Cuts

I am scratched up right now.

For some reason, it was a week of particularly sharp, little claws. Whether it was teenager puppy claws or evil, vicious cat claws, my arms and fingers took some abuse this week. People freaked out over my blood, but I just brushed it off. No biggie! They're just flesh wounds! I'm a tough girl!

But last night while I was working on my Parasitology project?

OW! OW OW!
A PAPERCUT!!!!!! :(

I have been wincing all day. Forget using my finger to change the radio station! Screw washing my finger with warm water! And I don't even want to talk about trying to bandage a horse's leg this morning!

Seriously? What gives?!
Scratches up and down my arms and I feel nothing!
A tiny papercut and I'm ready to amputate!

GOOOOD MOOOORRRNING! XD

I woke up to the sound of my neighbor's car alarm this morning. I found it quite rude and impolite. Well...until I glanced at my phone and 6:24 AM screamed back at me.

AHHHH! WHAT?!?!?! What happened to 5 AM?!

For the record, I love these mornings. Washing my face, cleaning my ears, and brushing my teeth...at the same time? Talent. Skidding around corners while pulling on socks, pants and a shirt? Skill. Catching my dog sleepily watch the chaos from the warm bed? Pure humor.

*yawn* Good Morning. :)

Ranch Needed

This is a dog at my school right now. He's quiet and seriously sweet. And I want to take him home. This isn't the first time I've fallen in love with a dog at my school, and it won't be the last. I need a ranch. A giant ranch so I can adopt doggies, ponies, goats, and piggies to my heart's desire. Oh and maybe a few cats. You know...to yell at and stuff. ;)

Anyways. Does anyone need a new best friend?

I rule.

So I have spent the last three months studying parasites.

I read strange names...

what they infect...

cringe at transmission methods...

study medications...

and do my best to memorize what they look like...

hundreds of them. Hundreds!

It's honestly boring.

Or it was.

Until last night. :]

Last night, I (me!! ADRIENNE!!)

FOUND and CORRECTLY IDENTIFIED

a parasite in a cat!

After staring through microscopes for months on end,

I found something and knew what it was!

The attending doctor was even there and gave me a,

"Good job! Those are hard to spot - most people miss them!"

YESSSSS!

Yeah, I'm a dork. :}

But it made up for the fact

that I didn't get home until 12:30 PM last night...

and that I still had to wake up at 5 AM. Meh.

Oh and then there's this:

Road trip?!

Sleep? Yes, please.

I am tired. This quarter is kicking my butt. Love the classes, hate the schedule. Day & night classes combined with a full 40-hour work-week squished in between? Meh. I am sooo ready for a normal schedule again.

P.S. San Francisco post still coming. I got about half-way through it last week, when my camera battery died. Wha-whaaa.

Utah Wild Horse & Burro Center

This morning we got to take a field trip to the Wild Horse & Burro Center at the mouth of Butterfield Canyon. We were supposed to lecture on beef cattle nutrition, but apparently while I was in the restroom, my teacher and classmates decided I could make the final decision whether or not we would go on the field trip. Uhhh...duh. :}

I've been around horses my whole life, but never wild ones. We obviously couldn't get too close to the horses, as they wouldn't hesitate to bite, kick, or bowl us over, but we did get to watch them interact. It honestly made me emotional. I have always loved watching a horse just be a horse.

We also got to meet and talk with one of the wild horse wranglers (read: real cowboy). He was great! I was totally enthralled with the whole process of "handling", vaccinating, gelding, hoof trimming, training, etc. He also had some great stories about crazy horses getting loose and causing some serious havoc! ;)

It was a seriously awesome morning! Made coming into my desk job a little hard. :}

Today is better.

Yesterday was a bad day.

I had a lovely vacation in San Francisco to come home to a mess. Did you know CHEVRON (SUCKS) will "ping" your debit card for $100 in San Francisco when you want to pay for gas at the pump? CHEVRON SUCKS. I only needed $7.39 worth of gas, but trying my card twice (or $200 in "pings") at the pump cost me lots more. CHEVRON SUCKS. Meh.

I made it to class last night. I almost didn't. I almost justified my way out of going, which would have been the first time since I started in 2008. Yes, toot my horn, I have a perfect attendance record.

I'm glad I went to class. I had signed up to go early to practice bandages, when in fact a dog got hurt and needed a real bandage. It was a tricky foot bandage that I'd never done before, but my teacher said my bandage skillz ruled. Oh and there was a baby bunny. Oh a cat named "Osmond" who I dubbed "Ozzy" that was fat and lazy and lovable and let me do a physical exam while he played with a paper towel. Oh and a kitten named "Pot Pie" that gave me kitten-high-fives, which in case you didn't know, are the best high-fives around.

Yes, I'm glad I went to class. It made today better and I have a hunch it will make my life a little more lovely in the future. And when I say "a little more lovely", I mean a lot more.

Blog with pictures on the San Francisco vacay coming soon... :)

And CHEVRON SUCKS.

I know you wanted to know...

Yes, I still listen to Miranda Lambert.
A lot.
As in, her new-ish album has pretty much occupied my CD player about 90% of the time since it came out...last year. :}

Also, Miranda is going on her own tour:
"Roadside Bars & Pink Guitars".
Love it!
No Utah date...yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Lastly, I just found out about this. Ummm...I need one. :)

Medicine Woman

So since the last time I blogged, life went...well...a little nuts! :}

I finished up with my midterms. I did rather well on them. And when I say "well", I mean I got all A's. Yes! HAHA! I actually felt pretty confident going into these ones. Some of the teachers have taken on the opinion that rather than just have us regurgitate information, they're going to give us related case studies and ask one simple question: "What would you do?" I happen to loooove this new approach. It's practical and I can literally think my way through it. I imagine an emergency case coming in, think about its problem, put together what might help to save the animal, then literally run through the clinic, the supply closet, and the procedure...in my mind. I had a lot of "Excellent!" and "Perfect job!" marks on my exams. WOO!

This last weekend I went out to Wendover with some friends. It was a fun little trip, but we had a minor issue on the way out there. As we were passing the small area of Delle, an SUV rolled in front of us. It was going East, we were going West, and it rolled across its highway, through the middle, over our highway, and onto our far shoulder. It was bad. Remembering the headlights flipping and rolling, over and over again, still makes my stomach churn. We immediately started pulling over when my sister-in-law yelled, "Is that someone on the highway?!" Sure enough there was a girl laying in the middle of the highway - she had been thrown out of the vehicle. In my normal emergency-mode manner, I didn't think - I just ran. I'm not sure if the car was even stopped, but I was already running up the highway shoulder and into the middle of the road. I stopped a semi and waved it around the girl, then screamed at some guy that thought it might be a good idea to pull her off the highway. She was dazed, scared, bloody and her left leg was twisted and turned in a scary, awkward way. Human stuff has always freaked me out. I cry, get nauseous, throw up and sometimes pass out. But, that night was different. I immediately flew into medicine mode, thinking about pulse, respiration rate, pupil dilation, pulse deficit, bleeding control... It was my animal medicine, but it was medicine nonetheless. I took control of the situation and helped. I am awesome. If it seems like I'm telling this story in an "epic" fashion, it's because I am. I am damn proud of myself. It was a scary situation, but I handled it. I can't help but think that I might just rock this medical stuff yet. :) Anyways from what I know, the girl is okay. Of course, as is normal with every situation in my life, there was humor involved. Like how I swore at and almost punched a retarded EMT, or how even standing in front of a massive semi and waving it around, I thought, "Dude! My dad would kill me if he saw me doing this!", or how I was ready to tackle some dude NFL-linebacker-style when he thought it might be a good idea to drag the girl out of the road. LOL! So yeah...I was HERE.

My brother, his wife and I are headed to San Francisco this weekend. It's going to be a bittersweet trip. I love S.F. It is one of my favorite places ever. But my cousins that live there make up a huge part of that. And this time, they won’t be there. :( Their grandpa died last Sunday, so they’re coming home to Utah, while we head to S.F. We’re still going to go stay at their place and take on the city, so I know we'll still have a lot of fun. But yeah...going to miss my cute cousins. Love them to pieces.

Oh...on the topic of S.F. I heard hottie Mike Rowe from "Dirty Jobs" lives there. If I ran into Mike, I wouldn't complain. I'm just sayin'. ;)

So that is my discombobulated life as of late. I've been sick the last few days. I don't know what's going on, but I've decided Parasitology has turned me into a hypochondriac. A couple quick urgent trips to the bathroom and I'm stressing over possible protozoan infection. LOL! We're going to the horse barn on Friday morning for my Production Animals class. Thank goodness. I need the quiet calm, familiar smell and fuzziness of a big pony right now. Either that or Lola. One crazy night in Wendover and I missed my bubs like no other. I’m not quite sure what I'd do without my little BT.

Love yaaaa'll. xoxoxAC

A letter...

Dear Blog,

Sometimes I get nervous and it shows in my skin. Stupid skin. I'm nervous about lots of stuff. I feel great responsibility to prove myself in so many different areas right now. I feel like my intelligence, my patience, my hair (hello, two-inch roots), my loyalty, my horsemanship, my physical prowess (I had to look that one up), my willpower, my tears, my steady hands, and my ability to survive on too little sleep are all being tested. Right now. It weighs heavy on my shoulders, but I understand. I know it is all a part of the Great Escape Plan and that someday it will be worth it. I can handle a lot, but seriously...I cannot handle my stupid skin. That's all.

A.C.