Leaquie

One week down, only about a hundred thousand more to go.

I am tired of all the veteriarians I know telling my class, "enjoy it while you can, it goes by so fast." They say this with an air of nostalgia in their aging faces--then I think the quickly remember the air of anatomy lab, and the nostalgia fades pretty quickly. I remember people telling me this same thing my freshman year of high school--smart, saavy seniors getting weepy eyed at the thought of graduation. "oh, it goes by so fast." Maybe I had a different high school experience than everyone else, but I remember it taking exactly the amount of time it seemed to take, not too long not too short, just four simple years. While this week hasn't dragged on unbearably long, it hasn't just flown by either--I'm pretty sure that's how vet school is gonna go.

I will say, however, that I am sitting here on Friday afternoon (yeah for only 2 hours of class on Fridays!!!) completely braindead. I need to be studying, I need to be reviewing biochem from last semester, I need to be filling out worksheets. But I have decided it is bad for my health. Here's why: This morning was awesome. I slept in (7am) moseyed around getting ready, had breakfast and made it to class on time at 10:00am. I was sure my brain would be fresh, I studyed in the library during a break yesterday for 3 hours, and I took the night off catching up on Grey's Anatomy reruns. I got out my big cheif tablet and #2 pencil this morning, ready to take notes. While I felt I was rested, it seemed I was not. I could hear everything the professors were saying, and generally I think I pieced it together in my little budding veterinarian brain...but it seemed the sheer volume of major upper level material has pushed out all the space that my first grade material occupied. Things like basic spelling. You should see my notes from today, I seriously struggled--and had to write several times--words like "leaky" (my first attempt was leaquie) and "exclusionary" (ishcklution) I was seriously having a hard time just making letters. I would attempt to write a word and just sit there going...wait what does that start with. It was bad. Maybe my brain is just converting everything to latin?

I feel like I have done an ok job with keeping up with the material this week, but I still have a LOT left to do tonight and tomorrow. My brain feels like it is actually sore, like that feeling you get when you have "outdone" yourself in a new excersise routine. Can lactic acid build up in the brain? Can that pass the blood brain barrier? And, the truth is, none of this information is exceptionally hard--yet. I can identify cells in a blood smear, but remembering that porcine erythrocytes are generally crenated, avian platlets are nucleated and called thrombocytes, llama erythrocytes are oval, and horse eosinophils have large granules and are more difficult to distinguish from neutrophils, and that horse RBC's generally demonstrate Rouleax...there is just not enough room. It's enough to make med school sound like a cake walk.

I am tired, and I haven't even had a test yet. But, I am hoping like all routines, I will eventually get used to this, constant exahaustion (wow, that word took me three tries to spell, I'm still doing it). Maybe my brain will build endurance? Who knows. Right now I really need to get some studying done, but I really fear that if I try to manually shove any more information into my brain I will lose the space where basic speech, and involuntary muscle control are housed.