I CAN'T KEEP CALM....!

Midsemester Craziness has set in and its all due to: apartment hunting, moving, 3 exams, and a project

Brian and I took a trip down to Rockingham in order look at some apartments and we loved the area it was just to far away from work or school to be practical! But the coast was awesome! 

Brian got his hand painted at his work one day! :)

So two weeks ago Brian and I moved into our new apartment in Fremantle. We love it! Also our roommate from Taiwan is hilarious and we will actually be sad when he leaves! Also we should be getting Internet modem shipped to us and we will be up and running in a few days!

 I left the cupboard open, but otherwise its an alright kitchen.. The sink does need to be replaced and we are opening to negotiate a new kitchen when we sign a new lease at the end of October.

 sooo much sunlight because that window faces East! Its awesome and the other apartment building isn't too bad being right there because the view from the roof makes up for it! 

Roommates room below: (pictures of ours when its clean)

Last day in old apartment! SOOO TIRED FROM A WEEKEND OF PACKING/MOVING/CLEANING!! and school again on Monday!

The apartment near the roof has veggies growing!! LOOK HOW CUTE THIS TINY PEPPERS ARE!!!!!! <3Love them - they remind me of my moms ancient Christmas lights!! :)

stairs to the roof! 

Next series of photos: Tried to do a panoramic view of both sections of roof you can stand on! Enjoy!

came up stairs and panned to the left (counter-clockwise)

West facing

South facing

East Facing

(back southeast facing. I was standing in that other square region for the photos above)

Northeast up the Swan River :)

north facing

You can see the old Radio Tower all boarded up! Will be great for a zombie outbreak! :D

West-facing again

came through walkway and faced back East (elevator shaft)

straight west (the docks) and counterclockwise rotation

I hope you enjoyed! 

Front of apartment building

Cool anchor in front yard

Grannies cow has a new friend:

A week after moving I had one hard anatomy theory midterm! It was quite intense! We just got our marks back today and I was just below the pass mark for this exam! As disappointing as it is, the exam is only a very small percentage of our final grade and the final practical and theory each require a pass in order to pass the class no matter what your midterm score is, so I should be fine now that I think some of the stress of moving midsemester is wearing off!   

This hard cider, after anatomy exam taste test really helped with the stress:

Rascal was 9% alcohol so it REALLY eased the stress!

I haven't enjoy blackcurrant juice except for one juice where it was more apple with a hint of blackcurrant, but this Bulmers hard cider is AMAZING!!!

Immediately after the exam we had to start a huge dissection project that is worth 15% of our grade. Its in partners and we had one week to dissect your nominated topic. The rules were very vague and left to interpretation. My partner and I were assigned to the sheep distal forearm, palmer side, superficial structures [the wrist down to the digits on the side of the hoof that touches the ground/back side of leg]. So it was up to us to decide how deep we wanted to dissect and what structures we wanted to show, with emphasis on muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Other groups were assigned to Sheep: Distal forelimb/hindlimb with either superficial or deep structures

Pig: same choices. I feel so bad for people with pig limbs because there is like NIL textbooks or pictures or radiographs to tell you what structures are what. 

Dog: same choices

Our projects are being displayed in two days time and if we do well enough they may choose our specimens to be added to the veterinary museum! Along with the dissection we had to make a drawing of the normal anatomy and do a write up on the clinical significance of what we dissected and the region we were assigned in general

After starting our dissection at 1130am on Thursday and ending at 7 at night and dissecting around 10-4 the next day, I had to spend all of Saturday and Sunday studying for my two animal systems exams that were Monday and today. Monday's exam was a Soils and Pastures 50min multiple choice/short answer Theory exam... as exciting as it sounds! and today's exam was Soils and Pastures 50min short answer Practical exam. Now we just have to put the final touches on our project tomorrow morning, and its due on Thursday. AND STUDY BREAK BEGINS!! I will be spending a little time catching up on sleep and every other second catching up on material from physio and anatomy and start spending hours in the anatomy museum getting ready for the anatomy practical! 

Also Brian's birthday is Oct. 3rd and I gotta come up with something great to do since I will be on study break! :) :) 

The other good news I would like to share with everyone is:

I got a new job as a receptionist at Western Australia Veterinary Emergency & Speciality (WAVES). I will be working about 2 days a week and as much as I can in summer! :) I work 530-830ish (we get to leave whenever it slows down and everything is in order) in the evenings and the hours are different for the weekends. This weekend is the Queen's Birthday holiday weekend and I get to work from 12pm-8pm on Saturday! And its only my second shift by myself!! I AM SO NERVOUS! But another girl from my year works as a Vet nurse and will be there to help me out! :) Everyone has been very understanding of me being a first year and not having any emergency experience! I am very excited about this job opportunity and I once I get comfortable I hope I can start learning more about some of the surgeries/radiology/medicine aspects of the business as well as the drugs/toxicities/and emergencies!

Driving to my very first day of work! 

Mammals of Australia - a cute little treasure I found at the post office when getting our address changed!

Granny Winfield and Daddy - I got your letter and postcards in the mail so you have the right address for our new place! 

Cupcake from the Traveling Vet Club before a talk! :) SO CUTE!! 

 The absolute COOLEST plates and cups EVER!! I love histology when presented like this!! To bad they only ship the toe UK right now! 

Fremantle Art Center that I walked past on my walk home from bus station! I LOVE ALL THE OLD ARCHITECTURE!! 

Lastly, I am hoping to get a new camera on Black Friday and have it shipped to me if there are good enough deals otherwise it can wait. I really want a nice camera before summer so Brian and I can document more since this is the only summer he has me all to himself without me having to go to farm placements (I need to go to 3, 1-week long placements and 2, 2-week long intensive placements (usually cattle or sheep)before 3rd year I believe) ANYWAYS... 

PLEASE LEAVE CAMERA SUGGESTIONS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION SO I CAN HAVE SOME IDEA OF WHAT TO RESEARCH!!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!! 

Midday Study Break

So on Tuesday we had a class meeting with our physiology professor to discuss our next clinical case presentation due at the end of the semester - Quite an intense project for 10% of grade! But anyways he started off the discussion with these lovely words: "We have your exams graded; however, not everyone has taken it quite yet so we can't release the grades. Needless to say, I am very surprised at how many of you got in the 50s! I don't think this exam was particularly hard" ..... then we had to sit there for the next hour and try not to freak out about failing our midsemester exam. It was an exam on reproduction physiology and histology, also two questions on gene development (I kind of wish there was more of those only for the fact that I find genetics particularly interesting - BECAUSE IT RULES EVERYTHING!!) Also our teacher truly enjoys watching student struggle through a hard exam to really test their knowledge. If you see him walk into the lecture theatre with a big smile on his face you know you are doomed and the test will be hard. This particular exam, he didn't write a single question because we had guest lecturers for each segment, and he wasn't smiling! A very  good sign!

FINALLY two days later/Thursday/yesterday we got our exam results! Nothing like telling everyone how horrible everyone did and then not release the results!! WELL...... I PASSED!! Actually I got a 74% overall!! 80% on short answer NO WAY!! Feeling re-energized about deserving to be in vet school, which is always a good feeling and a good change from always being stressed, tired, and constantly afraid you wont be able to retain it all and fail!
Remember Australian grading is different:
High Distinction = 80-100%
Distinction = 70-79%
Credit = 60-69%
Pass = 50-59%
Fail = below 50%

I have to thank UW-River Falls, Dr. Luther, and Dr. Ekenstedt for preparing me so well!! I didn't think I had retained as much as I had! Also cramming a 400level Repro Physiology course into 3 weeks over summer was probably the best choice I could have made! If all my classes could be one class for 6 hours each day for 3 weeks I would probably do a lot better than trying to focus on 3 separate courses all at once! Oh well and thanks again to all of my teachers who have taught me thus far!

The plans for today and the weekend include:
Finish all of my physio learning objectives by the end of tonight
Focus on nothing but anatomy until my exam in a week
Packing up everything we possibly can today at our apartment and move to new place
Saturday Brian works and I will move last of our stuff and clean

and hopefully I can get a bike ride in there also!

I am off to eat lunch and study study study until my compulsary farm saftey class tonight.

New, New, New

With lots of little stresses building up this semester, I am happy to announce things are starting to fall into place.

First we have been on the hunt for new place to live and we have found it. I will have photos soon, but its in Fremantle, a coastal suburb! From the roof we can see a lot of the swan river and the ocean! Its a two bedroom, with washer and dryer! We are technically subletting one of the rooms from a couple who have found a house until the end of October when we have a chance to extend. There is another man in the other room, but we have not met him yet. However, he moves out Oct. 10th and then we are hoping to have a fellow first year also move in with us. 

Green= City Center

Blue = Campus

Red line = Fremantle and actually points to close to our new place

Also if you follow the freeway (darkest yellow/orange line down from perth, past campus you will run right into cockburn where the big mall is. The train also follows that highway)

Next new thing is: A NEW CAR!! :) My very first car without my parents cosigning or helping! :D OH NO I AM GROWING UP!! It is a blue Ford KA, 2002, two door hatchback and 5speed MANUAL!! SOOOOO EXCITED!! Its the tiniest little go-cart ever, but I really enjoy it! It also only had 58,000km on it! I am in love! :) 

and we parked right next to the green platypus pole! :) way cooler than plain letters to remind you where you parked!

My iphone 3's battery has been slowing holding less and less charge and then last night it decided that it didn't  want to charge at all anymore! Thankfully the apple store still had some 3's still in the back just for this purpose! They cleaned the dock and realized it was the mechanics of the phone itself and so I got a brand new one! SOO HAPPY they could replace it because there is no way I could afford a new iphone outright, optus (my phone network) doesn't offer iphones for prepaid services so I was seriously thinking I would have to switch back to an android phone and was sooo sad! Mostly for the fact that I like that my photos sync through photo stream so I don't have to deal with the hassle of transferring them to the computer/ipad!

Lastly, and the most exciting! Yes more exciting than the cutest little car.

MY NEW STETHOSCOPE!!!!!! Purple tubing and purple pen light!! 

I think the little doggie might be dead.... :P

And to end it all...not another new toy, but I did get to play with horses and clean out their hooves for the first time, put a halter on one in a pen for the first time, relearnt what all the different brushes were for and what order and direction you brush them in, and how to put an anti-rearing bit in their mouth! :)

Don't mind my best friend looking super bored with herself.. she is one of those "horsey" people.... haha not a snob just owns a cute little boy horse and so she was our horse handling master!