There’s been quite a lot on over the last week with regards to work, social stuff and sport. Including an exam, a pantomime, a gig, a trip to Crufts and a half marathon…

I’ll get work over with first, starting with the most important thing, the farm animal science exam of last Thursday. Quite a weird exam this one as we had an hour to sit and plan our answer before putting pen to paper. The subject of the exam was veterinary current affairs and welfare. We had an hour to answer two questions out of 10ish. I choose to right about TB and welfare considerations for housed dairy calves. I thing the exam went pretty good, by that I mean I wrote a lot, though haven’t a clue if any of it will have warranted much marks, will see. The exams worth 4% of FAS, but as FAS is a 4th yr subject I’m not too concerned.
Friday’s work was nice and simple, we’ve been studying anthrax in microbiology lectures so that practical was very brief (don’t think giving us samples of anthrax to test on would be best safe!). Then Friday afternoon we completed the CNS pathology lectures, now we just have a mini-test on this on Friday (1% of pathology).

This week work wise is fine for lectures but not for out of work lectures. We’ve a pharmacology essay to get finished between 6 of us for the end of the week worth 10%. Probably should have got this out the way ages ago as my house of DSE slackers got set it last term, but no worries, wheels are now in motion of the Hartington Park Pharmacology machine (much to the pleasure of Steve who’s been fretting over this essay for weeks).
Other work stuff this week includes revising for the mini-pathology test on Friday and updating my microbiology identification table for a final micro identification DSE practical also on Friday (Thursday isn’t going to be a fun day!)

Fun stuff recently has been chiefly Levator Ani’s gig at the pre-clinical vet pantomime on Thursday and Friday last week. We arrived on Thursday with all our stuff far to close to the start time for comfort, as we’d had the FAS exam, thankfully set up wasn’t too difficult though sound levels were a bit dodgy in performance as we had very limited time to sort them out before hand! However Friday’s performance was really cool and crowd got well into it.
The panto was also pretty good, the quality of the acting, singing and especially dancing made up for the awful story line that even after watching it twice I don’t understand. Dancing was especially good due to Lexy and Hayley’s quality choreography!!

Over the weekend I’ve been to Crufts, slept in a caravan and supported some friends in the Silverstone half marathon.
Crufts was pretty cool on Saturday, never been before so was quite an experience. Best thing had to be duck herding + I’ve decided my favourite and least favourite dog breeds, pug/poodle and Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retreiver (not that way round).
Saturday evening was spent at Claire’s house in Stratford, which was packed to the rafters with German Shepards (claire’s step-mum breeds them). We had to sleep outside in the caravan (dogs have preference).

On Sunday I drove Claire and Paul over to Silverstone for the half marathon, Mat and Laura were also running it so we met them there. All of them did really good (especially Claire as she hadn’t done any exercise for a month and the most she’s ever ran is 8miles). They managed to raise a fair bit for comic relieve.
Something I didn’t know about running till yesterday was that top runners frequently loose continence over long runs, as Mat unfortunately spotted in another runner… running=nasty!
Not really anything left to talk about, Friday is the end of term and Claire’s Bday so will no doubt be a big night and then it’s into Easter and foster practice.

Past few days have been awesome fun!! Starting Thursday night with my band playing at Langford, then two great nights in Bristol.

Thursday was quite a concern at half 7 when no one had yet turned up for our gig, though by half 8 there was quite a good crowd of 3rd and 4th years so all was good! We managed to get through both set lists without any major probs and even Life Less Ordinary went fine which we learnt two days before playing. Unfortunately JP wasn’t able to sing a couple of his songs due to a lethal cold infection, but Ian kept the show on the road by filling in as the amazing singing drummer for these two songs.
The after party was immense! Me, Mat, Laura and Paul decided for some reason to have an all night drinking session till 6 and got through a hideous amount of spirits (most of which belonged to some 4th years, though we’ve replaced them all so no probs). Best cocktail awards of the night must go to Paul’s Port with a salad cream mixer, close 2nd and 3rd to Mat’s Bernard Mathew Turkey Gin dipper and my mug of port with a dash of English mustard… There are no excuses for these horrific combinations, just drunken idiocy.
Langford Friday was a no-go!!… as would be expected. I spent the day sleeping off my hang over in the on-duty clerks 5th year bed (Paul and Mat slept in the common room, some how Laura was fine and went to the Micro Prac, crazy girl). Once it came to five o’clock I felt save to drive home so went back and slept some more ready for Paul’s bday night out. I think Paul owes us a thank you as not many people get to celebrate there birthday twice on the same day!

Paul’s birthday was at Hullabuloos BYO booze restaurant. I had the pork with Stilton and bacon followed by the banoffee pie… nice.
After the meal we lost Paul to his new girl and went home for lots of tea, drink, music and Mario kart till early.

I woke up Saturday with the best intentions to get some work done (at 2:00). Though none really got done, though I did achieve a big Tesco shop and cleaned out Lemi (the rat) not bad. Saturday night Hayley and I went out for a drink and then on to George Zambia Miller’s 21st house party. If a house party is judged by the amount of booze it contains then George’s was top-notch (punch, beer, wine and spirits in large quantities). The consequences of which I think were most noted on John who’s constant playing of water polo seems to have had adverse affects on his alcohol tolerance. That or deciding by himself to drink a glass of punch every five minutes did the trick.

Yesterday I recovered fully and actually got a bit of work done! The next virology DSE is now complete (a series of multiple choice questions online) and I copied up anything missed by Fridays little snooze! I also gave home a ring yesterday to find out whether Mum appreciated her slippies (microwaveable lavender scented slippers for those with cold extremities… not entirely sure what Mum thought of these a) because you have to put them in the microwave and b) because you can’t even walk around with them)… remember it’s the thought that counts Mum!

Today started off with a fairly interesting though slightly dragged out analgesics (pain killers) lecture, then went on to 2hrs of sheep parasites (not so interesting).
This afternoon I’m allowing veterinary public health lectures to get some notes together for Thursdays farm animal science exam. In this we have an hr to write two essays on recent vet related issues. My house has split up all the recent issues then once we’ve got the info will reproduce it six ways. My topics are the new fallen stock scheme on farms (can’t burry dead stuff anymore basically) and milk price wars, plus I’ve got the more minor issues of MRSA transfer to animals and horse passports.

Other than the FAS exam on Thursday the other big work thing on is pharmacology DSE. This is an essay done between six of us that must be in for the end of term. Our chosen subject is rheumatoid arthritis and for this we are comparing two drugs to decide which has better therapeutic value. Hayley and I have NSAIDs to look at, though we haven’t yet picked which NSAID to use yet. Loads of time left for this though.
NSAID = non-steroidal anti inflammatory drug.

Best things coming up include tonights glitter ball and crufts on Saturday.
Hayley and I are going to the medic glitter ball tonight. A reason to get dressed up, give money to charity and have fun.
Crufts = Paul, Me, Hayley and Claire going to Claire’s and getting into Crufts for free thanks to Claire’s Dad. I’ve never been so am quite looking forward to it.

It’s Tuesday morning and I’ve managed to make it in for some microbiology lectures, quite an achievement I feel as 4 of my house have decided that their bed is a better use of their time. Though to be fair to my house everyone is ill to varying decrees. Paul and Mat have got themselves a bit of a cold, JP has flu and Hayley has been bed ridden with flu since Thursday. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before me and Steve catch something!

Weekend just gone was really cool! Spent the Friday back at home in Derby which was really nice as haven’t seen the family for quite a while. Went out for a meal then watched a couple of films with Dad and little sis Hanny. Then on Saturday I went to see my cousin at Warwick Uni (which is in Coventry and not Warwick, a fairly time consuming mistake to make). Had a great evening out there with Mel at her union. The place has a massive union with 2clubs and loads of bars, so we went there for a 70’s/80’s night after getting plenty of drinks down us at Mels flat first. They were a good bunch to go out with, though some slightly unusual, as proved by the bizarre infatuation of blowing up peoples noses?!

Sunday I got back to Bristol mid-afternoon to begin my role as Nurse Scales for Hayley who was in quite a bad way. I’d already spoke to someone from NHS direct and pretty much confirmed flu so just case of sitting/sleeping/coughing it out. She was a bit better yesterday and so we watched a film in the evening…film of choice being Hook! I’d forgotten how weird and amusing it is. Hopefully today she’ll be much better as she’s meant to be in a dance show at the end of the week!

Work stuff over this week isn’t too bad as the main thing is over, an Anaesthesia DSE talk with Avril yesterday. Each group of four had 10mins to complete their talk and then 5 minutes of questions. Our topic was laryngeal paralysis in the dog and I got given the diagnostic part of the talk. This involves choosing an anaesthetic regime with least effect on arytenoids cartilage motion and that induces a very light plain of anaesthesia so that a positive diagnosis of laryngeal paralysis can be made by endoscopy. Our talk went really well, especially as we had to go last out of the 6ish groups. We nailed Avril’s questions and got some really positive feedback off her. Can’t be bad as the talks worth 10% of basic clinical science!
As for lectures, yesterdays were non-existent for me as I stayed with Hayley to drive her in for her and my talk in Langford, though copied up fine last night. Today we have Actinomyces and Listeria micro-organisms to study. Don’t really mind the micro lectures as the lecturer is really good and explains well, so note taking is a piece of cake.
Tomorrow its continuing with pathology on the CNS, the lecturer for this is excellent, we’ve only had him once so far and he’s also the clinical dean (though can’t remember his name) … very conscise with no patronism or extra random crap that you’ll never ever need to know.
On Thursday its just one veterinary public health lecture (though probably not for me) and then Friday is typical micro practicals and lectures.

The most important upcoming event of the week by far is Thursday night when Levator play Langford! We’ve got a minimal of 14songs sorted so should be able to give the 4th and 5th years a fairly long set list, plus hopefully we’ll get a few 2nd and 3rd years out there. Should be really cool, will speak about how it goes next week!

Over the weekend hopefully I’ll see Hayley’s dance show on Saturday illness permitting and then go on George’s house party to celebrate his 21st.

Almost forgot to mention another highly important event of the week!? It’s Paul’s bday on Friday so we’re all probably going to go out for a meal to celebrate (though will save money as think he’s booking a BYO booze place…ideal!)

Only 2lectures today on microbiology so nothing too strenuous! Probably had better not get too used to these slack 11:00 starts and few lectures though, as before I know it 4th yr of lecture hell will be upon me. However till then I’ll make the most of it! Tomorrow is the same with only 2lectures, and on Thursday it’s a complete day off. Though spare time isn’t going to be that slack as I’ve got to get my Anaesthetic DSE sorted for Monday when my group of 4 has a 10minute talk worth 10% of basic clinical science (trust me it doesn’t seem that basic).

Last week and this work hasn’t been too bad. My therapeutics talk on Thursday went really well, think I managed to sufficiently bore the class enough with my four minute talk on how chronic renal failure causes vomiting and the therapeutic agents we would used to control the problem. Then on Friday I had a respiratory pathology DSE test worth a whole 1% which went ok (definitely much better than the one the week before).
Work over this week principally involves DSE I need to get on with as lectures are fairly minimal, even Langford on Friday has only 2lectures, though there is a 3hr microbiology practical involving Corynebacterium and Mycobacterium i.e. TB.
The DSE I have is about anaesthetising a dog for lateralisation of the arytenoid cartilage, I can talk more about this when I know something (next Monday I hope as that’s when the talk is).

Social stuff over the past week has been really good!! Last week we had a Vets Vs Layers Vs Medics pub crawl. I haven’t a clue who won as I spent most of the night drinking at Lexy’s house with a load of vet girls then went straight to the club (saving money). The night was pretty good, nothing special really happened though I was quite amazed to find that our fluffy sheep vet mascot made it back to our house after its night of reflex clubbing.
Also very importantly last week it was the half way day!! We celebrated this with an awesome day of paintball fun and a meal. Paintball was amazing!! We split the vets into four teams of 15ish and managed to fit in time for 6games each. Our team was best and came first by a massive point margin…ego through the roof. Funniest thing was the last game which was a free for all to use up remaining paint balls…Painful! I had no bruises till this game and sustained multiple back, leg, crotch and arm injuries (back looked like a paint-by-numbers). Surprising how much the things hurt at close range! The crotch shot was especially disturburbing as was literally cms away from groinal disaster!
The meal in the evening was really cool! 80 vets out for a nice 3course meal in Zero Decrees Bar in the centre.

Social wise over the upcoming week is fairly minimal till the weekend when I hope to go home for Friday night and then head over to see my cousin in Warwick on Saturday for a 70’s/80’s night should be cool.

This week is turning out to be well hectic, there’s something on every night and the weekend doesn’t get any less busy…

Over last weekend I had the company of my little sister Hannah and her friend Zoe who came down to see what student life is about, though as they’re to young to go out so I doubt they really appreciated the student life in full. Friday night I cooked them both a meal and some friends came round for a very socialable evening in. Think Hannah was quite impressed with my cooking as she’s never seen me make anything more than a microwave pizza at home. Then on Saturday we went out to Cribs to do some shopping and go see Meet The Fockers. They both made themselves useful out shopping as there valentine’s day gift ideas proved popular on Monday.

I dropped the two of them off fairly early on Sunday leaving the rest of the day to get to grips with our Therapeutic DSE that we got set last week. This is given to 2 DSE groups each week for those groups to perform a talk each the following week. The subject of our talk is chronic renal failure in cats. As it’s therapeutics we don’t have to go into diagnosis/prognosis, we just have to say which drugs we would use for treating the cat and constructively criticise our choices. I’ve been researching drugs for vomiting control due to the uraemic gastritis.

Yesterday we started our veterinary public health lecture course in Langford, thankfully we don’t get examined on this this year, but the 70 lectures that we have of it over the next couple of years don’t sound best fun.
In the afternoon my Langford practical group had no practical so it was a nice early home time to get on with more DSE (why some of the ridiculous amount of DSE we have couldn’t have been put in last term I don’t know).
In the evening Hayley and I went out for a nice meal to Las Iguanas, a very pleasant evening with excellent food (though bit expensive).

Today has been spent moping around the house trying to get through some therapeutics, though I think I’m sorted now as have collected and sorted out enough info on vomiting to make a contribution to our talk. Unfortunately this has meant I’ve had to miss a couple of lectures today, but this was pretty unavoidable as I can’t do any work tonight due to a meal I’m attending in Langford… my clinical tutor has invited all his 3rd , 4th and 5th year tutees round for an evening meal. I don’t really know my tutor as we don’t get lectured by him till the forth year, but he specialises in small animal orthopaedics so in my opinion he’ll no doubt be interesting.

Over the rest of this week it’s DSE, tests and social fun… Our therapeutics DSE is on Thursday, we need a powerpoint presentation and handout completed for that, then on Friday we have a Respiratory Pathology mini-test, not entirely sure where I’m going to find the time to revise for this.
Tomorrow night is the hockey social, always a messy one. As normal it’s meeting at Roo Bar for drinking games then on to Indian Ocean for curries.
Thursday night there’s a vet vs medics vs lawyers pub crawl and on Friday night I might stay in.

On Saturday it’s Half Way Day!! This is being celebrated by a day of paint-balling followed by an evening meal (the attendance figures for the meal are over 80 all from the year, pretty good going me thinks as the years 107).

Firstly I apologise for the distinct lack of entries for sometime, this is due to a mid-term holiday, loads of work and a ball!

I arrived back from Switzerland on Thursday night after a wicked 6day break over there with my little bro who’s having a gap year. He’s out there for 4months working in a hotel, where he spends his free time skiing in the Swiz Alps…alright for some. I hadn’t really skied much before, one day in Australia and one in Tamworth snow-dome, but picked it up fairly quickly and managed to keep up with Rich on some red runs. We spent our evenings watching films as was both far to nacked to go out, though we did venture out for one very expensive night with some of Rich’s hotel staff.

Unfortunately as I arrived back late on Thursday I missed the centaur (Bristol’s vet society) elections. This is were a brand new centaur committee is elected each year, usually quite a laugh as people bring loads of alcofrol into the lecture theatre, get hammered and then go out. Positions up for grabs included President, Vice President, Books Rep, Clothing Rep, Ents Reps, Fresh Reps and Sports Rep. All voting is done democratically with home made vids for presidents helping to make up peoples minds. Our new president is Gavindar Panisar, top guy, just have to hope the position doesn’t go to his head… joke Gav if read this.

Friday’s main academic task was a pathology cardiovascular test, this went ok despite the fact that revision was principally done on a plane. Most questions went fine except for the last couple as he started to read out the answers so had to quickly hand it in (very informal these pathology tests though they do only count for 1% each of pathology). Also on Friday we had our last microbiology practical before the DSE sessions began. I managed to polish off my table for this the other night so I’m fully prepared for this Fridays DSE. This involves three unknown micro-organisms which we have to identify using a variety of stains, biochemical tests and practical techniques. Probably the most interesting and fun thing we’ve done this year, makes you feel like a sort of microbiologist detective, or that might just be me?!
Friday evening the house had a quiet one in watching Dogeball, would recommend purely for Stiller’s comedy acting in it!
Over the weekend I spent some time nailing my MircoDSE identification table and copied up the lectures I’d missed by having a half term break. On the Saturday night however I did have something exciting to do as it was the vet2005 ball. This year it was held at the winter gardens hall in Weston and was expertly organised by Hayley, Andy, Louise and Tonia (ents reps). We started out the night at the union bar for a few then all pilled on the bus with much alcohol in hand for the 1hr journey there. The night was a great laugh, nothing especially comical happened apart from Steve trying to break JP for letting a party popper off in his ear and all the injuries that were sustained off the flying carpet (it became apparent on Monday how lethal this thing was as so many people had carpet burns on their face and hands, including myself who has a fair patch of skin missing from my thumb). The speakers were great and the meal delicious, good job ents reps!

This week is fairly busy work wise. We had a hectic day in Langford yesterday, three anaesthesia lectures, 1 radiology and an anaesthesia practical. The practical was ok, got to connect each other up to ECG machines and measure each others blood pressures and blood oxygen saturation. However I think the take home part of the practical was supposed to be working out which anaesthetic breathing system should be used for different animal case studies and what gas flow rates are appropriate (got a good bit of notes on this so no worries).
As for work for the rest of the week we’ve got microbiology most of today and then health and safety this afternoon (can’t imagine this being the most riveting subject, though health and safety is of course important so I shall attend with an open mind?!). Thursday we have two endocrinology pathology lectures to attend followed by another miniDSE test on the subject on Friday, these little tests are well annoying.
I suppose I will also carry on with my ongoing DSE tasks this week, probably had better start on pharmacology DSE before Steve gets more stressed about the groups current lack of effort.

Fun wise for this week… not much until the weekend. We have a footy social on Friday (typical stuff, Kings arms for drink, curry and pool then not onto a club for me as my little sis is arriving the next morning).
Saturday I’m entertaining Hannah (sister), will probably take her ice skating with the Hockey social that is there during the day, then maybe shopping and film or pub in the evening (have to let me know how that sounds Hannie).

PS: First results of the year, microbiology midsessional (15%) managed to get myself an A, crazy stuff I know, but not that impressive as the whole years marks were pretty good (what happens when they give us one exam to revise for over xmas and not four).

Monday morning and back in Langford again, this year just seems like we spend all our time in Langford or travelling to/from it (but then as we have 2 full days at Langford Monday and Friday and the rest of the week is a few lectures and DSE it’s not surprising). I suppose they’re just easing us in to the 4th and 5th years for continual Langford clinical fun.

The end of last week’s main item of work was my talk for research, which had to be given to the year (was done between 6 of us so not all bad). The subject was fructo-oligosaccharides and their effects on intestinal bacterial overgrowth in dogs, exhilarating I know. Though the subject was dull the practice at public type speaking was fairly useful. The talk went fine, though I doubt many people listened to a word of it (can’t blame them).
Friday night was a bit alternative, you could say we went out but then as we were only in a club for less than an hr and didn’t leave the house till half 12 that’s questionable. Hayley went out with the vet-girls and the 5 of us left decided to save the pennies and drink in. After drinking games (which included the new found comedy game of pants master) JP was the cause of the night’s highlights by producing his holiday litre of ouzo, so after many cut the pack ouzo shots we left calm and civilised to go to a club. A lot of my memory at the club is pretty hazy, but I’m sure it was a good night. Most comedy part of the night has to be mine and JP’s taxi bartering… we decided that £7.70 was too much for our taxi (though we normally pay around this so I don’t get the logic) and so offered him £6, he wasn’t best happy so we all got out and I told Hayley and Steve to leave at a pace. After many minutes of arguing with me and JP the guy threatened to phone the police so of course we took the only logical action and legged it…I suppose that makes me a fugitive now?!

You know without alcohol I reckon these blogs would be pretty short!

As for the rest of the weekend many people didn’t surface best early on Saturday, once 3pm came though I was fairly active. I managed to get some immunology revision done of sorts and then went to Mat friends Stu’s birthday bash for some coke (cola). Stu had got some stand-ups in for the night, very amusing.
On Sunday I got up early to begin a very productive day, the achievements included…
· Tidied the lounge, including hovered, dusted!, cleaned rat out, removed ouzo stains and used a large quantity of air freshener to remove the pungent smell of beer and ouzo.
· Tidied the kitchen, cleaned the surfaces, mopped the floor and cleaned the oven.
· Did many hours of immunology revision in preparation for Fridays mini-DSE test. The test only counts for 1% but it’s the learning of the stuff in general that’s the point. I managed to get through 5 out of 15 sections including antigen presenting cells, the complement pathways, immunological tissue and cells and major-histocompatibility complexes and transplantation.
· Booked a flight for Morocco for the summer. Mat, Emma, Tamsin, Helen and I are off for four weeks. The flight was really cheap at £75 return. However once Helen and Em booked there’s and Mat booked his mine went up to £91, not best happy as I noticed the cheaper flight in the first place…dammit.

As for the week coming I’m crazily busy. I need to get the revision done for this immunology test on Friday plus I need to get some BCS (basic clinical science) DSE done as it has to be handed in very soon after I get back from Switzerland. The subject of the DSE is the anaesthesia of a dog that is to have an operation on its larynx to re-position the arytenoid cartilage, haven’t looked into much yet, hopefully will get started tonight.
Also over this week I have and Idlewild acoustic gig to attend on Tuesday night with JP and Mat plus its off to Switzerland early Saturday to see Rich for 6days ( Next Monday to Thursday I have very few lectures so it shouldn’t’ be too difficult to catch up).

As for the rest of today I’ve got a sedation and premedication lecture in 25mins then this afternoon its IV induction agents followed by poultry post-mortem, will include the main points of this in my next blog.

If anyone would like to leave any non-abussive feedback on my blog please send to...
scalesvet@hotmail.co.uk
I can't promise any replies but comments would be insightful, thank you. Pete.

Monday morning and I’m back in the computer room at langfordton. Day started off ok as we somehow managed to get here on time and get that god-forsaken hand out off Avril that Paul and I put so much effort into trying to locate last Friday. With the handout in my possession I had no choice but to attend this mornings lecture on anaesthesia… so very very dull! I find it pretty difficult to follow Avril so that’s why I’m here writing this and not in her second lecture of the day (will copy up and go through it tonight, I’m not being that slack…comment aimed at parents and grandmother).
The rest of today isn’t too bad, a couple of non-Avril anaesthesia lectures and then a practical on housing (apparently Joe Roe gives us tea and coffee during this prac… novel). Tonight a few off us may be going for a couple of drinks at the Highbury Vaults, work depending, plus its up early tomorrow for skiing at Tamworth. I’ve managed to organise the little trip for 9 of us tomorrow (only £15 for 2hours skiing including all hire, pretty good I thought). Tomorrow evening it’s work time again hopefully, need to get as much DSE out the way as possible before going to see Rich in Switzerland.

As for the rest of the week work wise there’s a fair bit to get done. We continue autonomic pharmacology work on Wednesday and continue with the different genera of micro-organisms on Thursday (last week we did Enterobacteriacae and this week its haemophilus, Bordetella and Reoviruses + Calichiviruses). On Friday we have a microbiology practical then I have to do a talk with 6 others for our research course. Thankfully this doesn’t count for anything, but it does mean that I’ve got to read a paper on fructo-oligosaccharides and micro-organisms and discover where the mistakes are in it (will go through this on Wednesday and Thursday night… not much point putting in too much effort when it’s on research and counts for nothing).
Other than work and skiing I’ve not got a lot planned for the rest of the week. The only other thing on my agenda is a 2.5hr band practice Thursday afternoon. This is well needed as Levator Ani are playing Langford Bar on 18th Feb and need two fairly long set lists.

Will write again next Monday.

Hello and happy New Year!
I’m back for the 2nd term of the third year, a term most people associate with copious amounts of DSE (directed self education or drinking starts early as you will). Christmas was great, I had only one exam to revise for and I managed to clear the travelling dept so ideal. I worked from the end of term for 9days at the medlink conference in Nottingham, 17hour days and on-call at night, was pretty hectic but the work was fine and the staff very cool. Mat was working to as security and transport. Obviously we can’t have been too crap as we’ve both been asked back to work in July on the Vetsim course, should be pretty cool do work with potential vets and not damn medics. I also managed to get some work at a pub in my village over the festive period.
Christmas was mainly a bit crap as worked it at the pub. However once Xmas day started at 7pm ish was really good, I think my family must have been some of the last people on Earth to open their presents at 9pm, but was worth the wait as I got a mini-fridge and a suit…definitely not working next year.
New year was alcoholic. A big group of mates at home went out for an Indian, which was byo drink, so naturally I took along plenty to save funds later. However I think I over did it as whilst walking home I fell over a wall into field and got a bit muddy you could say, though thankfully my brand new shoes cleaned up really well and I was able to take them back and exchange them as part of the shoe had come apart in the 2hour walk home.
Came back to uni on Sunday, though I had no time to go out and see everyone, as revision was essential for yesterday’s microbiology exam. The exam went really well; if only all exams were like that the course would be ideal. Last night I went out into Bristol with the usual crew, cocktails and shooters in henry africas 2for1 was fun so bit hung over today. Todays lectures have all involved anaesthesia, however unfortunately me and paul haven’t been able to attend them due to a hand-out problem. The story goes… Lots of traffic, late to first lecture, avril gets mad when late so went to play pool with paul (the others chanced it), went back at break to join lecture but avril didn’t break, went back at end of next lecture avril left early, needed 80page hand-out beast to go to this afternoons lectures so went to avrils office, not there, went to Churchill building, small animal hospital and back to office, no joy, went to see the oracle that is Geoff who told us she’d gone to Bristol so now have to wait till Friday to get handouts… frustration.
This afternoon we have an anaesthesia practical that I can attend so looking forward to that.
This evening John’s coming round to show us his skiing vids from xmas and I’m off out food shopping, great?! I hate food shopping, though mercifully I just have to push the trolley and Hayley puts stuff in it.
Best thing up and coming is a trip to Tamworth snow dome that I’m organising for Tuesday as we have the whole day off! This is in preparation for my visit to see my little bro in Switzerland at the end of the month.

Just read this through and realised and haven’t explained about DSE that I mentioned;
We have pathology DSE on going which is mini-tests each worth 1%.
We have farm animal science DSE which is an exam on the end of the term on current issues so I’m meant to be reading vet record and farmers weekly to keep up to date.
We also have pharmacology DSE which is a project of our choice were you compare two completely different treatments for the same disease (we’ve choosen arthritis).
And there’s therapeutics DSE though I don’t know what this involves yet.

It’s Wednesday morning and we have the whole day off! This is a very unusual occurrence in Vet School, so naturally I’m going to make the most of it by playing football and having a Christmas dinner.

Since last Wednesday the work front has been fairly minimal...
In basic clinical science we’ve covered hepatic dysfunction and clinical aspects of haematology (fairly interesting stuff as it’s all relevant).
In farm animal science we had a day of poultry lectures. This was incredible dull, I suppose if one had an interest in chickens the lectures may be more exciting, but as it was we had three lectures by the same guy who pretty much just told us crazy stories on his poultry experience.
In pathology I attended a discussion with a quarter of the year on haematology and biochemical tests and their clinical use (it’s only a quarter of the year as on Monday afternoons we have a rotational thing set over four weeks). The talk was really interesting, we were given information on patient background and test results and then we had to interpret the results to work our way systematically to a diagnosis.

The main social event over the last week has to be our weekend break to Hugo’s family mansion in Hereford. A group of 8 of us went up on the Friday and then some more people came on the Saturday so that 12 people were present for a massive roast dinner on the Saturday night. The best night of the weekend has to be the Friday, as me, Pritchard and Paul stayed up till 7:00 playing pool and drinking a few cans. I think pool arrogance tipped us well off the tipsy edge, especially as JP kept putting vodka in the arrogance pint glass (pool arrogance = the two players contending place as much alcohol in a pint glass as they wish at the beginning of the game, the person to losses the game drinks). Once the time came to 6:30ish JP and I decided that we were never going to be up in time to make everyone breakfast as we had been instructed. Therefore we cleared the kitchen and set up breakfast for every one (this included putting out croissants, toast, cereal, all cutlery, fruit, milk, OJ and making huge stacks of blackberry and chocolate pancakes – I think these must have taken us quite a while to make as I can vaguely remember JP making me separate 12 egg whites at 7 in the morning).
On Saturday we went for a walk and played some rounders with a log. Then in the evening we had a much more subdued dinner and a few games of saucy charades. Hugo and Tamsin cooked an excellent meal.

On Sunday I left Hereford fairly early by train to get over to my house in Derby for my little brothers leaving do (he’s off to Switzerland for 4months). The whole thing had been organised as a surprise and Rich didn’t have a clue. He had a good evening I think, apart from tripping up on the way home while giving someone a picky back and busting his face up a little.

On Monday Hayley and I went for a quite drink. I doubt anyone wants to hear anymore than that.

On Tuesday it was cloudy in the morning and then it brightened up in the afternoon.

Today I’m playing footy for vets. We hope to get our first win of the season today as we’re playing a crap 3rd division side (we’re in 1st) – if we can’t win this we might as well give up. Tonight Hayley and John are cooking a Xmas dinner for everyone…nice.

Over the next week the main things to look forward to our…
Friday: Aids awareness ball.
Saturday: Levator Ani one year anniversary/xmas party.
Monday: Darkness and Ash concert in Cardiff.
Tuesday: Hayley and I one year anniversary dinner.
Wednesday: Fi and T joint birthday party.
Thursday: Vet Xmas Party.
Friday: Home.

Last week of term looks to be pretty awesome!!

It’s Wednesday morning, and though I’ve come into vet school to do two lectures I’ve had to miss the first one as I brought in the wrong notes (they changed a lecture round between this week and last and I forgot to change it on my timetable). No worries though I’ll just have to catch it up later after football later (don’t panic Mum).

The main thing to write about in this entry has to be the soiree last Friday and Levator Ani’s performance in it.
We (the band) turned up at the Cadbury House (where the soiree is held every year) at 5:00pm to get set up. The guy we hired our PA off was excellent, he brought a great set up and we didn’t have to do anything involving sound levels or sound checks, probably why our sound levels where a hell lot better than at our last gig for the vet pantomime. At 7:30ish everyone started arriving and we got playing 8:30ish. The whole set list went really well. Though I felt there were a couple of critical errors, however when watching Aniket’s recording of us later they don’t seem to have come across. We played supersonic, country house, sit down, shining light, some might say, year 2000, vet life and brim full of asha. It was pretty nerve racking playing to over 400 people, though after a few songs the nerves went and it was really cool, especially as my little bro had driven 2.5hrs to come see me play!

Over the weekend we had to pick up our equipment from the Cadbury house on Saturday and then went to John’s house party in the evening. John’s house mates must have spent loads on alcohol. They had two kegs, punch, shots and vodka jelly. The record for vodka jelly eating went to John’s house mate Matt who consumed 64 desert spoons of the stuff, he then died slowly in a chair for the remainder of the night. Unfortunately I had to leave the party fairly early as was ready to fall asleep wherever I rested for too long (probably still knackered from the Soiree).
On Sunday I had two games of hockey for the vets. We won 6-1 and 2-1. Then in the evening I made a gourmet meal for Hayley. This included garlic mushrooms starter, followed rump steak with home made potato wedges, and then bread and butter pudding for dessert. I think Hayley was fairly impressed, I know I was as I’ve never cooked anything much since Home Ec. in secondary school.

Work for this week is fairly minimal. Monday was, as usual, Langford, where lectures included Blood transfusion, problem solving as a method for working out a diagnosis and prognosis, vomiting and diarrhoea lectures (including the grading of faecal samples) and a lecture on Haemostasis. In the afternoon we had a practical on washing our hands and dressing up (or scrubbing and gowning up, as you will). It was pretty cool to do something indisputably relevant.
Yesterday we had the day off so I decided to repair my PC, make some bread and watch Harry Potter 3 with the house. I also found time to complete the microbiology DSE task. This involved reading some notes on chemical and physical antimicrobial techniques and then answering some timed multiple choice questions on the subject. I got 90% so no worries.

Today I’ve got one more lecture to attend on toxicology then it’s off up to the downs for football. Today Nice Fridge FC are playing Hiatt Baker Halls of Residence.

As for the rest of the week I’ve got a shed load of lectures on Immunology and tomorrow night there’s a vet hockey social at the Indian Ocean Restaurant which I think I might attend (always very messy).

I’m not entirely sure where my last blog went up to as we haven’t got the internet working in our house yet. Therefore I think I’ll start from the weekend before last (I apologise for leaving it so long between entries again, I’ve been ridiculously busy!).

The weekend before last was a mega road trip to Yorkshire and Derbyshire. It was James Greenwoods 21st party on Saturday night, and then my brother’s birthday on the Sunday.
We (me, Hayley, Mat, Claire and John) left Bristol on Friday evening and made our way up to Hayley’s house to spend the night in Skipton. Amusement for the journey mainly involved the name game, boring you may say, but it was surprising the comedy provided by it (especially John trying to guess Santa, or my frustration at Mr Potato Head). In Skipton on Saturday we had a wander around the market, got James some JD and cheese and then had a very tasty lunch in the Woolly Sheep Pub.
Saturday evening we made our way over to James’ 21st in Huddesfield. His family had made an amazing effort! There was a massive marquee, a three course sit down dinner for around 150people, champaign reception, as much free alcohol as could be consumed, a banjo player to entertain during the meal and an incredibly cheesy dj to finish off the night. The theme for the night was denim and check and everything was fashioned accordingly, along with the banjo player there were Westerns played by projector screen onto the marquee ceiling and the bar and entrance had loads of straw and random vegetables (a lot of which John decided to eat later). Funny stories for the night include Ian eating a whole raw onion, Pritchard wrestling the last beer off the host, Mat using the chat up line “I’m down with pulling you, do you want to go outside (post grad Claire informed us all the next day), the vet jocks playing drink the bar’s dregs game (I think each person got a set amount of time to drink as much dregs from the bar area as possible), Pritchard sleeping outside and puking on the Greenwood’s very nice patio, Hayley being sick in the marquee and thinking that putting a tea towel on top of her mess constituted as clearing it up.
I suppose it’s not the best of ideas to give vets an infinite supply of free alcohol.

On Sunday we made it away from the Greenwoods at around 3ish (once mat thought himself save to drive) and made our way over to my house in Derbyshire to wish my little bro Rich a happy birthday and give him some presents (got him a comedy skiing hat for his four months in Switzerland coming up).
We made it back to Bristol Sunday night all very knackered!

Work over the past week has been fairly slack as we got a very unusually large number of days off.
Monday at Langfordton was shock lectures followed by a fluid and blood gases clinical skills class. This involved a discussion on fluid therapy with case studies followed by a practical session where some guy showed us how to install catheters and measure the blood pressure inside the right atrium (all fairly interesting as it actually is relevant once I quailify).
Tuesday and Wednesday were both immunology days, though we only had two lectures per day. I learnt about antigen presenting cells, B and T lymphocytes and how precisely they each achieve their roles in the innate and humoral immune systems.
Thursday there was quite a few lectures though unfortunately I could not make these as I had to wait in for the telewest-man to come and install tinternet and tefelome. Thank fully we had all Friday off so that I could lay in bed and think about catching up the lectures then actually do it on Saturday. These lectures included our last anti-inflammatory lecture and a lecture on insecticides (drugs used to treat exoparasites i.e. fleas/ticks/mites etc), a lecture on toxicology and two lectures on growth (one of which was on hormones and growth, the other on the determinants of development and the determinants of growth).

Over the last weekend, as well as copying up lectures, I’ve spent some time watching films, some time trying to network the house and some time with Hayley.
On Friday night Hayley and I had a pleasantly relaxing evening in, as everyone else was out (Mat, Paul and Steve had gone home, JP was in the Wedge). We got our selves a Chinese take-away and a film. The communally agreed choice of film was Rain Man.
Over Saturday and Sunday Levator had a 2.5hr practice in preparation for the soiree next Friday and I managed to network the house. This was a success as we can all connect to each others puters and the router but not to the interent, damn computers, think we’re going to have to get someone in to take a look at it.

Right now it’s Monday evening and I’m sat in my room, this will get posted tomorrow lunch.
Today has been pretty busy at Langfordton. We’ve had a biochemistry lecture on the effects/causes of too much or too little (hyper/hypo) magnesium, calcium and potassium in the body, another biochemistry lecture on anaemia and a lecture on growth and one on wounds and injury. The growth lecture was very dull as the guy talks incredibly slowly about some incredible uninteresting stuff e.g. The different kinds of probes for recording the depth of sub-cutaneous fat in pigs. The wounds lecture was pretty interesting, all about the correct methods of repairing different kinds of wounds depending on how contaminated/dirty they are. This afternoon we has a computer based practical on nutrition, enough said.

Over the next week the main event is Friday when the Soiree is taking place. Levator Ani are making a guest appearance and have a 40min slot at the beginning of the night. Then we’re going to store away the kit and enjoy the rest of the night, my little bro is coming down so should be pretty cool.

Forget to mention two things…
Firstly I had a murder mystery night last week. 11 of us dressed up as different characters and carried out a role play type evening. Even though loads of people where ill from colds it was a really cool night. Me and Mat hosted the evening and were the only two to independently guess the murderer right, who was Hayley (or Madj Ikal Russian magician).
Secondly I’ve managed to land myself a job over Xmas helping at the Rottingham conferences including vetsix. Should get me a nice bit of money to clear the Australia dept that’s still lingering in my account.

Its got to that time in the week again when I’ve realised that I haven’t written a blog for a while. I think I last wrote around the end of last week, since then I’ve been to a house party, played some hockey, been to a footy social and flunked a pathology test.

The house party was last Saturday night. Me, Hayley, Pritchard and Paul went from my house. It wasn’t the greatest of nights. This is maybe because I’m now a boring third year or due the severe lack of alcohol at the party. Though some must have appeared after me, Hayley and Pritchard left as Paul didn’t arrive home till very late and had a severe hang-over next day.
Hockey on Sunday was an all day 7-aside tournament. The vets have so many fresher hockey players this year that we were able to enter 3teams (though non of them won it). Sunday evening Pritchard cooked us all an amazing dinner, not quite sure what it was though, I know it involved cod stuffed with something very tasty and there lots of olives… delicious!

The best work orientated thing that happened last week was that I learnt some suturing techniques on Monday, this included a couple of interrupted knots and some continuous. Also the guy taught us a hand tie knot, which was damn complicated, though I got the hang of it in the end.
The worst work orientated thing that happened last week was a pathology mini-test on Friday. I’d spent some of Wednesday and all my spare time on Thursday brushing up my knowledge of inflammation and repair and then the test included nothing I’d revised. It was all on histo-pathology (which no one was told) and I’ll be damned if I can see the difference between a plasma cell, an epithelioid cell and a lymphocyte. I hope I’ve scraped half marks, but we shall see. It ain’t a big deal really as the test is only worth 1% of pathology, I just don’t like to fail anything that counts.
Other work stuff last week included lectures on abnormal fluid balance and acid base disturbances, a microbiology practical and the finishing of housing lectures (thank god, perhaps the most tedious subject yet).

Definitely a contender for the best night out of the term was Wednesday’s football social. It started out at the Scotsman and His Pack pub were we had curry and beers and then moved onto the Wedge. It was messy night! Drinking games continued throughout the night and penalties were often and harsh. The fresher initiation was a success, all of them did well and didn’t bring back up their three fosters, though one of them didn’t make it out the pub, obviously the table he chose was a very comfortable place to go to sleep. Interesting stories of the night include Milesey poring a whole pot of pepper in his mouth for no apparent reason and then decorating the toilets with it and some lumpy stuff (the guy was already bladdered at 8:30 when I arrived) though he did do a very good job at cleaning up as he decided later on in the night to clean all the toilets and mop the floor?! The same guy will also be remembered that night for falling off a stall whilst stood on it singing Madonna “Like A Virgin” at the top of his voice.
Not funny but I feel it should be included anyhow is T.Williams senior’s bottling attempt on 4th Yr Rob. Rob was supping away harming no one when Williams launched his attack on him and broke a bottle over him. He wasn’t sure what happened or why he did it, but thankfully no one was hurt.
Once we got to the Wedge drinking continued and most of team enjoyed a night of socialable dancing. Obviously this wasn’t good enough for Big Josh though as he got thrown out for an indecent attack on a female (I did not see the incident, though sources tell me that Josh, apparently finding the girls cleavage very appealing, decided to place a saliva lubricated finger down it – shocking stuff, I’m sure he’s very ashamed!!).

Presently I’m at home in Derby. I had to bring back the car on Friday as my little bro requires it. Though I haven’t got to get the train back down tonight as Mat is giving me a lift (he lives in Stoke-On-Trent).
I’ve had a very nice relaxing weekend at home, went out for a meal with the family last night and then met up with some mates in Derby.

This coming week is awesome as far as work is concerned as we have incredibly little timetabled plus there’s no tests to revise for. Apart from a couple of band practices I haven’t got much planned, though next weekend a few people are off to Yorkshire for Greenwood’s 21st, should be a good weekend!

It’s Thursday lunch and I’ve just finished a hellish morning of pathology and pharmacology. We’ve finished off the pathological response of cells and tissues and have moved onto healing and repair. The most daunting part of pathology is that we have to actually learn the stuff before the summer as we’re tested on it at the end of each week. In pharmacology we had our second antibiotic lecture, spent most of today on the subject of penicillin. Not too bad, though the lecturer talks in monotone.

Since I last wrote the most interesting thing to have happened is that I’ve turned 21. We had a house party on Friday to celebrate and then I went home with Hayley on Sunday on my actual birthday for a meal with the family.
Our house party was pretty cool. We managed to club together 90 squid for punch which went down an absolute treat. Also after the lads had done such an excellent job in the garden we had to make use of our new found space. We built a fire and put up some fairy lights to make a grotto type area. Mat got hold of some tarpaulin to protect everyone against the Bristol rain. I can’t really remember most of the party but I think it went pretty good, it certainly looked like it the next morning, and all the punch got drunk, though birthday cake was found at the bottom.
On Sunday the family got together plus Hayley and Fran (my little bro’s girl) and Mum cooked us a grand meal. Presents on the day included a very sexy ipod, loads o cash, some engraved cuff-links and a cow bell which sounds dam cool.

This week has so far been relatively uneventful. Monday was a Langford day with meet our new clinical tutors in the evening (these will be our tutors for the next three years). Mine specialises in orthopaedics, which as I’m most interested in surgery is a stroke of luck. Perhaps I’ll be able to have a look at a few of his ops next year.
Tuesday we had band practice in the morning, didn’t go that amazing but then we’ve got another on Saturday to hopefully iron out the few probs. In the afternoon we had 2 housing lectures followed by immunology. Housing is incredibly dull and the guy gives us shockingly bad hand outs, meaning we’re forced to jot everything down.
Yesterday we only had two lectures (CNS and the first antibiotics) then footy was cancelled so we had a bit of a training sesh on the downs. In the evening the house had a hard core night playing risk in the lounge drinking hot chocolate…who says 3rd years are boring?!

As for the rest of the week things are looking good, the mini-test for tomorrow has been cancelled so it’s a free evening tonight to get on with some much needed guitar practice. At the weekend there’s a 21st birthday house party on Sat and on Sunday I think there’s vet hockey and then JP is cooking our house a meal.

Will hopefully have tinternet in our house shortly so I don’t have to write these blogs in vet school anymore. God knows what the freshers and second years think reading over my shoulder? Probably why the hell is that crazy third year writing a bloody diary.

Well I'm back for round 3 of vet school, the summer has flown past, and it seems only yesterday when I was coming here to discover whether I’d made it through round 2 or not. It’s two weeks into term at the mo. I was hoping to write some entries before now but we haven’t got tinternet yet in our new house and so I’ve had to resort to writing in the vet school library (not to bad as long as you don’t mind being surrounded by preserved anatomical parts and keen freshers getting into their new anatomy books).
I suppose the best way to do this is to talk about my summer and then give the run down on the activities over the past couple of weeks.

Well summer is pretty difficult to describe in one word, though everyone expects you to achieve this. Basically I managed to fit in my pig and cattle EMS plus a bit of travelling.
The summer started very well with a few days in Barcelona with Hayley. We managed to get return flights for only £40 and so is was quite a budget trip. We spent our time viewing Gaudi Architecture, looking round art galleries, going on a boat trip, visiting an aquarium and walking the ramblas. Would definitely recommend Barcelona.
After I had a wonderful time in Spain pig EMS was a bit of a downer. Early starts and poor working conditions weren’t ideal, though the people were pretty cool/amusing and I spent most of my time tailing and injecting newly born piglets. They also let me name a boar on the farm, so there’s now a Bevis the pig on Foston Pig farm.
Between the end of pig EMS and travelling I spent my time finishing my pig report (a 4000 word report on the pig farm, you have to five of these in total before the 3rd year, one for sheep, pigs, cattle, horses and a small animal practice). I also spent quite a bit of time with Hayley, she came down to Derby for a few days and I went up to Yorkshire. For some reason we did loads of walking, in a week we went to three different national parks (exciting stuff to read about I’m sure?!).
Well that brings me onto travelling. I spent six weeks out of the UK, though 10 days of this was on a cattle farm in NSW Australia getting my cattle EMS done. Definitely the best way to get the EMS sorted, especially when I compare it to my other option of working on a little dairy farm in my village. The farm was amazing! The area was surrounded with Australian bush and the wildlife was incredible, there were parrots flying around the farm and the surrounding land was swarming with kangaroos, I even saw an emu when the local vet took me for a drive round the area.
After ten days on the farm my mate John (in my year) came down from Sydney to meet me and then we set of travelling from the farm. Before we bussed to Melbourne we spent a day skiing in the snowy mountains (first time we’d both been skiing though we picked it up pretty quick. However John had one little accident on a j-bar lift when he fell asleep on the way up and veered off. To be fair he was well jet-lagged and the night before I’d forgotten to pick him up from the bus station in the middle of the night, so he was left for an hour in a tiny Australian town. Don’t think he was best impressed with me?!). From Melbourne we flew up to Cairns to learn to dive on the great barrier reef. Probably the best thing all holiday, as we saw sharks, turtles, clown fish and thousands of amazingly coloured tropical fish, it was like swimming in the worlds largest aquarium.
After Cairns we made our way down the East Coast back to Sydney, stopping off at the usual tourist sites i.e. Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands, Hervey Bay and Frasier Island, Brisbane and Byron Bay. Also on the way back home we did a four night stop in Tokyo. Best thing we did there was visit the tuna fish auctions, where 90% of Tokyo’s fish comes through each day. There was the most incredible amount of huge frozen tuna and the auctioneers were very amusing. John got a lot of attention in Tokyo being almost 7” tall, I think he got a bit fed up of being asked whether he was a basketball player or not though.
Despite the fact that I had an awesome time travelling it was nice to land back in the UK and get back to normality (though now I’m wishing it was vice-versa).

I had two days at home before me and my dad drove down to Bristol. I could have left it a little bit later to come back but I quite fancied seeing Hayley and making freshers week. Fresher’s week was pretty cool this year, it wasn’t ideal being jet lagged and waking up at 7:00am each day, though I had some great nights. The best night was probably the vet freshers party in Walkabout, so many people!!
My house this year is very cool. There’s six of us, all vets, and the house is massive. Each room has double beds and the living room is a good size. We’ve sorted out a nice entertainment system for the lounge so work this year could be minimal. The only down side to the house is that’s it’s a twenty minute walk to vet school, though as we’re at Langford 2days a week this year that doesn’t matter too much.

The first week back was pretty weird. Its taken me a while to settle in after getting used to the laid back travelling way of life. The subjects we study this year are Pharmacology (started last year), Pathology, Microbiology, Farm Animal Science and Basic Clinical Science. Pharmacology (drugs and how they work) would be pretty dull if it wasn’t for the cool Scottish lecturer we have at the mo. Pathology looks like it going to be the bane of my life this year, with tests every week that count to the end of year mark and a lecturer that just recites the hand-out. Microbiology has been the most fun so far, the practical in Langford last week was pretty cool and the lecture was interesting. In Farm animal science we’ve spent the lectures so far learning about housing, yesterday I learnt how to make concrete and I now know the adv and disadv to the various types of livestock flooring… fascinating hey!? Basic Clinical Science has been incredible dull so far though the week after next I get to learn about suturing so that should be good!

During the first week my little brother Rich (age 18) came down for a few days and joined us on the freshers pub crawl and one of our house meals. The pub crawl was cartoon themed so we went as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Our costumes were immense! Hayley found a bright yellow skirt and black wig so nailed the Snow White part and us dwarfs were awesome, we had hand made beards and hats and top quality dwarf clothing from the charity shops. Best efforts have to go to John and I for John’s Dopey dress and my night time bear sleepy pyjamas.
The first house meal of the term was a success at Claire’s, though we were all hung over from the pub crawl the night before. Claire cooked an excellent Spag Bog.

Last weekend I did very little. After a wicked Wedge on Friday night Saturday was very unproductive. Mat showed up some time in the afternoon, after deciding he wasn’t drinking Friday night he’d ended up in Wedge with us then finished the night off killing a bottle of Jack Daniels at the vet girls house…crazy fool!
On Sunday Levator Ani had their first jam of the term which was promising. We should have no problem getting a new set list together for our 40min slot at the Soiree in November. New songs so far include Ash Shining Light and Blur Country House. Hopefully with all the practices we’ve got booked over the next few weeks we’ll be fine.

This week has been very hectic. Monday was all day Langford with a Welfare debate on cattle lameness. Tuesday was Mat’s 22nd birthday, he got the exciting present of a dressing gown off us so he doesn’t feel left out, as all the rest of us own one. We went out to a new microbrewry bar for drinks in the evening; they make all their own crazy beers, including a mango one, which is pretty sickly.
Yesterday we had two CNS pharmacology lectures and then lost football 2-1 against the roo-bar. I played all game up-front, bit of a mad decision by captain Ian as I’ve never played upfront.
Last night it was Hugo’s birthday meal at a Chinese restaurant in the centre. Hugo got ratted and everyone sang karaoke, though only Hugo sang a solo (I’m too sexy for my shirt!).

Over the next few days there’s quite a lot on as it’s my 21st birthday on Sunday. We’re having a house party Friday night to celebrate my birthday plus Hugo’s and Mat’s then I’m going home Saturday with Hayley to see the family.

Hopefully I’ll have the net put in soon and will be able to do some shorter more regular blogs.

Sorry about the delay in getting this blog out, to be honest I've been a bit preoccupied over the past week with vivas or celebrations to write one. Also I haven’t had any internet access since Hayley's house got disconnected, I'm going to go round Ian's in a bit to post this and get my drums that are stored there.

The last exams which I haven’t wrote about were the anatomy vivas on Monday and Tuesday. I had live anatomy and head and neck for a quarter of an hour each on Monday, and then Locomotor followed by neuro-anatomy and exotics together as a further two quarter of an hour vivas on Tuesday.
Monday’s vivas went ok; Live was fairly easy but was also pretty basic stuff so I doubt I could have achieved a good mark. I got quizzed on a dog radiograph and then a cow skeleton, so not a great amount of live animals in my live animal viva. I think I impressed a little with knowing all the intercostal spaces to listen to heart valves in the cow.
Head and neck on Tuesday wasn't anything like as easy, I was assessed by Glenn Wakley who's lectured us for the last two years, and I didn't really want to let myself down in front of him. The first half of the viva went really well as I knew the answers he wanted for the questions on the larynx and radiographs. However, he then decided to move onto some slightly more difficult stuff on cranial nerves. I know the theory fine, but I find it quite hard to relate the cranial nerve stuff onto actual specimens.
Tuesday’s vivas were far better and I was really pleased with my locomotor viva. Professor Domingo Tortonessee took the viva and I was quite surprised when his first question was "You are the drummer?” Apparently he'd managed to get hold of the tape of the vet pantomime and watched Levator play in the interval. It was pretty cool to be told by him that I was his idol; I think Domingo fancies himself as a bit of a drummer. The rest of the viva questions were a bit more taxing, but I knew most of the answers, and think I impressed a bit with my knowledge of the muscles of the fore-arm of the dog.
Neuro-anatomy was most definitely my best viva, the only question I wasn't sure of was "What is the function of the lingula part of the cerebellum in the dog?" so that was cool, and exotics after was ok. I got asked questions on avian reproduction which I know a token amount about.

Well with all the exams over on Tuesday it was off into Broadmead for some essential retail therapy. £110 later I'd got shorts, t-shirts, a shirt and a cd. All critical for Barcelona and Australia (though maybe not the cd, but I haven’t got any of white stripes albums and it was in the sale). In the evening a very large bunch of second years ascended upon Andy Fullerton's house for a bbq and many drinks.
I don't know whether it was because I haven't drank for ages or that I drank too much (probably a bit of both), but the consequences where that I didn't surface till 3:00 on Wednesday. I then spent the rest of the day very hung over playing on computer games until it was time to join the alphabet pub crawl. This had been going on all day and is an event for the whole school where you make a 26 bar pub-crawl during the whole day. By the time I'd joined it we were well into the alphabet, but never mind. I don't think the alphabet is very rigidly stuck to though, I think Jim the organizer just counted the next bar as ok as long as somewhere in the name contained the next letter. Hence O was the Hog's Head, where my friends and I joined in. Poor Pritchard however didn't join us for a good while after we planned as he went to the wrong Hog's Head on the other side of Bristol (was quite an amusing phone call when he rung me asking where we all got to!).
The pub-crawl ended up in Walkabout (don’t know where x, y and z got to), though I was pretty sober as I was driving next morning so it wasn't the greatest of nights.

On Thursday a group of us decided to go to the beach, not really the best idea as it was the one overcast day we'd had for weeks, though it turned out a great day. We took two cars full of vets to Weston-Super-Mare / Weston-Super-Shite, and spent the day playing on 2p machines, going on bumper cars, eating fish and chips, digging big holes in the muddy beach and watching Pitchfork chase his windwafter football all over the very windy beach. Though the place and the whether weren't ideal we all had a wicked day out, topped off by the great Roosult in the evening.

Friday was the dreaded day of results. We met up in the King’s Arms before hand then headed off together (strength in numbers) to the vet school. To be honest my results were a bit of an anti-climax as I already knew I'd passed three out the four subjects before hand. However I managed to get a merit in Anatomy which is a pretty awesome achievement so that was excellent. So results stand at...
Animal Health and Husbandry... merit
Anatomy... merit
Physiology... pass
Parasitology... pass
Most of my friends did really well. Mat got himself a distinction and two merits, Hayley got two merit, Pitchfork got a merit, Hugo passed all his, Tamsin got 2 distinctions and 2passes!! Paul passed all his and Ian got the same results as Pitchfork. The biggest achiever of all however was by far John, he managed to pass everything even though he sat his written exams with glandular fever, what a star! He was advised by the dean just to wait and do them in September, but he wanted to go to Australia and so somehow managed to struggle through!!
The only two in my group of friends that didn't pass everything were Steve and Claire. Steve failed just Animal Health (though he did well in the others) and Claire failed two by 1% each, so she has been allowed to just resit these two. Although having to resit is obviously a nightmare for her it could have been a lot worse, as if you fail more than one the policy is that you have to resit all four in September. In case you're wondering what happens if you fail your resits you're either thrown out or aloud to resit the year depending on circumstances.

After getting the results yesterday Hayley and I hosted a bbq at her house for over 20 of us. This went on from 3:00 till 10:30 when we all went off to reflex for an 80's night (no Wedge for once!!).

Today is organization and cleaning day (no cleaning done yet though). I've been down into town this morning to get some essential things for our holiday on Monday and after writing this I need to go round to Ian's to post it and then get the drums of him so that I can take them home over the summer to make my parents very popular with the neighbors?!
I think cleaning will have to wait until this evening, I just hope my flat mates have made a start (as I haven’t lived there hardly for two terms they must be joking if they think I'm going to scrub down the house for them when I get back from Barcelona).

Tomorrow is Barcelona organizing day and then I think an early night is essential, as we're driving to Gatwick very early on Monday morning.

Once Hayley and I get back from Barcelona we're either going to hang around in Bristol until the 1st or go to my parent’s house in Derby and then come back so we can move our stuff into the new house. Then it's back to Derbyshire for the summer!! Though I start pig EMS on the 5th of July. However after that the summer looks absolutely amazing!! I'm probably off to the Isle of White for Cows week in the beginning of August and then coming back to head off to Australia for cattle EMS and traveling with John, should be a great experience and will no doubt contrast greatly with the India trip last summer.

I haven’t a clue if this will be continued next year, if it is I will no doubt be able to make much more entries as I've been informed that the 3rd year is far slacker than this year, which has no doubt been the hardest year I have ever worked in education. However I do feel that I've achieved a lot, what with good results, getting a band formed and completing a half marathon it's been a pretty successful year.

Exams are almost over! Just four anatomy vivas to go next Monday and Tuesday and then it’s all over (for anyone who doesn’t know what a viva is, it’s just a couple of lecturers/professors asking you questions on the subject with no other student present). However before anatomy I may have a pass/fail or merit viva in one of the other three subjects (you can also get distinction vivas, but that’s pretty unlikely for me). These vivas are just to see if a person deserves an extra 3% to give them enough marks for a pass, merit or distinction. The list went up yesterday for animal health and husbandry. 3 people got pass/fail vivas and 3 others got requested attendance vivas, I wasn’t on either list so hopefully that means I’ve nailed animal health (unless I flunked majorly).
The big worry today is the parasitology viva list that goes up at 11:00, if I’ve failed anything this will be it! So fingers crossed.

The last exam I did (the only one I think I havn’t mentioned) was histology last Friday. A one-hour exam using microscopes to draw layers of tissues, slide sketches, quess the identification game and then write concise notes on a topic out of 4 choices. I think it went ok (compared to last year it went amazing, when I wasn’t able to identify any of the tissue types and put heart for a leg cross-section, I don’t see how I managed that now, but then Steve put ear for the pancreas so that’s a similar sort of error, I reckon Professor Woolly dreads marking histology papers, after a years worth of learning and most of us still don’t know our arss from our elbow).

After the exam on Friday it was out to celebrate, we all pilled into the local Weatherspoons (or Waterstones as I called it after a couple of pints). As I hadn’t drank for what seems like an eternity, even the first pint went to my head, so well, 8pints later Wedge just wasn’t on the cards… only bed.
Saturday I did sweet FA and then Hayley and I hosted a bbq in the evening, everyone was pretty chatted and hungover but it was still a good night. I did all the cooking and managed pretty well considering I’m usually dreadful at cooking, though to be fair all men are culinary geniuses when it comes to the bbq.
On Sunday I again lounged around all day in the sun playing computer games and was generally a bone-idle git. Then in the evening Tamsin, Hayley, Paul and I went off to Cribbs to see Harry Potter 3 (absolutely awesome, so much better than the last two, I don’t reckon however that it’s safe for most children, though the book can be read to children without scaring them, there isn’t no way a child is coming away from that film without nightmares for a year, I should know I’ve still got the nail marks in my arm where Hayley got scared during the film).

Yesterday I went over to the dissection room to go through some head and neck anatomy stuff for the vivas. Didn’t really get anything done at all. It was so hot in the DR I just couldn’t be bothered. In the evening I got a train back home, which coincidently is where I am now, hoping that I might be able to get some anatomy revision done. However if I’ve got a viva then I’m screwed as I haven’t got any of my notes (except for anatomy) with me, so I’ll have to pelt it back to Bristol.
The main reason I’ve come back is to get the car, as I’m going to need it to drive Hayley and I to Gatwick on the 21st for our trip to Barcelona.
Last night I lounged around with my parents and looked at their holiday photos from New York, where they went for their silver wedding anniversary. Mum says it was fantastic and apparently a must see, though perhaps not this year, I doubt the budget will stretch past Barcelona, Australia and Tokyo (big news on this trip is that I might not be accompanied by John, as he managed to contract himself glandular fever during the written exams, he still sat them, but whether he now passes or not is very dodgy).

Today I’ve got shed loads of jobs to do and things to sort out, and then I suppose I’d better get on with some anatomy revision. Think I’ll start off with a bit of Neuroanatomy, a dodle compared to the amount needed to be learnt for locomotor anatomy.

Almost finished!! Just histology tomorrow and then anatomy vivas ten days after that. I've just walked out of an anatomy spot which went ok. 40 two part questions where we walk around in silence moving from one question to the next when a buzzer sounds. We were tested on locomotor and exotic anatomy (rabbits, birds, rodents, snakes and tortoises).

As you can imagine the only thing I've done over the past week is revise and sit examines. Since I last wrote I've done Physiology, Anatomy, Parasitology and Animal Health and Husbandry written examines, plus the anatomy spot just done and an animal health computer examine yesterday. In the remote chance that anyone may want to read how my examines went I’ll list them:

Physiology
Went pretty good except for the data interpretation question on modifying male sex hormones in a ram. I think I completely flunked that part. Though the essay on thermoregulation went well and the short answer questions were pretty good. I got in an ace diagram of the vascular changes that occur in the neonate at parturition.
However I may have guessed a bit too much on the multiple choice questions. They’re true or false questions, which are cool if you know the answer for sure, but if you get it wrong they’re negatively marked, so there’s always an element of risk in guessing.

Anatomy
The best exam yet. Really went well! I was fairly sure about the answers for a lot of the multiple choice questions and there were four short answer questions I could do. These were bird flight adaptations, the skeleton of the tortoise, the anatomical structure in the antebrachial region of the dog (fore-arm) and the stay-apparatus of the horse (muscles and stuff that it uses to bare weight with no effort).

Parasitology
I havn’t a clue how this exam went to be honest. I thought I aced the Christmas one and got an E, so even though I think it went ok I obviously can’t judge parastiology at all. I got tested on itching ectoparasites in cats, protozoa in pigs and sheep worms. There was also a mini-essay on tick adaptations.

Animal Health and Husbandry
The exam was an utter beast, six 20minute questions to answer on micro-nutrient deficiency symptoms, ruminant carbohydrate digestion, blood types, disease eradication programmes for elbow dysplacia and PKD (polycystic kidney disease in cats), epidemiology and imprinting behaviour. I managed to write quite a bit for it (always makes you think positive even if you write utter nonsence), though epidemiology wasn’t ideal as I got confused between an analytical and a descriptive study… drat.
Never mind though the computer exam yesterday was a doddle… 78%, so no worries. I’ve calculated that I only need 35 % in the written exam to pass Animal Health due to the great success in the computer exam.

Well if anyone’s still reading (probably only my family…so hello Mum and Nanna) tomorrow night is going to have to be a big night out, there’s a lot of useless rubbish floating around in my head desperate to be unlearnt again, so it’s off the weatherspoons after histology and on to the Wedge.

I've just finished an enthralling three-hour forelimb anatomy stint and I’m feeling fairly positive about the exams. After revision this morning I’ve finally finished going through everything once (quite a close call though as exams start the day after tomorrow).
Reproductive physiology took me about 15hours over the past couple of days, but least it’s done, and will mean that it won’t need to give it much attention tomorrow or Thursday morning before the exam.
The rest of today I’m going to try and read through hind-limb anatomy and then all of exotic anatomy (fish, birds, rodents, reptiles) so I’ll have gone through everything again for Friday’s Anatomy exam.
Then next Tuesday it’s Animal Health and Husbandry computer based and written exams. This involves genetics, nutrition, behaviour, epidemiology and statistics, so quite a beast! Then the day after is parasitology, followed by anatomy on Thursday and Histology on Friday.
Next Friday night is going to require a well deserved break and very drunk state to unlearn all the stupidly long parasite names that will hopefully be floating around in my head.

It’s not all doom and gloom though; I went home Friday night so I could join my parents celebrating their silver wedding anniversary. It was great to be home for a night and see all the family including my grandparents. This was the first time I’ve been home all term.

Right back to, just another two and half hours to go of Anatomy and then dinner.

Probably won’t speak again till after the exams, as I’m fairly sure I’ll be constantly revising over the next week…

Wish me luck!!