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.