Random Rambles: September

We recycle

Sigh... It has been so long since I have blogged it seemed.  Let me explain what has happened in the last month, and somewhat explain my absence.

So, after spending no more than a few days in my residence, I started to hate it (big surprise there) and was hunting for a place to live.  Ainsley, fellow Albertan, and I started scouting out our options closer to vet school in a flat that resembled more of an actual living place and less of a prison cell.

Voila!  Mission accomplished!  We found a nice ground floor flat, two bed rooms, 2 bath, cute small kitchen and totally up our alley.  A little money here, a few threats there, and we had ourselves a 12-month lease in our new home.

Problems: boiler was leaking, dryer was leaking, furnace wasn't turning on, fire alarm was beeping, and we needed to find someone to fill out residence halls because we had vacated them and would be financially responsible for them until we filled them.

Moving into the new flat

Well, when you are tenacious and Canadian (and a bit of a b*tch sometimes), you can make everything work out.

Only some of the damage done at the housewarming

And what a relief it was when we finally were free of our leases, because that would have made one very expensive year and one very poor Justine.

But I can confidently say that I feel settled and at home and comfortable.  Due in large part to the enormous support system that has come to be my close group of friends, largely comprised of North Americans.  We basically do everything together.  They packed our flat full of bodies on our housewarming and brought more booze than seemed humanly possible to drink in one night, have been our wing-people, popped my gay bar cherry, and now will be my travelling group- BECAUSE WE ARE GOING TO DUBLIN!, and are also going to be my second family on our first Thanksgiving away from home.  Vet students take Europe by storm!

Celebrating the first birthday in Glasgow!

But now for the part that more people are actually curious about- school.

School.  I don't like school.  I probably never will, but when you are doing something that will lead you to the rest of your life, there will be a part of you that will secretly enjoy it.

Basically it goes like this- our year is divided into 6 modules and we do each module one by one which comprises different topics like anatomy, physiology, chemistry, etc.  We have very few assessments throughout the year which means it is in large part self directed and driven by self-motivation to complete the designated, non-graded tasks.  But this means at the end of the year, we have a doozy of an exam which will be worth 80ish% of our mark.  We also have practicals and rotations where we visit the Weipers (horse) center and farm and complete various skills like handling, sheep flipping, animal husbandry, etc.  You get the gist.  I can say that I was probably a little over-confident coming into this year, think "oh yea, I have a degree, this first year will be a review" and while some of it it, they cover it at such speed, it doesn't matter if you have a background in it or not, it is overwhelming.  And like any other overwhelmed student, the homework piles up, the studying overcomes my life, and yet, we somehow still find time to go out every weekend.

I should have known- they weren't lying when they said Glasgow students study hard and party harder (and for any of you that know me... I really don't party so this has been a major work in progress).

The vet school is quite a close knot group of people who seem to know everything about everyone and do everything together.  To date, we have already had several "vet school only" parties where everyone pretends to be best friends with everyone and then the next morning they all wear sunglasses and pretend to know no one.

So basically, school is awesome, minus the actual bookwork.

As for homesickness?  I have not had a really bad stretch of it yet.  Due in large part to that excellent group of people I have befriended and the fact that I was reluctant to actually SEE my family. Sure text and email gets you somewhere and keeps you in touch and makes you feel like you are actually with them at times but I finally caved and decided that it was time to see what my family looked like again.  And so the inevitable FaceTime call from my Dad came it.  Let's just say, Daddy's little girl was a mess of mascara by the end of the phone call.  Then, I called Mamasita and Brother Bear and it was thankfully much more light-hearted.  Mom wanted the 411 on everything: the people, the new place, school, the whole meal deal and I was more than happy to tell her because it was just nice to talk to someone.  Brother was a joker as usual and gave me a play-by-play of the Price Is Right while I called and gave me a brief glimpse of the 2 fur babies I miss so much.

So whats the plan for the future?  So right now, we just finished our first module at are in a week of review and feedback.  SO MUCH PAPERWORK.  Thanksgiving is this weekend and Ainsley and I are hosting 20+ people in our itty bitty flat.  Pot luck dinner and we are cooking 2 turkeys for the festivities.  Several vet school parties are lined up and then the weekend after Halloween/first weekend in November is AVS which is the annual sporting weekend which takes place and all the UK vet schools get together and play each in sports and drink until they are blue int he face (or so I am told).  This particular year, it is being hosted in Liverpool so we will be jumping on a bus and then heading in that direction for that weekend.  Then there s the trip to Dublin the second weekend in November, American Thanksgiving being hosted by another couple in our group, and a trip to Amsterdam the weekend before coming home.

I think it is safe to say, I will be sufficiently busy over the next couple of months before returning to Canadian soil DECEMBER 7th!

When will I be blogging next?  Not to sure.  I am currently sitting in lecture listening to something that has something to do with something.  Internet is still not at our flat.  Long story short, Scottish people are in no rush to do anything (slower than Africans, which I learned when I was there, can be very slow) so we waited 3 weeks to get internet only to find out they did something wrong and we are now waiting for them to REBOOK the appointment which could be another 3 weeks from the day they notify us of the appointment.

That's all for now.

PS- since we now have a flat, we have room on our cough/futon for visitors.... *wink, wink*
PPS- I need Crystal Light, Nalgene water bottle (they don't sell half decent water bottles?!), and Ranch (WHO DOESN'T LIKE RANCH).  And coffee.  You don't even know how hard it is to find real coffee... not that instant stuff.  Grossssss.