent woman. (See? What part of my brain does this stuff even come from!?)

And really, everything that I want to do with my life (this homesteading business and writing again and volunteering and running and photography and whatever the hell else comes my way that I take a fancy to) just has to...wait. Because vet school isn't over yet. And as much as I'll be glad to graduate and be a vet and stuff, I do worry that I won't ever make the time to do all of this pie-in-the-sky stuff that I so badly want. I don't want to be a suburban mom that drives a mini-van and works all day and comes home and repeats the cycle ad nauseum until I'm 60 and then wake up one morning and say to myself, "Well shit. I never did learn how to make jam out of those weeds that grow in the backyard." or whatever else it is that I could learn how to do.

And so (good gracious I'm rambling), I don't know what will become of this blog. I hope I can write about my life outside of vet med and show people like myself in twenty years that you can be a vet and a real person, too and realize your dreams outside of vet med. Because what the hell good is it to have one dream in life that you accomplish when you're 25 or whatever and then you're done? I'm not going to become complacent and you shouldn't either.

I came here all excited to talk about my day shadowing at a nearby institution. Over the last few weeks, though, I've realized that the further along I get on my career path and the more involved I become in the work, the people, etc...the less I should be writing about these things. I suppose if I had chosen a more traditional veterinary route it wouldn't be such a big deal to talk non-specifically about cases I'd seen. With the nature of lab animal being the way it is though (the public eye especially), it's not really appropriate for me to talk about where I'm going, what I'm doing, with whom...even though it excites me to no end. (A blog topic for another time might be where I go with this blog, as I won't really be able to update it like I have been in school. Maybe more about my "real" life outside vet med? Who knows.)

So suffice to say I had a really cool day at this place and learned a lot. One of the things I learned is that I really do want to do the clinical side of things and less-so the research part. To get board certified for lab animal medicine you need a primary authorship, so it's definitely something I'll have to participate in. And of course I'll be part of it with IACUC and the like as a vet. But my previous mumblings on maybe getting a PhD while I'm there? Not so much on my radar anymore. I think research is vital and awesome and I really admire those who do it on a daily basis for like, their whole careers. But I want be the person applying the findings to the clinical setting, or to the regulatory aspect of lab animals.

My break is winding down and there still seems like so much to do. The biggest thing is to sort through all of my stuff and figure out what I'll bring up with me and what I'll leave behind. For only six months in the apartment I want to be darn sure that every thing I bring up is absolutely necessary; it'll be a spartan lifestyle for me but that's okay.

Definitely looking forward to this weekend as well: Danny and I will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary :)

Vacation continues along much the same.

On the visiting front: On Thursday, I visited my old place of employment and the coworkers who are like family to me. My supervisor has been back full-time since about February (after her crazy hospital stay) and her spirits are so much better! They're awaiting their AAALAC accreditation visit (which I helped with!) later this summer and are looking forward to a new facility (to start construction in about a year's time)! The current building will be demolished, which is sad, but the facilities they'll move into will be AWESOME and as they're expecting about a three year construction period, it's a secret hope of mind that they'll be looking for another veterinarian. That would be my dream job :)

On Friday, I had a girly day with my sister. We got our eyebrows done and pedicures, caught up on each other's lives over Cheesecake Factory lunch and shopped for new clothes for my rotations. I'm not the stereotypical shopping woman, so it took a lot out of me to even get the few things that I did! I also got to visit with my dog-niece (Trudy the Boston Terrier) before heading back home.

This weekend was a busy one, too. Danny and I headed out to where he lives when I'm not around so that he could cut their grass (they're out of town); I read one of the four books I picked up at the library earlier in the week (Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, which is of course wonderful, as it was written by MA). I thought of all the people I know that say they just don't have time to read for pleasure during the school year (to which I always mentally reply, "I make time!" because really, I can't not read for pleasure. Pretty sure I am always reading something.) and hoped they were finding more time to read because it is so very wonderful. I also picked up Dan Brown's Inferno which I started this morning, a new Barbara Kingsolver book (The Poisonwood Bible and a couple others having made a good impression of her to me) and another new thing by someone I don't know (I rarely read for the author, despite having chosen the previous three by their authors alone...hm). I'm not sure I'll be able to finish them all in the two weeks I have left, but I'm certainly trying as the weather is perfect sit-outside-and-read weather.

(Not sure how this got derailed into an "I love books!" post. All we need now is a lab animal segue...)


Saturday night was filled with more friend visiting, as tends to happen on my breaks.

Sunday was a beautiful day for Mother's Day - sunny and warm and spring-like - and we went out to a late lunch at a new place in Frederick (Firestone's) for some excellent food and a beautiful second-storey corner table with a view of the bustling street below. Downtown Frederick is really dog-friendly so we saw tons of beasts out enjoying the nice weather. Danny (with a bit of help from me) had made a new dish for my mom's birdbath (the other had split in half completely unexpectedly earlier in the week) using cement and some plant trays for a mold and damn if it didn't turn out well! I think the feeder locals are still a bit suspicious but a lady sparrow or two have christened it already so hopefully the rest of the neighborhood will soon catch on.

Lots of babbling on my part, per usual. I'm looking forward to starting back at school just so I can get into it and be done, but I'm trying to enjoy the last true time off I'll be having for a good long while.

Today is the first official day of fourth year! Most of my classmates have updated Facebook with some sort of status update, but seeing as my first block is a vacation, I'd feel a little silly doing the same. Still, it's amazing to think that in three weeks time, I will kick off my own fourth year properly with large animal medicine.

So far vacation has gone nicely. Typically when I get home, I make myself a general to-do list so I don't forget any of the myriad of things I need to get done while back in the States. Laundry is always first followed by visiting with friends and coworkers, having a girly day with my sister (the only girly days I ever have), a lot of reading and of course spending time with Danny. This past weekend he took me to the PG county gun range where they have skeet, trap and a sporting clays course. Being short always seems to rear its ugly head some way, so of course the shotgun I used was too big for me. The result was that I wasn't able to keep the butt of the gun in the crook of my shoulder where it's supposed to go and the impact from the recoil (for 84 clay pigeons) left me looking a tad beat up. Fortunately I'm pretty ambidextrous (I actually shoot left handed although I write right handed) so I was able to switch sides and lessen the impact on just one arm. Symmetry for the win! (Also, crazy eyes?)

The weather here has been absolutely delightful (like actually perfect) while it snowed again in Canada. I've had Chipotle twice and will be making burritos tonight in celebration of Cinco de Mayo (and also because I attempt to eat as much Mexican food as possible when home...) Life is good.

Amazing how just ten days ago I was super sick, stressed and strung out. Ten days go by and I am home, healthy and happy (and alliterative).

Ten final exams are now behind me, the last of my veterinary school career. I imagine there will be more (hopefully) when I'm a resident in a concurrent Masters program, and there's still that pesky little licensing exam and (hopefully) a board certification exam in my future but I'm happy to be done with the vast majority of classroom sitting for the rest of my days. From all accounts, fourth year is so much better than any of the other years and I look forward to the change of pace.

I also moved out of my darling little house in the countryside and into a bright little apartment in town. I'm really going to miss being out there - it was peaceful, nice views, great landlords and (my favorite) a skylight in my bathroom. But the way my schedule is, it wasn't going to work out to rent for that last year. So I found a new place that should do the trick for the six months I'll be living there. Then, at the end of November, it's home to the US for good. It seems so far away and a little unreal to think that in only six months I can be home for the rest of ever.

The best thing about being home is getting to see my husband. He is such a trooper and I know it isn't easy for either of us having the other so far away for so long. I'm hoping to get to do a lot of fun stuff while I'm home on this little mini-vacation and also some special stuff for our first anniversary (including eating our wedding cake that has inhabited my parents' freezer for a year...heh). After all that, it's back up to Canada for rotations. I still can't quite believe it!

A nasty flu thing has been with me for the last three days and counting and it's really tough to concentrate on studying when I alternately just want to spend all day in bed asleep or staring out the window or I want to go for a walk in the gorgeous sunshine. One week left until vacation; here's the break down:

Tuesday: renal + oncology + miscellaneous (Don't ask me who grouped these things together...); ACC meeting
Wednesday: medical exercises final
Thursday: dermatology + endocrinology final; fourth year clinics orientation
Saturday: toxicology final
Monday: topics in advanced equine medicine final; leave for home.

Somewhere in there I need to meet my new landlord for a key to my new place, move some stuff over there so I don't have to schlep it home, pack all of my stuff, clean everything in my current place, take my fish to his fish-sitter and tie up any remaining loose ends before I hit the road for home.

Ack.

So I know I've already posted today but something "came across my desk" (read: I got an email) about supporting Air France who is pretty much the only airline left that will continue to ship non-human primates for biomedical research purposes and if you read this blog you know that there is no way I can resist posting about lab animal medicine, especially if I get all fired up. And I'm fired up.

The reason other airlines won't ship non-human primates is (according to the National Association of Biomedical Research) that animal rights groups have pressured these airlines not to ship these animals.

Um, what? Who says it's okay for any group to dictate an otherwise legal action made by an independent company? Complain about it, sure; the first amendment lets people do much crazier things than just complain about animal research. But to hound these companies just trying to do business and to interfere with the legal, ethical transport of animals for use in research thereby interfering with that research is just...it blows my mind.

Look, I don't want to see any wild animals (non-human primates included) taken from their natural habitat and used for research. I agree that NHP use in research is a tough thing to defend because I'm sure we don't do enough to recreate a naturalistic habitat for them or provide enough enrichment for their incredibly complex behaviors. I wouldn't mind seeing NHP phased out of research entirely, to be quite honest, but I still see the value and need for their continued use at this time. The government agrees and I'm sure the people and animals receiving life-saving treatments developed with NHP agree too.

But the fact of the matter to me is, why are you badgering the airlines about transporting the NHP? Don't you think your time, as an animal rights activist, would be better spent improving your understanding of reserach environments, looking for ways to improve them that don't involve freeing every last mouse and hounding the government to enact changes that would benefit the animals while still allowing research to help humans and other animals? What about hiring scientists to develop more accurate methods of animal replacement models? Because even being as in love with lab animals as I am, I can recognize there are places to improve and I would welcome a decrease in the use of lab animals. But I cannot respect anyone that harasses an airline for transporting animals that are important for continued efforts on behalf of like, the earth, and don't actually take any action to address the root of the problem.

I know that was more of a rant than an eloquent soliloquy but I get so frustrated just thinking about this. Hrmph.

I feel as though it was just yesterday I last posted and not nearly a week ago. But finals have begun in earnest and being the last-minute crammer that I am, I've had my nose to the grindstone.

So many of my classmates are posting on Facebook about this being their last final exam period ever but I just can't get into that mindset. I wonder if it's because I'm hoping to do a residency afterward - which require you to do a concurrent Masters degree or even a PhD (which I've been considering more lately...I think I may have finally lost my mind) - instead of a "normal job" that isn't geared toward taking another mammoth exam (hello, board certification!) but I just don't feel the excitement to the level that I perceive my peers to be experiencing. Don't get me wrong, when I think about not having to sit in a classroom all day and cram for tests like this ever again, I feel happy; but I think my true jubilance will be reserved for when I get to go home with my DVM in hand.

Aside from finals (I have ten of them...blech), I've also been dealing with finding a place to live for fourth year. My current place is a cottage that gets rented to tourists over the summer months, which has been great because I don't have to find a sub-letter or pay rent year-round. However, I will be up here over the summer months this year and I needed to find a place to stay that would allow me to rent month to month. I looked at three places and settled quickly on the last place, a little apartment with two huge bay windows down near the water. I'm really going to miss my quiet country house, but driving only four miles round trip to school every day is going to be a dream compared to the normal 24.

So my next two weeks will consist of cramming for final exams, packing and impatiently awaiting April 28th when I head for home. I'll be there for a month - seems like a long time but I have so many people to see and little things to accomplish that I know it'll go by much too fast. But when I come back at the end of May, it's only six months until I'm home for good! Talk about jubilance :)

I think (I hope) that spring has finally sprung on the little island. Yesterday was a warm (well, about 40F) sunny day and today it's actually raining instead of snowing! Just the last two days of above freezing temperatures have helped melt some snow and even though that means a lot of puddles and flooding, I'm happy to say goodbye to the snow and the cold.

According to my countdown app, I have nineteen days left until I go home for my short vacation. Because I don't have classes on Thursdays with radiology being over and because we have Good Friday and the Monday after Easter off, I have only five days left of classes! A lot of my friends are getting antsy and nervous but I feel kind of...normal? I guess it's because I have the first block off but I'm not too stressed about starting clinics just yet. That, or my brain is trying to pretend it doesn't know that I'm going to be shouldering a heck of a lot more responsibility in a little over a month.

What I'm getting impatient for is going home! They've been having beautiful weather and I'm already planning some fun things to do - hiking some of the extensive trails at state parks, visiting Arlington National Cemetary (and other historical stuff I've never done despite living right outside DC all of my life...whoops), catching up with my family and my sister, celebrating my first anniversary, going skeet shooting and just having the time to take a little breather before I launch into the beginning of the end of vet school. I can't wait to actually have nice weather, get outside and soak in some vitamin D! (Speaking of health stuff, I started a 30 day ab challenge and a 30 squat challenge. I think I'm going to regret these decisions quite quickly, heh.)

Now I just need to get through those final exams.

When I started Blog Topic of the Week, it was to encourage other bloggers to post regularly (because that gets people reading, I think; who wants to read or follow a blog that was last updated five months ago?) and to get a sense of community going among the pre-vet/vet students over at SDN. As much as it drives me crazy to only ever be surrounded by people in the vet community, I know how important it is that we all stick together. After all, we're the ones who really "get it" when it comes to the tough issues facing our profession and our persons.

But truth be told, I also wanted a way to provide guidance for blogs. I know I feel a sense of obligation to update regularly but sometimes I log on to post and all I can think to write about is school, stress and my impatience to be done with this whole thing. I know a lot of bloggers don't update regularly because they don't have something to write about. So the BTOW thing was a nice way to tie all of that together.

Every once in a while though, something happens in every day life that provides me a good blog topic aside from BTOW. Today's topic is social media and online presence.

Seems that throughout vet school, the pervading attitude from students is that they are perfectly within their rights to post whatever the heck they want on Facebook because they're adults and their friends think pictures of animals or procedures are cool and everything is fine. The administration doesn't roll with that line of thinking though; they have a public image of the school to uphold (and some might argue the image of the profession in general) and we're essentially not permitted to post any pictures of anything - teaching animals, patients, tissues/specimens, etc. - on social media. The general public has complained to administration up here about what they've seen from vet students posted on Facebook and the administration has made very clear to us what we can and can't post. (Nevermind the fact that I find posting of these pictures to be attention-grabbing antics and I don't really respect those individuals who choose to post them.)

Anyway, there was a recent rash of surgery pictures from the current junior surgery students on Facebook and we got a pretty strongly worded email from our Academic Affairs boss lady. A number of people were up in arms, feeling that they are adults and don't want to be told what to do. Which I understand, but in this instance (and in instances across the veterinary schools), it is bigger than you. It's about showing the general public - your future clients! - that you are an exceedingly professional individual who respects the animals and people they interact with. The majority of people wouldn't have batted an eye at the surgery pictures, but all it takes is one unhappy person and you've shot yourself in the foot.

The profession of veterinary medicine is in a rough patch right now, assaulted from all angles. The public are pissed about how much it costs to treat a pet (that's another post entirely...), they don't understand the role of veterinarians outside of fixing your family dog and they are getting mean about it on the internet. The only way to uphold the profession on that side is to be as stringent as possible with social media etiquette, whether it be Facebook, blogs, forums, whatever. There is no room for error and I think many students who post a bunch of stuff on social media don't actually grasp the gravity of the situation, in part because they haven't been out in practice and dealt with people judging them directly.

Life isn't fair, and I wish there were more room for error. But the fact is, students should keep the vast majority of details of their veterinary school career off Facebook. If they want to share what they did with friends or family, I think that's totally acceptable! But I think it should be done over the phone or in person, not available for potentially anyone to see.

On a similar note, I have strongly considered deactivating my Facebook after graduation. On the one hand, Facebook allows me to keep up with my friends all over the place; after school, a chunk of friends will be in Canada where a visit isn't exactly feasible. But especially with my path in lab animal medicine, I just don't think the risks (and honestly, the frustration I get from seeing so many anti-lab animal posts) are worth it in the end. I've thought about LinkedIn though, and will be scoping that out an an alternative.