...found whilst reading veterinary journals over my lunch break:

We need another and a wiser... concept of animals. Remote from universal
nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the
creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby... the whole image
in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate
for having taken form so far gelow ourselves. And thein do we err.... In a world
older and more complete that ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with
the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we
shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other
nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of
the splendour and travail of the earth.

--Henry Beston, naturalist and author (1888-1968)

Today is definitely an "I want to be a Veterninarian day!"

There have been a couple of really really cool things that I have gotten to do in the past couple of weeks that I will be posting about later tonight or something, not now, I have more studying to do now. That and breathing, I just need to remember to breathe...

Biochem test later today. The past week my motivation for studying has been non-existant... well, no, that's not true, I have several times been really gung-ho for it, ubt I feel like I gain nothing from studying lately. My brain has become either too porous, so that stuff is running right through it, or it has become like a sheet of glass, and not borosilicate glass either. A thin sheet of non-porous but impure glass, set to shatter at any moment, with little warning, at the slightest pressure. This would help to explain why I have been plunging into depression with the stress as of late, my little glass brain can't handle the stress.

Why is it that the first year of vet school (and maybe the rest of it too, for all I know) is fraught with manic-depressive-ness on the part of the students? One minute we are sure that yes, not only do we want to be veterinarians, but we will become them, we can do this, we are meant to be here and this is awesome. The next minute here is the last place we want to be, we want to curl up in a ball under our covers and just get a nine to five at a realtor or insurance companty or Wal-Mart, what were we thinking when we decided to do this, why did they accept us, maybe we don't really want to be vets, maybe we were never meant to do this at all.

At least, I guess, it isn't just me. Sounds like a lot of people in my class are feeling like that. At the end of the day (figuratively speaking), I always come back to the same comclusion that I have been coming to for, like, 12 years or something, I do want to do this, this IS where I am supposed to be, and I WILL get through this.
Why is all that so hard to believe at night when I am studying or going to bed and in the morning when I have drag my sad, icky body out of bed for another day of being overwhelmed?

Things that make me happy and for which I am greatful, especially after a day like today:

I) my vet school friend
II) long conversations with said friend
III) cool cats that seem to be getting better/less sick
IV) sharing a meal with the aforementioned entities
V) Pumpkin Hunting on Sunday!
VI) calling going to an orchard and picking a pumpkin "Pumpkin Hunting"
VII) the apples that are sure to be found lurking near the pumpkins prey that will be stalked on Sunday.
VIII) going to bed after I post this entry
IX) ...

First a comment, apple cider is the true nectar of the gods and sending mail does a body good.

An awful, horrible test, from an equally awful and horrible professor at 8am this morning. Now, I know that lots of people say that their professors are awful or that a test was horrible, but oftentimes these are exaggerations or problems that were brought upon the students by themselves by lack of studying or something like that. But today was not such a case. Let's keep in mind that everything that we covered for this test, I have had before, just last semester, and I understood it then. And I maintain that I understand it still. No matter how much I would have studied, there were two major problems:

1) The professor is amazingly bad. We are talking, over the course of each classperiod and with each passing lecture of this professor (5 days a week, mind you) the entire class (107 of us) got more and more belligerant and disbelieving of what was happening to us. By the end of the final classperiod with him, I would estimate that 80% of people were studying some other classwork, just so that he would not mess them up even more, and there were verbal outbursts and unmuted laughing in disbelief at our luck.

2) The test was not written to test what we had learned, it was written to test what we did not understand. Nearly every question was, "Which of the following is false in regards to {fill in something about nerves or the renal system}?" There were four to five options for each questions, many having "none of the above" as an option. This combined with the poor English that this instructor happens to develop from time to time made the test nearly impossible. How can you get a question correct when you can't understand what it is asking and requesting help from the instructor only makes the problem worse? There were audible laughs and exclamations about questions throughout the course of the test. The class is graded on a strict 90-80-70-60 system, no curve. Isn't that great??

But the best news? We get him next semester again!! Teaching something like half of our neurobiology course. Yep, life is good.

Oh, and ditto on last Tuesday's entry, adding: how is it that so many people can have such polar opposite opinions on the same person??

not a peaceful lunch time.
why do we look at and think about things and people that we shouldn't? people who, by all rights should be forgotten, drained from the scar left by their former presence, long ago. why don't we want that to happen while at the same time wishing for it more than anything?
how and why is it that a person can hurt us from months and miles away?
and, above all, why do I go out of my way to see where and what that person is up to, if all I want to do is forget?

Well, I am goign to set a time limit for writing this post and not go over that limit, in an effort to keep my posts more readable in the future. Seven minutes:

Went back to Iowa City this weekend, as most or all of you probably know. I was able to see and spend some time with almost everyone who is still in Iowa City that my little heart desired to see.
It was really great to be social, kind of, and spend time having intellectually stimulating conversation with more than one person.
It was fabulous to spend time hanging out and time conversing with people who already kind of know me, so there is a repartee, there is a history of some sort, be it chronic or acute (not really a good context, I know, but they feel good there), there is a comfortability (is that even a word).
I am always amazed at how people, more than anything, make a place "home", make me feel wanted and comfortable and... well, at times, me. Don't our experiences, including "our people" make up a part of who we are?
It makes me feel good that, despite leaving at a critical juncture during a certain friendship and despite the fact that, between encounters, I always second guess and doubt that a connection and spark exist, they do. Mr. Martin, don't know if you read this, but conversing with you is good for my mind and my soul, or whatever metaphysical word you want to put there.
Time's up!