Thursday, March 31, 2005
Don't forget to come to the
open house this weekend! (See post below)
And yay for us--our next round of exams is around the corner. We had homework due and two quizzes this week. Pharmacology and Virology next week (and a presentation to give for an elective), Special Pathology, Companion Animal Medicine (Endocrine) and yet another Clinical Pathology Quiz early the week after.
Since we have fewer exams in each class this semester, each exam is worth more of our total grade. No pressure or anything.
This is so fun!
But
really, can't complain. The class did very well in Companion Animal Medicine I: Neurology and Ophthalmology, since they curved the hell out of the neuro exam, and the optho exam was open-book. The class got mostly A's and B's for the course. So I guess essentially most of us got a grade higher than we deserve. But again, can't complain. I'll take anything right now that lightens the load.
I'd say "good job, class" but I'd like to give credit to where credit is due:
Good job, mister 10-point curve!
Okay, no more time for bloggy-bloggy. Back to worky-work. Then time for nappy-nap.
(the delerium is setting in. not getting enough nappy-nap.)
Oh, wait! I
do have time for:
Poorly Translated Cookie Wisdom
"Behind an able man, there are always."
There are always WHAT?
Something plural. . .his wife and two mistresses? His able footprints making a mess of the foyer carpet? His able able butt cheeks? WHAT is it, man?!?!
And what do they mean by
able? Able to be in front? I don't get it!
Other side: Lucky # 1, 20, 32, 18, 56, 30
Learn Chinese: Huan-Xin, To Make Cheerful.
Cheerful? All this little cookie fortune has done is make me
confused. Urrgh!
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
What I Did with my First Weekend of Spring Break
This Spring Break, I'm sandwiching two days of work between two extended weekends.
This past weekend, Linea and I travelled to
Madison, Indiana to visit
Clifty Falls State Park. A classmate recommended it.
Alas, I forgot my camera, so you don't get to see us freezing our asses off. Surprise surprise--the meteorological prognostications were about 10 degrees off, and 10 degrees makes a big difference when you have a 40 degree sleeping bag and nighttime temp is 30 (it was probably much lower thatn that).
Friday night wasn't bad, and it felt good to cook over a fire, star gaze, pee by moonlight (the bathrooms are closed until April), and hit the sack early, exchanging stories in lieu of reading or watching T.V.
But the next day was rainy and the night cold, so after cooking over a campfire again, we hoteled it Saturday.
The good thing was, the rain motivated us to go into town, where we met friendly folks and enjoyed home-made ice cream and a blast back to the 1950s at Roger's Corner.
Madison was hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "the most beautiful small town in the Midwest," and I can see why. Nestled among hills and trees, the town has one main drag that appears to be doing well economically, and it's mainly comprised of locally-owned businesses.
And unlike many Illiois and Wisconsin "small towns" that are popular with suburban tourists, Madison is an inexpensive place. you can get a good lunch, root beer float and all, for under $5. I found handmade earrings for $2, very similar to ones I'd seen in Galena for $35.
Clifty Park is perfect for a day hike, since it has 4 impressive waterfalls that can all be seen within a half-day hike.
The camping at Clifty is not for the super outdoorsy, but rather for the car-camper. They have electrical hookups and full bathrooms with showers.
We cut our trip short due the the cold, so we completed our vacation with one afternoon and evening of a C-U vacation, visiting the local food co-op and Nitaya Thai restaurant for the first time. We tried to catch "
The Sea Inside" at the Art Theatre, but problems with the sound system sent us out with a raincheck, just as the plot was getting started. Oh well. Maybe we'll catch it tomorrow night.
Now I'm back to work for two days, running errands, spring cleaning, working and studying. Thursday starts my Chicago vactation with diggerblue.
Well, now that I'm on spring break and a have a little bit of time on my hands, I can't think of anything to blog about. Well, I can think of stuff, but I can't get my motivation up.
I'll try a movie review. Okay, maybe not a review, but a stream-of-consciousness rant/babble.
DVM Wannabee's First-Ever Online Movie Rant
Saw
Garden State last week in response to the high recommendations of three, count 'em
three, reliable friends. One said it changed his life. One said the characters were "real" and the ending was great enough to make up for slow moments throughout. Another said Natalie Portman was hilarious.
I wasn't impressed.
Yes, the movie had a very original, pretty look, good music and some funny characters. But I thought Portman, as adorable as she is, took a while to make her character believable (overacting?). The script was okay. The characters were likeable and/or funny--in fact, I know I've run into almost all of them some time in my life. Their situations were just plain odd, but somewhat entertaining.
So why wasn't I that impressed? What really bothered me about the movie?
It wasn't
about much, except a bunch of middle-class white folks' sour luck, lack of ambition, and general angst about life. Not a super original theme. Fine--people like this are real and exist in the real world, but do I really need to watch them talk for two hours?
As for American Suburban Angst, it can be done well.
Holden Caulfied did it first, did it best, and since then, it's been overdone, over and over again.
And as for real characters--these people were real, but very boring to watch, because I didn't
care about their problems.
Braff's character (I don't remember the characters' names) isn't thrilled with his life as a waiter/actor in L.A. He comes home to his New Jersey hometown, for the first time in nine years, to attend his mother's funereal. And, of, course, it's not just about his mother's death, but it's about his unresolved problems with his mother, father, childhood, et cetera. I'll admit, his situation is unique and problematic, but his character just isn't that interesting. (Perhaps because he's been doped up on antidepressants--prescribed by his psychiatrist father--half his life?)
Portman plays a funny, quirky girl Braff meets his first day home. Her character is goofy and charming, but not enought to inspire--only enough to escape self-pity and make her otherwise uninspired life more palatable for herself.
Peter Sarsgaard plays an old high school friend of Braff's, one character in the movie I can come close to admire. Even though his life of digging graves and living with his mom may seem lame to others, he's happy with himself, and thus okay with his life (but maybe this is all due the pot he smokes?). Sarsgaard gives a subtle perfomance, which makes his character more believable and truly funny at those odd moments in the movie. Still, his character is not the feature of the film, and the movie still plays slow for me.
The funniest characters are the peripheral ones--the guy who works at the local hardware store who pushes his pyramid scheme on everyone he meets, the former delinquent-turned-cop, and the moms of Portman's and Sarsgaard's characters, one who smokes pot and sleeps with guys her son's age, the other who hosts a menagerie of pocket pets. I don't know why, but I like these character the best. Maybe because they're weird, or maybe because they remind me of people I see every time I visit my own home town.
The only
admirable character in the movie is Portman's "adopted" brother, who came from Africa to the local college to study criminal justice, and walks around the house dusting for pawprints to learn which pet "peed on the remote." As Portman's character puts it, "Can you believe he used to be one of those kids with the flies on his face?"
But all these mildly entertaining moments were not worth the wait. Yes, I guess I'm just a hard-ass who can't appreciate this kind of surreal, brooding film. But give me real people with real problems, who do more about their situation than ponder and talk and "try" to shed a tear, and you've got my interest. (Oh--and I don't believe for a minute that falling in love with someone in four days can make your life better, if your life and your sense of self was miserable to begin with--this myth is the basis for many a failed marriage.)
I have no interest in these stories of unresolved childhood issues, ennui, and "romantic love" coming in to save the day. Give me an angst film with
hope (and not the kind that's just based on romantic "love"). Why? Because that's reality. Hope is real.
Reality isn't about the world being a grey place because you're bored or unsatisfied with your own life. People with real problems can't afford the luxury of ennui. Real love doesn't happen in four days and offer a quick fix to the dullness of an uninspired life.
Reality means the world goes on spinning no matter how bummed out or bored we get about our own lives. Reality means that there are billions of people out there with problems much more real than ours. Truly
real people find solutions to their problems and/or move on--they have no other choice. Real love requires both people to have a strong spirit and an ability to love themselves.
You want an angst story about real people who seek real solutions to real problems? Watch
The Motorcycle Diaries. Better yet, read the memoirs. If you won't watch that because you have issues with Che Guevara, see
Boyz in the Hood.
You want a more touching, more believable love story about a free spirit inspiring a new lease on life? Watch
Harold and Maude.
Or, if you want to watch two hours (but it felt like three) of a bunch of twenty-somethings pondering their pain and the dullness of their lives, and you appreciate pretty cinematography and totally inplausible yet cliche endings, watch "Garden State."
Sorry, guys.
At least the music was good.
Cookie Wisdom
Well, today I opened a cookie that was sitting in my desk drawer. (I must have put it in there foreseeing a future jones for subtle sweetness.) I just can;t believe the fortune was actually a
fortune this time--not a cute proverb, a uncannily accurate statement about my personality, or a bit of unsolicited advice--a true
fortune!
"
A pleasant experince is ahead: don't pass it by."Well, I guess it is a fortune
with added adveice.
So I'll be on the lookout. What could this experience possibly be? The pile of dirty laudry staring me in the face? No. As much as I enjoy the smell of bleach and stale cigarettes, I don't think I would go so far as to call a trip to the laundromat "pleasant."
Maybe it was the eating of the cookie. In that case, too late--I didn't exactly "savor" the experience. I already let it pass by.
Poo.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
This blog has virtual value!
It's worth over $4K in make-believe dollars on
blogshares.com
Now that I've finally got ads in the upper right that are veterinary in nature, I run the risk of reverting back to stupid drug ads by mentioning a certain virus in this post.
You know what? I don't care. Maybe at least one of my three readers can use a good dose of lysine.
Random Veterinary Factoid for March 15, 2005:
Herpes simplex causes cold sores in humans.
Herpes simiae (a.k.a. Herpes B) causes cold sores in non-human primates.
If a monkey gets Herpes simplex, it won't get cold sores, but it will get encephalitis and die.
Likewise, if a human gets Herpes simiae, she won't get cold sores either, but she will get encaephalitis and die.
Take home message: Don's kiss monkeys or apes with cold sores.
To keep myself blogging on a more regular basis, I've come up with a few ways to post even when I don't have time to rant and ramble. I'll start doing a weekly series of itty bitty posts in case I have nothing else to say. Last semester I had Dr. Wallig's Tie of the Week, but that required uploading photos and all that. We busy 2nd years have no time for such foolishness.
So here's two new series: "
cookie wisdom" and "
random veterinary factoids."
Cookie Wisdom
For the past decade or so, I've been collecting fortunes I get in fortune cookies. I roll them up, and I used to put them in this little wooden kayak my buddy Andy brought back from Nepal, but that got full, so now I keep them in the box Elena brought from Japan. (I travel the world vicariously through my friends.)
So when I feel like it, I'll pull one out and post it.
Cookie Wisdom for March 15, 2005:
"Some men dream of fortunes.
Others dream of cookies."
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Come one, come all. . .to the University of Illinois College of Vet Med Open House
It's FREE! And fun for everyone, especially the kids!
. You'll get to pet some itty-bitty pink piglets!
. . .and turtles
. . . .and horses
Perform and exam and surgery
on stuffed animals
. Meet hawks and owls
Milk a cow!
. And watch sheep get sheared!
For more photos, click
here
If you've got some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket, get wined and dined at the
4th Annual Doodle for Wildlife Auction and meet
Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald (from Animal Planet's "
Emergency Vets") and bid on
doodles by Al Pacino, Loretta Lynn, Joan Baez, the late Jerry Orbach, Dave Barry, Barbara Walters, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Sarah Jessica Parker and more famous folks.
.
