Standby for excitement!

Well, today was a bit of a reality check. I was pretty much brutalized by a physiology exam - endocrinology, cardiology and histology all in one exam - and our marks for a biochemistry exam came back. I haven't seen mine yet, but apparently they were very bad. I've decided to go with the Wildlife Club on a trip this weekend, though, so look forward to some exciting photos.

Time Flies

Hi, everybody! Sorry I've been a bit remiss in keeping this updated. Things have really been picking up. We had our midsemester exams. I am, disappointingly, below average in my class. This is not a feeling I'm accustomed to, but it's not new, either. I barely scraped through calculus, but I attribute that (in part) to my professor's unintelligible Russian accent. I'm not all that concerned about it. I'm sure I'll pass, and the only reason to aim for A's is to specialize. I want to keep that door open, but grades will be more important in the later years than in the first semester.

Speaking of the Russians, the US beat Russia in our Rugby World Cup match! Take that, Ruskies! Not that the US team is anything to be afraid of. By comparison, Australia absolutely spanked us 67-5.

Another reason I'm not terribly concerned about my grades is my classmates. Being average in this group is pretty impressive. Obviously, they're all smart, but beyond that I've met some really lovely people. A lot of the younger ones (many kiwis are 18 or 19) live on campus. Some of us 'mature' people are still stuck in squalid student flats. Of course, I'm lucky to have found a room in a beautiful house with flatmates I like. But one of my new friends really hit the jackpot and is house-sitting for a couple of physicians with a frankly pants-crappingly beautiful home. She hosted a cocktail party at the end of midsemester break, where we all got together to pretend to be grown ups, complete with requisite grown-up costume:

I'm not sure who this guy is, but he looks like New Zealand's James Bond.

These are some of my international vet pals. 3 Canadians, 3 Americans, and 1 Brit.

Don't be fooled. Everybody in this classy gang has been at least elbow-deep in a cow. You know what smells worse than a wet dog? A dead dog.

I don't want to be a downer, though. Say hello to the most recent addition to the home!

Sooty belongs to my flatmate, Beth, who recently brought her up from Christchurch (of earthquake fame). She is an ideal dog: I get to live with her, cuddle her and play with her. I can take her for walks if I want to, but I'm not obligated, and I don't have to pay to feed her. It's the best of all possible scenarios. She's also got a bodacious howl, which we like to pretend might keep burglars at bay.

My most recent adventure was, regrettably, undocumented in photos. Yesterday was the Massey SVECCS conference. I wouldn't have gone, but a friend of mine bought a ticket without remembering that he had to leave town, so I got to go for free! SVECCS is the Student Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society. The day was fantastic. First, a series of talks about some common emergencies and remedies; blood transfusions, kidney failure, jaw fractures. All very cool. Then we got to actually practice the relevant procedures! I was excited to learn some sutures, but it was all pretty cool. I saw one of the more advanced students neuter a dog. 

That brings me to an important point. I know that you, my friends and family, are all responsible pet owners, and I applaud you for it. Continue to have your pets spayed and neutered. Dead dogs are so easy to come by that it's shameful. I'm grateful that we have so many cadaver dogs to learn from, but it turns my stomach that they are all descended from a dog with an irresponsible owner. Somebody didn't go to the trouble to get their dog fixed, it had puppies, and now nobody can be bothered to take care of them, so they wind up at the pound for a week, then we gas them and students like me hack them open and carry their hearts around making Edgar Allan Poe jokes. My group's cadaver dog for anatomy didn't even have her grown-up teeth, and hadn't grown out of her puppy fat.

Sorry, that's all for my little public service announcement. Bob Barker had it right, have your pets spayed and neutered!

Lots of love to everybody, enjoy the weather cooling off.

All the news that's fit to type

This week has been a rather unremarkable one, with one delightful exception: presents from Gran Mere! Highlights included a very-cool license plate for my bike.

All I need now is a baseball card to clip to the spokes.

Jersey Shore has made its way into Kiwi cultural consciousness. Hopefully, with my "Shore to Please" license plate, I can be a better representative of the Garden State.

I thought I had landed myself a job earlier in the week, but I may have counted my chickens too soon. I talked to my histology professor about lab tech positions and told him my experience. He said that, serendipitously, the histology department upstairs was set to lose one of their technicians that very week. So, I printed out my CV and waited outside the relevant office until I found the right person. I asked if he had a minute, and he said "Yes, but not five or ten." So I quickly made my case and handed him a CV. I was encouraged when he didn't just wave me out of his office, but perked up and asked me some questions about my experience.  I ended up getting more than my minute of conversation, which was encouraging. But, he emailed to say that, while he liked my CV (and he made some comments to prove that he had read it all the way through,) he would have to wait for a budget meeting before he could make any hiring decisions.

Que sera sera, I suppose. Maybe word will get out that an anxious young American is on the hunt for gainful employment and I'll wind up with a good position anyway. I've got another lead to follow; a neurology researcher who gave a couple of lectures to my anatomy class. I'll email her this week and see what she says.

For the next two weeks, I am in self-motivated study mode. Something analogous to spring break is upon us, so I have two weeks to catch up with all my classes and really get a handle on the material. I think it will help a lot, so long as I can just keep up with the schedule I've set myself.

The weather has been improving, since the snow. We've had several sunny days. On a few occasions, while panting and pedaling up a hill, I have even considered taking off my jacket!  Here is a neighborhood cat on the roof of our garage, on one of the nicer days.

Cat on a pleasantly warm tin roof.

That's all for now. A very special thank-you to Gran Mere for her package, and to Aunt Denise for sending it. Stay tuned, possibly (though improbably) for more exciting updates!

Better late than never

It's been a long time coming, I know, but welcome to my first blog post.

I haven't gotten myself into the habit of carrying my camera everywhere, so I don't have very many photos.  I'll get more, soon enough.

The big news in Palmy lately was the snow.

Our front yard is full of lavender bushes. Flowers blossom continually, here. Snow on flowers earns a photo or two, in my book.

 Snow happens pretty rarely here. They say it comes to Palmy about once every fifty years. My flatmate, Kim, was pretty excited, and she had to do everything possible in the snow:

Astute observers among you will have noticed the laundry on the line, covered in snow. The laundry situation is a bit of a catch 22. Dryers are not common here, since electricity isn't subsidized and dryers use a lot of it. Most people hang their clothes to dry, but it rains all the time! I keep my clothes on a drying rack in my beautiful sunny bedroom! That's a bit of a mess right now, so no photos until later.

Aside from the cold, I'm living in a very pretty town. This is my bike ride to class.

And this is the ride home

Beautiful, right?

And people are very nice. Gone are the days of rude, gruff construction workers:

Honestly, I can't understand what they're so fussed about. It takes 15 minutes to drive across town. There aren't even enough cars here to create what I would call a traffic jam.

I miss you all!