I'm baaaaaaack!

Whew! Crazy summer just flew by. Sorry for not updating sooner, life was/is hectic as usual. It's even moreso now that we are in our second year full swing.

Earlier this week we took our first midterms. They were awful. I don't want to even think about them that much because they make me want to cry. Needless to say, we are anziously awaiting our grades.

Until then, here are some updates in the crazy life of ME:

1. I had a ton of fun working in the CSLC this summer. So much fun, in fact, that I am still currently working there a few hours each week. Hopefully, my employment gets renewed for the entire semester. If not, I will only be working there for three more weeks. :( I love my bosses. We have a lot of fun and I feel like it is helping me become better at my technical skills, even though I am mostly doing behind the scenes work.

2. I watched the Sheltie again, but this time for 9 weeks straight. She is one of the most fantastic dogs I have ever met. Super happy, dumb as a brick. Constantly entertaining. I lurve her. Anyway, her mom was going through some stuff and I aggreed to watch her. Sport adores her. He was visibly upset when I took her back to her mom.

Hi! I'm Millie and I love you!

In return for taking away his sheltie, I gave Sport another foster pet. This time, though, we went feline. And I am immediately regretting it. This cat is a little demon! Here's a terrible pic of him. I am sure I will get better ones soon. He's FIV+, so he will be with us for a while, I think.

Don't be fooled by his good looks.

3. I'm once again on a team for the Wildlife Medical Clinic, except this time, I am a team leader. This is both awesome and terrifying all at the same time. Some days I hate it. Some days, I don't. But I am learning a lot and that is worth it. I will post more about WMC later.

Classes are very difficult this year and I don't know if I will keep up on this blog as much. Not like I have been keeping up before... but, I will try to post interesting things and funny stories for your amusement. I will be sure to have a lot from the WMC as well as rotations which begin in October.

Until then, lovelies, GOOD NIGHT!

Be back soon

Sorry I haven't been updating that much. Finals are next week and we are all buckling down. For the professors that means shoving as much information down our throats as possible. For the students, it is mostly just trying to keep our epiglottis closed so we don't aspirate.

In other news, our yellow-bellied sapsucker is going to be sent to the sanctuary soon. He's been improving in leaps and bounds. Another successful case!

I have a lot going on right now, but I don't want to dump it on whatever readers I might have. Hopefully things will get better once school is out for the summer.

What a day!

This day started out normal enough... cept for the fact that I was hungover and my friend had to pick me up from my house to take me to where I left my car last night (no drunk driving for this girl!). I got my car around 9:20 and headed to school. Why school on a Saturday, you ask? Well, I was signed up for treatments at the Wildlife Clinic today. Our current patient is a yellow-bellied sapsucker, a woodpecker type bird. He has a broken wing and we are working on making him better.

This is not him, just an example of what he looks like

Unfortunately, he is non-releasable because of how his wing is broken. He won't ever really be able to fly, but there is a place in Chicago that has agreed to take him in as a display bird. This is really great because he is a very beautiful and fun bird. If we couldn't place him, we would have had to euthanize him.

So, I went in to the clinic with the intention of feeding our little friend, giving his meds, cleaning his cage and running home. It would probably take me about a half hour, at most.

However, things never really go as planned. As I was there, a 2nd year guy on another team came in alone to check out a new case they had. It was a squirrel that had gotten hit by a car the day prior. Usually teams assign two people for each treatment shifts, but sometimes people go alone if, like in my case, the patient is easy and treatments are quick. The 2nd year came in alone for reasons unknown to me because his patient was anything BUT easy. As I was in the other room, getting food ready for our sapsucker, I hear yelling, a bit of crashing and some mild cursing. I peek my head out of the room to see a large squirrel skittering about the room followed by the 2nd year and another girl from a different team.

"GET A NET!"

I grabbed a net and ran out to help catch the obviously recovered squirrel. He was running around the room, under cages and tables, and spinning back to RUN AT US. Finally he got underneath a cabinet and wedged himself in there. Since squirrels bite through any sort of glove, we couldn't just stick our hands in there. We ended up using a bunch of tools to try to push him out. He was growling and screaming at us as he wedged further under this cabinet. After an hour, several nets, mirrors, sticks, and brooms, we moved the cabinet a bit and lifted it up to poke at him better. He hurtles out at us causing us to scream and jump back. I quickly grab the net and chase him across the room. As he got to the end of the room he turned around and ran straight for me. This time I was ready and slammed the net down over him. CAUGHT.

We all stood there for a while staring at him wondering what the heck we were going to do. Eventually we decided that if he was that crazy and athletic, he was not suffering any ill effects from his run in with the car. We should probably do the safest thing for everyone and just release him. Since we couldn't assess him at all, it was our only option.

So we wrapped him in the net and a towel and walked him across the street to this park. As we were crossing the street, I made a joke along the lines of, "Wouldn't it be awful if we go through all this trouble only to have him be released and immediately get hit by a car?" At that very moment he somehow escaped the net and ran INTO THE STREET! We all screamed but he made it across safely and quickly went up a tree. Laughing, we watched him for a bit and then returned to the clinic.

I was a little exhausted by the time I got home, but unfortunately (and fortunately!!) my parents were coming to visit so I had to clean up my house before they got there. We went out to lunch and then walked around main campus for a while with my cousin who is starting his undergrad here in the Fall. As we were on our way back to my apartment, my parent's van started shaking. Worried, we drove it to the shop by my home and asked them to take a look at it. After a couple hours, it was determined that the fuel injector was busted. By then all the auto parts shops were closed and wouldn't open until the morning. The mechanic is going to come in tomorrow morning and fix it for us on his day off because my parents have to head back to Colorado on Monday. This also meant that my parents took my car back to Chicago (where my aunts and uncles live and where my parents are staying) and I am supposed to bring them the van tomorrow after it is fixed.

After my family left, I finally had a chance to sit down and relax. It was then that I realized that it was The Boyfriend's and my 2 year anniversary. Whoops. So I made nice to him and just wrote this day off as a "study fail." As I am probably going to do with most of tomorrow... and last night. Bah!! I really need to get more on top of things!

But I had to go out last night! It was a vet med costume party. There are few things I love more in this world than a costume party. I love dressing up and crazy makeup. Speaking of which, here's a taste of that. This picture was taken after I got back from the party so it is a bit smudged and I look drunk... cuz I was.

Drunk eyes

So, starting tomorrow evening, I will be a good kid - study hard, get good grades. I will also be dogsitting the cutest, most fluffy sheltie! I'll post a pic after she comes. I adore her.

That's all for now, have a Happy Easter tomorrow! <3

A new, shiny week

I have started to see my life in five day blocks. Every one of those five days holds something different, but some constants remain.

I will always hate Mondays, even if it is grand rounds day (like today! Interesting lunch lecture about anticonvulsants... which reminds me that I need to email Kenya's mom... but it wasn't as interesting as the Littlest Lemur topic from a few months ago). I will always have to pack a lunch on Tuesdays as the Wildlife Medical Clinic rounds are held every Tuesday during our noon period. I will always feel like Wednesdays drag on FOREVER. I will alway be excited about Thursdays, even if my bereavement issues class makes me really depressed in the evenings. And Fridays can never come soon enough.

Right now we are learning about reproductive...everything. It's really interesting but it reduces everyone to middle schoolers - even the professors. One of my professors told us that we should have had egg harvesting parties when we were 17 because we chose our careers over our fertility. Today, his lecture turned quite a few girls off of ever giving birth. He is, for all his craziness, my favorite professor. Not only is he fun to listen to but you can absolutely tell just how much he enjoys his subject and most importantly, teaching it to others. I also like to daydream that he is like Indiana Jones and has crazy adventures when he isn't here teaching us about placentas and testicles. The middle schooler bit is getting a tad old though. It's making me annoyed and irritated with school in general. But that's probably just an excuse for my own laziness.

However, Mondays are always hard for me. Today moreso, since we just returned from spring break and I went from lazy days in beautiful northern Arizona to the crazy whirl of vet school in drab Chambana (that's Champaign-Urbana for you uncool people). I miss the Boyfriend. I miss the Boyfriend's dog. I miss nature.

The hardest part of moving to Central Illinois/the Midwest was not leaving my family, my friends, the only state I have ever lived in, even my job. The hardest part was leaving this:

I miss taking my dog for a quick walk and ending up on a hiking trail. I miss seeing the most beautiful sunsets in the world. I think my heart will always be in Colorado, even if I don't plan on going back for a while. I might even be like my sister and never return permanently. But I am thankful that I lived in such an amazing place and I will always dream about going "home."

Being in Flagstaff with the Boyfriend really reminded me of what I am missing here in the cornfields and cow patties. You can see the stars there. You can smell the pine trees. You can walk out your front door, down the street and BAM! You are on a lovely hiking trail. You can go outside at night and not be afraid that you are going to get stabbed (yes, a real problem in my neighborhood here).

But some things I am in love with/looking forward to in Chambana: The Farmer's Market! The dog park (and most of the people that frequent it)! The different wildlife species that I see in the clinic! Um... that's all I got, really. I still miss the West.

Okay forgive me if I haven't given proper background info for this post. I was just feeling melancholy. I promise to bring you up to speed in the next few days.