One week down, four more years to go.

Last week was probably the longest week of my life!  If the first week of vet school, where we study all the "easy" stuff, feels that way, then I'm not really sure what I'll do when tests roll around!  Anyway, I'm loving most of my classes, but the amount they pile on you is a bit overwhelming.  I never feel like I have enough time at night to study material, and it just builds up more and more each day.  This last weekend was good to play catch-up, and I'm going to try and refine my study strategy so that I can fit more in each night.  I was also able to find time to do some fun stuff: Friday night, Derek and I played Call of Duty with Michael and Luke; Saturday, Derek and I went to the Salem Saturday Market for lunch and went grocery shopping; and Saturday night we restarted playing the Halo games again (which I've been really craving playing lately - I blame listening to the soundtracks).  It might not seem like much, but doing all of that really helped me feel a lot more relaxed coming into the second week of school.

Anyway, I'm going to rewind a bit back to orientation!  It was three days filled with different activities, and I ended up really enjoying each day.  Doing the ropes course on Day Two was definitely my favorite part.  I almost think I enjoyed the little low ropes "getting to know you" activities more than I enjoyed the high ropes, but I love cheesy stuff like that!  I had a lot of fun meeting pretty much all of my classmates, and I'm happy to report that everyone in my class is undeniably awesome.  But really, you literally cannot deny their awesomeness, they make you sign a waiver and everything.

As orientation was in full swing, my mom and Doc Shaw flew in from Oklahoma to visit and go to my White Coat Ceremony!  I was so happy to see them!  They came by our apartment for a little bit on Thursday night, and then on Friday they traveled to Corvallis a few hours before the ceremony so they could see the vet school and go on a tour especially for families of vet students (Derek and I went with them as well).  I'm really glad that they got to see the place I'm going to be spending most of my life in for the next four years!  But really, the Oregon State University College of Veterinary Medicine is so nice and modern and I'm really proud that I have the opportunity to go there, so I'm glad they got to see it!  Then later that night at the White Coat Ceremony we had a delicious dinner and marionberry cheesecake (aka the best cheesecake I've had in my life) and I was presented with my white coat (embroidered with my name) and stethoscope!  So cool :)

That Friday night, my Aunt Kim and Uncle Dave flew in from Boise.  So we spent the whole weekend hanging out with them, my mom and Doc Shaw, and my Aunt Stephanie and Uncle Jim (who live in Salem).  Saturday we drove to the coast and went WHALE WATCHING!  And we actually saw whales this time!  It was so exciting!  They were gray whales that live off of the coast of Oregon.  We even got to see their tails a few times!  The next day, Sunday, we took a trip to Silver Falls State Park to see some waterfalls.  It is really gorgeous out there, but I'm not sure some of us appreciated the amount of hiking that was involved, haha.  Then it came time to say goodbye to everyone who had come to visit :(  I'm sad that my family was only able to visit for such a short time!  I really enjoyed seeing them, and I can't wait until winter break when hopefully I will get to visit home again!

Since they left, my life has basically been school.  I know that sounds melodramatic since I only started a week ago, but it's true!  I'm in class from around 9 am - 5 pm every day, and then I come home and study all night.  My classes include physiology, gross anatomy, microscopic anatomy, and animal care.  Animal Care and Handling is probably the most fun, because we get to spend class time each week learning about different animals and doing basic check-ups on them!  It's a neat experience and it feels great to get out of the classroom and actually work with animals every once in a while.  Last week we got a chance to work with some of the university's horses, and since I've never worked with horses before it was all completely new to me.  We were taught how to take vitals, lift and check hooves, and then how to "lunge" the horses, which was an interesting experience in itself.  When lunging a horse, the trainer holds a long lunge rope that is attached to the horse's halter.  The horse is then instructed to trot in a circle around the trainer, with verbal and tactile commands imploring it to go faster or slower.  The first horse my partner and I worked with was not very interested in listening to us and preferred to eat grass instead.  Our second horse was a little better, but still not very well-trained.  Finally, for our last horse we decided to tack onto another group who seemed to be having success, and it worked!  This last horse was much more amenable and after a little bit of help from my professor, I was finally able to lunge a horse!  It was a really cool experience, and I enjoyed getting a chance to work with an animal I've never really been around before.

In other news, in case you need another reason to think that Derek and I are crazy, we're looking into moving, again!  Mere months after we moved into our current apartment!  We actually love where we live now, the price of rent, and the city we live in, but the problem is that all of that is an hour away from school and work.  So we lose two hours to a commute each day!  It's pretty tiring, and it makes it pretty much impossible for me to stay late and study, and I have even less time to dedicate to myself each day.  Not to mention having to wake up at 5:45 am to get to class at 8:00 am on Mondays!  A few weeks ago I was going to bed almost two hours later than that!!!  So, we're touring a duplex today.  We've driven by, and it's pretty cute looking.  It has a garage and a backyard, and it's only five minutes away from the school!  Where was this when we were looking for a place over the summer?  We had the hardest time finding a reasonably-priced place to live in Corvallis that would allow our three dogs, even though they only total about 30 lbs.  Cross your fingers for us!

That's all for now!  It seems like I'm not going to have a lot of time during the week to update my blog (I wrote most of this on Friday and I'm on a break from class that we don't normally have right now), so I'll probably only be able to update on weekends.  Thank you for reading!