Semester 4, Week 8--CHAOS ENSUES!

Well, hard to believe a month has flown by since I last had time (or energy) to update this thing... and I apologize.  I've been joking with my friends about what this entry would be like:

"Today I woke up... went to classes... went to the gym... went home and studied... and then slept. Tuesday, I did the same thing... and on Wednesday..."

For the most part, that is the life of a veterinary student.  That, wrapped with a crippling fear that nothing you do to prepare for exams is good enough--you study for hours, pull all-nighters, and still fail the exams.

Midsemester break was last weekend--and we had a wonderful 3 days off.  Saturday night, we went on a night catamaran trip out to Nevis.  By "we," I mean 20 of my closest friends down here.  Luckily we're Rossies and can make the best of bad situations:

• We were told there would be a bonfire once we got to the beach.  We ended up toasting marshmallows for s'mores on a candle...
• A friend almost got into a stranger's car... but luckily was around some of the rest of the group that advised her against that decision.
• The battery on the boat died and we got stuck on the beach for an hour with a rather creepy rastafarian who wanted to flirt with all the women in the group.

Needless to say, I think I'm done with catamaran trips for the duration of my time on the island...

This long weekend also marked our "halfway day" in the curriculum.  WOO!

Our professors were quite kind to us the duration of the week and actually gave us Friday off as well, so we had two 3-day weekends in a row.  Well, they were kind in that respect... but exams have been rather difficult on us this semester so far... so let me just say I have a LOT of work for the finals.  

On Saturday, Lexi, Steven, Robert, Liamuiga, Gus, and I hiked up Mount Liamuiga--the volcano on the island.  It was a grueling 2 1/2 hours up to the crater and I wanted to quit on several occasions on my way up there (especially after slamming my knee into rocks multiple times), but Steven made a promise of a lobster dinner if I made it to the top.  And, that I did.  (Pictures forthcoming.)  According to DailyBurn, a 4 1/2 hour hike burns 2500 calories, so it's no wonder I ate everything in sight that night... and boy was that lobster dinner delicious--even more so because I didn't pay for it.  

Today, I was catching up on my blogs between classes (and procrastinating from studying some Mechanisms of Disease material despite our test being tomorrow), and came across this little gem on one of my favorite ones:  Veterinarians Behaving Badly.  It chronicled the story of a veterinarian who started treating a duo of dogs fresh out of veterinary school... and followed the family as it grew--from puppy to adult dog, with additions of human children into the household, and straight through to the end, 10 years later.  What struck me so poignantly about this post was at the end:

"We have this life, and ONLY this life. Enjoy it. Make the world better for yourself and the others around you. Heaven is not some mystical reward to be given to you in the afterlife. It’s an ideal, a dream, a goal. It’s something we all need to work together to MAKE for OURSELVES. Love well, love deeply, love many. Find humor. Find beauty. Find joy. SHARE it. Share your defeats and tragedies as well, for without sorrow there is no joy, and pain shared is pain halved. Smile, laugh, cry, dance. Live."

This is why we followed our dreams to come down here--to make the world better for ourselves and the animals that enrich everyone's lives.  This is why we're here, pushing our minds (and sometimes our bodies) to the limit.  This is why we're fighting through to the end.

And on that note, I'm going to study for tomorrow's exam.