Only going to be a brief entry as it was only 4days since my last blog, but I better conclude this terms blogs now or I might not get another chance till after xmas...

Since I last wrote I've completed another 3days of my Anaesthesia rotation which have gone really well. I've Anaesthetised a couple of cats, a rabbit, a dog and a calf. All were relatively routine except the dog which was a major orthopaedic op involving carpus (wrist) straightening due to a premature closure of a growth plate, major cosideration for the case being pain relieve as radius/ulna are broken during the procedure. All my anaesthetics have gone fine excpet my spey yesterday which went a bit light at one point (very difficult to assess as jaw tone was constant, eyes were fixed due to ketamine and palpebral reflex was bizzare and inconsistant with other depth parameters...it's all a learning curve).
The good thing with the Anaesthesia rotation is the copious amount of time off and due to some slight swapping around I've landed myself with today and tomorrow off to get stuff sorted, however I was 1st on call last night (though some how managed to not get called out and spent the evening being cooked for by dave and watching killbill2 with Sarah).

Big things up coming before the end of term:
- xmas part in Bristol tonight.
- final year xmas dinner tomorrow (whole year plus some clinicians get drunk and eat xmas food in the langford canteen).

Term finishes Friday and my little bro is coming over in the evening to make it in time for the meal. Then Saturday a group of 26 of us are off skiing in Les Deux Alps including Rich, should be fantastic. John and I are going to get some lessons there as are standard is a bit below others attending.

Last thing to mention before coming to a close is that Alfie is getting on great at home, there's been minimal accidents so far and he seems generally fearless of everything (Mum even woke him up with the hoover other day and he just went back to sleep).

Well that will do I feel for this term, which as I always say has gone incredibly fast. The first term of every year is always fantastic but this one for many reasons has stood out from the rest, I can honestly say that this term has been by far my best at uni, an openmic2 night, my band sounding quality, a great pantomine, some new friendships made/old ones sealed, and now it's due to finish with what will no doubt be an awesome holiday. In some way i feel that this term's conclusion marks an end of a vetschool lust for fun era as when i return the shadow of finals will be looming to close for comfort and work efforts may well need to increase. However I've no exams after xmas, so for the first time in 7years I've no xmas revision to do.

Happy Christmas everyone. x

Firstly I need to add an important evening last week that I missed out…Me and Rich went to Langford Inn for my slightly delayed birthday present, much essential relaxation after a very hectic week and some bread and butter pudding (always ideal)…

Anyway currently I’m sat at home getting this rattled off before I drive back to Bristol for some xmas dinners. Essential items on the past week’s addenda include a pantomime, some films, year book, and the dreaded Anaesthesia rotation!

So work wise, I’ve completed my first week on Anaesthesia and it’s actually gone completely fine. For some reason there’s a general fear amongst the year of this rotation as some of the clinicians involved can be quite stressy, however if you don’t mind being shouted at a little and don’t take criticism to heart then it’s actually a interesting very practical based rotation. I did a bit of reading around for once before the rotation began which definitely helped a lot and so far I’ve anaesthetised two cats and a dog, one of which was a routine spey and the others non routine. The best thing about the Anaesthesia rotation is the copious amount of time off, there’s actually more days out of clinics than in, and when you’re in you’ll probably get one or two cases for the day. However, anaesthesia on call can be a bit of a nightmare as if pretty much anything takes place on Langford site your going to get called in.
Next week on Anaesthesia I’m only in Mon-Weds as I’ve swapped some of my days off, this is ideal as I can get sorted for skiing on the Thurs/Fri and there’s parties/xmas dinners on these nights.

Biggest talking point of this blog has to be the 2006 clinical review! Every year the final years put on a pantomime to run for two days at the end of first term. The standard of the night is always ridiculously high especially given that everyone should be immensely busy stressing over clinics and fretting about the ever looming shadow of finals. Our panto was called “the Lion, the Witch, and the little cupboard at the bottom of the stairs at Southwell Street”. Big parts included:
Avril, MRO, Mike, Allison: Em, Queen, DD, Adelle
Henry, Geoff: Etchelles, Big J Spence
Isllyn: Me
Aslan: Andy F
J Day: Pete M
I managed to land myself the role of narrator which I wasn’t aware of at the time of auditions. This meant I had loads of large passages of txt to memorise which was pretty time consuming.
The story for the panto I tried to organise last year by having meetings in the pub every 2wks so that whoever wanted to give some input could and that a general story board was set before the director wrote the script over the summer. I did pretty much achieve this, though the general story line didn’t deviate too much away from what Rich and I came up with a year and half ago one night in Weatherspoons (though if the director was asked now I’m sure it’d all be her ideas, not a soar point honest). Anyway the story Rich and I came up with was to have four clinicians based in Southwell street when they were young and for them to stumble through a secret entrance that transports them to the oppressed land of Langford ruled by the evil queen MJ Day who’s put a ban on fun over the land. The kids then set to restore fun and happiness back to Langford by overthrowing the queen. Character ideas included a centaur as narrator, Mr Thumlus as Mr Thomus and Avril as a goody for once as she’s always portrayed badly.
The first night mainly years 1-3 come to see it and a few 5th years who wanted to go both nights. This was last Monday and the performances by all were awesome with only a couple of very minor mistakes e.g. I forgot some lines.
The Tuesday night was fantastic and the atmosphere much improved with the addition of all the clinicians that were being played. No one made any mess-ups and the add-libbing by all was incredible. Best screw up = Henry and MRO’s mics packed up during a song so they restarted with Ian stepping on stage to do some stand up while they sorted it.
Hopefully after xmas the DVD of the panto will be on sale, don’t think it’ll make highstreet stores though.

Not sure if I mentioned in the last entry that the naked calendar has now gone on sale and that everyone’s photos are great (can’t say too much as some people are getting one as xmas presents).

Rest of the time over the past week has been spent at John’s watching films, eating mince pies and drinking mulled wine with DD, Chris, Paula and Mat. So far we’ve got through some incredible classics…
- Home alone 1
- Home alone 2
- Hook
Monday night after the panto wasn’t as uplifting as had potential for other reasons, though Thursday night definitely cheered me up after spending time with Sarah in Bristol eating subways and having a drink. Also we’ve got tickets to see Get Cape in Jan which I’m very much looking forward to.

This weekend began mid-day Fri as I skanked out of Anaesthesia in the aft picked up my Han from Yatton and made our way over to Wales to pick up our puppy Alfie! He’s a miniature Schnauzer and he’s absolutely incredible (can’t say I’m that looking forward to leaving the house in 10mins knowing that I’m not going to see him for 2wks). He’s settled in really well at home and has such a confident strong minded nature.
Last night I went on the local practices xmas social to a murder mystery evening with Kieran. Ended up getting pretty smashed for relatively little (drinking with people earning definitely the way forward). Night was mainly spent dancing with old people, eating bread, and singing lots of xmas tunes with unnecessarily crude lyrics.

Now I’m off to Bris for a rotation group and a house xmas dinner, I’m going to feel so full.

PS: Reading his dark materials trilogy (fantastic). Going to dinner tomorrow night with Sinead (should be comedy).

Lots to write about this week, though not really as far as work goes as I’ve been on FAP and EMS. Rich was over from Thurs to Mon and times been incredibly hectic with Soiree and Open Mic2…

My second farm animal rotation finishes at the end of this week before moving onto Anaesthesia for two weeks up till the end of term (this term has gone lightning fast). Last week on farm was farm animal practice which involves going out with the farm animal clinicians and being on call every night for emergencies, though it has potentially to be very busy my week was fairly relaxed and really useful on the practical front. Now I’ve moved onto EMS (extra mural studies) where you have the option to do three days of farm work off practice, I’ve opted not to as I’ve 2wks booked over xmas plus I wanted to get a lot of non-vet stuff sorted this wk. Therefore basically I’ve got the whole wk off except for a foot trimming practical yesterday and a preventative medicine talk plus farm animal hospital rounds Fri morning.
As far as Anaesthesia goes for next week I think for the first rotation yet I’m actually going to read up before starting as there’s definitely potential for rotational disaster with my currently exceptionally poor knowledge in the field. Therefore this weekend and maybe tomorrow is going to involve library time trying to get breathing systems, drug combinations/side effects, anaesthetic machine set up and anaesthesia monitoring sorted in my head.
Results back for last rotation (surgery) = merit, which means I’ve now had a merit for every rotation except farm in which I got a high pass. So results suggest I’m doing well this year but personally I’m sure I’m doing the minimum to get through these rotations, least it’s reassuring to think that clinicians feel I’m on track and after plenty revision 2nd/3rd term I’m sure vivas will be fine.

The past week has been pretty crazy out of school with a Soiree, openmic2 night, 2comedy nights, relaxation girlfriend time in front of scrubs and the musical cats…

Rich flew over Thurs night and then had to put up with panto and Levator rehearsals. Friday I went in for FAP and managed to get a 3:00pm finish so we could get over to the Marriott in Bristol to set up for the Soiree. Friday night was awesome, sound levels were quality and band performance no worries, even my two songs went well. Crowd didn’t get into it as much as last year though as the lower year’s don’t really know us but a few of our new covers went down well.
Rest of the Soiree involved the usual much dancing, drinking and general antics including the compulsory long island ice teas and flaming sambucas (spelling?) as has become customary with the big J Spence at every Soiree.
Saturday involved organising/sorting for the OpenMic2 Sat evening, PA had to be collected and set up and cars collected from Bristol. Rich kindly parked Ian’s car for him, as he couldn’t make it in, in the big city centre NCP and then promptly forgot which level he’d parked it in (Ian found it eventually with Rich’s highly useful instructions of “I think it’s on a floor above level 2”).
Saturday night couldn’t have gone better, the performance quality was amazing and I think it’s safe to say that the night was even more of a success than last year with £700ish profit made for the spey clinic. The line up for the night was as follows…
Act1
- Andy F, (chasing cars etc).
- JP, (Fratellies etc).
- Me, (Time for heroes/Hallelujah/Lights go out (mine)
- Kieran, (decemberists and album of the year)
- Me and Rich (death cab and greenday)
- MiniMat etc (horrendous spice girls dance routine)
Act 2
- Valenzia (3songs inc. 1 originial)
- Chris Q (soundclash)
- Henderson (baby can I hold you)
- Em (bic runga sway)
- Chris Q (stand up in a bear outfit)
- Ad and Miles (the Hoff!)
- Charlie et al (big band inc. trumpet/sax/keys playing grapevine and grease)
Prizes as awarded by Domingo were…
Most entertaining…The Hoff
Biggest talent …Me n Rich (not rigged)
Best overall performance…Charlie et al
After party was fairly comedy at Jocks house, Kieran had a big Irish argument and produced the random quote of the evening…”NO,..Christmas,..I Agree”.

Sunday there was a lot of sorting and clearing to do before me and Rich could relax and make our way over to Cheddar to get some Cheese and drink some cider. In the evening we watched fast show and Mighty Boosh live with Dave, Ian, John and Paul and made some mulled cider.
Monday Rich flew home early evening so before then we went over to the Garden Centre and finished watching Boosh.
Generally the past week has been crazy with practices for panto and Levator and sorting Soiree and OpenMic, thankfully Rich was around as would have been a major struggle getting everything done without his help.

This week is revolving around getting stuff sorted that’s been put on hold…xmas shopping, puppy revision etc.
Night before last had a wkd comedy curry night with the lads. I made mince vinderloo and mulled some lambrini….we got mul-led*
* As quoted from the comedy genius double D (can’t have me taking credit for his jokes).
Last night had a much needed chilled out evening with Sarah watching Cats musical in Bristol at Hipperdrome. Not really my cup of tea but entertained never the less, think I’ve had a sufficient dose of eccentricity for another year though.

Now it’s off to the bank to get some puppy money and then later Sinead is cooking me dinner. Tomorrow Xmas begins with home alone 1 and 2 and more mulled lambrini.
Xx

PS: For this Christmas season I recommend for all those festive Chavs…mulled Lambrini, and I’ve been good enough to provide you with Pete’s tried and tested patented recipe…
- Half one 1.5L bottle of Lambrini into two pans and add half a bottle of dry white wine into each.
- Place one mulled wine sachet into each and a good sprinkling of cinnamon and nutmeg so it turns a gravy type colour.
- Add half carton of OJ into each to make a dull urine type colour.
- Pour large quantities of sugar into both and bring slowly to the boil.
- Serve in ornate glasses and allow dirt to sediment before consumption.

Time for another weekly blog entry, though I’m gonna keep this one short (and I actually mean this for once) as I’ve panto prac in half hr…

Currently still on farm rotation and will be for another week after this. The theme of this week being farm-animal-practice (FAP) where we go out on calls the farm vets and generally have an awesome time getting in loads of practical experience. Over the three days so far I’ve sorted my surgical castration technique, gained competence at pregnancy diagnosis and scanning, dis-budded some calves and paired up some feet plus diagnosed a solar ulcer and treated a lame cow. Today I went on a repro routine visit in the morning where we did some scanning and then saw some lame cows, and then this aft we’ve just finished a sheep fertility seminar and practical, learning about examining rams for fertility soundness and performing vasectomies.
The rest of the week on FAP continues as similar, though tomorrow aft a few of us are helping teach the first years in cattle handling/examination etc.
Next week work is minimal as I’m on EMS for the week which is basically a week off with the opportunity to visit some local practices if you wish (I’m gonna opt not to as I’m not going into farm work and time is essential nxt wk for relaxation and panto rehearsals).

Social life over the last week has been eaten up by panto, soiree rehearsals and sorting the open mic night, though I did find time for a Goth n Gimp party and a visit to Wales to see some puppies…

Panto is going full steam ahead with rehearsals every night except Fri up until the panto on the 4th and 5th. As my parts quite major (timid farm vet Isllyn, spelling?, as narrator) I’m in every practice until the panto plus I’ve got two songs to sort. However I’m sorted for most of my lines and the songs are coming together well so there’s not too much to worry about.
Theme of the panto is Narnia (Lion, Witch etc). More to follow nearer the time.

Soiree is Friday and our jam last night was pretty awesome so should go fine. This will be Levator’s third and potentially last Soiree so fingers crossed will go well, though there’s still one more prac Thurs night.

Open Mic2 is on Saturday night which I’m organising. I did one last year and it was a big success so repetition hopefully a good idea. Basically night revolves around aprox 10 acts from the year/vet school/graduates(Mr Borgeat!) singing, playing guitar, dancing etc with an aim to raise some money for the final year spey clinic at the end of the year. Biggest event of the night looks currently to be DD’s and the big J Spence’s raffle, as Dave’s been all over the place on his EMS week collected prizes including 3 free meals, hair cut, £20 gift voucher, bottle wine, cheese hamper etc (literally incredible).

Last Friday was another in the fairly minimal series of this term’s house parties (Goth and Gimp), evening fun but little to say, best bit was me, John, Mat and Dave getting ready before hand (John was getting majorly jealous at the awesome quality of everyone else’s make-up and Goth accessories, John made a s**t Goth).

Rest of this week involves FAP, Soiree and OpenMic, will report on all nxt wk…

Also Rich is over Thurs to Mon so hopefully get some quality brother time in Sun and Mon i.e. visit Cheddar buy Cider and Cheese and consume vastly inappropriate quantities.

Two important recent occurances that I failed to mention in past blogs...
- Chav party eyebrow shaving. House mates plus Shep and some randomers all got bits taken out of their eyebrows to look even more authentically Chav. However Milnthorpe's large middle section, my left side and Dave's two stripes are still incredibly visible after 2wks. Quite comedy really.
- Got to have a spin in Uncle's 911 Turbo other day, like some ride at Alton Towers.
Expect nxt blog nxt wk.

After three weeks of time consuming surgery rotation I've now moved onto my second 3week block of farm greatness, this is especially ideal as the last farm rotation I completed the 3more difficult weeks leaving VPH, EMS and FAP for this1. However now that work has slackened off slightly I've got some time to get the many other events coming up sorted.

My final week on the surgery rotation was on soft tissue surgery which was surprisingly pain free after the ordeal that was orthopaedics. I got called out twice over the week and both times it wasn't at rediculous o'clock and the surgery was fairly interesting, plus I got to do most of the suturing.
Over the weekend I was on call for soft tissue which was non-eventful. I assisted in surgery friday night for a dog that had impacted its ileum with chicken feed, and other than this case I had only one other over the weekend which was a awesome little Yorkie (not a breed I generally like but this one was comedy). Other than checks my weekend revolved around eating, watching star wars and scrubs and generally relaxing with Sarah, for a weekend on call it was surprsingly good fun (which is especially important as most of the year were off in Liverpool going mental on AVS without me).
Farm rotation begins this week with VPH (veterinary public health), for this we spend our time assessing Langford abbatoir on Monday and then spend the rest of the week writing a report. We split up the report and I received the section on zoonoses which I sorted out yesterday and this morning, the exciting title of my section being (drum roll if you will)... "Two important zoonotic biological hazards involved in the processing of ovine meat for human consumption".
Other than the report this week we have to attend a seminar Weds and a preventitve medicine talk on Friday, though as Mum's not very well at home I thought I'd escape the seminar and spend some quality time at home this week with a plan to return to Langford Thurs night.

Quite short on the work front this week (makes a change) as time has been directed elsewhere. Curerently I'm sat in the bedroom above the gargage at home awating a lift from Mother to get a much needed haircut (not sure why we don't call this room the study but never mind).
Time at home has, and plans to be spent:
- getting some quality son time in for the parents.
- shopping for ski wear (early xmas present of a white ski jacket, I'm gonna be invisible).
- buying 21st birthday presents for little brothers.
- doing VPH work.
- watching Borat again with little sister (probably tonight, I think Sarah is also watching it again in Bristol to).
- getting things sorted for the open mic night (wk on Sat).
- Learning lines for the panto.
Big news at home at the moment is the massively increased likelihood of us getting a puppy. There's been talk for a long time but recent occurances have changed Mother's mind. The choice looks to be a Miniature Schnauzer, hoping to get one some time before Xmas, hunt for puppies is about to begin...nice.

This blog was supposed to be posted yesterday but the cinema side-tracted me. Now it's lunch time ish Thurs and I'm due to go back to Bris in a couple of hours to make a panto rehearsal and band practice. The Soiree is now only a week away and so practices are being stepped up, though the last few have gone fine...set list this year is...
- Franz, this fire.
- Razorlight, in the morning.
- Chilis, other side.
- Ians new song.
- My new song.
- Libertines, can't stand me now.
- Franz, Matinee.
- Vet life.
- Brim full of asha (always comedy).

That's enough for now me thinks. Upcoming time probably going to be spent learning lines, sorting open mic and practicing for panto and Soiree. Going to be a busy week (though not with work...is nice)

Chinkoui, Yashamash etc...

On soft tissue surgery now and though I expected crazy busy madness the week so far has been excellent. I picked up a fairly time consuming case at the beginning of the week that needed PEG feeding though thankfully this went home yesterday and I’ve picked up a new case today with aspergillosis. This week’s work revolves around case management, watching ops, neutering and writing a set of assessed discharge notes. As my case went home yesterday and it was also my day-off I spent the morning writing my discharge notes, which means that the only extra piece of work for the week is ticked off. I had a neutering day on Monday during which I got a bitch spey under the belt and so now the rest of the week I’m checking and watching surgery.
On call this week is not ideal though, I was on Monday night and got called out for a cat rta and I’ve still got Friday and the whole weekend to go. However the surgery Monday night was rel. interesting as there were bladder complications plus I was able to suture up.
Being on call this weekend is far from great as it’s AVS and as everyone wants to go whose able to, so swapping isn’t possible. This is especially frustrating as I was well up for dressing up as Where’s Wally (my suggestion)…not bitter honestly.
Other work related stuff necessary for inclusion is my week on imaging just gone. This week was fantastic, time was spent taking radiographs, watching ultrasound and eating copious quantities of cake (for some reason on imaging it is compulsory to bring in food, so on the Friday my rotation went a little over the top and brought in a banoffee pie, marble cake, mars bar cake, mince pies and I found a mass of reduced pork pies in Budgens which went down a treat). Assessment on imaging however isn’t by quality of cake provided, you have to take numerous assessed radiographs and comment on them, plus every morning we each get a radiograph to assess with a different theme each day i.e. thorax, head/spine, abdomen etc.
Current level of achievement in my surgery rotation stands at pass/merit in orth and merit in imaging, so potential merit is at stake depending on quality of work in soft tissue surgery.
Following this week the next rotation commences and so I start Monday over in farm with my first week on veterinary public health, obviously this is a vitally important topic and so I look forward to the famous slightly slack week that it entails.

Think that covers most current work related issues so vital social type stuff for inclusion includes one big night out in Bristol, a chav party, some tekken, star wars and the cinema.
Big night out Bristol was Halloween night, it was only me, Dave, John and Amy but the night was incredible. We started at the Tap for special exhibition cider drinking games, then made it onto the epi, mbargo and finally the lizard lounge. Don’t think there’s anything to crazy to remark about it was just a fantastic night, Sarah joined us all in mbargo, though I’m sure my level of drunkenness failed to impress… Worth mentioning stuff: Lost John for good while as he took strangers for tequilas, Dave+Amy got thrown out lounge for falling over, I got thrown out mbargo for dancing on tables and also out of lounge for the same thing, John broke Sarah’s shoe by energetic dancing and John managed to achieve great levels of drunkenness by supplying anyone who would except them tequila slammers. Imaging day after was interesting, Dave used 65mA.
Other massive night was Friday just gone…our 2nd Chav Party, this year’s theme Chav Rave. Modesty aside our party was incredible, things to note for the night…
- Jim’s old chip fat wagon had been supped up by most of the house. Modifications included a spoiler made of shelves, air-intake made from the side of a bin, shiny new tin-foil alloys, Kenwood logo, blacked out painted inside windows, blue underneath neon light, black flames down the sides and a new coat of white emulsion all over (it was blue), the end result was as you can imaging completely awesome!
- Rave was achieved; I got a PA from the union which provided ridiculous volumes for the party. Also miniMat brought 100s of glow sticks and these plus an industrial strength strobe managed to turn what was our lounge into a full blown rave.
- Many illnesses occurred though; I think John emptying dirty Greek spirits into the punch didn’t help.
- White chairs got burnt, flames interesing.
- Next day house utter mess, cleaning took large task force most of the day/aft.
Other social stuff included playing some tekken at Dave’s, watching much star wars with Sarah (secretly she loves it!), and paying visits to the cinema (new Borat film utterly incredible, don’t think either me or Sarah stopped laughing through the whole thing).

Upcoming stuff includes… open mic organisation, band practices for the Soiree (which are currently going really well) and learning my lines for the panto.

Tonight I’m cooking for Sarah and then it’s episode I to look forward to.

xx

New rotation now and life over the past week or so has been crazy hectic, though thankfully the pressure has eased off now and I've finally found some time to make an entry...

The current rotation is surgery, which consists of a week of orthopaedics, a week of soft tissue surgery and one on imaging. Last week I had the Ortho week which was hell on earth, I felt overworked with little if any respect paid to Pete's vital out of vetschool life. Final year work is quite enjoyable and I definately much prefer the all practical approach to vetlife, but when workload goes so massively beyond 8-6 that i can't fit in all the other things I like to squeeze into life it's not dificult to feel some course resentment. However (moan over), the actual work for the week was interesting, I had a couple of good cases to look after and on my neutering day was able to achieve a rabbit spey and castrate. The assessment for Ortho is based on case care and a referral letter, hopefully my case care will be fine to pass, and as for the referral letter I based mine on a shoulder lameness case which I actually found interesting.
This week work is based in the imaging department taking x-rays, watching US and gerenerally trying to come to grips with the role of diagnostic imaging in the vetworld. Work is now 9-5 and I've loved the extra time today needed to sort out many Pete organisation type things (probably shouldn't talk in the 3rd person so much, oh well).
To pass imagaing I've x-rays to assess every day, a day is spent on US and I have to be ticked off for taking a suitable chest and abdo x-ray.
Mark recieved this week for the last 3wk rotation of Small Animal Medicine 2 = Merit. Can't complain.

Other than work social life has been put on hold last week due to Ortho and illness (managed to contract myself a sub-lethal strain of what I'm told is metro-manflu, was bedridden for Tues though this was better than a day of megastress work). Last week I did have a great night with Sarah on Weds, cooked some food, watched a film (much needed de-stress).
Over the weekend I caught up on some much needed sleep and spent time with Sarah at a house party, watching films, walking dogs and calving pumpkins (noticed the error on read through but thought too comical to edit). One very enjoyable weekend!

Other organisational type efforts....
Band practices going awesome! New covers sound good, and our songs coming along well, Andy will hopefully be joinging us more regularly over nxt few wks for a crucial bass imput.
OpenMic2 is set and I'm trying to get people signed up.
Panto rehearsals all good, had one tonight. I've got so many lines to learn though it's not funny.

Upcoming important stuff...
Xmas ski trip needs sorting and paying for (26 of us including Rich are off to France the week before Xmas, can't wait!).
Nxt wk in uni it's onto soft tissue surgery, which is potentially interesting and not too heavy on the workload depending on case input at the time.

Tonight I've got stuff sorted had a chat to the Mother and generally got my life back on track to sail through the next week. I'm not sure whether I wish for a quieter life or not, becuase I don't think I'd know what to do with myself if I wasn't constantly busy.

Right now it's enough typing and off to Dave's/John's for food and family guy.
TTFN xx

Back into the swing of things now and I feel much more settled, so now I'm into the general routine of vetlife the blogs will follow their standard once weekly pattern, allowing many no doubt highly interested people a quick climpse through the window of the life of a final year vet (at one point that was scary terminology but now I feel I've spent enough time here, though it's still highly enjoyable I definately am sensing that time should be soon drawing to a close on this life chapter)... not entirely sure where that rather overly emotive blurb came from but then I tend to just type as I think with these things.

And so...over the past week things to mention include work, london, Mat's birthday, a drink, my birthday, organising and upcoming events...

Work wise the past week has seen the closing of a cat medicine rotation and the commencing of a week of pathology and opthamology.
Cat medicine week was time consuming (which I always resent) though fairly useful. I had some interesting cases to work up and got to iron out a few of my slight practical issues. The cat week is assessed on answers to questions, practical skills, a physical examination (cat), and a case report. The report took me most of Sunday night which after being busy on call all day wasn't ideal.
This week has so far been ideal, minimal hours and intersing work (ish). Monday we received a slide for us to interpret and conduct a talk on for Thursday, I'm fairly sure mine is a mast cell tumour but could quite easily be mistaken. Tuesday was spent on clinical pathology and today was opthamology. I now feel fairly confeident in doing an opthalmic examination, which is nice.

That's enough work (was lots in the last blog), next rotation is surgery so no doubt they'll be lots more to talk about there.

Saturday me, John, Dave, Paul, Jim, Kieran, Laura plus Dad, Rich and Han all went to london for the day to watch Spamalot for mine and Dad's birthday, it was a highly comedy performance enjoyed lots by all. After we went for a meal then to Soho for drinks.
Mat's birthday was Thursday, Laura cooked food and there was a mas pub attendance (we got him a record box). Yesterday was my birthday, had a pretty good day, unfortunately had to get my pathology slide sorted which meant 3hrs of my birhtday was spent in the pathology barn which is never ideal. Though the evening was cool, we had takeaway then went pub. The house got me some drum kit shaped cuff links.

Night before last I went out to Bris for a first date type drink with a girl called Sarah. Had a great night and hopefully will see her again tonight at the guillemots.

Gerneral organisation is slightly reduced as our house party is pretty sorted including PA booked, I'm now only acting in the panto (playing a Welsh cattle vet) and Open Mic 2 is well underway.

Upcoming fun includes band tonight, jam plus panto rehearsal tomorrow and drinks Bris Fri.

Avid fans and readers will no doubt be joyed to see that the Scales vetblog has not come to an end, though the finale is now certainly in site given that I’ll be sitting my final finals in June and by this time nxt yr should theoretically be busting out some real life hardcore vetwork and may even be earning my very own money…

It’s been many months since my last entry at the end of 4th yr and obviously there are ridiculously large amounts of general Pete life that could be included, though due to constant time constraints only vitals are possible.
Important points to mention I feel: Summer (hols/ems etc), the 5th yr, 1st wk, ongoing org, upcoming events…

Summer was fantastic in places and highly monotonous in others. 2months out of the three I spent doing compulsory work experience all over the country and in the other month I managed to get away for 3w in Greece and spent 1w with friends plus working.
Work experience was pretty good and definitely useful for the majority of the time. It got quite tiresome towards the end of summer as I think there’s only a certain amount of standing and watching a person can take before wanting to get much more hands on. Though to be fair all the places I went to were awesome at getting students involved but still there’s only so much they can let you do before we manage to stretch the practice day length significantly. Some of the best experience was with my good friend Kieran, as consults and operational issues were addressed plus out of hours socialisation was quite ideal, including a comedy night in Marlow and a viewing of the band Get Cape.Wear Cape.Fly.
Other than ems the summer holiday was excellent. The family spent 3w in Greece which was ideal. We had a villa for the five of us in Crete for 2w and then me, Rich and Han went off islanding to Santorini and on to Athens to fly home. I’ve wanted to do a little bit of travelling with the bro/sis for a long time and the experience definitely lived up to expectations. Santorini was by far our favourite place, island was beautiful, though Athens was pretty dam filthy.
The other week I skanked off I spent working at the vetsim conference (always an enjoyable view days) and camping in Penzance with friends. Most comedy events were the tent sick incident or the stolen Weatherspoons chair.

Right, next point to address, the big bad 5th year…
The year really started before summer with two of our three week rotations. These now continue until the end of next term. The year is spilt into groups of 11/12 and each group rotates around 3w blocks in the following areas…
Anaesthesia, Surgery, First Opinion Practice, Equine, Small animal medicine 1 and 2 (including Dermatology, ICU, Pathology, Cat medicine and Dog medicine) and Farm 1 and 2 (including farm hospital, farm practice, ems, abattoir, preventative medicine, and reproduction)… may have missed some areas but I’m sure the jist is achieved.
Currently I’m on SAM2, I had Derm last wk and this wk I’m on Cat medicine. Derm was an easy/useful and fun wk, we saw cases Tues to Thurs and had to produce a report on a fictional case we were each given. I think my case was lethal acrodermatitis in an English bull terrier, but only results next wk will tell.
Cat medicine is slightly less ideal, lots of cases hard work and more stress.
Basically the 5th yr is a hands on practical based year were hopefully we’ll gain some of the clinical skills required once we reach the big bad outside world (that I think is the idea anyway).
Personally I find I spend too much of my time trying to survive the 5th yr than actually getting on with some good learning, but that’s probably my slightly lazy attitude to the whole ordeal. What I mean is my efforts go into making sure clinicians can’t pick faults with what I’m doing and making it through one rotation to the next (I’m sure I’m not the only one). However without realising it no doubt some quality vet info must be seeping into my head when I’m surrounded by the whole thing every day.

Enough vet jabbering the 1st wk bck needs considering… Basically other than getting on with some quality derm wrk the 1st wk has been one ongoing greatness of alcohol fuelled nights, including the fresher’s party, a Langford bar night and a house party. All nights were amazing. The party was fairly lame on the pre-clinical front but 4th/5th yrs made up for the lack of enthusiasm shown and generally went pretty crazy, I also got slapped by a big dark dude but that’s another story (don’t worry family face isn’t to damaged). The bar night involved the stranglers playing for a clinicians leaving do, generally a good night though no specific stories except for John, Dave, me, Ian, Paula and Aniket getting half naked, covered in flour and dancing on a kitchen work surface till the early hours of the morning. Important props included tea towel, spatula, rolling pin, dog bowl, mop bucket and an England flag. Me and Dave got hurt by breaking 3 spatulas, never good.
Over the weekend the main event was the treasure hunt which due to last years madness was supposed to get band. Thankfully the current organisers did a wicked job and fun was had by all freshers and older years involved. Me and Milnthorpe took a team round and they were all absolute legends, the fish was kissed, the games were won, the carrots were sucked and the elephant walk was accomplished.
Not much to say about the party Sat night except comedy moustaches and much dancing, John was an absolute legend as somehow he managed to solely revive a dying party.

Back to school Monday and it was a major shell shock, I’ve spent yesterday and today trying to restore some kind of organisation to my life.
Things Pete is currently trying to organise…
- Soiree, levator’s last 1st term performance, will be awesome (can’t way to play to the school as final years).
- Panto music, I’ve landed myself the role of music coordinator for the panto i.e. get some kind of a band together.
- Spamalot, group of us are off to see the theatre production of monty python and the holy grail for mine and my dad’s birthday, this Saturday (birthdays other days).
- Open Mic, organisation of the 2nd is in the pipe line.

Other big upcoming events include Mat’s birthday, my birthday, and the gillemots (spelling?) with John. Plus I’m off for a drink with Sinead tomorrow and we’re jamming Sunday.

Tonight it’s off to the freshers pub crawl, I’m going as a breakdancer, will have to bust out some crazy big moves. Pauls made me an awesome ketoblaster thing.

Sorry last bit all rushed, have to get moving to go now and give my diarrhoea cat a klean prep.

Speak soon, it’s good to be back. x

The end of term was a week last Friday and now I’ve finally managed to find some time to get this end of year blog done. Stuff essential for inclusion in this final 4th year entry include; whatever I can now remember about the last week of term, current ems involvements and plans for the summer…

The last week of term wasn’t especially exciting as time was still heavily taken up by the equine rotation, though there were a couple of parties and also some end of term essential organisations.
End of term parties consisted of a little gathering at the vet nurses on Wednesday to celebrate Elle’s 21st and a footballers/footballer’s wives party at the girls house to celebrate the last day of term. For this final party my little sis Hannah and her boyfriend came over to experience an infamous vet party first hand. To be fair the girl’s party was pretty tame but I think most people had gone home, no doubt getting away from Langford was the majority’s priority. Comedy antics at the pty were minimal though there was some quality pole dancing by numerous guests (obviously myself included).
As far as end of term general organisation goes…
The panto is pretty much solely in the hands of Honor as I’ve taken a major step back, though no doubt I’ll be involved in the final production. Reason for the step back are time constraints and some slight group friction.
The spay clinic team has been sorted and consists of Me, Mat, Jim, Laura, Kate and Em. The idea is to raise as much money as possible next year to get loads of the year away to somewhere exotic that requires free veterinary neutering. Hopefully I’ll be able to sort out some musical events to get some cash together, other thoughts include themed bar nights, an end of term fete, sponsored events…etc
Levator Ani are currently on hold till we can get our selves in gear for the Soiree next term, though it’s yet to be confirmed that we’re actually playing. No doubt will all get sorted and practices will commence when next term starts.
The final year calendar has been sorted and the theme for our year is tv shows. It looks like I’m going to be present in a couple of months, once in supermarket sweep with the house plus Kate, again in a stars in their eyes type one for Levator and Blue Juice and also with the majority of the year’s male constituents in match of the day (for all those who play 5 a side in the EDC).

As far as work is concerned over the last week of term the priority was to make it through equine unscathed and to not have to repeat due to any last minute mistakes. Thankfully all went well and after collecting my results today I somehow managed to come away with a merit in the rotation, comments were: enthusiastic and pro-active (was pleased to see hyperactive wasn’t to follow).
Final thoughts on the equine rotation are… A tiring three weeks were the majority of the time I felt like I was treading around egg shells just to keep the working environment friendly. However I’ve learnt masses both medically and practically, and most important I think I now have a fair grasp on the overall veterinary perspective of equine work, I now feel I could go back to my notes and my brain would slot the info into the appropriate areas of equine work, now that it has a vague idea what it entails.
The next rotation when I return is small animal medicine2, which after a whole summer of small animal work should hopefully go fine.

Last but most important section, my summer…
In all other summers of vetschool I’ve achieved great mind broadening excursions to some amazing places, and though this summer has a definite holiday perk there’s no way it’s going to stand up to past experiences. The reason for this is 11wks of ems eclipsing my summer; I’ve just completed a wk at my foster practice in Derby which was good due mainly to the fact that it’s nice to be away from uni and not being constantly assessed. At the end of the week I joined the practice in a 5a side football competition and though Scarsdale FC weren’t the most pedally gifted (I’m such a geek) we did ace our last game and certainly were strong contenders for the sportsmanship award. After 5a side there was free food on behalf of a drug company, and then I went off to meet the lads in Derby for a big Blue note (indie club) session. Highlight of the night has to be that I’m in touch with a vet I met on the social after a shameful super sleazy manoeuvre involving a phone number and napkin type item.
Further ems this summer includes 2wks in Bristol doing CAS wks (being a slave check monkey), 2wks with big K down south learning from the master, 3wks in Derby at multiple small practices and 2wks near Bristol doing small also.
In the small amount of time I have available off I’ve got half a week sorted camping down Devon with the old 6th form mates, and I’m doing my three day stint at Vetsim, so will no doubt see some avid fans there. However the big trip of the summer this year is Greece with the family for three weeks. All five of us are spending 2wks in an apartment in Crete and then Rich, Han and I are off island hopping for a week, with stops at Santorini and Athens, should be fantastic.

Well I feel that’s enough I for the final 4th year entry, next time I write I’ll officially be in final year, though technically that started with the first rotation 7wks ago, plus everyone in foster refers to me as final year which still causes a twinch of anxiety every time I hear it, I know finals are far too ridiculously close for comfort. However on the bright side I’ve already sat all my written exams plus I’ve got a whole year of practical work to get this vet lark filed appropriately in my head before I start revising for the 7end of year vivas that decide if you’re going to make a safe vet of appropriate ability.
So now it’s gin up and soldier on for what has potential to be an interesting, fulfilling, sunshine involved and always alcohol fuelled summer.
TTFN xx

It’s Sunday night and I’m sat infront of the footy relaxing, something I’ve been unable to do for a fair while as life recently has been hectic to say the least. Since I last wrote I’ve made it through 2/3 of my equine rotation, driven to Suffolk twice, and attended a multitude of nights out/partys etc…

Last weekend Rich came over Friday to attend a couple of partys and generally relax as life’s been pretty stressful for the guy recently. Friday night I took him over to a 5th yr house party which was a good laugh despite the lack of people, features of the night included Ian’s multiple Vindaloo recitals, Rich and Paul’s Crouch and Becks dancing, Ian’s telling off and the crappy paddling pool.
The peach of the term’s social events took place Saturday with the Jock’s football/slipslide party. The partying started at 2:00pm with the England kick off and finished at roughly 4:00am after much carnage and drinking associated destruction. The guys had sorted out a few TVs for the match, constructed an entire outdoor bar, made a fire, sorted a bbq and generally turned the house into an ideal pty venue. However the highlight of the day was the huge plastic sheet in the garden covered with fairy liquid, wall paper paste, soap-suds and water. This was used for a multitude of party games including football, late night half naked sliding and general sliding antics, Rich even attempted some crazy frontflip slide.

The past week has been incredibly busy and stressful. I had both Monday and Tuesday off uni to drive over to Suffolk for my Granddad’s funeral, which went as well as it could go and was appropriately respectful for the old gentleman. Myself, Rich and my cousin Neil all made speeches which we managed to deliver ok.
After arriving home Tuesday night it was back to the grindstone as equine work continued for the rest of the week.

The equine rotation has gone really well so far, this I feel has had nothing to do with my equine knowledge but my group gelling together well and opposing the potential super awkward clinician force as a team. I’ve had two cases so far, one lameness case and another hyperlipaemic horse. Can’t say anymore than that, but all’s gone well and hopefully I’ll pick up another case this week. We have to get numerous things ticked off on equine of which I’ve now sorted them all out but my referral letter which I’ll get nailed on Tuesday. Tasks so far completed include and iv injection, clinical exam, radiograph taking, a talk on epistaxis (nose bleeds) and a reproductive practical. Fingers crossed I’ll have equine ticked off this time next week, which is a massive bonus before the summer as it’s definitely one of the harder rotations with a lot of on-call.

Another great night out definitely worth a mention was on Thursday when me, Tom and Nick gate crashed the girls night out. Nothing especially comedy to mention apart from Tom and I’s love heart distributions which got some fairly amusing responses.

This weekend has been Mum’s 50th birthday party back over in Suffolk again (so another 9hr round trip). The close family all came over to Nanna’s for a bbq and general booze up. The whole family had a much needed good time and I spent most of the day playing the unexpectedly aggressive game that is croquet.

Upcoming stuff includes much equine work and on call duties, a pub crawl on Weds and Hannah plus boyfriend coming over for a house party n Friday. I also need to sort out a panto meeting plus we’ve started the ball rolling on spay clinic organisation for when we qualify, will explain at a later date.

The most important thing to have happened since I last made an entry is the sad passing away of my Grandfather. I debated whether to include this in an entry but as I like this blog to accurately reflect on my life it would be insulting to Granddad not to, plus I hope to keep all these entries when I finish as a reminder to myself of everything important that has taken place during each week at Vetschool from yrs 2-5. All my family is currently in Suffolk where the Scales family originated, and I’ll be driving over once the date of the funeral is set. My upcoming rotation next week is equine and though it has a reputation for giving students a tough time I’m sure they’ll be completely amenable as far is giving me the necessary days off is concerned.

The goings on in Langford over the past week are relatively non-eventful apart from completing my first rotation and consuming immense amounts of bbq food.
The farm animal rotation I’ve just completed was ended by a week of bovine/ovine reproduction. For this we had to produce two reports and present group answers to 17questions taking into consideration many aspects of fertility work and cattle health. The reports were on the fertility performance of a local farm and on the fertility capacity of a semen sample. Other than reports we had 2tutorials and 1practical. The 1st tutorial went over our Interherd fertility report and the other was on a day book scenario, taking into consideration which calls are emergencies and how each call should be dealt with. Highlight of the 2nd tutorial is that we got to do it outside in the sun, much to the displeasure of all passes by stuck in CAS buildings all day. The practical for repro was on pregnancy diagnosis and ultrasound scanning in cows, this practical was definitely the highlight of the academic side of the week as I finally feel slightly competent in regards to rectal pregnancy diagnosing cattle (a big achievement for someone who on every PD practical last year ended up waving my hand around for a bit giving up and going home).

To celebrate the end of my first rotation I joined in with the bbq at the bell house and then had a few drinks at the Old Inn in order to wish Andy a happy birthday. After the pub a few of us went back to the bell house to check on the progress of the hot-tub plan. Basically the guys had been over to asda and purchased a 25quid good size paddling pool, filled it with hotwater by connecting a hose to the kitchen hot tap and putting in half a bottle of lynx shower gel for bubbles. The results where pretty impressive, as temperature was bath quality and there was room for the 8of us that stayed in there drinking beer till early morning.
Yesterday I went over to the jocks to watch the match, and now feel that learning the Crouch dance is going to be an essential skill for the upcoming month. Then in the evening I had a bbq here, not very eventful though many people came over for a pleasant evening.

Today I’m going to get some food shopping done, play some EDC football, and get ready for starting equine tomorrow by attending 8o’clock checks. Currently there’s no news on panto, hopefully they’ll be a meeting next week, and band is still on hold, probably till starting jams next term for the Soiree.

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m hung-over at home after a big wedge outing last night, I remember being told by past 5th years that going out is very difficult in final year, though we’ve now made it into Bristol the past two Fridays, so maybe they over-exaggerated.
The past week has pretty much revolved around farm animal hospital, with the rotation eating up the majority of my time, though I haven’t resented this in anyway as the week has been really productive. On the rotation students are responsible for the care of the in-patients plus they talk through appropriate lines of treatment/carryout workups with the hospital clinician. Cases this week have included:
- Lame cows/sheep.
- Alpacas.
- Hernia operations.
- Goat listeriosis.
To monitor animals checks take place at least 3times per day, plus we’re on call at nights and weekends.
Every Friday after the preventative medicine group give their talk (ours was last week and went well) the hospital students present the current in-patients to the rest of the FAS students and all the clinicians. I was given two hernia ops and a lame cow to present, and all went fine plus I was able to answer most questions. However one clinician didn’t appreciate my slight bit of chat-back after a slightly daft question and proceeded to interrogate me on antibiotics. Though I think it all worked in my advantage as I answered a few difficult questions and the guy was made to look a bully. I also had three clinicians separately congratulate me and apologise for the guy’s behaviour…so basically one enemy/many friends made.

Over this weekend I’ve little planned, today has mainly involved recovery from Em’s and Steve’s birthday celebrations from last night, plus I’ve had to go into the hospital twice to do checks and administer drugs. Tonight I’m off to the cinema with the Bell House to see Xmen3, and am very much looking forward to seeing it. Tomorrow I’ve got lots to organise/sort out, and I’d also like to get a bit of bovine reproduction revised for next week when I’ve got an interherd fertility report to write on a local farm.

As far as other interests are concerned, band is on hold until we can find some time to practice, the aim at the moment is to start getting some ideas together for next term’s Soriee. Also on the panto front I’ve yet had time to organise a meeting, hopefully next week we’ll get one sorted.
On the sport front football has now commenced every Thursday between the year and clinicians. Unfortunately I couldn’t make this week, but will start next.

At long last I’ve finally found the time to catch up on my blogs. I think it’s probably been a good 5/6weeks since the last entry and though you might think that I’d therefore have a vast quantity to say I unfortunately haven’t. The reason for this being the shockingly time consuming task that is revision, however these were the last written exams I may ever have to sit (depending on passes/post-grad potential qualifications). Other than exams it’s all about the commencing of clerking rotations, and maybe an idea of general social events recently gone/upcoming now that I can actually have a social life again after 6wks of solitary CAS/FAS revision confinement…

Exams this time were the super giants of CAS and FAS (companion animal science and farm animal science), which between the two basically cover the whole of veterinary science, for a brief over view for anyone who might be interested the general gist is…
CAS1:
Small Animal Medicine (cardiology, renal, liver, endocrine, toxicology, infectious disease etc.).
Small Animal Orthopaedics and ENT (ear nose throat).
Small Animal Nutrition.
Dermatology.
Behaviour.
CAS2:
Horsees (orthopaedics, medicine, surgery, ENT, reproduction).
Opthamology.
Anaesthesia.
FAS1:
Cows plus some small ruminants.
FAS2: The dregs of the course i.e. housing, pigs, birds, growth etc.
…I’ve no doubt missed some areas out but least that’s a basic overview of exam content. To get through all the material was an absolute nightmare, 6wks of 10-12hrs work a day then a week of non-stop mega revision over the exams. Thankfully this will hopefully be the last time I have to cram for exams and hopefully I might have a fair idea before starting to revise for final vivas next year.
The exams all went fine, there were no major successes or problem papers, and so fingers crossed for all round passes some time next week when the results are posted. Failure will mean resists Aug to be allowed into final year (scary scary stuff!).
Here’s a general idea of how each exam went…
CAS1: As I had 3extra days of revision for this, plus knowledge from vet legend Keiran’s tutorials, this exam went pretty good. Had a couple of difficult questions on spinal neurology and orthopaedics, but other than these the rest of the 12 I feel I answered pretty good, including questions on Hypothyroidism, Atrial Fibrillation, Chemotherapeutic agents etc.
CAS2: Went ok, unfortunately due to a slight muddle up by myself I sat this exam after only knowing from midday the day before that it was to take place (I thought like a muppet that we had CAS1 fist…logically?!).
FAS1: Went well, even though I class cows as my weaker area. The paper was fairer than CAS and required much more application of knowledge than simple regurgitation.
FAS2: Went really well (though I feel like a bit of a grade A looser for stating this).

That’s a basic overview I feel of the forth year final written exams, these beauties came to a closure Friday just gone and the day was spent barbequing in our garden, drinking much beer, playing much guitar and then heading off to the annual barn dance. Can’t say that much antics particularly took place, though the majority of the year was in a fair state, and though I thought I was fairly sober (due to no memory blanks) the entire weekend hangover said otherwise.

Right now the year is a stress fuelled clerking frenzy. We started our appropriate rotation today, mine being FAS, other options include Mat on Anaesthesia, Laura on Surgery, Paul on dog medicine, Jim on FAS etc. each rotation lasts 3wks and we must achieve at least a pass in 6 out of the 7 rotations in order to take final year vivas.
The year was incredibly stressed on Sunday, and there was a definite all round feeling of being plunged in at the deep end after only finishing exams on Friday.

My first week is on preventative medicine. Today my little group of four went off to a Sheep farm to inspect a flock for lameness problems. We’re expected to produce a report by Friday to present to the other two FAS rotations and all the clinicians (little bit daunting, but I’m sure it’ll be ok, sheep lameness is a fairly easy topic to research).

Over the upcoming week as far as social concerns the calendar is bleak, the only think potentially on the list is a bbq over the weekend if the weather’s nice, if not I’m off home for much essential relaxation and home comforts.

………………………………………………………………………………………

As I closing note I think it is necessary to sum-up what I feel is the importance of final year commencing…
The feeling when I woke up today was one I haven’t felt since starting primary school/secondary school/uni i.e. that of embarking on something completely alien. It was weird that I lost far more sleep stressing about beginning clerking that sitting any of my recent exams, though this is probably because I’m so used to exams by now.
The significance of the year ahead promises to be that dissimilar to all education previously undertaken, and therefore marks the next step in the long ladder of veterinary qualification. It’s daunting to think that lectures are completely a thing of the past and that future learning carries considerable responsibility, with a major emphasis on maturity and professionalism.
However on a more upbeat tone, I feel I’ve now finally properly got my leg in the door of the veterinary profession, and it’s onwards and upwards to qualification and life in the real world… crazy!

This is the last entry of a forth year associated with lectures, and therefore takes place at the end of an era. Next term it’s onwards and upwards with the start of clerking rotations that will take us up to viva finals at the end of 5th year. However the fact that this massive chapter in vet life is over and the final instalment is soon to be upon us does not come as much of a daunting prospect as I feel that it is long overdue. There is only a certain amount of lectures one can take and this threshold was reached some time in 3rd year.

Even though this may be the last entry it isn’t going to be excessively long, basically because I’m about to go out for mother’s day (I know it’s Saturday, Hannah can’t make tomorrow due to work commitments). Main things to cover are a gig, a party, a quiz, an exam and revision…

The exam was FAS on current affairs, I wrote for an hour on avian influenza and the new welfare bill. I think some of what was written may be relevant so I’m sure a pass will be achieved.
The second Langford bar quiz of the term wasn’t as successful for my team as the first as we came 5th and not 1st. Paul’s knowledge of music associated with films impressed all.
The gig was the VetAid night myself and Chris Queen had been planning for the past month. The night was a major success, both mine and Chris’ band played without probs (except for slight mic trouble for a couple of Blue Juices’). The Langford Stranglers clinician band headlined the night and pleased all with a four song encore. The night raised £650 for the 5th year spay clinic and so much praise was aimed at Chris and I.
Thursday just gone was the last lecture of the year, the final words of vetschool lectures being… “Anaesthesia is lovely”. I’d like to say that the year went crazy and ripped up the lecture theatre but it was fairly passive (probably due to the fact that most of the year spent the last lecture asleep, including myself).
To celebrate the end of vetness in its purely theoretical basis the year went mental at John’s house in cocktail dresses and suits. The night had every aspect of vetness I could want; dancing, drunkenness, stupid antics, potential scandal and female issues, what more could a budding surgeon ask for.

Now it’s onto the next 6weeks of revision hell, 12hours a day, all of FAS and CAS to cover, in a word it’s going to be a bitch. Though once done that’s it, no more material to learn, no more written exams to sit and I’ll be learning only for my own ability. Wish me luck.

xx

As far back as I can remember is Thursday so I’m going to start from there. This either means there’s nothing worthwhile to talk about before then, or that the weekend has stolen much of the previous week’s memories.
Thursday was the second Langford Bar quiz of the term, which a few of my house plus Stevie attended. I ended up on a team with Claire, Ben, Paul and John and somehow managed to win the event, the prize being four bottles of wine. I put the win down to a combination of post-grad knowledge and slight text cheating (though this was standard procedure for all teams involved, not that that makes it right of course, I’ll just have to live with the guilt). The deciding round ended up being the last as we were second for the entire quiz up until; I think it was probably Claire’s amazing TV theme intro knowledge that clenched it for us. Victory to 6FinaF.

Friday night was a jam followed by me cooking for Tamsin and John. They both were fairly impressed with my honey trout effort, and T has gone on to let most of the yr know that I’m god’s gift to the kitchen (which is definitely not the case), and now anyone who comes round is gonna except michelin star quality Pete cooking.
After the meal it was round the Crown for all, including my house plus JP and Kate.

The weekend in general was majorly unconstructive. During the days I think I did some exercise and got some jobs/stuff sorted and organised.
Saturday evening Claire cooked a house meal and then me and Mat were meant to be lambing for the uni, but when I went out at 10pm to check another 2of our yr showed up who had swapped to our day from another, which was ideal as it meant Mat and I didn’t have to go back that night and were free to attend the 5th yr house party.
The party was of the theme gay/bi/confused and was one comedy evening. As my house went over later none of us really bothered to dress-up, though Jim did put on one of Hayley’s tops and Mat went as straight. Important occurrences for the evening included much crazy dancing, Hayley stealing a massive ornamental sheep, loosing Jim (again), me busking for alcohol (2cans and 2bottles achieved), and one guy in 5th yr being sent away for stitches.
Sunday night was much more subdued, I watched a film and went to bed. Mat also cooked a house dinner.

Yesterday I spent most of the day actually working! We’ve got a FAS exam on Thursday on veterinary current affairs. My group has split the research between us and I’m covering the government’s contingency plan for when/if Avian Influenza arrives. I put together a fair chunk of material yesterday and have just reproduced it to distribute later.

Last night it was another jam in preparation for Friday, which is now the biggest think (other than the poxy FAS exam) on the agenda. Thankfully last night’s jam went well and we’re confirming the set list as follows…
-Some Might Say
-Get Back
-All These Things I’ve Done
-Ian’s Song
-Matinee
-Pulp
-My Song
-Can’t Stand Me Now
-Life Less Ordinary
Everything is pretty much sorted for Friday now, I ordered some lighting and extra staging last week and Chris has sorted a backdrop. Fingers crossed now for a wicked night.

Think that covers about everything, will no doubt write the end of next week for the last entry of the term, before the start of the biggest revision session ever.

xx

PS: To Grandparent readers, especially those of the Scales variety, thank you kindly for the letter and money, but I regret to say that I will not be toning down the content of the entries, as I like to feel they accurately reflect my veterinary student life (I’m sure you’d all rather know exactly what’s going on rather than a slightly fictitious version). Hope all is well, love you lots. Peter.

Currently I’m sat in my bedroom listening to Bob Dylan and eating gone off grapes which I only bought today, Morrison’s let me down, though I did buy a very tasty Sea Bass that I ate tonight, which I suppose makes up for their mistake.
The past week has mainly been spent going crazy with little Bro in Newcastle, followed by a couple of days of life re-organisation in a vague effort to get things back on track.

2nd Trip to Newcastle went something as follows…
- Arrived Thursday morning and spent most of the day house hunting with Rich and his mates. Apparently my veteran student housing knowledge was required, retrospect of whether it exists or not. The trip was successful as the four of them put their name on a house. In the evening we went out to celebrate by having a very sociable curry. The plan was to go to a curry house which the guys had an extra-special discount for, though upon arrival it was shut and so regrettably a more expensive restaurant had our custom. After the meal it was off to Digital night club for an Indie night of which the highlight was Carl from Libertines playing a short set, the fact that it was completely unexpected made it even more quality.
- Friday was a day at the coast followed by a cinema trip and a few drinks in Jesmond where Rich’s new house is. Some very nice bars and cliental, though unfortunately all shut at 11:00.
- Saturday we had an amazing day in Durham, which included going round the Cathedral and the Castle, having a few drinks and getting an all you can eat Chinese, where we caused mild havoc. The castle guide was incredibly bizarre due the over-enthusiastic/slightly mental tour guide, and the Cathedral was phenomenal, can‘t say I‘ve seen many other buildings in England more impressive.
- Saturday night we went to Northumbria’s student union, where I got far too hammered for my own good.
- Sunday we woke very late and after watching Team America spent the afternoon going round a few record stores. In the evening I treated Rich to another Indian and then marched back over to the student union to see Death Cab For Cutie play, who it was decided by all are ridiculously good live.
- Monday I returned to reality in Bristol.

The past couple of days I’ve mainly been trying to get life back on tracks, including copying up/sorting out notes and organising stuff for VetAid and the Panto.
VetAid is now a week on Friday and preparations are almost sorted. The night is going to include three bands; Blue Juice, Levator Ani (my band) and The Langford Stranglers (a clinician band). The aim is to play lots of music and raise money for the final year spay clinic. My band finally got its set list sorted on Monday night and are now looking to Friday’s jam to find out the length of it.
Panto organisation continues tonight as I’m hopefully going to type up the thoughts from last weeks meeting in preparations for the meeting I’ve sorted tomorrow night.

I think that covers everything recently, though I’ve just realised I haven’t mentioned work (probably because there’s not vast amounts to say, lectures finish forever in 3wks and I can’t wait, work however should include revision, though as I’m going to be doing 6wks solid work over Easter I’ve not got that much enthusiasm for starting yet).

TTFN x

This is only going to be a short entry as I’ve got a lecture in 30mins.
Crucial items of significance to cover might include work, ball, pub crawl, foster practice and ongoing band plus panto fun…

On the work side there isn’t a great deal to say, lectures are continuing 9-5 as standard, though I’m pretty sure I’m very close to reaching my tolerance for them after 4yrs. Thankfully all lectures finish by the end of this term, then it’s onwards and upwards to the clerking rotations of final yr.
Main work area of importance is revision which I’m now feeling the heat of more and more, and therefore have finally started getting some done. Not a great deal I might add though, however having started at last I can maybe try and ease myself into it (or that’s the why I’d like to put it to explain my extremely slow revision start. I’m sure all will be ok though, mates in final yr didn’t start till Easter).

Ball was a good night, though nothing really comedy to mention. Highlight being dancing to the whole of the Mo-Funk set with some 3rd Yrs, both Sinead and I had bruises on our hands the next morning from overly banging the tambourine the front man gave us.
Vet vs Law vs Medic pub crawl was a pretty good night. Everyone gets dressed up in appropriate clothing and competes against the other courses to buy a drink at the most bars (Law tends to win as they’re the only ones who take it seriously, vets and medics tend to stay together in the cheapest bar and get hammered).

The majority of my recent time has been taken up with Foster Practice at home Weds to Fri and then lounging around at home over the weekend getting some highly essential recouporation and rest.
Foster was a good time, highlights included mastering my iv injections and cattle blood sampling and also witnessing a cow cause destruction of a practice car.
My reasoning for doing foster mid-term was that I only did 3days at Christmas (hopefully no supervises will read this) and also it was Mel’s leaving do and Rose’s birthday who are both befriended vets at the practice. The leaving do meal thing was Friday night and was awesome as vets buy lots of drinks! Most comedy point had to be my dance off with the senior small animal partner Paul.

Ongoing areas of importance include band and panto. We had a jam last night and thankfully it went really well (as last weeks jam was shocking). The triple band night “VetAid” is set for the 17th March, will discuss more closer to the time.
Panto efforts are to continue Weds with a second script meeting. The first was really successful as we managed to get loads of ideas together and a basic plot line sorted.

Thursday it’s off to Newcastle to see little brother for 5days, will no doubt include all details of this excursion in great detail next week. After this I suppose it’ll be time to actually start knuckling down and properly getting on with revision.

Tuesday lunch and there’s actually not that much to report for saying a whole weeks gone by, an achievement which doesn’t regularly happen as I normally seem to be constantly rushed of my feet.

Work wise lectures continue to plod on with little much to say; only potential large source of interest for me is small animal orthopaedics this afternoon. It’s an unusual feeling to actually be sort of looking forward to going to a lecture, but then as I hope to go into small animal surgery future wouldn’t look great if I didn’t fancy learning a bit on the subject.
Most pressing work matter is that of revision for CAS and FAS exams at the end of Easter. I’ve tried numerous times now to start this arduous task but am yet successful. The plan is to begin this evening and drown my valentine sorrows with a bit and cattle medicine, oh joy.

Non-work stuff to mention over the past week includes one awesome night out and a highly unproductive weekend.
The night out mentioned was for Claire’s birthday, for which a good 30+ people managed to make it into Bristol using the newfound mini-bus transport system. Nothing especially comedy occurred, it was just one all-round fun night out.
The unproductive weekend involved much 24watching, a bit of exercise and the pub. However Friday night was an unsuspecting good laugh. John took pity on me being home alone for the weekend and invited me out with him, Sue and Sue’s little sister. We drove into to Bristol for food and drink and then returned to the Old Inn to get some pints down John, as the guy was driving. There’s always something really cool about a good night out when one isn’t expected, what was expected to be a quiet meal ended up one comedy night shared by all.

Last important thing to mention before rounding this up is the NME shockwaves tour last night, which was an incredible. Kate’s boyfriend Jack very generously got me and Mat some tickets and the line up included Mystery Jets, We are Scientists, Arctic Monkeys and Maximo Park (which completely ruled the gig, Monkey’s hype took away a bit of the enjoyment, though they were still quality).

Over the upcoming week main point of interest is the ball on Saturday which is always quality.

Today it’s all about swimming, work and pub.

TTFN

Results are in and I’ve made it through another gruelling set of exams. Achievements are a merit in pathology and C in VPH. Both of which I’m really pleased with (as Pathology is incredibly difficult and VPH is amazingly dull. Onwards and upwards now to CAS and FAS exams which take place at the end of Easter i.e. not long at all, so unfortunately revision is going to have to once again begin soon. The most daunting fact of all is however that once these last set are done in only a few months I should theoretically know all I need to begin practicing. Thankfully though there’s the year of clerking to look forward to when hopefully all the info will maybe become part of my general knowledge and not just some facts and figures learnt to forget after an exam.
I feel that after that exam rant that work over this week should probably follow, though there’s not really that much to tell. ENT (ear, nose and throat) is continuing in its highly exciting fashion, we’ve now received the lecture notes for the subject which reside in a mega beast 183 page booklet (with no pictures!!). The lectures for the subject aren’t too bad as no extra notes are obviously necessary plus the lecturer is interesting, the only complaint is the volume of them. We’ve a full morning of ENT today and have another Thursday.
Other current subjects include equine medicine, which is going well (mainly because we’re forced to write notes, and so it’s easy to stay awake), and exotics (a ferret and guinea pig lecture yesterday).

Big talking point for this entry is another brother weekend of fun and antics. However this time the weekend was extended as he arrived Friday morning and went home last night.
Over the weekend the activities included:
- Friday day Rich and I went for a walk to the crown but managed to get lost over the fields on Jim’s crazy route. However once navigation had been sorted we located the pub and met useful guy who took it upon himself to organise our site-seeing weekend.
- Friday night I organised a lads night out into Bristol, including mini-buses, curry, bar crawl and club. The night was an absolute success and fun was had by all (even if I say so myself). Comedy occurrences included Steve’s curry spillage, Jim getting kicked out of Wedges, Hugo’s and Ian’s standard jokes, and the loss of many good men in Bristol for which Tom conducted a minutes silence for on the return trip. We lost Mat for most of the night to a Gay bar but apparently he had a good night so all well.
- Saturday day was predicated by the crown guy, it involved a drive to a cider farm plus cooked breakfast, and then over to Wookie Hole for much touristy fun. Mat accompanied me and Rich on the trip, and I thing it was agreed by all that Wookie Hole is a quality place for an afternoon out. Attractions there included caves, underground rivers, a fairy garden, dinosaur valley, the chance to make paper!, a run through the mirror maze if you dare, and those crazy distorting mirrors that everyone loves.
- Saturday night was the Hungarian Folk dance at Langford, not a bad night though no Hungarians arrived. Unfortunately some people got a bit rowdy and damage was created, this has now led to the bar being shut straight after licensing hours finish, worse things at sea and all that.
- Sunday me and Rich drove over to Weston for fish and chips at the sea side and a look round SeaQuarium, which was surprisingly good for Weston.
- Sunday night was relaxation and films, an early night was essential due to general tiredness felt by both members of the Scales party.
In summary another awesome weekend with Rich, next one to occur beginning of March when I fly over to see him in Newcastle.

Only other things left to mention are that Panto and band organisation is yet to occur, hopefully we’ll jam this week and I’ll get an e-mail out to find out if Andy and I are organising the Panto officially or not,

Tonight everyone’s out for Claire’s Birthday, Bristol again, should be a good one.

Finally I’ve managed to get some time to sit down and once again poor out my immensely interesting life. This is obviously a sarcastic comment as the principal thing taking place, again, has been revision. Though I suppose there are a couple of social events to mention plus maybe a bit of Xmas and New Yr to consider…

I’ll get the work part out the way first, which as I mentioned has revolved around revision, this time for a Pathology exam and practical, and a veterinary public health (VPH) exam. Revision’s taken 3wks-ish which I spent at home, this may have been slightly ott as the exams actually went pretty good…
The written for Pathology was worth 40% and the practical 20%, the other 40% was done in the 1st term and in 3rd Yr. Written went really well considering how ridiculously difficult pathology is, questions involved the inflammatory reaction, lymphoma classification, diabetes mellitus, neoplasia development, plus others. Unfortunately the practical went unsurprisingly bad, though as 99% of the yr has this concern I’m not overly worried. Reason it was so bad is that histopathology is without doubt the most brain paralysing subject ever created and to learn for it is equivalent to slowly and repeatedly banging ones head against a wall. Just above this on the boredom scale lies histology, but as I passed this somehow in second yr things might be ok, will have to wait and see till Wednesday when the viva lists come out.
As for VPH we had only one written exam which though was incredibly tedious went fine. Three hours of answering questions such as “devise a cleaning regime for a chicken processing plant” or “explain how drip rate and carcass colour are related in pig meat” are far from any sane person’s idea of an interesting subject.
One big bonus about these exams is that I’ve finally got my head around Pathology and so can understand and keep up with companion and farm animal science lectures.

Before revision started I actually managed to achieve a slight Xmas and New Yr. Xmas was all fun and appropriately family orientated. I managed to bag myself a record player plus the beginnings of a rapidly expanding vinyl collection.
New Yr involved a meal out in Belper with Hayley at a surprisingly nice Thai restaurant (for Belper that is), and then on to Belper’s one token bar/club/hole to see in the New Yr with Rich, Hannah, Hayley and friends.
Before Xmas I worked at the workshop conference in Nottingham, not much to say here really, except hard work and some slight debt removing income.
One other important event to mention is mine and Rich’s one mid-revision indi night out into Derby, where I let off a lot of revision stress with much comedy dancing, and ended up bringing some random Derby lass back to Holbrook for essential apre-drinking tea, nothing underhand a might add we just wanted the lift home.

Right now I’m back in Langford Vet School typing away on schools comps as my lap-top keyboard has broke, though that’s a slight exaggeration as it still works, you just have to have the touch of a giant to get a letter to come up.
Since I’ve been back there’s been one pretty awesome night out on Friday (post-exam drinking). We all got mini-buses into Bristol and went pretty wild. Nothing scandalous took place but overall had a much needed awesome night.

Coming up there’s work, work, work and maybe some social life thrown in. Lectures have re-started and they’re amazingly relentless, 9-5 and all hardcore fairly un-miss-able. Current subjects include eye, nose and throat surgery, equine medicine and renal medicine.
Coming up on the social side…
Tonight a bunch of us are off to see the rakes in Bristol.
Over the weekend my little bro is over which should be cool as hopefully there’s to be a lads night Friday in Bristol which I’m organising and there’s a barn dance type thing in Langford on Saturday night.

Next time I write I’ll remember to mention the panto, and the pressing importance of the final written CAS and FAS exams (just put this in as a memo to be honest).