Halloween!

Last night was the glow in the dark Halloween party at Buddies beach hut. I was originally going to wear my overbust corset and a skirt along with my snap-in custom fit Scarecrow fangs, but didn't like it once I got it on and decided I'd faint in five seconds in a corset down here any way. So I rummaged through my closet and found a plaid skirt, fishnets and knee-high boots. I went as a "vampire naughty Catholic schoolgirl" until everyone kept asking me if I was Jessica from True Blood. I figured, hey, I'm a blue-eyed redhead wearing skanky goth clothes... I guess it fits!

I also did my friend Vanessa's vampire bite. Unfortunately I didn't have any liquid latex so I had to use crazy glue and it peeled off in minutes in this heat and humidity. But it looked really awesome while it lasted.

Me with my fangs.

Nessa's bite.

Frustrated.

Just in case any Rossies reading this blog have stumbled across this post feel free to completely disregard it. My comments are still under moderation and may or may not show up, but they're under "Julie." Numerous other students have spoken up and the Lindsay Moffatt comment is from Dr. Moffatt, one of our anatomy professors.

Note, I am not saying to ignore any critical opinions of Ross. There are legitimate criticisms to be made about for-profit universities, St. Kitts, etc. But the post linked above is based on absolutely, flat-out wrong information and is nothing more than a bitter rant engaging in scare tactics to try and smear the school.

Bits and bobs.

The grades for all of our midterms are in. My breakdown is:

Bacteriology - A+
Pharmacology - B
Virology - B
Pathology - A

So I'm pretty well set for finals! I think the highest grade I need on any of my finals is a 62, so I can relax. It doesn't mean I'll slack off, but I definitely won't have to stress myself out over them.

Don left yesterday. It makes me a sad panda. We had a lot of fun while he was here, even with me freaking out over my Path midterm. We went diving, which was fantastic and gorgeous and fun. Lots of beach time and eating fresh seafood. And I'd forgotten how much easier I sleep with him next to me. Waking up this morning and going through my routine alone again for the first time in nearly two weeks was tough. But I'll see him again in 7 weeks!

3 down.

I've taken three of my four midterms now. I got 100% on BacT, and 82% on both Pharm and Viro. Not too shabby, although I feel I could have done a lot better on Viro if I'd had another day to study. I had a week for BacT and three days for Pharm compared to 24 hours between my Pharm and Viro exams. I've got one midterm left in Pathology, but I've got an entire week to study for it. Still, I'm in a good place for finals. Our midterms make up approximately forty percent of our final grade so doing well on them is really important. Now I'm in a spot where I can fail three of my finals and still pass the class, so that's a huge weight off of my shoulders compared to last semester.

I dunno if you guys could tell, but I was NOT OKAY during and immediately after finals last semester. As in didn't eat or sleep for 3-4 days, pulling all nighters every night, stressed out of my mind and crying all the time. I'm trying very hard from now on to set myself up early in the semester so that I never have to go through that again.

Don is here. We went snorkeling today. It's very good to have him here, but I can't let him distract me from studying at least a little bit every day for Path.

First midterm = slaughtered!

Today was third semester's first midterm in Bacteriology. I spent about a week reviewing the Powerpoints and then yesterday went back over them and took handwritten notes on the really important bits . We got our grades back within 3 hours (because Dr. Wang is wonderful) and I got a 100%! Yeah, I'd say this semester is already going much better than last semester. Although, my Pharmacology midterm is on Monday and I'm scared to death of it.

But for BacT this means that I could completely skip the lab final and get a 64% on the lecture final and still pass the class. Not that I plan on doing any of that, but it's comforting to know that if I do really poorly on one of my other upcoming exams (*cough* Pharm! *cough*) and have to sacrifice study time during finals for one class in order to make up those points, I can safely do so.

Hi, new Rossies!

A reader in the incoming January class of 2012 informed me that someone linked to my blog on your Facebook page. Things are kind of insane right now with midterms starting this Friday, but if you have any questions please feel free to email me or friend me on Facebook and I'll get to them as soon as I have a moment.

If you're looking to get an idea of what your orientation experience will be like, definitely hit the archives and check out some of the earlier entries in January 2011.

More homeopathic nonsense.

Okay, so this has absolutely nothing to do with veterinary medicine.

The other day I saw an ad pop up on Facebook for a homeopathic birth control pill. I snickered, felt a smidge of concern for the women who would fall for it and wind up pregnant and moved on. Then a few days later a friend of mine giggled during class and angled her laptop so that I could see it. The following image was displayed:

I laughed thinking, "Hooray, someone else gets how ridiculous the concept of homeopathy is!" But no. The image is making fun of the "real human fetus" aspect.

I've blogged about homeopathy before but just as a brief recap, here is what homeopathy is:

- Step 1: Take an ingredient that causes the symptoms you want to treat.
- Step 2: Dilute the fuck out of it.
- Step 3: Cured!

So as ridiculous as it sounds, within the context of how homeopathy is proposed to work, preventing a fetus by taking a pill made out of a fetus actually makes sense. The fact that it flies in the face of objective reality, however, is the problem.

People, the lulz here isn't that you're supposed to take a pill made out of dead babies. Okay... Yeah, maybe it is, a little bit. But the real lulz/headdesk point here is that people are going to take a homeopathic birth control pill. I could achieve the same effect by only taking the week four sugar pills in my own oral contraceptive pack. Seriously, the shit doesn't work. As evidenced even by the very claims on the package.

- "Up to 100% effective." You mean it could be anywhere from 0-100% effective? Remember to read carefully, boys and girls!

- "When used in conjunction with a condom." This is like those miracle diet pills that claim to cause you to lose 20 lbs in just four weeks when used in conjunction with a healthy diet and exercise. You'll actually lose weight because of your diet and activity level, but you'll attribute it to their product.

*ETA: Emerging evidence suggests that this is a Poe. While that's somewhat relieving, and hey, all bloggers fall for one eventually, I guarantee you homeopathic birth control exists somewhere. Actually, we know it does, only it goes under the pseudonym "pull and pray."

Settling in.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but honestly vet school is kind of boring. You go to class, you come home, eat, study, sleep, repeat. My days aren't exactly thrilling. But I do have a few updates to share.

- The new apartment is great. My relationship with my landlord is fantastic, and in fact I'm going to her birthday party later this evening. My location is so amazingly quiet and serene. The other day the sun was setting and turned the ocean in front of my property bright pink. It was so incredibly beautiful and I had another of those moments where I just stop and wonder at how lucky I am to have this experience.

- I've mentioned before that my orientation group/roommate situation wasn't ideal. With the exception of one person, there was no real animosity or drama, we simply just didn't find much relatable in one another. Too different. It took me about 1 1/2 semesters before I found people that I really clicked with. At the end of semester 2 I had found my support group, my Ross family. It's helped tremendously dealing with the stress of third semester.

- I finished up my dive certification this semester! I am officially open water scuba certified!

- Cookie didn't get adopted during the first adoption event, so I am still fostering her. Come on! Who wouldn't want this in their life?

- School is going okay. This semester is another tough one, largely because we've only got the two exams in each class. Midterms are two weeks away and my crack down intense study time began Thursday with a tutor session for Pharmacology. Today I had two TA sessions, one for Bacteriology and one for Virology. My other class is Pathology, which doesn't have a TA or a tutor because it doesn't really need one. Pharmacology is the only class that is scaring me right now because the professor is kind of terrible. His powerpoints are all just bullet points with no exposition but his lectures don't really expand on them very much, but he will expect you to know details that he doesn't provide you. Luckily the details he wants are provided in another class he teaches in Vet Prep, so as long as you can get ahold of those notes you should be okay. My advice for any future Rossies reading this is to get yourself a tutor for Pharm and find the Vet Prep notes.

- My husband, Don, is arriving on Oct. 17th! He'll be here for a week and a half and I am so excited!