Summer Nostalgia

I am enjoying the final hours of my summer vacation...second year officially starts tomorrow at 9am! I am looking forward to continuing my education, but am certainly sad to see this summer draw to a close as it has been one of the best of my life so far. The places I've seen and the people I've met and the learning I've done have been life changing.

June and July were full of travel and hiking! I continued to explore the back country region surrounding Logan with my adventure buddy Kristen and of course Burton tagged along. Mid-June, I traveled to Ross Point, ID to attend the week long Veterinary Leadership Experience (VLE). VLE was a gathering of faculty and students from across the globe that's activities aimed to broaden the abilities of veterinary students' leadership potential. The networking capabilities were fantastic. I have a support group of phenomenal colleagues from across the nation as well as Canada and Australia! Later in June, I brought Kristen back to Reno with me to attend the Reno Rodeo (her first legitimate rodeo!). Rodeo is always one of my favorite Northern Nevada events! Guarantee it will bring me back every year. After the rodeo, I met Kristen and her friend Melinda up at Grand Teton National Park. (After our adventures in Zion NP earlier this summer, Kristen and I agreed that an annual pass to the NPs would be a good investment!). We spent the day hiking around, taking pictures and enjoying the gorgeous scenery.

For the Fourth of July, I brought Kristen to Colorado with me! I got to see my amazing family when we passed through Denver. We spent the holiday up in Dillon and relived my childhood of watching fireworks over the Frisco Marina at Lake Dillon Reservoir. And of course, we hiked while we were there! Kristen got to reach a new record elevation for hiking--12,500 ft! (Probably my record as well now that I think about it...) We also took a day to see Rocky Mountain National Park while we were in the area. Almost immediately after CO, Kristen and I hopped on separate planes and flew across the country to her home state of Connecticut. We spent two weeks hiking in the most ridiculous humidity imaginable. I got to see Tim again (even though he worked the majority of the time). He and Kristen (and the fam) showed me around New England and I had an absolute blast! As expected, I'm already hoping to go back sometime soon to see more. I flew back to UT from CT and immediately drove out to NorNev again for Christmas in July aka Night in the Country Music Festival (NITC). The festival falls around my birthday every year, so it's a really fun way to celebrate! Ryann, Heidy and Tara made it an amazing party! We saw Eli Young Band, Casey James, Randy Houser and Billy Currington. It was amazing! When we returned to Reno, I had a birthday dinner and my amazing best friend Kelsey drove all the way out from Sacramento to be there with me for a few hours! It had been more than a year since we'd seen each other, so it made for an awesome birthday present. I drove down to Las Vegas after NITC where I got to spend some much needed quality Daddy/Daughter time with the best pop a girl could ask for. We helped Marco and Tarin move into their new home (!!!). And we had a camping trip out to Gold Butte together, just the two of us. We sat for hours staring up at the sky watching for Perseid meteors together. I missed seeing my mom that week, but it was incredibly special to have so much time with my dad. After camping, I headed back up to Logan. I finally got to resettle in my house (after not having been there for the majority of the month of July).

As an ambassador, I had orientation responsibilities with the incoming class at the beginning of August. Then, I traveled back up to Ross Point, ID with the incoming class to mentor them at COLE. While there, I also got a chance to spend a few hours in the VTH at WSU. I spent my time on the large animal side. I got to do rounds, meet a couple of 4th years in their rotations and observe an orthopedic surgery on a horse that had a fracture in pastern 2 on one of it's rear legs. We returned from WA/ID just the other day in just enough time to rest up and re-settle for the start of school tomorrow.

It's shaping up to be quite the variable schedule. Literally no two weeks of class schedules are the same. The information is quite packed in this semester. But I say bring it on! This year has a lot to offer and I sure am looking forward to it.

Continental Divide, RMNP Kristen from the Atlantic meets Chi from the Pacific!

Me and Kristen after kayaking the Long Island Sound

The Explosion; Tim let me borrow his kayak!

NITC 2013 with Tara and Ryann

The NITC 2013 crew, Tyler, Heidy, Tara, Me and Ry Ry

Burton at Gold Butte

Me and my dad and Burton at Gold Butte

Year One of Four: COMPLETE! + Summer Adventures So Far...

It has been a ridiculously long time since I've updated my blog, so fair warning this will be lengthy:

It is official! I passed all of my classes for spring semester 2013! I made it through the first year of veterinary school!!! One down, three more to go! This marks the halfway point for my time here in Logan at USU. A year from now, my class and I will be moving up to Pullman for the remainder of our veterinary school careers.Yippee!

Just prior to exams at the end of the semester, I put an application in and was accepted and invited to attend the Veterinary Leadership Experience (VLE) at Ross Point, ID. It is similar to the orientation camp I attended just before starting first year (COLE) and is hosted by WSU as well. However, this is opened up to all veterinary schools in the U.S. and is geared not only toward leadership in school, but during our practicing careers as well. I'm thrilled for this type of networking opportunity as well as to represent our brand new school! I leave for WA (and then to ID) this coming Monday!

I also had a chance to go up to Pullman for a weekend during the semester for a leadership training for this years COLE. I've started to network and socialize with our fellow classmates in Pullman, and have made it a personal goal to more closely unite our two campuses. The weekend I got to spend with others in our class was an absolute blast and makes me even more excited to move up to WA in a year.

The remainder of the semester absolutely flew right by! Exams were stressful, but went very well. I've never experienced such an intense exam schedule (five exams in five days...), but we were well prepared by our professors and that type of intensity will no doubt prepare us for NAVLE.

The semester here at USU ended earlier than I've been used to at UNR for the past six years, so I've had the majority of May so far to play for my summer vacation! I landed a pretty sweet and awesomely flexible little job as a pet sitter for a woman who runs a pet sitting business here in Cache Valley. I've been able to work a number of jobs for her this month to make a little money on the side, but it's given me a lot of time to explore the region, make some travel plans and spend some much needed time with Burton.

The weekend after finals, I drove down to Las Vegas with my girlfriends Ryann and Kristen where we met up with my family and Kristen's brother Tim and their friend Jeff from Connecticut. Originally, we set out to hike down and camp in Supai in the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately the first night we stayed in Las Vegas, Kristen got sicky and took a trip to the hospital to discover she had a UTI. In the midst of the craziness of dealing with Kristen's hospital visit, I discovered that my car door had been unlocked and someone had helped themselves to stealing my car charger, iPod player, laptop, Ryann's CamelBak, and our bag of snacks (???). Apparently stealing makes thieves hungry? I didn't lose a whole lot with my laptop because I back it up externally, but still a very frustrating blow. We regrouped during the day, and decided that even though Kristen had been cleared for the hike, that it was smarter to stick to places we could get help fast if she needed it. We decided to go to Lone Rock Beach at Lake Powell to camp and hike around in the area. When we arrived at Lake Powell, it was a little cloudy and was sprinkling, but we decided to go for it and headed down to the beach to set up camp. After less than five minutes of driving on the sand, I checked my rearview mirror to discover the boys' rental car was stopped and stuck in the sand. Fortunately, my 4Runner Champ has 4WD, so Ryann, Kristen and I headed down to the beach to set up camp while the boys worked on their car. It didn't take long for it to get more stuck in the sand, and since Murphy's Law was clearly at work, of course a huge windstorm swept up and sandblasted us. Oh, and add in a little rain to that as well... Ryann and I drove back down to break down camp and we agreed to stay in a hotel in Page, AZ that night. We gathered everything up and headed into town, got a room and managed to get a hold of someone willing to pull the car out (by then it was 10pm). The next day turned out to be gorgeous. We checked out and drove out to Pariah Canyon and hiked down into the slot canyons in Buckskin Gulch. It ended up being an awesome day (minus some pretty gnarly blisters on my heels). The evening was shaping up to be just as beautiful as the day had been, so we decided to go for round two of camping on the beach at Lake Powell. We set up our tents, Tim got our campfire going and we had brats and s'mores for dinner (mmmm...). When we woke up the next morning, the weather was starting to turn again, so we packed up and headed out. Once we had left the Lake Powell area, we threw out some ideas for places we could go for the day and agreed to drive over to Zion National Park. On the road to Zion, I got a phone call from Hayley who was watching Burton for me back in Logan that he had decided to dig himself a hole to get out of her backyard. It took a few hours, but he ended up coming back to her house. Naughty dog! When we got to Zion, it was raining off and on. We drove through and located a place to camp for free right outside of the park, then went back in to hike around for a few hours. After hiking we went back into town for dinner. As we were eating, the temperature dropped. It was pretty uncomfortable, and none of us were prepared for really cold weather camping, so we all agreed to just go down to Hurricane, UT and stay in a hotel again that night. The next morning turned out to be gorgeous, so we headed back up to the park for our last few hours together and hiked up to the Emerald Pools. Around mid-day, we left Zion and went back down to Mesquite, NV to meet up with my dad (I had to get my new license plates for Champ!). We had a quick lunch together, then said our super sad goodbyes to Tim and Jeff and us girls drove back up to Logan. Despite all of the horrible things that went wrong that week, we still had a phenomenal time together! (Rosie retrospective as Kristen calls it...)

Since then, I've done a few jobs and spent some time with friends around Logan. I have still managed to stay super busy (mostly with just fun stuff) and have not had a single boring day yet!

For Memorial Weekend, Kristen and I decided to check some hikes in the area off our list. Saturday, we hiked Jardine Juniper trail. Jardine is a tree that is estimated to be around 3,200 years old. The trail is one of the more popular hikes in the Logan Canyon and is pretty common to mountain bikers as well. Sunday, we drove out to City of Rocks National Reserve just outside of Malta, ID (I'm sure everyone knows where that is...). We hiked around a few trails and spent most of the day there. On our return at the summit, we got caught in some rain (which we were completely unprepared for...wouldn't be an adventure without some misadventure, right?!). Even with the freezing cold rain, the rainbows we saw after the clouds passed over were well worth the discomfort. The third hike on Monday of our adventure weekend was Grandeur Peak. We switchbacked up more than 2,000 feet in elevation to the top of the peak which has a stunning view of Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake. Even more exciting was that we had cell service and 4G at the summit. We were able to Skype Tim back in CT and show him our view! In total, we estimated that we hiked at least 27 miles this weekend. Burton got to come on all three of our hikes. For the first time in his life, I think he actually got tired! He is an awesome adventure dog and is a great hiking buddy, so he had a ball!

Yesterday, Kristen and I had arranged to travel out to Rich County, UT to grade bulls for the ranchers in the valley with one of our professors, Dr. Rood. The concept is fairly simple, though it takes a practiced eye to pick up on the details we were looking for. We traveled around the valley with a group of cowboys and stopped at a number of ranches to inspect their bulls for lameness, eye problems, herd uniformity, body condition and any other health concerns. After the inspection, the bulls will be turned out on shared BLM land to breed cows. Venereal disease testing and breeding soundness had already been performed, so we kept a distance. However, it's still intimidating being in a pen with a group of massive Angus (and some Hereford) bulls while they fight each other. The ranchers were an entertaining group of men. They were pretty thrilled to have two young girls along for the ride and took every opportunity to give us a hard time. They took to calling me Vegas after Dr. Rood informed them that I grew up there. Kristen and I are hoping they'll let us tag along with them in June for a cattle drive!

The rest of the summer is still in the works! I've got a lot of travel plans, and I'm lucky that I have the means that I do to get there. Next week is VLE, and then two weeks after that Kristen and I are heading to Reno for one of my favorite events--the Reno Rodeo! I don't have solid 4th of July plans yet, but wherever I'll be, it'll be with Burton (he has a rough time with fireworks :( poor guy!). Kristen has invited me to go out to CT with her in July. And this year, I'd like to see what Pioneer Day here in UT is like. For my birthday, I'll be spending the weekend in good ol' hicktown Yerington, NV for Night in the Country again! The line up is awesome: Billy Currington, Randy Houser, Eli Young Band and Casey James! Happy Quarter Century to me! And at the end of the summer, I'll be at COLE to mentor the incoming first years! I have to work another trip down to Las Vegas in there somewhere too, and I'm hoping I can do that just after my birthday so I can see my family! In the midst of all that, there will be more hiking, hopefully some camping, bonfires, biking, and beach activities!

It's been an amazing summer so far! I hope everyone's has been just as awesome!!!
xoxox
C

Me, Kristen and Ryann aka Triple Threat hiking Buckskin Gulch, UT

Jeff, Tim, Me, Kristen and Ryann in Zion National Park

Burton, Kristen, Dippy and me at Jardine Juniper trail

The Jardine Juniper tree

Kristen and me hiking in the City of Rocks National Reserve

Full rainbow in City of Rocks

Kristen, Burton and me at the summit of Grandeur Peak

Me and Kristen out in Rich County for bull grading

Angus bulls

Cache Valley sunset

Midterms

Well, I've officially received all the grades back from the first round of midterms (almost in time for the next round...) and I have passed all my tests! Each round of midterms passed is becoming a celebration! The information is challenging, but is starting to become more and more clinically relevant (i.e. interesting!). And even better, it's all starting to interconnect to each other (making it even more interesting!)

Classes are going well and I am busy as ever. Nearly every day is spent studying and [trying to] stay caught up on the material. Basically it's sleep, eat, school, study, repeat!

My skeleton for skeletal prep is on its way to completion. It took me a couple days to disarticulate the full skeleton, then the bones spent a few weeks in the maceration tank and are now in the final tank. After they are taken out, I'll do another cleaning, and let them sit in the sun for a while, then coat them with a preservative and all that will be left is re-articulating them! I'm excited to have this skeleton for when I am working in the clinic. It will be a great diagnostic tool.

After disarticulating my skeleton

One of my favorite classes this semester is general pathology. We have an excellent professor (Dr. Baldwin) who is very passionate about teaching and is an absolute riot to listen to! Each week, we attend lab at the Veterinary Diagnostic Lab at the north end of campus. Dr B shows us tissue samples (normal and abnormal) and is orienting us to the world of pathology. This week, we get to start practicing doing a necropsy!

Me and my classmate Amanda "haz mat suited up" for pathology lab!

As always, we try to have a little bit of fun even with all the stress and studying we do. One of my classmates got married last weekend and I had the pleasure of watching her little lab puppy Phiona while she was down in Salt Lake for her celebration. Phi became Burton's girlfriend by the end of the weekend. They were playing tag and tug of war and romping around the house all weekend long. I did leave the dogs for to head down for a few hours to Farmington for the reception and met up with the bride and groom and a few of our classmates. Vet students can clean up real nice when we get the chance...

Burton and his girlfriend Phiona

Amanda, me and Hayley at our friend Heather's wedding 2.16.2013

One of the projects I've taken on for our class is organizing a design competition for "vet school swag." Our class doesn't have very much as far as gear (t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc.) to represent ourselves yet. One of our primary goals is to establish our school's presence in the community. The design competition ended just this last week, so we are on our way to getting some USU SVM paraphernalia!

I also just found out today that I was selected as a mentor for the leadership experience I attended as a first year last summer (COLE). This time I will attend as a leader and mentor for the next class coming in to attend the USU + WSU program. I am really excited for the class of 2017. I have already met several of the members who were offered positions and I am so looking forward to getting to know them more and working with them next year!

Things are continuing to go very well here in Utah. I'm looking forward to Spring Break in two weeks. I have plans to go to Colorado for a few days. After Spring Break, we will more than halfway done with the semester and before I know it, it'll be summer! (I've actually been itching for summer for the last few weeks...)

Hope all is well!

As always, send a text, email or call! I love to hear from everyone!

xoxo

C

One Week In

Well, it was a short break and now we are back at it again! Classes started up this last Monday. I am registered for 21 credits this semester...and so far the classes are great! My anatomy and physiology classes are continuations from where we ended last semester, so those are the two classes that dove into material right off the bat. And with that, we already have our first quiz in anatomy this coming Tuesday! It's going to be a packed schedule, but I am so excited for what my classes offer this semester. I am really into our general pathology class so far! Dr. Baldwin is very enthusiastic about teaching us and it makes the learning process enjoyable when the teacher's passion is obvious. It is also apparent that he is going to push us intellectually. I am also very excited for my position as an ambassador for the SVM. In addition to the work I will have to put in during interview time (coming up in two weeks!) we are required to go into elementary schools to do some service work teaching K-8-grade children about what it's like to be a veterinarian and go to veterinary school. Right up my alley much?!?! That's pretty much exactly what I did for my thesis work!!! I'm thrilled to go back into the classroom again and interact with youngsters and encourage them to pursue science!

Backtracking a little bit: My break was short, but a lot of fun and very relaxing and refreshing! I got to spend some time with the family in Las Vegas. And Burton got to join in as well. And I spent New Years with friends in Reno. I miss Reno so much, but it was nice to go back to visit Dale, my friends and a few colleagues. It is on my list of places to consider moving back to once I finish school.

Now that the semester has officially started, I've started to do some thinking about summer plans. It's difficult to plan out that far in advance, but I'm looking into some internship options in Northern California with a few mobile mixed-animal practitioners. Ideally I'd like to intern/shadow for free a few days a week, then work a simple part-time job to earn some money. I have nothing set in stone yet, but I'm exploring my options.

Hope everyone had a great holiday as well and was able to stock up on fun and relaxation as they move back into the swing of things. Happy New Year!