Off to Cambridge

I just found out today that my 6-week externship at MIT in Cambridge, MA is an official go!!  I sent in the application quite a while ago and hadn't heard anything, so I sent them an email yesterday.  This morning there were 2 cheery little emails in my inbox saying that I had gotten in!

I haven't been to Boston or the area so I'm a little nervous.  But it should be a great experience over the summer and I get paid!  Not many externships pay.  Now I have to get my housing and transportation taken care of. Woo Hoo!!

What are you covered with?

I'm sitting here looking at my 17 year-old dog who has bird poop in her fur.  I swear the parrots do it on purpose.  When she was younger and more aware of her surroundings, this never happened.  I'm guessing she kept a closer eye on the parrots and I also didn't have Solveig the Timneh Grey.  Sweet, smart, beautiful, mischievous, Solveig.  So I feel like I am walking around with bird poop on me; but instead of poop I am covered in vet school but I just don't know it.

Classes are quite light for me right now. Only 19 credits and most days I am done by noon.  I know when April comes and rotations start it will be a different story, so I tell myself that I should enjoy this down time.  A classmate called it "the calm before the storm."  I worry that when the day comes when I take a look at my back in the mirror and see 3 years of vet school smeared all over it, I won't be prepared.  Will I be able to wash it off? Will it stain? 

In the beginning...

"I want to be a veterinarian!"  How many little girls say that?  I know I have since I was about 5 years old.  In 7th grade, we had a class project to put together a "Book of Me", basically our dreams of the future. Yes, I wanted to be a veterinarian who owned her private practice. 

Ah, the ignorant bliss of youth...

After getting my undergraduate degree in Biology (what does that even mean?), I fumbled around for a few years and lost the nerve to even attempt filling out the application to vet school.  Funny that most of my jobs dealt with the animal field, but now I was too old, too stupid, too squeamish, and/or too inexperienced to even try getting into vet school.  Well, the year 2000 was the worst of my life, and I was jolted into the reality that if I didn't at least TRY to apply, TRY to get into vet school, I would always regret it.  Good old apocalyptic Y2K taught me that regret isn't a good way to live and that I had spent most of my life in a "What if ??" and "If only I had..." mode. Hmmm, hadn't worked out very well...

So I quit the boring job I was at (lovely people, though), found a job at a local veterinary clinic, and started working on the prerequisite classes so I could apply.  I had most of the science and liberal arts requirements already taken, but I retook some to get better grades and others I had never had (organic chem, biochem, physics).  After 4 years of working full-time and being at least a half-time undergraduate student, I applied and got in!  First try!  Ego boost!

I'm thinking there will be other posts that tell of some of the tales during those 4 pre-vet school years, and also about how and why I didn't do so well my first year. Interesting little tidbits of my life, for sure.  For now I am planning on logging my adventures during my Senior Clinical rotations, which are in the process of being scheduled right now.  I'm sure there will also be wondrous tales of studying for and hopefully passing the national board exam in December '09.

Here's to May 2010!!