Sunset, sunrise...

I've enjoyed some wonderful sunsets over the past three days. The first one, on Sunday, occurred as my family was leaving Washington DC after seeing a fantastic production of West Side Story. The sky was covered in a thick layer of clouds, but just above the horizon the sky was perfectly clear. This allowed the blazing orange of the sunset to show brilliantly and reflect onto the bottom of the blanket of clouds above. The second sunset was on Monday, as Josh, David, and I were driving from Williamsburg to Portsmouth. We were crossing over the extensive bridge into Portsmouth just as the sun was setting. The entire sky to the west was a beautiful orange, and the color and light reflected off the water, leaving it shining. It was rather distracting, especially while trying to drive, but I did my best to steal only quick glances of the scene, and managed to stay on the bridge. Yesterday, I also marvelled at the sunset, from all places, at the Wal-Mart parking lot in Fredericksburg. As I was leaving the store, I couldn't help but notice that the entire lower sky was a startling pink, a brilliant blush showing where the sun was sinking. It just goes to show that the beautiful can also show up in the most mundane of places.

As the sun sets on 2008, I've been thinking about what an amazing, full year its been. I remember having a similar feeling at the end of 2004, the year I graduated from high school. I think there's something about a transition year that makes you really appreciate all that can happen and change within a span of a year. Here are some of my highlights from 2008:

• The year began with a wonderful Disney cruise to the Caribbean with my family. Besides it being a Disney cruise (making it wonderful in every way...), it was great to see a part of the world that I hadn't seen before and truly relax before diving into my final undergraduate semester.
• I successfully completed and defended my honors thesis. It was an uphill struggle, and something I don't really ever want to do again, but, man, it felt great to accomplish it. Sure, my research didn't really discover anything earth shattering and probably led to more questions than it answered, but I learned a lot, including the fact that research is not really for me (an important discovery in itself, I think).
• I graduated from William and Mary. My four years at William and Mary were incredible. I know that I grew and changed a lot as a person, and met, grew to love, laughed, and cried with people I know will be some of my best friends for the rest of my life. Graduation was a wonderful culmination to those four years.
• While there isn't a particular event that stands out in the summer of this year, it remains one of my favorite times of this year. I worked shadowing my mom for most of the summer, and learned so much and really enjoyed it. In addition to the working, I was lucky enough to have the chance to spend a lot of time with friends, take an absolutely fantastic trip to Florida, and spend a relaxing week at the beach with my family. It was the perfect balance between having fun and being productive, and I couldn't think of a better summer before starting a new stage in my life.
• I interviewed for, got into, and started vet school. What an amazing experience vet school has been so far. I've moved to a new city in the middle of the mountains, got a taste of new independence by moving into an apartment, met some amazing new people who I'm excited about spending the next four years with, and learned massive amounts of new information (some of which I hopefully retained). I'm starting to finally feel confident in the career path I've chosen, and for the most part I'm really looking forward to the rest of my time in Blacksburg.
• Candace and I adopted Elisa, our wonderful little kitten who has been such a great addition to our apartment. She's the sweetest, goofiest little cat, and adds some much needed levity when studying gets a little overbearing. I now can't imagine things without her.
• I went to New York City for the first time! This was something that I've been wanting to do for such a long time, and my first trip was just as amazing as I could have ever hoped for.

Of course, 2008 hasn't been completely perfect. There have been plenty of downs along with the ups, and we all know that there's no lack of turmoil going on in the world right now. However, I have nothing but hope for 2009, hope that we will continue to see the good along with changes that will lessen the bad.

I'm spending this evening packing for my family's new year trip to Orlando, which we're leaving for bright and early tomorrow morning. Clifton's not going to be going on this trip, so it's going to be interesting. I haven't been on a vacation by myself with both of my parents since I was four...so it's going to be kind of like I'm reverting to an only child for a week. We'll see how it goes. My parents, especially my mom, really need this vacation, so I really hope that it's fun and not too stressful for them. I'm really excited about it, so my hope is that it's just as enjoyable for them.

This post has become very long, and it is already after 11. I believe it is time for a nice combination of packing and champagne, perhaps at the same time! Best wishes to all of you for a wonderful and happy beginning to 2009!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

I'm done! I have successfully completed my first semester of veterinary school! Sure, there are still 7 more to go, but it's a wonderful feeling nonetheless. Finals were truthfully a lot more intense then I originally expected them to be; somehow I figured beforehand that not having class and such and having all sorts of free time was going to make the whole thing a cakewalk. Oh the naivete. Oh well, this is how we learn. At the moment, however, I am just so thankful to be done, and I'm looking forward to a whole month of not studying. It will be amazing.

After we got out of our immunology final yesterday, a couple of us were sitting around in our lounge, basking in the glory of being finished. After everyone else was done with the test, Dr. Gogal, one of our three immunology professors, came out of the classroom. At first it sounded like he was just going to wish us a Merry Christmas and be on his way, but he suddenly, and without any provocation whatsoever, launched into a very long explanation of why he and the other two professors had made the test they way that they had (including a fair amount of clinical based questions, not just general knowledge questions). This turned into a discussion of how we should keep the same level of passion all through vet school, even though things are going to get harder, and about how later years are going to be different because everything's going to start becoming more clinically based. He talked for a good 15 minutes, while the four of us, in our sleep deprived states, spent most of the time smiling and nodding. Perhaps he was concerned about the test being hard and us holding a grudge. It also might have had to do with the fact that he's getting ready to move to a new vet school, and he felt compelled to leave behind something that would last us for the rest of our time here. It was interesting, and his sincerity was touching. Although I'm worried about the time that we start moving on to everything being clinical based, in another way it's also something to look forward to. Especially after two weeks of memorizing massive quantities of information, it's encouraging to know that we will eventually be moving on to more applicable stuff.

Today has been spent cleaning up the apartment (which it needed terribly) and packing. First thing this morning, Candace and I were having breakfast and suddenly hear a large amount of rattling coming from our Christmas tree. This is what we found:

Elisa suddenly has discovered that the tree is climbable, and that it makes a pretty awesome cat hideout. We've generally been trying to discourage this throughout the day, especially since my parents won't want her to attempt climbing our tree (with it's breakable ornaments) at home, but it's pretty adorable. I'm looking forward to bringing Elisa home, although I'm a little worried about how she's going to adjust staying in a house with two other cats and two rather large dogs. It should keep the holidays interesting.

First thing tomorrow morning, I'll be making the drive home. I have my mapquest directions all ready, and I'm hoping I won't get lost this time. Getting home from Blacksburg is a good deal more complicated than getting home from Williamsburg was. Good news is, the longer drive means more time for loudly singing along to Christmas carols!

Exhaustion induced giggling

I'm sure you've all had those moments when you've been so stressed or tired, that everything suddenly seems very hilarious. That's kind of the point I'm at right now. Several of us spent far too many hours studying at Barnes and Noble this evening, and our conversations often strayed far from the topics of lipolysis and uroliths in Dalmatians that we really should have been discussing. Some interesting points of discussion included the virtues of footed pajamas and people we've know with obsessive compulsive tendencies (complete with demonstrations, of course). I'm ok with all of this, though. I think the tendency to become totally ridiculous at times like this may be some sort of defensive mechanism to keep us all sane. What's life without enjoying the little moments? This includes the moments when you're having to memorize how nucleic acids are synthesized.

This reminds me of a story from before Thanksgiving. A day or so before break started, we had our anatomy final, which mostly was on the reproductive system. We were in the practical part of the final, which involved a lot of careful scrutiny of...reproductive organs. Lots of fun. I get to one of the dog cadavers, which has the pin in an artery that we're supposed to identify. As I've done with all the other cadavers, my first step is to see whether the dog is male or female, so that I know exactly what I'm working with. Typically this isn't a problem, because, you know, certain anatomical features are quite obvious. Plus, its a reproductive anatomy final...being able to tell what sex the animal is is the least of our worries. So I'm staring at this dog, and suddenly realize that I have no idea what it is. Greg, one of my classmates, is there looking at the same dog with me. We're both leaning over the cadaver, and start circling it, taking it in from different angles, getting down and looking at it from eye level, and generally getting much closer to it than we would normally want to. We suddenly realize that we're both having the exact same problem, and the ridiculousness of the entire situation hits us. And the giggling starts. Right in the middle of the anatomy practical. Eventually we regained composure, formed our best educated guess about the sex and the artery, and moved on.

It was just a little moment, but one that I think I'll look back on with a smile. Vet school is a strange place, and where's the fun if we don't stop and appreciate the weirdness from time to time? There is plenty of stress to go along with it, but in the end we're making it through and the good far outweighs the bad.

And now I face the final...finals...

Nagging successful! Well done! Although, I would like to point out that a certain nagging person hasn't updated too recently either...

Anyway, Thanksgiving is far past, and starting on Monday we were quickly thrown head first into the reality that our first semester of veterinary school is quickly drawing to a close. Isn't that crazy? I seriously feel like we just got here. Although, when I think back to things that happened earlier in the semester, they do seem like they happened forever ago. Time is very strange like that.

This week has also been strange. Compared to the rest of the semester, we've had very little class and almost all of it has been histology. I don't care too much for histology, so it hasn't been the most enjoyable thing. However, the little bit of extra sleep has been quite nice.

I think my most interesting experience this week has been our Immunology poster presentations. My group presented on Wednesday, on a paper about the potential use of human IV immunoglobulin as a therapy treatment for dogs with immune-mediated thrombocytopenia (a condition where the platelets aren't working right - so, usually the dog is hemorrhaging and losing a lot of blood). I didn't really know what to expect for this project, and as we started getting more details I started becoming more terrified. The project itself wasn't bad at all - we were to find and read through a scientific article on our topic, and summarize it in a nicely organized tri-fold poster. The kicker was that we then had to present our poster to some clinicians who were picked specifically because of their knowledge on our subjects, and who could then drill us with knowledgeable questions. That was the scary part. However, the whole thing went pretty well. The clinicians were friendly, seemed to understand for the most part that we were still in our first semester of vet school, but didn't completely baby us either and asked appropriately challenging questions. I was amazed at how much I was able to learn about a topic I knew barely anything about in just two hours of presenting it (over, and over, and over again) and trying my best to work through the questions that they asked. I was also pleasantly surprised about some of the questions that I was able to answer; maybe I remember a few things from my undergraduate immunology course after all! Moments like that are always somewhat uplifting. I still occasionally have tiny inklings of doubt whether this is the right field for me. However, when something that I've learned the scientific basis of clicks into place with some clinical aspect, it's a really exciting moment, and I feel like I'm in the right place.

My very favorite part of the poster presentation came with the last two doctors to whom we presented. The first was Dr. Monroe, a clinician (who apparently used to be on the show Emergency Vets, but doesn't like to talk about it!). He was rather awkward and twitchy throughout our presentation, and didn't quite let us finish before finally bursting out with what he'd been wanting to say the whole time. He went on quite a long rant about how the paper we did our project on didn't prove anything, was a terrible example of research, and that the majority of veterinary research was like this, and that it was what he really hated about the profession. Wow. We were left slightly stunned. Then Dr. Ahmed heads over to our group. Dr. Ahmed is a researcher, and I'm not sure if he has much, if any, clinical experience. We gave our presentation again, this time reining in a little of our enthusiasm about the whole thing. Dr. Ahmed then proceeds to tell us that the paper is really promising, shows great clinical application, and that it proves why the union of research and clinical work is so great. Wow, again. This pretty much just left us shaking our heads in amusement, wondering what exactly this says about our future profession. I just hope that I don't end up as a bitter clinician.

So, here we are. Finished with a semester of classes and just four finals and two assignments between us and Christmas break. Here's to making it this far, and here's praying that the rest goes smoothly!

Goodnight!