Semester 3, Week 1.5--I'm Baaaaaaaaaaack!

Lia and Brutus lounging in the living room.

Well, what a break (and I really really really apologize for being so lacking in the updates)… full of running around and business despite nobody being on-island.  Although, I suppose that’s exactly why I was the busy one.  At my peak of pet-sitting, I had 5 dogs (Liamuiga, Gus, Daphney, Ottley, and Brutus) and 3 cats in the house (Reese, Gibbs, and Willow) and watched 2 other cats and 2 guinea pigs at my friend’s place.  A week into it, I had a decent routine worked out though and could take care of everyone within an hour and a half, including the drive up Mattingley to get to Kristi’s place. 

Gus, Ottley, and Daphney distracted by treats.

The campus clinic was quite busy as well—with Boaz in every day (a very mushy Rottweiler that had a large tumor removed off his side and ended up with a superbug bacterial infection), two cases of foreign body ingestion, and a hit-by-car that had a fractured pelvis and femur.  I had a ton of time to read, prepare a D&D campaign (kinda), and review notes from first and second semester.

Oh, I suppose you want to know how I did this time around, huh?  Well, I passed… not great, but I passed and made it into third, keeping me amongst the “greenies.”

Immunology – C (I know I ACED that final… but didn’t do so well the rest of the term… but I PASSED!)

Physiology II – C (we had a HUGE scale at the end… nearly 25 points!)

Anatomy II – B (I jumped from just passing to a B)

Parasitology – B (went from a C+ to a B)

So, this now gives me an overall GPA of 2.33, which isn’t great, but I surely will be able to bring that up.  Unfortunately, with the grades being posted, that means I had to say goodbye to my friends that didn’t make it through, and console the friends that are repeating.  It’s rough seeing that happen to others, but at the same time, you are SO relieved it isn’t you.  With regards to the repeating, they also changed the policy, so you don’t have to repeat the entire term to get the financial aid—just enough credits to give you part-time status.  My repeater friends are lucky with that… I spent a LOT of time this term worrying about passing physiology again.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Reich as an instructor, but his exams make you second-guess everything you know. 

Third semester brings us into classes that are a LOT more interesting—bacteriology, virology (which is unfortunately with Giymah again), Pathology I, and Pharmacology I.  And, the schedule is much more laid back—when we don’t have labs, we’re usually done by 11:00am or noon.  Don’t let the thought of having “free time” fool you, though… we have a lot of material to learn and only a single midterm and a final exam.

Our new kitchen board. :P

Last week, we got hit by the tail-end of Tropical Storm Maria, which made them cancel part of the semester olympics and the Mr. RUSVM Pageant.  (You may find this surprising, but I went to support the class in soccer and kickball… but when we got knocked out of the running, I went over to support the purple class since Robert was playing.)  Mr. RUSVM got bumped to tomorrow actually (so I’ll probably post a shorter post this weekend just about that and the other multitude of events that happen), and I’m going to be in the show this time.  ;)  Let’s just say it got me back into hip-hop style dancing… and another class requested the presence of the “Corset Crew.”  The class has been practicing a lot for this, so I hope the Greenies stand a chance this time!

So, here’s to a new semester!