A quick nod to the vet-thing, today I learnt how to listen to a horse's heart (not a moment too soon!) and managed to identify systolic and diastolic murmurs (hooray for vet-school horses)

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Hearts and Vodka

A quick nod to the vet-thing, today I learnt how to listen to a horse's heart (not a moment too soon!) and managed to identify systolic and diastolic murmurs (hooray for vet-school horses). The lady who runs the stable was surrounded by one gynaecology rotation, and our cardiology rotation, which lead to the phrase "are you here for hearts or bums?" Eurgggh.

In other non-vetty news, Alex and I are planning on creating chocolate vodka. It is a simple recipe involving cocoa nibs and vodka. Instructions as follows. 1) Mix nibs and vodka 2) Wait 3) Drink vodka. My sort of cooking (though I did make a champion Teviotdale Pie this evening if I may say so myself)!

T0ӎ

p.s. It was Alex's birthday on Tuesday, which means it's shout-out time. Happy birthday Alex!

My Photo in the Telegraph Online

Dear Blog,

Today I got a photograph put on the Telegraph online website. Huzzah!

Click here.

They may have got the location wrong, but my name is still there!

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Autumn

We're having an absolutely beautiful autumn at the moment. It's appeared all of a sudden, but all of the trees look absolutely beautiful. I'm taking my camera out with me whenever I leave the house to take some snaps before they all drop!

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New Monkey Pose!

As you may have noticed, there is a new monkey picture - the first one for... well, over a year! I hope you enjoy it and fingers crossed there might be a few more on the way if I can get my creative juices flowing!

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Discoveries this week...

Things that I have discovered this week:

• A "demonym" is the word which describes the inhabitants of a country. I.e. "English" is the demonym for England.
• Some snails have "love darts", which are non-projectile organs which stab other snails during the passage of sperm, though they are not related directly with impregnation. Of course, snails are hermaphroditic.
• Whoopi Goldberg has no eyebrows.
• If you threaten a car with the garage, it fixes itself.
• In the congo, brickettes are a convenient environmental fuel for burning, as an alternative to charcoal. They are made from old paper and sawdust, and are made by mixing these ingredients with water, and then compressing them in a tube to form a doughnut shape. And very effective they are too (by all accounts).
  

More to follow... probably.

I went out yesterday to take advantage of the autumn sunlight in our garden and took some snaps. Some artsy (I especially like the one of the garden glove in the plant pot - it was like that when we arrived at the house, and none of us have moved it), some gruesomely green (our pond looks like the Amazon... crocodiles anyone?), and others just general garden snaps - you can see how gorgeous it is. All photos are on my flickr account, recognisetheview.

Rectalling a box - Update

An update to my earlier post about learning rectal exams using PM uteruses in a box, here's how Glasgow do it.

Despite all the wires, it's still not a patch on using real life (well, dead) material and the joys and japes of a plastic box-cow.

Rectalling a box

Have just enjoyed a morning's rectalling. It was a fantastically laid back, yet hugely useful rotation. We started off looking at post-mortem reproductive tracts (as a crash revision course), and had a go at some bovine rectal examination through plastic boxes with holes in! This was surprisingly useful - you could lift the top off to check you were doing it right, and they even had plastic pipe vulvas! Nothing was left out... except animation I suppose. Apparently Glasgow have virtual reality rectalling systems, but I'm not sure I believe this [I later discovered this to be true - see above]. Mary's brother has just started there though, so I shall get her to enquire about this. Rich took great pleasure in reaching inside the top of the boxes and grabbing James' hand when he least expected it - "It's the fetus!" I helpfully added.

Then we had coffee, and advanced to real horses, which I rectalled (and tail bandaged sucessfully - oh yeah, I rock the horsey world now I've passed my basic horse-handling exam!), and managed to find all the useful bits that lady-horses have.

Yes, it may look like a home-for blue-tits, but this is, infact, a schematic drawing of our cow-boxes. Hand goes in top hole.

Morning

Good morning! Am up bright and early for a lecture on Cattle medicine. Our last lecture was really good and today we begin displaced abomasums(?, abomasi?) so should be interesting if I manage to stay awake. Am currently chugging tea to wake myself up. This time last year I'd have left already but in our new closer-to-the-vet-school house, I don't have to leave for another 5 minutes. Eeeexcellent.

Unvetty?

Having bounced round the internet a little this evening I've realised that of the vetty blogs out there (for example, or try this one)mine is distinctly un-vetty. Partly this is because I am excited by things other than vetting, and don't want to bore people with the boring details of "today in lectures I learnt...", but maybe it's a shame. I don't know really.

Interestingly, have discovered a new fun way of learning diseases. It's a game called "I have a cow...", and essentially you think of a disease and someone has to work out what is wrong with your cow in a 20 questions yes/no style. It's a bit sad, but very useful. So far this evening Alex and I have covered RDAs, Milk Fever, Pulmonary adenomatosis, caseous lymphadenitis (yes, we branched out into sheep), white line disease and coccidiosis. Huzzah!

Freecycle

I have recently discovered the wonders of "freecycle". The basic premise is that people have loads of stuff that isn't saleable, but would probably be useful to someone somewhere, so why throw it away? There are loads of local groups, based on yahoo, and all you have to do is post a message offering something, and it gets sent out to the list. The Cambridge one has over 14000 members, and yesterday I picked up a new mattress for my room, to replace the TINY bed I had before. I drove out to a little place called Whaddon, and, using some new £4 bungee cord and Alex's help, rolled it up into a tube, and squeezed it onto the back seat. And so now, I have a double mattress that can be put on the bed-frame that I am assured is somewhere in the vicinity of the house - just to find it!

Plus, since I got a new bike last term, my old bike has been sitting around gathering dust (and rust). It's not really worth anything, so I popped it on freecycle last night, and I've had 10 replies already! Crazy! I'll have to choose someone by apparent-deservedness. Blimey!

Car

I have just realised that my spate of non-blogging over the summer means I have not mentioned the new car. I have a new car, which is VERY exciting! Tis an old peugeot, and most impressive, if a little French (see below!). Image is not of mine, but gives you the general gist. I would not park mine in a field, unless that field was full of cows and mud... as well you know.

French Cars, and Holocaust Films

On Friday, I ventured out to the cinema for some large-screen entertainment. "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" was not, for some reason, showing on either of the central Cambridge cinemas, so being the spoilt towneys that we are, we could go to a third cinema, a little further away. In previous years we would have spent 45 mins hiking there on foot, but this year, I have my little (well, actually quite big) peugeot, so off we drove.

Unfortunately, the car, having an annoyingly French mind of its own, decided that "zeze multi-story-carparkes are not for me moisieur! You wish for me to sit around wiz zese other Engleesh and German cars!? PAH!", and refused to MOVE. Fortunately, with a little coercion, and lots of revving, I managed to squeeze it into a space, much to the chagrin of the people behind me who must have been quite irritated at the retarded boy in the old car stalling it about 50 times (I repeat, car's fault!).

The film was amazing. It was touching, moving, and had an amazing spin towards the end, that I didn't suspect until it was all too late, and then the whole audience was pulled down with it. It was a holocaust film on a much more personal level than most, and managed to be harrowing without being exploitative. As it finished, I didn't know what emotions to feel, I just stared at the credits for a minute, my mind spinning. In short, go and see this film. Even if you just see it once.

Tom

A small plug...

Horse Vetting

I have spent the last 2 weeks working with an Equine Vet, and, surprisingly, thoroughly enjoyed myself. They have no concept of normal working hours, so I was usually doing 11-12 hour days (with a 1 hour commute each way), but it was well worth it. I've learnt a huge amount, become more confident with horses, done nerve blocks, half a castration and a whole castration (horse and cat respectively) and learnt loads. It'll definitely stand me in good stead for next year which is jam packed!

The only problem is that I'm now full of a cold :(

The Fringe

I hope this blog doesn't die! It's been going for so long, but I've been really lazy at updating it.

The Fringe was amazing. I was only there for about 4 days, and by the time I left it felt like my life - you get totally engrossed in getting up - handing out flyers - moving bathtub - show - lunch - flyers - see another show or 2 - hand out some flyers - eat - flyers - see a show - sleep. Just crazy busy, and knackering - how the cast, directors and Jo coped with a whole week I'll never know.

The show went fantastically, though it was ruthlessly snubbed by The Scotsman, the festival magazine "Three Weeks" seemed to appreciate what Alex and Vicky had tried to achieve - it wasn't months of hard work for nothing. The owner of the theatre thought it was fantastic too, which was a real bonus.

You can see some fringe photos on the Theatre Company webpage, www.brokenglassplay.co.uk

Cattle?

Blimey - it really has been a long time since I last posted, and now I'm well over halfway through the holidays.

Mostly I've been vetting, fitting well into hand-up-cow's-backside and kitten adoring stereotypes; while also assisting in preparations for Broken-Glass-do-Edinburgh.

I seem to have fitted quite happily into the life of a large-animal vet. There's something about being outside in the open, driving around beautiful landscapes (so far I've experienced those of Cheshire and West Yorkshire) and turning up on farms. Yes, to an extent it's saddening that the opportunities are not there for huge heroics, but every decision has repercussions on a whole herd, and in most cases being a vet is a much more respected position on-farm. Almost all of my work has been with cattle, and I just love them. As animals I think they (more specifically dairy cattle) are a perfect balance between tame and wild. Tame enough to deal with (with sufficient precautions, the likes of which you should be able to, but cannot use with horses) but just that little bit wild to keep it interesting. This is then all tied in with the economics and politics of farming that fascinate me. Maybe as a London-boy I'm a little behind, but it hasn't seemed to bother most people, and I'm willing to dive in outstretched arm first. 2 years to go, lets see what happens.

Castle Mound 2008

Ben managed to drive an entire clan of Chavs of Castle Mound today.

Ben: Y'a'right mate?
Chav: Wat college ya from?
Ben: I'm not from a Cambridge, I'm from Durham, Up north
Chav: Like, Scotland
Ben: No, Durham, it's in England
Chav: Edinburgh
Ben: Durham
Chav: Shropshire
Chav2: Lake District
Ben: No
Chav: Yorkshire
Chav2: Lake District
Ben: Sort of
Chav: Glasgow
Chav2: Lake District
Ben: No
Chav: Blackpool
Ben: No
Chav: Newcastle
Ben: Yeah, it's near Newcastle
Chav: Liverpool
Ben: No
Chav: So where is it... just tell us
Ben: Durham
Chav: Why dint ya tell us dat?
Ben: I did
Chav: 'Av a nice night fellas... and ladyfellas.
Ben: You too
Everyone: slightly nervously YOU TOO.
Chavs: E's off 'is rocka mate!

Broken Glass

Important news is that the Broken Glass Website is up and running fully now - looking quite snazzy if I may say so myself. Have a look round and read about Song. It should be quite an exciting and moving play to see, so if you're in Edinburgh, or need a good reason to go, let it be Song.

Playlist

I made a playlist!

Exam done. It wasn't great, but it was alright - it seemed to concentrate a little too heavily on being able to identify inflammatory cells (which I'm crap at).

I have loads of mouth ulcers at the moment (~12), and having just done an alimentary exam, I'm convinced I've got ulcerative stomatitis, or possibly foot and mouth disease, or even malignant catarrhal fever. The problem with veterinary knowledge! You think you have the symptoms of diseases it's impossible for you to catch. The ultimate hyperchondria!

Bridles, Coffee, Blogs and Cyclists

Hurrah! So I'm all bridled and meetinged up now. I thought I could do bridles, but I'm resigned to the fact that their complicated leathery straps are just too much for my brain to handle. I managed it in the end (though needed some more pointers as the horse refused to take the bit) though. I've also had coffee (how I needed coffee) in the little cafe to prepare for the Alimentary exam, and edited my blog. How committed I am. Actually, I've reached the stage where last minute cramming will turn my liver into fois gras (fatty change in the liver resulting in vacuolated hepatocytes with eccentrically placed nuclei as a result of increased food intake in birds didn't you know) and my brain in to mingmush (not sure what the pathogenesis of this one is).

Ah, term is almost over - It's gone so damned quick!

News item of the day - I wonder how long it is until these damned cyclists in Cambridge are allowed the wrong way up one-way streets - it can only lead to deaths, though probably more economic use of police time.

Profile errors?

I've just realised that my profile random question reads the following:

Q: Your pajamas have duckies on them. Why did you switch from choo-hoos?
A: I would probably cover myself in golden syrup and then roll in sawdust. Mmm. Crunchy

Of course this is an answer to a completely different question, but I'm going to leave it for comedy value.

The evening before the exam.

The evening before the exam. Alimentary is tomorrow morning. I'm not overly worried, but nowhere near as confident as I was before breeding (which I found out I passed today). It seems to have snuck up on me without me realising. I seem to have continually convinced myself that it is a few days away, and here I am with it being tomorrow morning. Still I've made notes, and been through everything at least once. There are alot of drugs with silly names that don't seem to be going in, but apart from that it's fine. The picture on the left is a photo of a skull with "lumpy jaw", caused by Actinobacillus lignersi which is essentially an osteomyelitis of the mandible. See if you can work out which species the skull is though... It's hidden in this post somewhere. WALLABY!

I've also got to go in early tomorrow to prove that I can put a bridle on a horse - I messed it up the other day (got the throatlash twisted through the top), and so have to go back to show that I do now how to do it. Should be fine, I've had a practice which was fine. Hopefully nerves won't get the better of me! I've also got to meet my supervisor tomorrow for my termly meeting, to discuss EMS gone and to come, and to check I'm still in one piece!

I was very glad to find out today that biscuits are getting the coverage and respect they deserve. Often the important work they selflessly perform is overlooked as they calmly sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

Other random links, the designer of the pringles can is buried in one.

Amazon tribe, never seen before.

The eternal growth of trees, no matter what gets in the way

Logic rules

I'm currently enjoying having translated my lecture notes on Alimentary Pathology from an illogical stream of randomness to a logical progression for each disease with --> style arrows and everything (one thing I have forced my Mac (now running iWork, not office) to take from Microsoft is the creation of an arrow from '-->'). It's so much simpler to revise from when you start with the pathogenesis, go into clinical signs and then pathology. I'm enjoying it anyway!

Damned window-smasher

Someone smashed my sister's window the other night, showering her room with glass. If I find out which drunken 1st year Yorker did that, I'll give them beatings.

Amnesia...?

So anyway, little thought for the week. A hypothetical situation to consider…

I am given a drug - a perfect amnesiac, producing 100% amnesia, but no analgesia, muscle relaxation, loss of consciousness etc. This drug is administered for 1 hour, and lasts for only 1 hour, by which time it wears off instantly. During this one hour period, I am exposed to a painful stimulus, say a capsaicin infusion that lasts only 10 minutes, before wearing off with no lasting pain.

During this 10 minute period, I can of course feel the painful stimulus, I have not been given any analgesia. However, as far as I would be aware, I would also have “woken up” one hour after the analgesic was administered. Extreme cases of amnesia result in people believing they have woken up for the first time regularly, as they have no memory of anything that has happened in the past. So, if I was effectively “asleep”, though 100% conscious during that time, and presumably able to scream at the pain, if I feel, after 1 hour that I was asleep the entire time, did I actually “feel” the pain - was my welfare compromised?

It’s a really interesting question I think!

Birthday

I haven't posted for a while - my apologies!

Last week was my birthday, and I proudly entered my 23rd year (22nd birthday) with a stylish MCR formal followed by cellar-time (i.e. Bar) with friends. 15 people came to formal in the end, including Linguists, House people, school friends and some vets, and we all had a great time (for a low-low price!). Rahul came up from London, which was exciting; it was good to see him. The linguists were in the midst of their exams, so I think they enjoyed the brief ability to escape the pains of exams.

Photos:

As you can see, I'm procrastinating quite heavily - I largely blame 'VPH' or Veterinary Public Health as it is more accurately known. It's interesting, let's not pretend otherwise, it's just a bit dry. Filled with welfare legislation, notifiable disease regulations, control methods, zoonoses, salmonella, PMs, abattoirs, salmonella and salmonella. I've got as far as HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) and just want to burn something! Apparently Cambridge was criticised a while back for not doing enough VPH, and now we seem to have bounced in the opposite direction... 39 lectures!!! It's as big as BIDDS was!

3 Exams this term, Alimentary (which is really good), Animal Breeding (also really interesting - the obs and gynae stuff is seemingly my thing, probably helped by doing developmental bio last year) and VPH.

I've just discovered that there are loads of vet student blogs out there - maybe when I've got some time I'll scout out the best of them.

Tom

Bad unis.

Seems like the people at Kingston University have been taking a leaf out of ARU's book!
click here for news link

“if Kingston comes down the bottom, then the bottom line is that nobody is going to want to employ you, because they'll think your degree is shit”

“although this is going to sound incredibly biased ... if you think something was a 4, my encouragement would be, give it a 5”

Boris is Mayor... update

So Boris is the new mayor of London then. I suppose it's evidence of how keen the people of the UK are just for a "change" of some sort.

UPDATE

So he's scrapped the mayor's free London newspaper. I can see what Ken was thinking in making it - give the people a common publication to try to create some sort of a sense of community (as close to a village newsletter as one can get in London), but it's a huge waste of paper, must have lead to hours of cleaning time on the tube (they're always rammed with them), and cost £3million! £1million going to plant 10000 trees on streets can only be a good thing - it'll make people happy, and hopefully give us all a little more oxygen!

Linkies!

Some random and exciting links for your internetty perusal.

A story about a huge cow! Enjoy!
An amazing table, named after the tasty product of the female version of the above.
The most fantasticest computer ever- I am now the proud owner of one, bought refurbished on ebay so as to lessen the insult to my bank account. I'd recommend the seller (mactuition) as he provided an excellent service!

Picture pinched from www.telegraph.com - hope they don't mind!

Thoughts

Jesus' 1st instinct when confronted with the sick was to heal. Lepers, the blind etc. So a god doesn't 'like' suffering, he hates it.
I'm sure I've lost a proportion of my readership already (however many you are). Simply using the J word evokes emotions in most people - in many, fear, confusion, anger, pity and resentment. I know for me the word still conjours up images of South American States-types preaching "Jesus Christ, praise the lord" which I find shocking. And images of CICCU hoodies and people professing to know all the answers. People telling me I am "a parachutist without a parachute" [CU in 1st year] just succeed in scaring me off and creating a stigma for themselves and religion as a whole.
In Alastair McGrath's rebuttal to Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion", "The Dawkins Delusion" he makes the observation that many eminent scientists and intelligent people are practicing Christians - surely they are not all "deluded" people with an "imaginary friend" as Dawkins would have you believe - do they know something I don't?
I've already had the shocking epiphany that a belief in God and an understanding of science are not incompatible (here) which was vitally important in seeing that 'God' is not a deluded excuse for not understanding. I suppose it is an explanation for that which cannot be explained; that which we can explain (his work???) we do - through science.
I don't want to be "Christian" or "religious", I'm almost ashamed of the stigma, but there is also no way I can be an atheist - it seems to be ignoring a huge proportion of the argument. I couldn't come to terms with, for example, the death of a loved one with a simple "that's the end" attitude. I would need to believe that there is something more, that I would one day see them again. Of course need is a well documented atheist explanation for the existence of religion, and that shouldn't be a starting point, but it's important.
One of my previous questions "Why church?" has been answered in a number of ways. One, an evangelical response was "If we believe that God exists, then it demands some sort of response rather than apathy as most of the British public choose" ,and another less evangelical one "it's like going to a dinner party where you've had an amazing time and thoroughly enjoyed yourself. You should say thank-you". Both I think, are good answers.
I realise that I'm mostly just presenting information here in an unstructured fashion - maybe I'll return to this later and make it more readable (perhaps a cogent argument would be useful), but at the moment I don't really know where I'm going with it, so it's difficult to structure. I'm writing this down to justify decisions I make. Any move from here will have to be one I find logical and one I believe to be valid.
To leap back to the start, suffering. People believe different things (or more than one). We have free will, and certain types of suffering (war etc.) are a result of a human abuse of this. Other, natural forms of suffering are harder to justify in a loved world. I suppose they simply result from the natural way the world is set up. Take cancer as an example. It is, in most cases, a normal cellular function taken to an extreme - cell growth uncontrolled, and the result of a mutation in the genetic code for either a "tumour suppressor gene" (TSG) or an "oncogene" (actually an 'after the horse has bolted nomenclature, like calling bones 'flaccidity preventors', or television aerials 'static removers'). All genes are mutable and this can result in their malfunction which can lead to cancer through the loss (TSG) or gain (oncogene) of function of these genes. However, of course mutation - the imperfection in the replication and maintenance of DNA is vital for the processes of evolution - without this imperfection, all species would be static, infact, most wouldn't exist at all. So in order to have evolution, there must be imperfections in the system which leave it open to pathology. Does this mean the world is imperfect? Not necessarily, it's just the way it is.

Cows continued...

Well indeed Mary, what about the cows? I saw them again today - whiffling grass as if nothing has had happened. And I'll tell you something else - the theodolite man was gone... I think this can only lead us to 1 conclusion. Yup, they ate him.



Actually, I saw a theodolite man in Lion's Yard today too, so I suppose they must have set him free. Cows have hearts too (bloody big ones if I remember my IA anatomy correctly).

So Boris is the new mayor of London then. I suppose it's evidence of how keen the people of the UK are just for a "change" of some sort.

This morning, on the way to lectures, walking along the Storey's Way cycle path I was distracted by an engineer in a field. He was using a theodolite, presumably to do theodolitey things for a development of some sort (ok, I don't know what he was doing) right in the middle of the field of cows. The cows however, were not neatly distributed, or even in a random herd; they were crowded behind him, all carefully watching. If any of you, like Jen, are worried that cows are more intelligent than they look, this poor quality (UFO style) mobile phone photo will only add to your paranoia.

Yesterday I gave blood, and so did Alex. She came along for moral support (though I pointed out that this would make me seem like a scaredycat), and was so impressed by the whole affair ("I thought it would involve knives and buckets!") that she gave blood an hour later (after a trip to Sainsbury's). Worryingly, she also managed to predict her blood flow rate into the bag at exactly 43 ml/min... scary!

This evening we have had an uber-cleaning fest. The hall, landing and kitchen have been hoovered, and the hall and kitchen mopped, alex is frantically dusting and vacuuming her room. Two days ago we flash-mobbed the living room, and shifted furniture before leaping in with the hoover, and I dusted my room at the weekend. Slowly, we are freeing ourselves of the respiratory nightmare that is our house. Please, parents, if you're worried about your child developing asthma, bring them here for an hour and they'll be desensitised for a century.

In other news, my computer is breaking. It's been deciding again that 2 usb ports is one too many, and so I again have to chose between internet, printer, music or pen drives - turn off one, plug in the other etc. etc. Plus it's been crashing alot for some strange reason (I think it's confusion at an external hard drive), and for some reason Ubuntu has started crashing too). I've been eyeing macs up again... apparently there's a new macbook coming out soon, so I'm not sure whether to hold on and see what they're like, or jump in and get one of the current ones cos no doubt the price will go up. Or whether I should even get one at all. Oh well!
Edit: actually it seems the new macbooks are already out.

More blogs.

Just squeezing a blog or two in before the end of April. I'm sorry I've been awol for a month or so, I've been galavanting around during the Easter holidays doing various vet-related things, and haven't though to blog. You'd think it'd be in the blood by now. Sorry!

In recent Cambridge news, the Broken Glass website has been revamped using some cunning css and html japery that Andrew and a wesbite have taught me - it makes designing about a trillion times easier to do, and has enabled me to do it simply with the use of a text editor. Huzzah! Take a look and be delighted :)

Also, Vicky, Alex and me went to see I am Kloot last week at the Junction, and my what a gig it was. Kloot really are amazing, even their new album (which I feel is quite poorly produced) sounded good live, which thankfully helped me realise that it's not the band that have gone awry, just the production. They're still good songs. They were supported by a random American called Ferraby Lionheart, which really is a good name, even if it did take me about 100 failed attempts at remembering his name before I got it. He was quite good - fairly standard guitarry-singy stuff, the sort of thing you could imagine drifting down the tunnel to the museums at South Kensington tube station. I got a poster at the end (it's got cartoony pictures of the band from a gig they did in 2006 on my birthday so I had to get it really), and just as I bought it, John, the lead singer turned up with a big black pen. So I asked him if he'd mind if I "waved a poster under his nose", he didn't mind and signed it up. Huzzah!

Small Fluffies

Today I was less muddy than your average common-or-garden vet student as I was playing with small fluffies. I handled rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, guinea pigs, degus, chinchillas, ferrets, tortoises, corn snakes, bearded dragons, salamanders, skinks, and tarantulas.

• Most surprising: Bearded Dragons - much softer than skaly skin and spines suggests
• Nastiest: Hamsters - I held one hamster, and then another. The second was convinced my hand was the other hamster and sniffed, sniffed, sniffed and then nibbled. Little sods.
• Best pet: Guinea pig all the way

House!

We have a house! After months of searching, we've finally found and managed to stake our claim on a lovely little three bedroom house in a great location. Woop!

I haven't blogged for an age, as I've spent the last 3 weeks distracting myself with vet related fun. I spent two weeks at my 1st EMS practice in New Malden, and had a good time. Vets work long hours and stand up for most of those, which takes some getting used to (though you can buy foot cushions I discovered yesterday) but I haven't been put off yet!

10 Gnomes

10 Gnomes is a game I suggest you all have a go at. Just find ten gnomes in the nicely photographed scene. Sounds easy doesn't it!

Rabbit!

Rabbit!

Apparently this is the 1st thing you are supposed to say at the start of a new month. According to Tom T. I just stick with the reliable "Pinch-punch" - never fails (except when I forget).

This week has been tiring, not least because I've done two post-mortems (at about 4 hours each, spending the entire time standing up, it's quite surprisingly knackering, along with a 6-lecture day on Tuesday, and a late-night lambing shift on Wednesday. PM was quite good fun, even though our animals were lacking in anything obviously diagnostic. Nevermind - it was a good opportunity to have a good look at normal.

Also, saw Juno yesterday - a good film, and 85% happy as I described to Andrew.

CAMS Open Mic Lent 2008

Alex and me played at the CAMS (Clare Alternative Music Society) Open Mic Night on Sunday. We played two tracks, Proof by I am Kloot, a classic that we've played once before, and the more adventurous Lover, You Should Have Come Over, by Jeff Buckley. He's got some really impressive chord progressions, and it was a challenge, but I like to think we made a good stab of it! The open mic nights have been really impressive recently, and it was really satisfying getting such an amazing response from the audience - the cellars were pretty packed. Plus, Alex was mistaken for "Amy Buckley", Jeff's non-existent sister... she must have been singing pretty well to be mistaken for a blood relative of the man himself... and I suppose Buckingham does sound a little like Buckley.

All of the other musicians were fantastic, including Davy, Ruth and Paddy who played some cool Irish ballads, and The Staircase Band who got my blood pumping with their European folk accordion, brass and violin tunes. They sound alot like A Hawk and a Hacksaw, and I seriously suggest that anyone who has ever come in contact with an accordion and thought that it was possibly the sexiest instrument around to check them out (both, though you'll need to look out for the Staircase band in Cambridge). I have added a photo of Alex and me at CAMS, I hope the people responsible won't crucify me for stealing it, but it's an amazing photo. If you are from CAMS and you'd like me to take it down, email me, but I'm linking to your facebook group!

C u r r e n t l y m u s i c 26/02/08

Currently listening to:

Roxy Music, Roxy Music
I am Kloot - Moolah Rouge
A Hawk and a Hacksaw - The Way the Wind Blows
Radiohead - The Bends
Jeff Buckley - Grace

New Bike

I have a new bike! I decided that it was finally time to lay my mountain bike of 10 loyal years down. It was too small for me, and was becoming an unnecessary effort to cycle. So, I toddled out to a cycle shop on King's Street (same road as the Bun Shop for those of you that Cambridge), and a helpful chappie sold me a hybrid road bike for £60. It's large enough, easy to cycle, has new brakes, a pannier, and can go much faster, with less effort than my old one. Huzzah! Plus it was a bargain. Am well chuffed.

In other vaguelly bike related news, I cycled up to the lambing shed with Alex tonight (she's doing a crazy midnight 'till 8am shift, yes, they work us vet students hard), and found out that my caeserean section sheep is doing well, as is it's little lamb. Huzzah!

PM

I spent this morning in the post mortem room, post morteming a cat. It was very interesting, but unfortunately it showed fewer lesions than we expected which meant, while we got a good chance to see what normal should be, we had nothing exciting to write up. Hopefully we'll have more luck on Wednesday!

Tasty tea.

Went to Norwich with Alex yesterday. Was great fun. Story to come soon, but first of all, BUY THIS TEA it is possibly the tastiest tea ever!

Witches and infectious diseases. Apparently, medieval cases of zoonotic diseases used to be blamed on witches... more to come.

My 1st Surgery.

Shepherding went well, though I feel the mantra may have been mistaken. It was cold, and misty - bad conditions for being a sheep-master (just imagine if it'd been an outdoor lambing hill flock!). On the plus side, we rang the vet about a pregnancy toxaemic ewe that had gone down on its legs, and she decided the best course of action was a caesarean section to whip the lambs out ASAP. She got us to draw straws for who would be surgeon's assistant (well, actually we played rock-paper-scissors), and luckily I won, so I got to stick on a waterproof top, and clean up. "Cleanliness not sterility for farm animals" was her mantra - we were performing the operation on the shed table, using an old sink as the instrument trolley and a wheelbarrow as the patient trolley to get her from the pen to the table.

I clipped her up, cleaned the site, and off we went - I got to have a go here and there, and sewed up the subcut/muscle layer, which was fab! We pulled out 2 lambs, but we could only save 1, which considering it was probably a bit premature was quite impressive.

All in all, it was a really quiet afternoon in the lambing shed, apart from the huge excitement of surgery!

Red sky at night...

... shepherd's delight.

And, considering I'm being a shepherd tomorrow afternoon, this is excellent news.

I didn't have my camera with me as I crossed Jesus Green bridge so I only have a mobile pic. I'll have to carry it more often.

I am a rabid llama without rabies.

Have been trying to work through Neospora caninum for the last hour. It's only a few pages of notes, but my brain has decided to go on holiday. I have distracted myself with such disgusting modern day faffing aids as newgrounds (portal is an addictive game, thank you Simon Spiro!). Luckily, I have just discovered insane jazz (Acoustic Ladyland) on Andrew's Itunes, and am bouncing my way to the end of Neospora and protozoa as a whole like a rabid llama without rabies.

Tom

p.s. cheese and onion crisps are fickle friends. They don't last very long, make you fat, and make you smell. Just so you know.

[Edit] I say I am bouncing my way though Neospora, but infact I am mostly writing this blog post... and extending it unnecessarily with p.s.es and edits. Oh dear...

tomthevet - a prognathic mitten man

As my previous blog pointed out, the name prognathic mitten man was an ingenious and anthropology fuelled invention of Alex's and refers more to me than the pictured monkey. Of course, I am not progathic (just see this attractive picture), and previously had no mittens. HOWEVER, as of the 11th of February (Alex and my anniversary) I have fair trade mittens. One more step on the way to fitting my oh so fitting title.

Frost and Horses

This morning was incredibly frosty (see poor quality phone picture taken on the way home when most of the frost had melted). I mean, REALLY frosty. Frost everywhere. White frost. Frost frost frost. Anyway, you get the idea. It was cold, and I had to venture out to the stables for an equine clinical exam technique session. It was interesting, and I learned many exciting techniques (can finally hear gut and respiratory sounds!), but I also lost all the feeling in my fingers, which made finding pulses tough. Infact, it was so cold it was generally quite hard to find the horse. Plus I got used as a scratching post by beachball (which involved me being regularly butted across the stable by a pony - how embarrassing), and getting bitten by sway, who took a good go at my forearm with her twisted teeth. Pretty painful I must say! Luckily the huge number of layers I was wearning kept my blood (and hand) where it belonged.

C u r r e n t l y m u s i c

It's so cold in this house. It's so cold in this house. Smart little Bloc Party.

Music I'm currently listening to:

Purcell: Dido and Anaeus (particularly the Prelude for Witches act. Amazing stuff)
Elgar: Dream of Gerontius (my favourite piece of classical music)
A Hawk and a Hacksaw: The Way the Wind Blows (crazy Romanian market-place music)
Thom Yorke: The Eraser (How to do electronic music)
Led Zeppelin

Toad... Sheep?

... because I have not blogged for a few days.

I passed infectious diseases, which is a relief - thankfully my fear was unfounded; unless I was just very lucky! Either way it's done, and another hoop has been jumped through. You can't help feeling like a performing dolphin here, surrounded by unexciting surroundings (the vet school canteen is like a shoe-box for people). Plus some students are depressingly humour and common-sense less. The other day one of our lecturers inserted a wee joke in the midst of a lecture. She was basically explaining that blow-fly strike makes a mess of sheep because they burrow through the skin forming some diffuse skin lesoins and causing the wool to fall off. Eventually she put up a slide saying "they end up looking like this" (cue showing slide of a toad). Such a joke would usually pass with a snigger, and the lecture would continue. But some vets were insistant that this would be a stumbling block: "but it's not a sheep it's a toad!" they said. So, she tries to continue her joke (as you would), "nah, it's a sheep. Look, here's its head, here's its tail. I don't have any slides of toads!" etc. No, the vets would not be convinced. How could she possibly confuse a toad for a sheep!!? "But it really is a toad!", "No, it's a sheep... maybe I'll put it in your MCQs and then you'll see!".

At lunchtime some of them were saying things along the lines of "I can't believe she really thought it was a toad". "Um... I think she was telling a joke," I said. "But she was really convinced... I'm not sure she knew! We went up to her and said. I can't believe it!" I actually had to leave at this point, before I exploded. This lecturer knows what she's doing. She's a great lady - I have alot of respect for her. She can distinguish Telodorsagia from Ostertagia worms (which are MINUTE) from about 20 yards, she identified a new disease in this country (CLA), she a leading expert on sheep and other small ruminants and is a genius! I was so shocked... vet students aren't all they're cracked up to be. Correction some vet students... let's not tar us all with the same brush!

More Russian has been learnt. It's slowly becoming easier as I get faster at reading it, and am more able to remember the words. Plus our teacher is lovely, and a native speaker so she know's what's going on! After Russian yesterday we popped into the Rainbow Cafe for a quick bite to eat. It's a vegetarian place, with all sorts of crazy dishes to accomodate vegans and intolerants of all kinds (no racists allowed). I must admit it was really tasty - I would definitely go back there. I had "tocana de legume", mushrooms, celery, tomatoes, olives, potatoes, herbs and brown rice in a bowl. Really tasty!

Bidds, Anniversaries and Pub.

BIDDS is done. Phew! It wasn't the easiest of MCQs - 26 of the questions were reverse questions (which of the following is NOT correct), which is really annoying - it plays on all your doubts and insecurities. You may thing that one is wrong (and therefore right), but you could have just overlooked it when learning. Grr. Still, I could have done better, so it's a little borderline. We'll see...

In more exciting news, it is our anniversary today (3years of delight)!, and Alex and me are going out to Pizza Express to celebrate - yay. We enjoyed wandering around town free from BIDDS, and had irish coffees in Cafe Rouge. Nothing is too expensive on anniversary day!

We are then toddling to the Castle to congratulate two vets for their recent engagement (to each other). Also, Geoff is in Cambridge so may be going to see him tomorrow - I unfortunately missed Rahul weekend before last because I was lambing :(.

Just found this on my camera...


Now I didn't take it... Good old Andrew.

Broken blog! [update]

As you can see, my blog is currently a little broken... I am battling to fix this, but I don't really know what's gone wrong. I tried to remove the background image (as it was annoying on computers with bigger/smaller than 1024 resolution), and it all broke! Bear with me!

Update:

BLOG FIXED.

Lambinglambinglambing.

This weekend, I are be mostly lambin'. I spent 12 hours in the lambing shed on Sunday/Monday, pulling small sheep out of larger sheep. It was actually quite enjoyable; they've given us some responsibility and so we are largely required to make managemental and treatment decisions on our own (though there are many laminated sheets on the walls to remind you what you're expected to do). The morning shift was definitely the best of the two. Were were busy, but not rushed (we had 4 ewes lamb, 2 had to be assisted). I lambed quads (certainly the 1st so far, and my 1st ever), two of which were breeches! Cat dubbed me a "lambing conveyor-belt". A few days later, the quads seem to be doing well, although one has been fostered off onto a ewe with a singleton, so they're triplets now. Apart from lambing lambs, we spent hours trying to eke some life out of lamb 2**1 (don't know if I should put actual numbers up). It seems to wholly lack any ability to thermoregulate, and required an intraperitoneal injection of glucose, stomach tubing and a heat box to get its temperature up to normal (39C). It then lost the heat again as soon as we put it outside. I must admit that it's not looking bright. Still, the vast majority of the lambs are healthy and well, and the farm is much well managed and clean than any I've lambed on before.
The night shift was a bit harder - it was dark and cold, and we were sleepy, but we bashed on through, lambed 2 ewes, rang the vet at 4.30am because a ewe managed to haemorrhage everywhere (even though it had lambed 4 days before). I gave it oxytocin though (under the vet's instruction), and that seemed to stop any prolapse possibility, and the flow eventually stopped. A little stressful for 4.30am though! We also did some castration and docking, weighing, spraying, cleaning and other little chores, just to keep us warm and awake. Ah, tis a vet student's life. Still, I got home at 9, had some cereal, and slept until 2.

We went dancing last night

For the first time in a while...

It was good fun, though Fat Popadaddies was not up to his usual form, we didn't hear any bloc party, and had to endure a hundred middle class white Cambridge students chanting "f*** you I won't do what you tell me" to Rage Against the Machine. Of course, they're all heavily institutionalised (like all us students are), so it seems a little hypocritical. Hehe - we had a good laugh. Couldn't help feeling a tad older than the emo moshers of my sister's generation around me.How mature we are. Pretty soon we'll be sipping Chateaux de Chasoulet and remembering the good-old-days. Pffk.

One bucket of welly sanitiser, £5
One digital thermometer, £3
Stethoscope, £60

Fondling a ram's testicles* at 10am in the morning, priceless.

*strictly for veterinary examination purposes.

Relax

Dear Blog (blog)

A moment of peace has descended on the house. No-one is cooking, doing washing, running around or being loud. I am sat on the sofa blogging (obviously), and trying vainly to install some drivers for my soundcard. In a lame ass computer geek fashion I have installed linux on my computer (groan). This is mostly because windows hates my USB ports. Linux loves them - but hates my soundcard.

When I have done this I will begin working. But currently I am relaxed.

Alex is sat next to me turning up the hems of her jeans, a job she loves apparently - it's relaxing. "I'm doing major surgery," she says. "On my clothes". Being a vet, I suppose you can never be too sure when she'll be performing a laparotomy on the living room table...

Ah. All is well.

I'm in trouble.

Mary asked me to ice a cake while she was out... I fear this may be the last time I am honoured with such a request...

I had to cut the top off one to make it flat so it'd fit on the bottom... but it seemed like such a waste of good cake... so we have the cake of directorly crowning glory...

Sunday

Sunday. Moved some chairs, moved a bath, shifted a trolley back, sat on the floor, got blinded by lights, played a bath, played a table, ate a pasty, ignored free hug man, wandered home, faffed a bit, did some work, found a bedstead, rang a bell, convinced a man to give me said bedstead, brought it home with Tom, drank some tea, did some work, ate some eggs, did some work (on and off), went to bed.

York

York is a beautiful town of ancient walls, cathedrals and cute little streets paved with flags and filled with quaint little shops. It has buses that bend in the middle, a ferris wheel and an Ask pizza house in the stunning assembly hall. Conversely, York University is made out of concrete. Some of the buildings are quite impressive (central hall for example), while some are just plain mad (hedgehog buildings for example), and others just ugly. However, in its favour it does have a huge lake (filled with ducks, and, I am reliably informed, Trevors*) and Heslington Hall, a lovely Elizabethan mansion house which stands opposite a slightly creepy topiaried Yew garden (Alice in Wonderland springs to mind).

As you can probably tell, I visited my sister at York this weekend. We had Friday off (shock horror, thanks to some smart lecture shuffling) so I went up in the early afternoon having gone down to the Corpus Playrooms in the morning to teach some actors the ChaChaCha. I don't really know the ChaChaCha, but mine and Alex's rudimentary knowledge of the basic, new york and turn steps proved useful in forging a bond between actor and actress. Anyway, I digress. Went up to York on the train (which only took 2 and a half hours!), and Hannah met me at the station. Pretty soon toad in the hole was being devoured at a local pub (the Cross Keys if anyone knows it), and Hannah was working through a steak (much to her boyfriend's gall later on!). We then toddled back to campus (on a bendy bus, oh joy of joys!), and sat in her (pretty nice) kitchen for a few hours chatting to her friends. Thinking about it, they are probably reading this, as Hannah often subjects them to this torturous site, so I suppose I'd better say something nice. Teddy Bears.

And so, we went to McQ's (it's a bar, not an exam**... I know, I was confused and slightly worried) and had a few drinks before coming back home. Hannah's house is... functional. Long corridors, no plaster (painted breeze blocks) and mildew, but it's homely now it's lived in and everyone looks settled.

The following day, Hannah took me on a tour of the campus (see above), and then she, George and me walked into town. We got some lunch (Ask - see above), and then came home again, because, like a great big retard, I forgot my camera. Arses. Really, though I convinced anyone it was because I was stupid, this was infact because I figured that was better than admitting that all I wanted to do was ride on a bendy bus again! So unnecessarily fun.

So, much fun was had. I ended up waiting ages for a bus back in Cambridge (as I didn't check the timetable until I'd been waiting for 30mins - I was too engrossed in "To Kill a Mockingbird"), but was greeted when I finally arrived by requests for chinese takeaway... so we did! Huzzah!

*Trevor is the name given to a black Swan that attacks Hannah's kitchen window every day. Due to their rudimentary undergraduate swan differentiation skills however, this results in every black swan being named Trevor despite the fact that many are infact named Charlotte.
**MCQ = Multiple Choice Question.

Lambing

We've just had a small ruminants practical on abortion in sheep and goats which would have been really useful, had I read through the notes - if only there was more time, and I wasn't revising BIDDS whenever a moment for work is found! All I really want at the moment is sleep!

All 4th year students are required to help lamb the uni sheep this term, and we received our timetable yesterday. The sheep are watched 24hours (infact, 24.5 hours*) every day so everyone will at somepoint have to spend a long night in the sheep-shed. Mine are scheduled for the 3rd and the 27th Feb. Here we go again - I've only done a month of lambing!

Have just been to my second consultation skills seminar, which this time involved taking a fake consultation with an actor lady (sometimes known as an actress) and a toy cat, infront of a video camera. Pretty scary you think? Well, actually, you'd be right. We each took a small part of the consultation, so were only required to talk for around 3 mins max - I unfortunately had the wonderful job of telling the lady what we'd 'found' on clinical exam and list the possible options that we could take from there. I got a little verbal diarrhoea and spouted at her, so didn't do a fantastic job, but you live and learn - was well worth doing. The actress was very good, though she didn't have a massively tough role to play, just stand there and seem concerned about her cat, though she did have to reveal information to us bit by bit, and obviously had quite a meticulously planned case history hidden away. I think next time we get "angry clients", which will be... interesting!

Has been a busy morning already! Alex and Andrew have gone off to rotations (Post-Mortem and Small Animal Studies respectively), and Mary and me have been left to our own devices, which in my case has involved making phone calls and writing this blog, whilst Mary is hunting for screws for her new pannier.

Phone call wise, I have phoned our letting agent as my room has started smelling of sewage every time Andrew flushes his toilet, which is a little worrying to say the least! "I'm upset you thought I could make a smell of raw sewage!" he said. Sorry Andrew! Hopefully they'll send out a plumber today to take a look at what's going on.
I have also rung an abattoir in Halifax, and have arranged to go there for a week in August. I now have 9 weeks of EMS organised (10 if the BSAVA congress is allowed to count), and can hopefully book another 2 weeks small animal in summer to get myself up to 11!

I also have new shoes (shock-shock-horror!) to replace the infamous "Davy Shoes" given to me by Davy in 1st year. Unfortunately they have walked a fair few 100 miles in their time, and are giving up the ghost so I got a replacement pair of loafers from M&S with my Xmas voucher. However, as they are slip on, insoles were required, and what better way to use the cut off insole bits than giving them to Alex with a pair of scissors. Meet 'Shoe Shrimp' who has taken up lodging on my clock.

Quote of the weekend:

Alex: "I've drunk 3 and a half pints of water!"
Mary: "Why?"
Alex: "I thought I'd completely replace my body water content."
Mary: "Why?"
Alex: "..Felt like a change."

swift!

We wish to point out that Alex by no means thinks that her total body water content is 3.5pts, the statement was made for comic, rather than physiologically accurate effect. We wish to apologise for any englings, physicists or possibly even vets that have been misled.

Pics from Cambridge Christmas

I've just unearthed some Cambridge Xmas pics:

Pathogenland

Which sector of society is represented by which pathogen?

So far we have decided that students are herpes, because they do alot of sleeping, and occasionally come out for a HUGE party.

Any more ideas anyone?

Excitements!

Exciting news! I am going to be stewarding at this years BSAVA (British Small Animal Veterinary Association) Congress in April. My Dad rang me up with exciting letter-related news, and it said I'd been accepted (I applied back in November)! I get accomodation in Birmingham, for 6 days and a small wage, plus the chance to hob-nob with all sorts of distinguished vetty types. Am quite excited, though a little daunted!

3-1 to me. Oh yeah, you never doubted it did you.

psyching myself up...

Am just about to go play squash. I shall report soon about my tremendous landslide victory over Mr Bates. You will all be proud

Baking for Students

I am making my first loaf of the term. I took to making my own bread last term (even splashed out on a 2lb tin and a book of recipes), I suppose my genetic memory is full of it owing to my Grandfather (who was a baker) and my Dad (who has inherited, and passed on) much baking knowledge. I have even advanced to including such insane ingredients as honey, milk and wheat bran. It's really good fun, and very cathartic (a wonderful word) beating the hell out of a lump of dough, and having a tasty, stodgy, sweet smelling, warm and crisp loaf at the end of it all. The best thing about it is that baking is essentially designed for students. It takes 10-15mins to prepare everything, then you have half an hour of work time while it rises, followed by a few seconds to get it in the oven, followed by another half hour of work before it's ready. Before you know it, in less than an hour and a half you've done an hour of work and you have a tasty home-made loaf. Amazing!
Note to self: less work is done if you blog about how amazing it is that you have time for work.

Another day of lectures today - we had more small ruminants (goats and sheep knowledges were passed) and an animal breeding lecture (including photos of vibrating and thrusting dummy mares for stallion semen collection), and an introduction to nutrition (which is a particularly topical subject owing to the infamous rise to fame of "raw meaty bones"). 4 hours, 4 lectures, and much more stuff to try to learn!

Tom

Full of Toffee

I am currently gummed up with toffee. I forgot to mention that I received a huge amount of sticky nut and raising toffee for Xmas from Hannah (sorry). The toffee is amazing, but there's no way you could eat more than 3 squared cm of it without dying a diabetic death. It's terrifying, but fantastic. I don't know what my dentist will say...

Dracula

Ventured out to the Arts Picture House yesterday with Alex, Vicky and Tom to see the 1958 version of Dracula starring Christopher Lee. It was pretty good, though I must admit to being very bored in the 1st half an hour, it quickly picked up and made for a fantastic film. And at only 83mins, I didn't feel like huge amounts of time were wasted. The film equivalent of the 39 Steps. Much of the action was left "implied" which means the film didn't spend ages romping through all the unnecessary action - e.g. setting up a blood transfusion apparatus etc. Very good film, though surprisingly bright and sunny (when compared with horror films of today).

Back in cambridge

Back in Cambridge. The 1st day involved shopping (bought some door hooks which promptly fell off in the middle of the night waking me up as my coat went crashing to the floor, toothpaste and other such essentials), chinese takeaway, and the major event of the day, website creation for Vicky and Alex's plays, unified under the title "Broken Glass" - click here (brokenglassplay.co.uk) for a look, and if you're in the Cambridge area make sure you come along!

End the Neglect.

I'm currently going through my "Never Listened To" Playlist - as I realised I had about 500 tracks that I'd never listened to. Some of them I have, just not on Itunes etc, but it still upsets me to think that some of my music has been neglected. I like to think that I like all of my music (with the exception of odd tracks on albums). How many unlistened-to tracks do you have? Stop the neglect -listen to them.

There are so many diseases! How can there be!?

Happy New Year Everyone. Welcome to 2008 (he says as if he is the guardian of the lockers to which people are welcomed at the start of a new year), welcome.

I spent New Year at Rahul's - We'd been to Asda a few days previously so he could buy "some" food, and managed to fill a whole trolley (which at Asda is a feat I can tell you - no plastic cutlery (!) and no plastic champagne flutes (!) what is the world coming to ;) ). Then, having driven them home we got all this shopping up 5 flights of stairs (in one trip may I add) and he was stocked up for party. However, when the big day arrived it became clear that buying unprepared food (peppers, mushrooms, lamb) etc. was maybe a bad idea as it required much oven space which was seriously lacking, and time, which was also lacking, particularly as it stole time away from vital celebration and drinking time (in the intervening days he'd bought a huge amount of drink, which I found chilling on his balcony).

Anyway, much fun was had (and we did have some kebabs, which were fabtastic) and Rahul, Duncan, me and many of Rahul's uni friends welcomed in the new year with a fantastic panoramic firework display from his 5th floor window - at least 40 displays going on simulataneously (with one almost exploding right outside the window). Great :)

Resolutions

Resolutons:

1. To blog more during term - now I am a clinical vet student it becomes much more imperative that I blog! Surely my vettings are the only interesting thing that gets put on here anyway!
2. To stay fit. Seemingly walking 4 miles a day is not enough to stave off uber-uni-belly (which I lost in a week of Xmas tree selling). Situps?