Pyjamas

And so the MCQ exams have finished (assuming this last one has been passed successfully)! We all rocked down in Pyjamas, looking like a uniformed bunch of upper-middle class students who'd recently been on a group trip to Jack Will's drapers and suitors (and been offered a very good deal on their latest line of baggy-slob fashion), except with more dressing gowns, and the occasional pair of slippers (though I'm sure Mr Will's do a fine line in those too). I remember seeing the 5th year one day last year, and being incredibly confused as to why they'd all, by some seemingly random coincidence (for I knew of no unifying reason why this should be so), decided that their pinkest clothes were due for an airing. It was of course their last MCQ exam, and so it is tradition that the final exam should be seen out in some sort of costume - and we chose pyjamas (by democratic vote).

Now, the examiners were entertained by this more lazy than usual attitude to morning attire that the students had taken, but the proctors were not. Apparently, we were very lucky to have been let in at all, particularly as we may have distracted the other students (who were also wearing pyjamas). Where has the fun gone in life? The turn a blind eye attitude that universities should take towards students engaging in non-violent, non-drunken daytime exam-related fun, does not seem to be forthcoming... though it would have been entertaining to see the entire year disqualified from the exam.

The exam was Clin Path (or Clinical Pathology for those less well versed in the unnecessary abbreviations of veterinary medicine) and was pretty tough, though rather invigoratingly so - it required some logic, rather than just blind regurgitation, which was nice. Helps differentiate us primates from cud-chewing ruminants don'cha'think. Hopefully it should be ok, and I can enjoy having a week where my next exam is not for 2 and a half months! Huzzah!

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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

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!

Parasites anyone?

My goodness me - regular readers, if you are still checking this I bow down to you, for I have neglected the blog for far too long. I am now a clinical vet student don't ya know, and so have been having an inaugural number of lectures, which has been a shock to my system made fragile by last years slack timetable. I have learnt about alot of parasites - those you may have heard of (Ascaris, Toxocara) and those that may never have entered your wormy radar (Ostertagiosis anyone?). Parasitology is very simple: you can split the worms into 2 classes:
1) long wormy things.
2) short wormy things.
If you wish to go into more detail than this, things get very complicated, and of course there is that cut/off point between long and short that no-one can really work out, so I suppose there's a 3rd group:
3) medium sized wormy things that are neither long nor short
And then there are such GI parasites that aren't wormy...
4) Flukes.
And now we're getting into dangerous complicated territory. To tell the truth, our parasitology course has expanded to 137 pages of separation. Phew!

I'm a graduate! A boy with a BA. Woah. We had an amazing day, somehow it hardly rained at all, which, considering the recent way the weather's been, was very lucky! We had photos, rehersals, canapes, champagne - the whole shabang. I spent the day wearing a shirt, jacket, gown and hood, which eventually became incredibly heavy on my shoulders - it was a surprising relief to take them off! We all lined up in senate house, and when it eventually got to me I knelt down, had something mumbled to me in latin, and was then Tom Ward BA! Hah!

Finals Almost Over

It's Thursday, and I've been free for 50hours and 24 minutes. Alex is in her final exam (must think statistical thoughts!) and will be finished in an hour and a half, Ella will be finished in two hours, and then this evening we have formal. Tom finished on Tuesday afternoon and arrived home with tonnes of M&S biscuits (not just biscuits) and with the phrase "I love English". This is a good sign that a) he has made the right decision moving from Physics to English and b) that the exam went ok! My daughter Vicky has finished her exams and is currently languishing in the bosom of her family back home in Somerset, Louisa is nearly done (tomorrow) and her exam yesterday on the Kuran went ok - she had some funny anecdotes of exciting points she made. The Englings Vicky, Iona and Erika finished last week, as did Reece and Bethmo finishes tomorrow.

The summary can be generalised as "Cumulatively exams are almost at 100% completed". Hurrah!

So, what have I been doing for the last few days? Well, reading mostly! I've finished "The Dawkins Delusion", which was well worth reading, probably before you an embark on "The God Delusion". See my brief review below. I've also just bought "Can a Darwinist be a Christian: The Relationship between science and religion" by Michael Ruse. The journey to understanding begins!

So that's it then! After two months of preparation, they're done. Not really out in a blaze of glory, the essay I wrote on Mod4 was very poor, but hopefully my Mod3 essays will make up for it. It still hasn't really sunk in that I've finished. I finished my exam and was met by Rich and Dan outside (with a bottle of champagne), and then skipped back to Braeside with Alex via sainsburies. Then, much beer and hamburgers later I've tidied my room, done some washing and made a new monkey picture - such are the labours of my day. I'm slighly confused - surely there must be some work to do!?

All in all, the exams went ok. I wrote 12 essays, 62 pages of writing in 12 hours. My poor wrist is knackered after the exertion. Some essays were bad (generally the DevBio ones), others were pretty good (Hurrah for fetuses!). But, most importantly they're done! Results in about 2 weeks!

There are a couple of things for me to catch up blog-wise. There are photos of the rise of the sheep of furry-whiteness (which if you're really lucky, and I'm not too drunk might even be animated), and similar photos for the grow your own pet egg dinosaur thing. Explanation to come soon.

Anway, that's me free! I'm gonna look after Alex for two days, she finishes on Thursday, and then it's off to Formal on Thursday evening, and hopefully horribly downhill from there! Yay!

Yours Relievedly, Tom.

Squash.

Hello again! T'is me, Tomthevet. Who'd have expected such a face on here, this blog of sorts... The work continues... who'd have thought that 'n'all!? I've taken to saying "Right!" in an important directing sort of a way, to try to motivate myself into getting up out of the tea-chair and into the work-chair. T'is tough. I've kinda reached the stage where I've been revising for so long that I don't know what I do and don't know. It's about as confusing as a confusing thing on confusing pills walking on confused stilts in the worlds shortest confused person championships.

I played squash with Andrew this morning. We went down to the court at about 8.30am, and played for just over an hour. It was good fun, nice to be able to get out some pent-up aggression and adrenaline on a little-black ball. I feel quite calm now (though I have just woken up from a wee nap). En plus, I must work on fetal growth. What does insulin really do?

21!!

I am now 21. My brain cells are 21. My essence is 21. How old! And so, I am now a MAN. I have to be MANLY and OLD and MATURE. Apparently. According to these "age-based stereotypes". Well, hear this peeps, I'm probably gonna stay the same. For a few years more anyway :).

I had a good day. It is exam term, but I managed to avoid work for pretty much the whole day. We all went for a picnic in the sun at lunchtime to mark the day, and will certainly have an uber party after the exams have finished. Unfortunately the Englings had their 1st exam the following day, so there were stressy-exam vibes, but that's the way it is. It was good to have everyone there in the sunshine. Plus there are more cakes in Braeside kitchen now than any human could eat.

You may have noticed the massive 3D "21" in the right corner of this post. Alex gave me my presents in sculpture form - Suffice to say I was somewhat impressed, though it didn't last too long - I got many exciting things (including an Aston Martin!!). Vicky and Erika gave me cool presents too, including a "Magic Sheep" and a "Growing Pet Hatch 'Em", both of which involve growing and will feature on this blog in the coming days. Oh, and socks... I ALWAYS need socks.

Looking up

Things are looking up slightly. It was really sunny today, and I slept in so was actually awake all day - it's definitely the best way to get the most out of revision. Also, Marillion are doing a signing-session in the HMV in Cambridge on the day of their gig. Hurrah!! 5pm. Don't let me forget. ANYONE.

I went to a Chalk-talk yesterday lunchtime, my 2nd talk/lecture thing all term, and also my second in a week. It's only when you start revising that you realise how much you hate some things, and how interesting other things are. The talk was really interesting and linked a few lectures we'd had in Mod 9, which will be pretty helpful in an essay.

Nnnrgh - work. It keeps on coming. On the plus side I have two pigeon hole packages. Oooo

2001 A Space Odyssey

Just watched "2001 A Space Odyssey" in Tom's room. It's Kubrick so Iona's doing it for her exams, but Iona's literature and visual culture paper is a good excuse for us to still get to watch a few films in exam term. It's very good. Very slow, tense and beautiful, but slightly un-understandable (are you supposed to?) and is full of strange references to the human body (sperm, uterine lining, egg, fetus, CNS etc).