Cows & Stethoscopes

Hi everyone :) first off - we have a crest! this amazing thing will soon be on jackets and hoodies and the million other pieces of merch I'm going to buy so I can show off ;)

This week I got to touch animals!! I want to say "finally" but apparently lots of vet schools across the world hardly have any contact with live animals until second year, so I won't complain about waiting 3ish weeks!

We had our first large animal handling lab yesterday, which I've been anticipating since I come from an almost entirely small animal background. I've always loooved horses, I've ridden a few times but I don't know anything technical about them. We started with basic skills like haltering, leading, picking out hooves and grooming. My group's horse was named Violet and she was new to the teaching barn so she was very curious but behaved great :) now I reeeally want a horse in the future! Then we moved to the dairy barn and got to halter and restrain cows, which is a messier and more sweat-inducing job, but cows are so damn adorable. Those eyes and ears and giant sloppy tongues make up for the fact that they like to explode with pee and poop whenever they feel the need to. It was awesome to feel a bit like a farm vet in coveralls and steel-toed boots, and I'm already looking forward to "horse care week" where we get assigned to care for a horse daily.

We also got to do a heart lab in anatomy, which ended with the prof doing a live dissection of a horse heart (or was it a cow..either way it was as big as my head). Only vet students would gasp and go "ooooooh it's beautiful" when the valves of the heart were visible.....yes we're nerds!

This week was super tiring with 4/5 days starting at 8:30, and I would have normally slept in this morning (Saturday) but we had our professional welcoming ceremony! My family came down to watch me get officially welcomed into the profession, complete with a stethoscope and an embroidered blue lab coat - I guess I'm here to stay! The speeches themselves weren't all that thrilling for the most part (especially at 10 am..) but our class' presidents gave an awesome speech about the 2018 Ivory Owls - the line that stuck with me was "we get along with every classmate we meet because we're all slightly different versions of the same person" or something like that - so true :) afterwards my family and I walked around some gorgeous nature trails which Guelph is full of.

I'm ending this week very tired but also very happy :) ..until I have to study all day tomorrow for our first test on Monday :( but that's life - and an excuse to drink more coffee!

I like cutting things :)

Helloooo from London! I decided to come home for the weekend because it's UWO's homecoming (and my first homecoming as an actual alumnus who isn't living in London anymore!). I also figured I wouldn't have the time to go home until Thanksgiving so I might as well take the opportunity now.

Recap of this past week: I LOVE DISSECTING ANIMALS. We had 2 anatomy labs this week, and in addition to the fact that they're soo helpful for visualizing everything we've been learning in lecture, I'm also a little scalpel-happy. One thing I was thinking while dissecting thoracic muscles, ribs, lungs and hearts was that 1. internal anatomy is so complicated but body systems work so perfectly together, it's amazing, and 2. it isn't as intimidating as I used to imagine it being. Of course it'll be a different story when I'm cutting into a live animal, but I always think of surgery as being a mess of arteries and nerves that only a magical surgeon could manoeuvre around. These anatomy labs have shown me that once you know the anatomy of that region, everything falls into place and it isn't as scary as it may seem! Now let me do a heart surgery... Hahah just kidding.

In non-academic news, our class (Ivory Owls!) is working on a crest that will be on all of our merchandise. I can't wait to finally vote on a badass owl design so we can get those jackets that I've been wanting forever - and of course walking around all over Guelph showing odd that "Veterinary Medicine" embroidery on my back ;)

Or this could be on our jackets? 

Next weekend is our professional welcoming ceremony where we get our embroidered blue coats (blue coats > white coats, sorry MDs ;)) and stethoscopes. I'm ready to feel even closer to being a vet :)

But for this weekend I'm a Mustang, not an owl! I'm going to get some sleep so that I can be ready to celebrate tmrw in purple and white attire :)

One week down!

I've spent the last week sitting in class and getting a ton of information thrown at me, and I still want to be here so I guess I'm sticking around! People seem to be surprised when I tell them that they really don't ease you into things here, but I wasn't expecting anything else - this is vet school after all!

Anatomy is definitely the course that requires most of my time so far, but that  may be because I have basically zero anatomy experience. I really like it so far though, there are a million nerve/muscle/bone names to remember already, but most of them are logical and I bought cue cards which I find super helpful. Our first anatomy lab involved radiographs, skeletons and dissected remains of several species, and really made me think "holy crap I'm in vet school".

"learn all of this now, ok cool bye"

The best part about this experience so far is that I get to sit in class and learn relevant information that I actually care about - no more useless courses that I would take in undergrad either because I had to or because I was trying to boost my average. It's also awesome (and nerdy) that our profs can make jokes that only vet students would understand and appreciate - coming from a university where 99% of students wanted to be human doctors, this is a much welcomed change!

We also had a tour of the brand new Primary Healthcare Center on campus which is the nicest vet clinic I've ever been in. It's a teaching hospital and has amazing facilities like hydrotherapy and underwater treadmills that are used in small animal rehabilitation programs. We get to do some shadowing shifts there throughout the semester, and I'm looking forward to getting back in a clinic!

Some cats aren't too fond of it, but it helps!

I got my first of 3 rabies vaccines on Friday, so I don't end up looking like this:



Matt visited this weekend (my fiance, for anyone reading this who doesn't already know me) and it was nice to take a little break from shoving information into my head. We drank wine, did some exploring of downtown Guelph, and now he just made me dinner (there's a reason I agreed to marry him).

Having a conversation with the Guelph Gryphon

Feeling his nipples (so sexy)

I'm excited to get into more of the live animal components of the program, but until then I'm content with sitting in class with my coffee and learning as much as I can :)

First Day of Classes!

3 words to describe the first day of classes: 9 hours long.
3 words to describe the frat party/pub crawl that followed classes: beer, downpour, awesome.

Too tired to write anymore - can't wait to NOT set an alarm tomorrow!

gooooooooodnight!

Bye bye, orientation!

*yawn* orientation is (finally) overrrr! I'll spare you all the details of listening to a bunch of intro talks and meeting what felt like 728529 people and just post some highlights of the past 3 days.

Tuesday: 

• Our 8:30 am start time was improved with our official class of 2018 name tags - who knew something so simple could be so exciting??
• After a tour of OVC that went completely over my head, our directional skills were tested with a selfie scavenger hunt which led us on a sprint outside in the pouuuring rain. It was surprisingly refreshing and to be honest it was the most exercise I've had since I've moved to Guelph ;)
• We met our practice groups of 10ish people on Monday night, but Tuesday night there was an entire class meet and greet at the Albion Hotel in downtown Guelph. Here I added a million more names to the already confusing list in my head, but it was good to see my classmates outside of school.

• 

  So professional!

  

  The maze that is OVC

  

  Class of 2018!

Practice Group 9 :)

Wednesday:

• We got the results of our Myers-Briggs personality tests back; not saying they're always 100% accurate but my result was ESTJ (extroverted, sensing, thinking, judging) which basically means I hate incompetent people, I value common sense and I like schedules. Ummm story of my life!
• Merch sale! I dropped $300 on steel toes boots, coveralls, scrubs, and lab coats. Now I'm all ready to get covered in poop :)
• Since I had just spent money, why not continue the trend? I had to give in to the OVC hoodie, tshirt and lanyard that they were selling at the bookstore. I've waited my whole life to show off this stuff!

• 

Thursday: 

• Mascot voting - we are the 2018 Ivory Owls!!!! The top 3 choices were foxes, wolves, and owls. I was torn between foxes (so cute) and owls but I voted for owls partially because of Harry Potter (no shame) and I figured they re a unique mascot  while wolves have been so over done. Some people didn't think owls were fierce enough, but um....

Now that orientation is done, we start classes tomorrow with a lovely 8:30 am - 4:30 pm first day! I'm ready to get into it though, I'm not the type of person that worries about making friends in university. I'll meet more people as I go, but that isn't my priority (cue Drake - no new friends). Library and coffee, I'll be seeing you soon!

My Journey - the condensed version

I'm one of those girls that has wanted to be a vet for as along as I can remember. Cliche I know, but 100% true. I had stuffed animals instead of Barbies, and an imaginary dog instead of an imaginary friend (embarrassing). I didn't start doubting my future until I started my undergrad in Biology at the University of Western Ontario. I was the type of student that didn't have to study in high school, so I had zero study skills. My first 2 years at UWO were discouraging to say the least. Since I was spending all of my time trying to bring up my marks, I didn't gain much meaningful vet/animal experience until the end of 2nd year, which also worried me. Thankfully 3rd and 4th year introduced more specific biology classes that I actually enjoyed, and I had more or less figured out how to study for university exams (the secret: live in the library and drink lots of coffee). I had also been lucky enough to find 2 different volunteer positions in vet clinics, one at the humane society, and another at an avian facility on campus, in addition to my paying job at the hospital. I spent the summer after 3rd year writing the dreaded MCAT (never again!) and was happy with my score. I felt confident enough in 4th year to apply to OVC, almost died when I received an interview, and then almost died again when I was rejected. The fact that I had been so close was depressing but also made me realize that I really could do this. I went back for a 5th year at UWO and concentrated on getting the best marks possible. I had already gone through the interview process (OVC does the Multiple Mini Interview) so I was much more prepared the second time around.
Long story short, I'm one of 121 members of the class of 2018, and I still can't believe it! I keep my acceptance letter posted on my whiteboard so that when I'm stressed out, I can remember the excitement of getting in. Orientation starts tomorrow and I can't waiiiiiit to finally be able to walk around the campus that I have had my eye on since elementary school :)

"Dreams don't work unless you do"

*white girl voice* omg welcome to my blog!

Hey guys! I decided to start this blog to update people on what I'll be doing and learning over the next 4 years, since I have lots of family and friends who have been asking to be kept in the loop. I am starting this week as a first year veterinary student at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph Ontario and could not be more excited! Get ready for plenty of cute animal, coffee, and studying posts!

Daisy (my 9 y.o. Beagle) and I