Last semester marked the end of general anatomy, though we still have comparative anatomy this semester. Having done the musculoskeletal system and thorax in first year, that left the head and abdomen. The division of learning was interesting: out of ten labs, seven were on the head, and three were on everything else.
I'm not sure who thought that was the best idea. If you ask me, they could probably have just made some sort of neuroanatomy/neurophysiology course to take the place of one of our useless ones (because sadly we have several that are a complete waste of time). It would seem to me that the abdomen is pretty important--think about how much a vet has to work with it, between the stomach and intestines, kidneys and bladder, and urogenital system. I'd imagine we're going to see a lot of spays/neuters, dogs swallowing things they shouldn't, horses with colic (abdominal pain), cats with urinary tract diseases, and everything else you can think of. Yet for some reason our learning of the anatomy of those things was all in one lab.
The last lab was so huge, in fact, that there was a giant warning page at the beginning of the preparation section and the dissection instructions. It very disapprovingly states that if you've gotten into the habit of not finishing, or even starting, the preparation sections, you had better get your act together because this module 10 is intense. It makes a point of reminding everyone that if you don't complete the preparation section and you get caught, you'll fail the lab.
Note: Writing this now since starting comparative anatomy, and looking at last semester's lab book, it saddens me to notice that lab 10 in it's massive enormity of reading, questions, and dissection, is still smaller than the work required for comparative anatomy. The first lab was 30 pages. The second lab was 40.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Slave Auction
As part of the fundraising for their halfway day--the day that is exactly half way through their degree, and they go off skydiving and partying and stuff like that--every year the third years hold a slave auction. At this event, groups of third year vets perform talent acts and then you can bid on them. If you win a group of slaves, you get them for two hours worth of work. The advertisements suggested having them clean your flat or be your best friend at a party and make you look cool. It is traditional for the other years to chip in and buy a set of slaves.
The average price for slaves was about $200, and they ranged between $100-$300. Everyone in our class gave the class rep $2, so with 100 people in our class that was just enough to buy one set of slaves. Our plan was to have them clean up after the First Year-Second Year party (that didn't actually happen so I'm not sure what we'll use them for). We kept getting outbid, and just barely managed to snag the last group for sale.
Most of the groups just did dances. One of them poked fun at our professors with rewritten lyrics. My favorite group was one that dressed in black morph suits, turned out the lights, and had glowsticks taped to their bodies in a stick figure shape. My second favorite was a bunch of people dressed up like cookie monster. I particularly liked this one because they had a huge amount of homemade cookies that they kept throwing into the audience. I got one.
One of the groups that didn't do a dance had this idea to sweeten the deal. You see, if you bid on them, you also got to take home your very own prosthetic leg. One of the bidders was a guy with crutches.
Another set of slaves was in the form of a barbershop quartet.
And, because it wouldn't be a vet event without random nudity, the audience somehow coerced the MC into taking his clothes off. I think that happened because the last set of slaves, a group of four guys, had already gotten some clothes off: when the bidding petered out, they kept offering to remove something if someone made a higher bid. Yeah, those were the ones we won.
The average price for slaves was about $200, and they ranged between $100-$300. Everyone in our class gave the class rep $2, so with 100 people in our class that was just enough to buy one set of slaves. Our plan was to have them clean up after the First Year-Second Year party (that didn't actually happen so I'm not sure what we'll use them for). We kept getting outbid, and just barely managed to snag the last group for sale.
Most of the groups just did dances. One of them poked fun at our professors with rewritten lyrics. My favorite group was one that dressed in black morph suits, turned out the lights, and had glowsticks taped to their bodies in a stick figure shape. My second favorite was a bunch of people dressed up like cookie monster. I particularly liked this one because they had a huge amount of homemade cookies that they kept throwing into the audience. I got one.
One of the groups that didn't do a dance had this idea to sweeten the deal. You see, if you bid on them, you also got to take home your very own prosthetic leg. One of the bidders was a guy with crutches.
Another set of slaves was in the form of a barbershop quartet.
And, because it wouldn't be a vet event without random nudity, the audience somehow coerced the MC into taking his clothes off. I think that happened because the last set of slaves, a group of four guys, had already gotten some clothes off: when the bidding petered out, they kept offering to remove something if someone made a higher bid. Yeah, those were the ones we won.
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Professors: Three Stances
Mr. Yorkshire accent who teaches nutrition is a cute old guy with messy white hair who not only uses the overhead projector, he doesn't know how to turn the computer projector off (so the computer's log-in screen isn't in the way) and has to have a student do it for him. He also calls the overhead transparents "acetates." I thought that was an acid with two carbons, but ok.
He has three, and only three, stances that he assumes during lecture.
Stance 1: This professor's most common state is with his hands level at his face. I think this is to emphasize his point. All his points, really. He looks into the middle distance, hands up to the sky, palms towards him, as if he's pleading with heaven, for pretty much most of the lecture.
Stance 2: This is interesting because his posture when he uses a pointer to point at the overhead is exactly the same every single time. He always turns to face the screen, puts his left hand on his hip, has the laser pointer in his right arm, and bends his right elbow keeping it level with his hip. He assumes this stance whenever he points to tables and graphs on his "acetates."
Stance 3: Whenever he needs to list something, such as benefits of a certain thing, his hands do drop below face level to a more normal position. He holds out fingers with his left hand and taps them with his right, just like anyone would do when counting out a list. Strangely, no matter how many points there are, he seems to get stuck on the third finger. If there are four points, he will just tap his third finger twice. It is important to note that these are fairly large, exaggerated list-counting-tapping movements.
A common cycle seen in his lectures is to begin with Stance 1 describing a topic, and switching to Stance 2 to point at a table that has data concerning this topic, then move to Stance 3 to list out key points. He will then return to Stance 1 to bring his point home, and the cycle restarts.
He has three, and only three, stances that he assumes during lecture.
Stance 1: This professor's most common state is with his hands level at his face. I think this is to emphasize his point. All his points, really. He looks into the middle distance, hands up to the sky, palms towards him, as if he's pleading with heaven, for pretty much most of the lecture.
Stance 2: This is interesting because his posture when he uses a pointer to point at the overhead is exactly the same every single time. He always turns to face the screen, puts his left hand on his hip, has the laser pointer in his right arm, and bends his right elbow keeping it level with his hip. He assumes this stance whenever he points to tables and graphs on his "acetates."
Stance 3: Whenever he needs to list something, such as benefits of a certain thing, his hands do drop below face level to a more normal position. He holds out fingers with his left hand and taps them with his right, just like anyone would do when counting out a list. Strangely, no matter how many points there are, he seems to get stuck on the third finger. If there are four points, he will just tap his third finger twice. It is important to note that these are fairly large, exaggerated list-counting-tapping movements.
A common cycle seen in his lectures is to begin with Stance 1 describing a topic, and switching to Stance 2 to point at a table that has data concerning this topic, then move to Stance 3 to list out key points. He will then return to Stance 1 to bring his point home, and the cycle restarts.
Monday, 1 August 2011
It's Good Not Being First Year
Today the first years had their initiation.
Last week, there was actually a "fake" initiation, where the third years did storm the classroom, shouting and blowing whistles and getting everyone to take their shoes off, rattling their cages but nothing happening after that. I heard it went poorly.
Having been warned by our third year friends, we all gathered near the vet tower and grabbed as many water balloons, eggs, bags of flour, and cartons of milk as we could. In front of the vet tower is the bridge that crosses the vet pond, and there was a tarp tunnel filled with what appeared to be mud, but one whiff of it revealed it was actually cow poo. A bit more potent than horse poo, which is what we got thrown at our class. A number of third years were putting water balloons in the vet pond. Three of them had a big slingshot, one of them holding each end, and the other practicing launching water balloons. He hit the third years that were setting up the poop tunnel.
Waiting and snickering, our first indication of the incoming victims was several third years running from the direction of the lecture hall. You could tell they had just stormed the first years, taken their shoes, and sent them out back. Shortly after this, screeches and screams and whistles and shouts could be heard from the route between the lecture hall and the vet tower. This is them running through the gauntlet of third years armed with their assortment of projectiles, no doubt.
Then they appeared! In ones and twos they struggled through the poop tunnel, emerging to clouds of flour and fish oil and milk, and most importantly, me and my friends armed with water balloons. I was actually on this awesome streak and hit like 4-5 of them out of the 10 or so that I threw (which is pretty good considering they were running and ducking).
Then the poor sods got ushered out to the concourse, where there was loud music and they were forced to dance this ridiculous dance everyone learns at VLE (the professor that instigated this apparently makes people do it at the beginning of all her lectures, too). Standing around dancing made them way better targets than when they were running and ducking.
After that they got the lovely news that their shoes were locked away and the key was in a balloon in the vet pond.
Last week, there was actually a "fake" initiation, where the third years did storm the classroom, shouting and blowing whistles and getting everyone to take their shoes off, rattling their cages but nothing happening after that. I heard it went poorly.
Having been warned by our third year friends, we all gathered near the vet tower and grabbed as many water balloons, eggs, bags of flour, and cartons of milk as we could. In front of the vet tower is the bridge that crosses the vet pond, and there was a tarp tunnel filled with what appeared to be mud, but one whiff of it revealed it was actually cow poo. A bit more potent than horse poo, which is what we got thrown at our class. A number of third years were putting water balloons in the vet pond. Three of them had a big slingshot, one of them holding each end, and the other practicing launching water balloons. He hit the third years that were setting up the poop tunnel.
Waiting and snickering, our first indication of the incoming victims was several third years running from the direction of the lecture hall. You could tell they had just stormed the first years, taken their shoes, and sent them out back. Shortly after this, screeches and screams and whistles and shouts could be heard from the route between the lecture hall and the vet tower. This is them running through the gauntlet of third years armed with their assortment of projectiles, no doubt.
Then they appeared! In ones and twos they struggled through the poop tunnel, emerging to clouds of flour and fish oil and milk, and most importantly, me and my friends armed with water balloons. I was actually on this awesome streak and hit like 4-5 of them out of the 10 or so that I threw (which is pretty good considering they were running and ducking).
Then the poor sods got ushered out to the concourse, where there was loud music and they were forced to dance this ridiculous dance everyone learns at VLE (the professor that instigated this apparently makes people do it at the beginning of all her lectures, too). Standing around dancing made them way better targets than when they were running and ducking.
After that they got the lovely news that their shoes were locked away and the key was in a balloon in the vet pond.
Sunday, 31 July 2011
First Year Second Year Party
There's a traditional party thrown by the second year vets for the new first years every winter. At this point the first years only just escaped their Veterinary Leadership Experience, made it to the Mentor Mentee party the same night, and are very soon to be facing Initiation, but I guess that's just not enough. (As a side note several of us second years went to the Mentor Mentee party and thoroughly confused the first years, since it's supposed to be first and third).
The first year-second year party is fun when you're a second year. I'm uh... glad I didn't go to it when I was first year. It started off as a Rubik's Cube party, where everyone wore bright colors and traded with people to end up all with one color by the end of the night. The truth is, if you're a first year, things aren't really going to go in your favour at this party. Apparently for the one last year, the night got off to a great start when the entrance requirement was chugging an entire beer. Then, through the rest of the night, there were drench guns and syringes full of vodka and god knows what else, and at some point mud entered into the picture. I'm pretty sure every first year that went got tackled or hurled into the mud, chucked mud, and generally splattered with mud. Mind that it's winter. I'm not sure what else happened really, but I'm just glad I wasn't there.
We were a lot nicer to the incoming class than that. It didn't help that no one had drench guns (the things you use to give oral medication to farm animals), but there were still syringes, and the first years weren't getting in without a mouthful. There was only a very teeny tiny bit of mud, and the muddy parts of the lawn had been fenced off for the night.
I also learned of a curious tradition. Since this party takes place the day before halfway day (when the third years are halfway through their degree), the fourth years search around town for any third years they can find, then kidnap them. They bring them to our party to get smashed, presumably so they'll be hungover on their halfway day.
The theme for our party was that we dressed up as something starting with P and the first years dressed up as something starting with B. I went as a picketer, my sign said "End Cruelty to Vet Students" on one side and "Say No to Exams" on the other. Three of my friends went as planes, and they had epic cardboard and string costumes that took them four hours to make. Other Ps included: pregnant people and a pregnant nun, several pandas, a pea, a peacock, pajamas, Poliwhirl the Pokemon, a number of prisoners, a few pirates, a penis, a pyromaniac, Phantom of the Opera, Padman (who was wearing a superhero costume and had stuck pads all over it), a prostitute, a paw, a proctologist, and a pine tree. Some of the Bs were: broccoli, Batman, birthday partiers, a barefooted bathtowel, black swans, a badger, and a box. And many more!
I met a lot of the first years, but mostly they just wanted to talk to each other rather than the second years. They're kind of adorable.
The first year-second year party is fun when you're a second year. I'm uh... glad I didn't go to it when I was first year. It started off as a Rubik's Cube party, where everyone wore bright colors and traded with people to end up all with one color by the end of the night. The truth is, if you're a first year, things aren't really going to go in your favour at this party. Apparently for the one last year, the night got off to a great start when the entrance requirement was chugging an entire beer. Then, through the rest of the night, there were drench guns and syringes full of vodka and god knows what else, and at some point mud entered into the picture. I'm pretty sure every first year that went got tackled or hurled into the mud, chucked mud, and generally splattered with mud. Mind that it's winter. I'm not sure what else happened really, but I'm just glad I wasn't there.
We were a lot nicer to the incoming class than that. It didn't help that no one had drench guns (the things you use to give oral medication to farm animals), but there were still syringes, and the first years weren't getting in without a mouthful. There was only a very teeny tiny bit of mud, and the muddy parts of the lawn had been fenced off for the night.
I also learned of a curious tradition. Since this party takes place the day before halfway day (when the third years are halfway through their degree), the fourth years search around town for any third years they can find, then kidnap them. They bring them to our party to get smashed, presumably so they'll be hungover on their halfway day.
The theme for our party was that we dressed up as something starting with P and the first years dressed up as something starting with B. I went as a picketer, my sign said "End Cruelty to Vet Students" on one side and "Say No to Exams" on the other. Three of my friends went as planes, and they had epic cardboard and string costumes that took them four hours to make. Other Ps included: pregnant people and a pregnant nun, several pandas, a pea, a peacock, pajamas, Poliwhirl the Pokemon, a number of prisoners, a few pirates, a penis, a pyromaniac, Phantom of the Opera, Padman (who was wearing a superhero costume and had stuck pads all over it), a prostitute, a paw, a proctologist, and a pine tree. Some of the Bs were: broccoli, Batman, birthday partiers, a barefooted bathtowel, black swans, a badger, and a box. And many more!
I met a lot of the first years, but mostly they just wanted to talk to each other rather than the second years. They're kind of adorable.
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