Not My Best Post, but So Many Things!

I am so, so glad it's the weekend. This entire week seemed to creep by.

Slower even than this guy, probably.

...and then today ended it off in an insane, adrenaline-fueled haze.

o.O

So to start it all off, I took a radiography test at 7:30 this morning since I won't be here Monday to take it with everybody else because I'm driving to Bloomington, IN with my sister for my Prisca's doctoral recital. And of course this test I studied the most for of any test yet this term and that alone stressed me out. Mrs. R suggested I even take it next week, since she told us it would be hard, but I was all: "weellll... that probably won't go so well since I am not going to study over the weekend."

"Fair enough," she said.

So I took the test this morning and had major confusion on three of the questions, since I overthink everything, but it turns out I got them right after all. After I handed the test over Mrs. R said "was it as bad as you thought it might be?"

"Yes," I said, and she laughed a lot more than I thought my comment warranted. But hey, I love to make people laugh.

Then we fell into this weird time-slog where every class seemed to take forever. I found out, during Exotics, that somebody's grandfather is going to bring his macaw in on Monday and I AM MISSING IT.

"It's okay," says Macaw. "Another time, perhaps."

 So then me and four friends had signed up as the first group in our class to do our first ever actual radiography practice with the machine and an animal and the personal protective gear and thyroid shields and everything and like an idiot I was like "YOU GUYS, let's do Lucy, because she's crazy and Mrs. R can teach us how to radiograph crazy dogs!"
Because here's the thing--Mrs. R told us most animals can be positioned and will hold still for radiographs, and you get good at it and don't have to sedate them. So my thought process was "wow, I can't imagine that. I want to see how this is done. Lucy is a bit of a crack puppy, so she'd be a good choice, and we'll get to do the whole trial-by-fire thing under professional supervision!" And my friends, bless them, were like "sure! sounds good to us!"

BUT WAIT; I was trying to be responsible and take Lucy out beforehand to potty and get some of her energy out (a useless endeavor) and along the way I discovered Lucy is now in heat, so her usual crazy had increased ten-fold.
We returned, fifteen minutes before we were due in the radiography room, and I handed Lucy off to my buddy, Erica,​ while I ran to get treats to keep Lucy calm. Unfortunately, there were only three left, and since I care inordinate amounts about not being "that person," I jogged to the storage room to get a new bag for kennel. Whilst shoving a door stop in place I got accosted by my friend Emily​ who was all "somebody's having a panic attack in the bathroom and locked herself in so I ran and told the teachers and Dr. D is in there with her!" so then it's like, three minutes before I'm supposed to be in the radiography room, but I'm like "crap."

I didn't want to get in the way if the situation was being handled, but on the other hand, lots of bad things happen while lots of people watch because everybody assumes somebody else it taking care of it. And hey, I've got lots of personal experience with panic attacks.

So I went in the bathroom and I guess it was a good thing I did because the girl in there with the other girl was trying to help but obviously was at a bit of a loss. So I obnoxiously took over and ended up spending fifteen minutes teaching the girl breathing exercises (thanks, Mother-in-Law, for the training!) and she did awesome and got control back and I showed her some relaxation stuff and was totally actually useful, I think. I love being useful.
And the girl is really cool, and now I know her name and want to be friends with her.

Well, anyhow. We parted ways and I bolted for the radiography room (no clue how late I actually was--I just ran in and apologized and got filled in on the first part later). But since I wasn't stressed enough, of course Lucy was INSANE CRAZY DOG and would not stay calm. After about what felt like ten minutes of wrestling with her (while we were all wearing heavy, bulky lead-protected mittens), Mrs. R--who had already wrestled with Eugene (an intact, crazy, beefy male dog) earlier--was finally like "NOT DEALING WITH THIS; SHE'S DONE. GET ANOTHER ONE!"

So by golly we picked another one. A beagle mix named Buster. We had to measure him and re-do all the calculations and XRAY settings. Finally Erica, Amy, Mrs. R and I got him down and got our right lateral thorax view. Then we helped Jordan and Victoria suit up.

Sexy thyroid shield not pictured.

Then I and my two buddies spent an awkward and hilarious ten minutes groping each other in the completely dark processing room, trying to get the film out of the cassette, and the photoprinting in the correct place, and then feed the film through the processor (all with absolutely no lights and trying not to mess up the pre-processed film with our fumbling, grubby little fists).

You guys, it TURNED OUT BEAUTIFULLY. I mean, except for a fingerprint in the film. BUT WHATEVS. Meanwhile Victoria​, Jordan​, and Mrs. R courageously wrestled Buster into VD frog leg position.

This, only with fewer props.

 They got their view! Then they processed it while my group cleaned everything, and the whole thing was super successful and we shared high fives all around and Mrs. R said something about it being so nice working with people who are friends.

"How do you know we're friends?" returned Victoria. "We might all hate each other."

"Well," said Mrs. R, "you're doing a really, really good job of hiding it. Thank goodness."

Turns out Lucy would have been amongst that small percentage of dogs that Mrs. R would "immediately torb up" for radiography if she'd encountered her in practice.
Good job, Lucy.

And I guess I never actually refilled the treat container. Whoops.

During all of this insanity I was experiencing, Garrett was at some huge Pittsburgh city-planning shin-dig behind the scenes with super duper special headphones and insane video equipment (including a 16x9 foot LED screen with LEDs for all the individual pixels) while his teammate was in the audience, providing feedback, while one of the company's projects Garrett worked on was presented to a room full of Pittsburgh big-wigs and some people from Copenhagen and stuff. And afterwards the mayor... you know, of Pittsburgh... came by and gushed over their presentation and of course they forgot to get a picture with him.

"Excellent work, Simcoach Games."

Then they picked me up at school and we all went and hung out for almost two and a half hours. It was super fun--we all shared crazy animal stories, and laughed a lot. Then, in a beautiful moment, after talking about insects, a large, black, winged insect with a huge, pulsing abdomen that looked stinger-laden flew into my face and dropped down my shirt and into my bra (we were outside on the deck of the restaurant) and I flipped out. Garrett then spent the next frantic two minutes trying to fish it out without it [possibly] stinging me or injecting my boob with evil insect eggs or biting me, and meanwhile this old dude who was alone at a table beside ours watched the whole thing in helpless mirth.

Glad we provided everybody with some great after-dinner entertainment.

And now we can relax for a day before my sister gets here and she and I drive 7 hours to IN, then Tuesday morning drive 7 hours back so I can make it to the house for the 3pm inspection.

Ramble ramble ramble. Time to play some Minecraft.

Happy Valentine's Day

Fifty Shades of Grey is just a Twilight porno-fanfic, so it makes sense that it sucks. But at least it provides some good artistic inspiration.

I <3 y'all.


Here is something much more awesome and romantic:

Stories from Vet Tech 7: Distracting Pictures, and Tough Decisions

Well, term 4 hasn't finished yet, but I think I and my friends figured out why upperclassmen always complained about fourth term. They weren't clear in their explanations, though. From what they said, we thought we'd have a test or two every single day, and they'd all be so hard our brains would leak out our ears.

But thus far this term has still had fewer tests than last term (the final tally for last term was 30 tests in 38 days of class... as of today we've only had nine tests in fifteen days), and they haven't really seemed any harder than last term. The issue appears to be that this term is just HORRIFICALLY BORING. Maybe it's because we're not doing much with any animals in class. Or maybe this is the hump term of school--our Wednesday of sorts, and we just have to get through it, and we'll be over half-done, and time will speed up again. Who knows. But it's been rough. There have been some good moments, though.

For one thing, during first term I got really close with a group of girls, but we got split up for second and third terms. I was with one of them through those terms, which was awesome, but I very much missed the others. But this term we're all back together again! In the meantime, I got closer with some other excellent ladies. But this term has definitely been filled with good times with all my friends. Multiple times they've proved how awesome they are; making sure I got study packets when I was sick and missed a day, being encouraging and kind in general, and just generally making time at school a really positive experience... even when I'm not feeling great, and even when we're all just trying to survive the next test.

A second thing happened which has helped make my future career goals more clear. Our Animal Tech class this term is Everything Laboratory Animal, basically. So that means really in-depth info about mice, rats, and other common lab animals.

The professor worked at Pitt's research lab for years and loved it. Last week after class one day she told me that I should try to do my externship at Pitt because "[I] have the scientific mind and would really be able to appreciate the research environment." Now, my head immediately swelled several sizes (I'm a sucker for praise from people I have respect-crushes on).
Visions of accolades danced in my head for days.
Now, I was 95% sure I had no interest in pursuing lab work as a career, but I'm always up for learning new things, so to do my externship at Pitt would be almost ideal; I could see what really goes on in a research lab, be involved in actual research, learn a ton, have a great addition for my resume, but then after the two month externship, move on to vet tech work I'm more interested in.

But the more I thought about lab work, the more I realized I didn't want to do it--at all. It's all well and good to say that laboratory research is going to help other animals and people (which it definitely is), and that there are lots of regulations that mean animals get analgesics and such if they need them. But the fact of the matter is, those animals are still almost all going to be euthanized when research is over (sometimes before, since the researchers need to run tests on body systems or need amounts of blood that a single, live, tiny mouse can't provide and still live to tell about it), and a lot of the research involves giving them terminal diseases... on purpose. I can deal with the animals at school getting poked and prodded because after six month's time they get adopted and [mostly] get really good homes. But lab animals usually don't. I dislike doing uncomfortable procedures on animals at any time, but knowing that it's not even to make them better or healthier, but rather harm them (even for the "greater good") makes me queasy.

Despite all this I was still talking myself into pursuing it. Why? Because I have always hung out with brilliant people. Not just smart people, but brilliant people. I got born into a family of them, some of my siblings are them, a lot of family friends are them... I grew up surrounded by brilliant people. Because of that I've had a pretty great education. But I'm not brilliant myself--I don't have the talent or the drive.

In college, I chose "enough sleep" 9 times out of 10, and tried to split the rest of my time equally between achieving the other two goals, and didn't really care if neither were achieved.

But here's the issue; for the entirety of my life, brilliant has been the norm. Brilliant is expected. It's just sort of assumed. Don't get me wrong, brilliant is pretty cool--I've learned all kinds of really fascinating things, and know people from all sorts of scientific, artistic, and philosophical backgrounds. If I have a question about something, chances are good I know, or have some connection to somebody actively working at a doctoral level in that particular field. I love that. I love learning. I love knowledge. But I have no desire (currently) to pursue further academic degrees.
I don't want to be a vet; I want to be a vet tech.

But I do want all those brilliant people I know and respect to respect me and ascribe to me the same brilliance they have. I like being thought of as "smart." And I am. But I come from a place where the average intelligence is master's level at the least. That's unusual, so I know my perspective is skewed. But being able to say that I have a "background in research" basically assures me a seat amongst the academics.

Luckily the majority of the brilliant people I know respect tradespeople. I know they don't think I'm dumb because I want to be a vet tech. But I think some of them sort of assume it's only a step along the path to being a full-fledged DVM or veterinary medical researcher.

Maybe I could do it. Maybe I could go to vet school and do great. But I don't want to. I don't want to go to school for years or spend months writing research grant proposals. It would drive me crazy. I love working with my hands, and I love animals. I love working with my brain, as well--but more as a sort of hobby.
Being a Vet Tech involves a lot of abstract brain work, don't get me wrong--but it's all directly tied to the practical. I need to know all the intricacies of how and why a dog might get infected with Dipylidium caninum, and what to do about it, but I've still got an actual animal standing in front of me. Showing clinical signs. Actual tests I can physically run. Things I can see, things I can do. The abstract knowledge is tied directly to the physical reality, and that's the way I like it; that's the way that makes sense to me.

I know this about myself, and I love this about myself. But I also want to be brilliant.

"But you'd hate it," Garrett said. "You'd hate working in a research lab."

"I knowww," I whined. "But I'd learn so much! People would think I'm a smartie!"

"They already do," he said. "You don't need to be doing something you'd hate to try to prove something people already know."

"But if I did research it'd be OFFICIAL that I'm smart."

Then, of course, I accepted what I'd already known--I didn't want to do it for the love of the thing. Yes, I would appreciate having a more intimate knowledge of how research is conducted. But I can always ask all the people I know who already work in research. I didn't care that I might indirectly be saving thousands of human and animal lives in the future by giving mice cancer now; I would have to steel myself every day and hate myself a little bit more every time I injected another one.
It's not like I'm not going to egg researchers' homes or anything--it is indisputable that they have saved countless lives--but I don't want to personally be involved in it if it involves harming many other little creatures.
What it comes down to is that I just want to convince myself that I'm brilliant, and have other people recognize it.

This is, needless to say, fruitless and vain.

So I'm going to concentrate on regular clinic work, but seize any opportunities I can to also work with exotics and large animals. There: immediate relief.

Or why not both exotic AND large?

But parrots are pretty great...

And I definitely need horses in my life at all times...

Basically, there are a ton of other things I could be doing as a Vet Tech that I would absolutely love.

My mom once introduced me to someone as "our closet academic." I like that. I'll take it.

I love what I am learning at school, and what I'll be doing in practice, and I have found my niche; I am content.

So now that all that rambling is over and done with and given to the wind I'll leave you with this moment from last week...

Clinical Lab this term is all about cytology--tumor biopsies are obvious topics, but also we've covered fertility-related cytology (most common with breeding animals).

 Female cytology lecture and lab wasn't too bad. But male cytology... well.
Our professor started out the lecture with this comment:

"I'm going to talk about the procedure first, and then we'll go to the powerpoint. The pictures are a bit distracting."

You will understand why if you choose to watch the following video of Garrett reading aloud my notes from that class. I give it a strong Awkward/PG-13 rating. Proceed at your own risk.

And yes, I checked with him to be sure he was okay with me posting it.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm narcissistic enough I don't mind."