A little Double Dutch in the morning

Woke up this morning to a wonderful surprise. A PACKAGE!!! After trying to get it through customs for a week, it finally arrived (mommy, you are fantastic). It had everything I asked for--school papers, cds--and a couple surprises...thermals and the food of Gods, Candy Corn!!

Today, I determined was also a perfect day for brunch. I was bound and determined to eat delicious and ultimately stuffing meal. Googling "breakfast in edinburgh" doesn't work because I wanted an American breakfast--pancakes, bacon, eggs, toast, the whole 9 yards. But a full breakfast here consists of porridge, eggs, bacon, sausage, black pudding, haggis and fried tomatoes. What a silly meal! I hopped off the bus near the main campus. The first place I found was Double Dutch. The breakfast was alright: pancakes were boring, the bacon was back bacon (like Canadian) not streaky (like the states) but the eggs were tasty.

Because my bus pass expired, I decided to walk home. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I stopped in a bunch of local stores. Just a great way to start my day!!

Sami invited me to join her and Elizabeth to watch "Life as We Know It". I loved it!! Katherine Heigl is always amazing.

The cinema was glorious!! It's a 15 minute walk from the flat in a modern, glass-fronted building with giraffes out front. The concessions were normal except for the wall of candy! I didn't get any but there were sour goodies. (The UK doesn't do sour treats). The picture is of my kiddie combo box. In the theatre, there are VIP seats right in the middle rows which is prime viewing territory. For a fee, one can upgrade to these plush seats but us everyday folk stick to the leftovers...huge, comfy seats with tons of leg room! Never in the states have I seen such a thing. Imagine coach seats on an airplane versus first class! Very spiffy.

Toodles for now!

Smashing Pumpkins!

Several in the graduate corner have been contemplating a roadtrip. Next weekend is a long weekend thanks to AVS Sports Weekend. AVS is the Association of Veterinary Students and the sports weekend is a giant pow-wow where all the UK vet schools converge in one city and debauchery ensues. The schools compete against each other in rugby, netball, hockey, football and silly Scottish games. This year, everyone is coming to Edinburgh, it rotates every year. It's reportedly the best weekend of the year. So much so that the university gives us the following Monday and Tuesday off to recuperate. Although I've already bought my ticket, a roadtrip into the depths of Scotland is sooo much better. Gathering in the common room, we dumped out Cristina's bag of brochures. There is a company that does Highland tours and we're thinking of combining several together. I really don't know where any of these places are...but I look forward to joining them!

For lunch, we stopped in a cafe called Beanscene. I got strange looks for ordering a milkshake when it was freezy outside. They had some fantastic Mexican chili. It's nice to try something other than Miller's and start exploring the city's food offerings.

The day got better with a quick rugby practice. Most of the girls had gone home for Halloween weekend. We played a 6-on-6 scrimage with silly rules about tackling. Such as, when you tackle, run back to the sideline or drop to your knees and wait for the turnover. Exhausting!

Deanna, a GEP student and Tyler's roommate, Maria and I attempted to run back to her flat to begin pumpkin carving. Being poor vet students and in a city lacking typcial Halloween things, we were forced to carve pumpkins with steak knives. And just because we will handle a scapel with precision and grace years from now, our hand-eye coordination currently blows. We should not be allowed to use knives for anything other then their intended purpose. Especially when hot chocolate with Bailey's was added to the party. Despite this, nobody bled out and we produced beautiful pieces of art. Ok, Tyler's cow came out a little wonky. But Maria who went to Rutgers where the mascot is a goat carved a wonderful goat! I, of course, did zebra stripes. Wrapped up the night with a viewing of "Young Frankenstein"!

Just Say No to Drugs.

The past couple days have been pretty good:

Apparently, the university figured out by the end of 5 years none of the shiny newly-minted vets they produced could NOT do math! Really, it's simple math with lots of conversion factors. But, twice a year for the next 5 years, I'm expected to rack my brain to calculate silly things like sedative amounts...pssh! I guess it could be pertinent;however, Research Pet & Bird had a drug chart and that was very helpful.

Crissy, Rebecca and I wandered into the depths of Summerhall which may be the most confusing building ever! Crissy was a very good teacher with her whiteboard markers and writing everything out. Now, I have to do them all by myself.

Thankfully, there are US chain stores over here. Namely IKEA!! And it's just as wonderfully cheap! It's part of a huge shopping complex and I spent a good 4 hours exploring every store. Great way to procrastinate, whoop! Everything from a Garden Ridge twin to a sports store.

Vets Go Wild! is a program for vet students (or anybody) to experience African wildlife hands-on. Tonight was a lecture about the course. It is designed to fulfill the EMS requirements(more on these later). Students get to do everything from safari walks to coordinating an animal's capture including tracking, tranquilizing and transport of the Big 5. The Big 5 being elephants, lions, rhinos, buffalo and leopards. Sixteen days of amazing sights, sounds and probably smells. Trip-goers sleep in large safari tents! I've wanted to go for years now! It calls to me. Lots of budgeting and money scraping will be involved to get me there.

Babies, Cows and Mouthguards!

Today, FANTASTIC!!

Lectures have moved from just review to some uncertainty! Embryology is really interesting, everything looks the same when we're that tiny...I'll need to invest good 3-D models.

The practicals are getting more hands-on. All the study groups get split up to tiny groups. There was a mere 7 of us to do "Weighing and Conditioning Scoring". It was awesome!! Because of the stomach flu and several students getting Crypto, we weren't allowed to touch the babies in the calf house. (These are the calves under 8 weeks old). The first set of cows were 6 to 10 months old. Very large babies with no handling. Luckily, they are herd animals and where one animal goes they all follow. We herded them from the pasture and into chutes for weighing. With each calf, we guesstimated the weights based on the average calf gaining 1.5 kilos a day from a birth weight of 40-45 kilos. On top of that, you must gauge the muscle on the bones and add/subtract weight accordingly. The largest baby was 330 and the smallest was 136.

Next were the big girls. The barn is divided into 3 main sections: one for the milking cows, the soon-to-calve cows and lastly the newly calved cows/calves. We took the first set of guinea pigs from the milking lines. They went down a chute to a head vice. Wilson, the cow manager, went over the how-tos. Our first task was hands-off condition scoring. To take a CS, one looks at the cow's transverse processes (half ribs behind the ribs), the spine and tail head. The scale is from 1 to 5, skeletal to obese, depending on the fat covering in those areas. Then, we compared our estimations to a hands-on CS. Dairy cows average around 2.5. Next, we estimated weights which can be roughly determined by a Weigh Tape. The tape goes around the girth of the cow. Despite the fact they look like skin and bones, these girls weigh in at 700 kilos!

My favorite part was working through the locomotion grading. Most of the cows were in good walking condition but a few were lame. Things to look for are a straight back, even dewclaw touching and the back foot stepping where the front left off.

We ran a few more cows through the paces. While herding some 1 to 3 week out girls (weeks from calving that is), I saw a brand new calf stand for the first time. Shortly after that, there was heifer starting to calve. Pretty nifty stuff!

After a cow-filled afternoon, Maria and I quickly changed into rugby gear and sprinted to Peffermill. That's the problem with coming from the farms, the bus doesn't get back until 5:30 and training starts at 5:30. Bleh!!

The lesson for the day was TACKLING!! I finally get to use my mouthguard which is a nifty boil-and-mold. It even has a guarantee for up to $10,000 for any dental work. Anywho, everyone started on the tackle bags. The form is get low, hit with shoulder, wrap arms around and drive diagonally up. Yay!! It's like violent football(soccer). I'm afraid that I'm too small to play a forward. The forwards are the bigger players that play in the rucks(more on this later) and tackle. We worked on this for quite some time before all the old players split off and played full contact scrimmage with drills while the newbies watched and learned.

Gonna be sore tomorrow!

The Death...

I spent the past week attempting to survive...

Everyone has passed around a nasty stomach bug. Last Tuesday, I started to feel under the weather. I barely made it through Wednesday lectures. Unfortunately, I had to go to my Thursday practicals which I nearly passed out from walking up the stairs. Everything was exhausting and I was either starving or nauseous. So, lots of sleeping and watching TV shows.

I was positive that it was simply the stomach flu. However, some facts have been brought to the light...7 days after calf handling, other people profusely throwing up and two being diagnosed with a zoonotic disease and I don't get sick. These have lead me to believe I have been infected with Cryptosporidium. The new baby calves are known to carry crypto which is why we wear waterproofs, wellies and gloves. The average incubation time is 2 to 12 days after exposure. The 7 days after calf handling is perfect timing. Several others have been horribly sick and much worse than I was. The symptoms include fever, stomach cramps, diarrhea, nausea, vomtiting. Thankfully, I managed to keep everything down, albiet barely. Finally, two girls were diagnosed by their general practioners with crypto.

Lastly, my immune system is rock solid. The silly flu hasn't gotten to me in years. Even at A&M with all of my roommates infected, I stayed healthy! Also, I feel so much cooler saying I survived a zoonotic disease than the simple flu.

My diet consisted of bananas, oatmeal and trying not to throw up. So, I must catch up on my lack of nutrition. It seems as though I can't eat enough now.

Mary King's Close

The graduate corner of the class joined up for The Real Mary King's Close tour.

Below is the blurb from the website:

"The Real Mary King’s Close consists of a number of closes which were originally narrow streets with houses on either side, stretching up to seven storeys high. In 1753, the Burgh Council decided to develop a new building on this site, the Royal Exchange (now the City Chambers). The houses at the top of the closes were knocked down and part of the lower sections were kept and used as the foundations for the Royal Exchange. The remnants of the closes were left beneath the building, dark and ancient dwellings steeped in mystery."

Despite my sickness, I ventured to High Street. Being a Saturday night, lots of people were out partying and groups of tours were going around. Luckily, Crissy found me because I was very confused. The tour is through a creepy tunnel.

It's quite pathetic how quickly the collective age of the group went down. As soon as we started down the stairs to begin the tour, most of us started nervous laughing and avoiding get stuck at the back. The tour was simple enough, a look into the lives of the people who lived there. 12 people cramped into a 15x15 room with disease and starvation afoot.

A close is a narrow street with tall buildings on either side. The closes' buildings got taller and taller going downhill until they reached the loch. Loch North once existed where Princes Park is now. The street is maybe 10 feet wide, imagine how squished the place would be the vendors up and down, staircases and even horse-drawn carriages. The poor lived on the bottom where the sludge and very top where it was cold. The hoity, toity rich lived on the upper middle floors. Twice a day, the toilet, also known as a bucket in the corner, was emptied on the street. The sewage would be ankle-deep and eventually flow into the loch. It explains why the park is VERY green...same with Meadows Park except it is filled with dead people (plague victims).

Because it was the "supernatural" tour, our group got to hear the first ghost story. It went something like shadowed creatures dancing on the walls with a creepy, old voice speaking to the inhabitants. Of course, the guide turned of the lights and squealing/shrieking ensued.

One room had a creepy pile of stuffed animals left for the spirit of a little girl. Often, psychics will stay in the rooms, record emf and voices and get feelings. One psychic stated there was a strong sad presence and a little girl spoke to her. She had been locked away from her family because she caught the plague. Her only comfortt was a doll that she held on to. So, the psychic brought her a tartan doll that stays in the room. Other visitors bring toys, stuffed animals etc for the girl when enough have collected the lot is taken to the Children's Hospital.

The last person that lived on Mary King's Close left in 1879. He had a pretty swanky set-up with multiple rooms. When he left, he took everything: the door knocker, knobs, handles. Sticking to the man.

Cute little gift shop at the end. I would love to go on an outdoor tour of the city soon.

Wasically Wabbits!!

Finally, vet school has started. We got to dissect rabbits today!!

The specimens were wild, nuisance rabbits that were shot or caught using ferretry. Ferreting is a legal hunting practice in which ferrets/polecats are sent down burrows to chase the rabbits out the other side where they are caught in nets. My rabbit was shot as were many of young rabbits.

The dissection room is very big and open (much better than A&Ms). The main desk has cameras and TVs are all around the room for viewing. The began with an overview of the tools and how to incise the bunny. The upside of taking the best anatomy at A&M is I knew everything before she said it.

Prof: "You need to make an incision on the..."
ME: "ventral midline."
Prof: "Once you peel back the skin, you will see the..."
ME: "Cutaneous trunci."

The dissection wasn't a guided but we did have pictures to follow along. A typical ventral midline incision and skinning half the rabbit. For most of the class, this was their first dissection and I didn't get to see any of their reactions. Because of my cutting prowess, I quickly, carefully and efficiently skinned my half of the carcass. The next table over loving referred to me as god. We looked at the nerves of armpit and carpal vs hip joints.

We had to make two windows into the side--one in the thorax/chest and one in the abdomen. Because the rabbits aren't preserved and just frozen, the opening the muscles in the abdomen was nasty. The worst smell in lab ever...worse than formaldehyde. I even had to step away to breathe fresh air. Melissa and I identified all the basic organs and answered some quick questions.

It felt great to do some vet-like stuff instead of basic cell biology!

The picture is my rabbit's deskinned foot. Pretty nifty, you can see all the tendons. What's weird is rabbits don't have paw pads...