The Veterinarian's Log

Um?

This.

Forever, actually.

Also, I need to learn to curse in German. *adds this to the list*

Got your card, Aspen! It's so cute! :D Thank you!

Comment to this post, and I will list five things I associate with you, They might make sense or they might be totally random. Then post that list, with your commentary, to your LJ (or just add a reply back to me). Other people (including me) can get lists from you, and the meme merrily perpetuates itself.

So, the first round goes to ceitfianna

Vet
My earliest memory of veterinary medicine is James Herriot on PBS - the world of Trickie Woo, Yorkshire farmers, hillsides covered with snow or wind-swept fields or fluffy fluffy sheep, crazy-ass bosses, and lots and lots of animals.

Just the opening music makes me grin. And if you haven't read the books, go do so. Tragically, a lot of his gripes are NOT EXAGGERATIONS.
I did my undergraduate work at UCD, as an animal science major, which is more about herd management and such than veterinary medicine, but it satisfied all the pre-reqs, and I did spend a memorable winter quarter getting up way before the crack of dawn to spend 2-3 mornings a week at the sheep barn playing with bebe sheeps working in the sheep barn. There were hay hooks, amateur surgeries, and pocket knives involved. Good times. Besides, our major had the best barbeques by default. Very much so didn't get into vet school on my first attempt, not through lack of trying. Went to vet tech school instead, and while I was getting my AS in that, I spent two years working at a local shelter, getting all sorts of crazy experience. It's there I picked up Martha the Wondercat. Did get into UCD VetMed the second time, also got into University of Florida, and almost got into University of Washington. Spent four years working my ass off getting through killer classes and endless labs, learned to love coffee and all of its wakeful goodness, started pulling my first all-nighters, experienced surgery at 2am, experienced doing an ultrasound on a horse (protip: the probe does nothing from outside the horse. Think about it.) which is an ungodly filthy experience, learned that I still cannot develop a love for pigs and that horse people are crazy and small animal people can be crazier, and that cookies are a viable form of payment. I've been a vet for two and a half years, and... thank you, James Alfred Wight. It really is an awesome job. Despite the crazies.
And yes, that does mean that thanks to all that school, my name can have seven letters after it, at my most ridiculous - Bodldops, AS BS DVM

Doctor Who
So, my introduction to the world of Doctor Who came when Fox Network got together with the BBC to create what is essentially the 8th doctor's screen canon.

It was horrific.

Based on that? Odds are I would have never watched anything in that canon ever again.

When I was 18, just starting my undergrad career, I got a summer internship at a local vet ER/specialty center. They put me on the graveyard shift to start, so I started staying up super late to try and shift my internal clock over before I had to work, so I'd actually do some good. I was flipping through channels, and to my shock and glee, there was Tristan Farnon! (See clip above)
Except it wasn't.

It was this fellow. I only caught the last twenty minutes, so it was fairly incomprehensible, but it looked like fun. So on my next trip to the library, I looked for more videos of this Doctor Who stuff. When I found them, I could have sworn the lead character didn't look right, and I was afraid I'd remembered the name of the show wrong, but... hey, nothing ventured, right?
I was right, the lead guy was wrong.

It was this fellow. :D Sylvester McCoy, you are my Doctor. In all your zany, manipulative glory.

California
It's where I live! I've actually always lived here - and I rather like it. I've played with the idea of living other places - Colorado, Washington... but... yes. California.

Milliways
So, waaay back, I played on the NeoPets board. Which is, on the whole, horrific. However, there was one group that played a group of hares from Salamandastron. Bonus points if you know what that is without wikipedia. I played a medico hare with a penchant for getting hit over the head. That group slowly died, so I found a new group - LotR, in which I played Elrohir and a Gondorian Ranger named Sallyn. There was unknown Rohirrim princess, the entire Peredhil family, a couple dwarves... and of course the requisite Mary Sue characters. There were many good threads. But like all good things, it was slowly winding to an end.
And then I saw a post on my LJ flist about Mways. I decided Ace would be a good option to test the waters, and... yeah. Still going. :D

Katya
So, I was convinced to watch Night Watch... which lead to reading Night Watch... which lead to reading Day Watch... which is leading to reading Twilight Watch, but I'm working on that. And in the books, there's a sparkly, bold-as-brass, downright lethal gal who totally gets downplayed in all the books and fandom (along with pretty much any pup who isn't Sveta, Anton, or Olya).
So yeah, I took the crazy Russian tiger. La. :D

So, latest minor!crisis on the horizon: The driver's side window on Bessie the Car is performing at the same level of malfunction as the passenger side window. In that when I lowered the window to give money to the toll guy as I drove back up to Davis, the window refused to go back up in a normal position. I had to pull off at the next exit (after going over the Benicia bridge with my window down, so much unfun) and push said window back into submission. Of course, I'd been reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series all day, so sitting at a deserted stop sign in the middle of freaking no where wasn't much fun either.

Window is now back in place, but you better believe it's not going back down until someone who knows a whole hell of a lot more about cars than I do (which is roughly 90% of the US population) has a look at Bessie and possibly beats her into submission.

So I watched the Knight Rider movie again, because what one needs to fix a bad drive is a movie about a supercar, yup. And by KR movie, I mean the 2008 one, not the earlier one of horrificness where they freaking killed Devon and took KITT out of his cool TransAm. Mrr.

Second week of the shelter med rotation starts tomorrow, with a day spent with the resident answering already answered questions again. And rounds. This means I'll probably be online all day. I'll probably take another stab at that fic prompts list, but if anyone wants to give me more, they're totally welcome. :D Anyway, I'll be at ARF in Walnut Creek on Tuesday and Wednesday, the SPCA in SacTown on Thursday, and taking a field trip with the whole crew to Oakland on Friday. Oh, we're supposed to get a second student on the service tomorrow, so that ought to be interesting. Or something? La.

Saw some Equestrian eventing today (Olympics) and: EEEE PRETTY PRETTY HORSES. Also, much flailing at that last horse the Americans were riding. Silly pony, go over the jumps!

But mostly pretty pretty ponies EEEEE!

Oh, Sis and I caught 'Runaway Bride' on BBCA and... um. What is with the really really bad editing? They cut out a good chunk of important dialogue - Donna re: Rose trusting the Doctor in the car chase, Donna getting the Doctor to stop under the Thames... and there was another, but I can't remember it just now. But... important scenes! Also, there needs to be fic reconciling how they wrote Donna in 'Runaway Bride' with how she is in the rest of the series.
Oh! They cut out the scene where she refuses to go with him! WHUT?
Though, I am glad they added Grandpa when she rejoined the show. Grandpa is made of awesome, and was missed in 'Runaway Bride'. Must write fic to explain why he wasn't there.

Annnd I should be in bed. *flees*

So, I finally watched (most of) the finale for DW. Missed the first 10 minutes or so, but I caught on fairly fast.

( Um. Can it be no more RTD time now? )

So, for my birthday I studied the single most boring set of court cases ever. Seriously, brain-killing legaleese, ugh.

And then Mom and Sis drove up from San Jose, and we went to see Iron Man (yes, I loved it muchly, despite some gratiutious ignoring of basic biological and physical principles) and went out to dinner at Buco di Beppo - pork with hazelnuts and blueberries and capers (Yum-o, srsly) and baked ravioli and the house bread and... um, this chocolate brownie thing with caramel and gelato and more yum, and a chianti for me. Sis had a Lemon Drop, which I thought was just a bit (lot) too sweet.

Also, Mom made me the best framed picture in the world - Me and Diego, my first colony dog, in a series of three pictures. *snuggles it* Though that does mean there needs to be some serious rearranging of pictures so I can hang it up right.

Then back to ethics and veterinary law. Whee!

Yesterday was... ethics and law. And finishing yet another surprise!takehome, and working on the killer immunology takehome of killer doom. It's like a book, it's so huge.

Today, the ethics and law test, which took just about every minute of the 3 hours scheduled. *flops* Now to finish off some more of the killer immunology takehome of killer doom, and study for SA med tomorrow and Emergency med on Wednesday. *falls over*

In other news: DW: "Forest of the Dead"
( Spoilers! )

( Spoilers for DW 4x4,5,&6 )

In other news, had lots of very weird dreams last night, and a brief moment of panic re: due dates, but. Going for a run now.

Short entry, as the resident will be back any minute and we'll be going out to CEH to to exit checks on half a dozen horses (and stallions OMG please I don't wanna die)...

( Thoughts upon listening to pt. 1 of the Dalek Invasion Arc in Audio-verse - spoileresque )

I think I like Audio-verse. So far. We'll see, won't we?

I just had what could quite possibly be one of the best meals on the planet. If you ever have a lot of cash to burn (or, like me, a company willing to pick up the tab), go to the 'French Laundry' in the Napa Valley. Seriously. Nine courses, each a little bit of something positively divine. You know a place is going to be good when you're sitting outside waiting for the rest of the family to arrive, and there's a guy outside, dressed as a waiter (probably the new guy. Poor new guy) raking the gravel outside by the road. Seriously. Someone walks on the gravel, this guy gets sent out to make it all pretty again. If they pay that much attention to the gravel, imagine what they're doing to the food. Also, you know you're in an entirely different league when they're pouring you water out of bottles that look like they've come from a winery. Geeze.
It started with the little teaser bits - cheese pastry puffs, a little salmon and creme fresche cone, a layer of green apple gelatin with caviar and sea urchin tounge (okay, that one was a touch odd. Good. But odd.). Then was a roasted endive with a banana and something else or other sauce that was so tasty. Then came the first round of bread, which was quite possibly the best bread ever, very rich. Then a bit of sturgeon with these beans and another sort of sauce and I never knew sturgeon could taste so very good. I think that might have been the best dish, maybe. Then there was chicken, roasted I think, with little tiny fries and squash and mushrooms... delicious. Then there was more bread, a variety of sorts this time (we each took one kind and shared). Then there was soft shelled crab with a potato cake, mustard, and a ranch sauce - odd again, but good. Then steak, from this farm up in Idaho, with peppers and these tiiiiiny little mushrooms and the smallest little potatoes you have ever seen - not even bigger than a marble. This was the other candidate for best dish. Then (oh yes, there was more food) was the cheese course, with more bread, and summer squash. Then came the sorbet, an apricot sorbet with candied almonds and an almond crust and a little apricot gelatin. Then I got some tea, and went on to the malt sampler, with this creamy malt cake, and malt ice cream with little malt cookies (think one of those malt eggs that come at Easter, just 100x better and ice cream). Then was a little carmelized tart, or berries and a sort of cream (the tart was the best), and little butterfly cookies (YUM), and chocolate covered macadamia nuts. THEN (yes, we were going to explode at this point), they came around with chocolates and candy. Then they gave us shortbread as a parting gift.

So. Very. Full. Urk.

In other news, I watched 'Idiots Lantern'. Am I the only one who watched that and thought of Blodwen? Seriously. Of course, this episode may make me love Rose. Grr argh. Don't wanna like Rose. She was mean to Mickey, and is entirely too weepy for my tastes. But dude, that scene in the house was kickarse.
Also? I wanted Tommy to come along in the TARDIS. He reminds me of Adric.

In other, other news, I am going to go fall into a food coma now, so maybe I can be alert tomorrow morning. Vain hope, I know, but I'm going to try anyway.

Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated this thing. Suppose I should do that, yes?

I'm still working at the Humane Society. Only for a couple more weeks though. Why?

BECAUSE VET SCHOOL STARTS ON THE 2ND! *glees*

I still need to get my tetnus shot (Thursday) and order transcripts, but everything else is done, say thankya.

Milliways is attempting to eat my life, but it's going on the back burner when school starts.

Sis is going off to Texas A&M soon. Woe. I'm gonna miss her, even if I'm going to be chatting with her on AIM every single night.

I'm working on fanfic again. I kinda took a long, unintentional break when I just couldn't seem to write anything decent. I did manage to get in a Dr. Who/Dark Tower crossover up, it's in miliriffic, even if it's pre-Milliways... and decidedly not millicanon.

Lessee...

Martha the wonder cat is still doing good. Adorable as ever. Making friends with the feral kittens outside.

I really, really want to see 'Batman Begins', but I can't a) Convince myself to cough up the money for another potentially disasterous comic-book inspired film and b) get up the will to go alone. So sad. Guess I'll wait until it comes out on DVD.

Oh, I finally got one of the Dr. Who 7th Doctor episodes on DVD. SO VERY COOL! The outtakes were hillarious. I so need to find the DVD for the new season...

Guess that's all I have for now. I should make cookies.