VT Update - One Month

I keep putting off posting about school until I have more time to invest in crafting an awesome post but today I said "screw it." That time is just never going to come! Even though I'm only on campus three days a week, I feel completely overwhelmed and busy every single day. Of course, I am

I wrote the above sometime last week. I really buckled down and kicked that post's ass, didn't I? Yeah! Now, this post could have been many things depending on when over the past four weeks it was written. However, since I'm writing it now, post- first midterm and pre- second midterm, it's going to be boiled down to a bulleted list of high points and low. Buckle up, Buttercup - here we go.

• Let's go over what, exactly, 'veterinary technology' entails. Because, as the instructors will reiterate many, many times, it is not "pet the kitty." And I don't want you to think I'm stressing out over a course that is teaching me to clip nails and clean teeth. Here's what Wikipedia says about today's vet tech:

  Technical skills include: venipuncture; collecting urine; performing skin scrapings; taking and processing radiographs; and performing routine lab procedures and tests in: hematology, biochemistry, chemistry, microbiology, urinalysis and serology. They assist the veterinarian with physical examinations that help determine the nature of the illness or injury. Veterinary technicians also perform and maintain anesthesia, and administer medications, fluids and blood products as prescribed by the veterinarian. Tasks in patient care include: recording temperature, pulse and respiration, dressing wounds, applying splints and other protective devices, and cleaning teeth. They perform catheterizations - urinary, arterial, and venous; ear flushes; intravenous feedings and tube feedings. Equipment use includes operating electrocardiographic, radiographic and ultrasonographic equipment. Veterinary technicians commonly assist veterinarians in surgery by providing correct equipment and instruments and by assuring that monitoring and support equipment such as anesthetic machines, cardiac monitors, scopes and breathing apparatus are in good working condition. They may also maintain treatment records and inventory of all pharmaceuticals, equipment and supplies, and help with other administrative tasks within a veterinary practice.

  So, it's basically a nursing program... and then some, because we are allowed to do things for animals that human nurses are not allowed to do for humans. The primary focus is companion animals but we do have to learn the basics for horses, sheep, pigs, birds, etc. It's difficult to express just how much there is to learn - it's just a HUGE volume of stuff to absorb and memorize.

• Understandably, then, the first week was frighteningly overwhelming. I am a wee bit of a snob so I think I thought the program would be challenging but ultimately pretty doable. The first week made it seem like a super hard-core program with 4,500 rules, regulations and duties to follow and little to no wiggle room. After the three hour orientation at the end of the first week, I felt like I had one foot out the door. "High school with ashtrays" this community college program was not! I was apparently not the only person who felt that way because one of the instructors made a point of telling the class that she'd received several student e-mails indicating that the students were wigging out. So she asked that we not to run off screaming or skulk off into the night, never to be heard from again without first talking to one of the instructors about what, exactly, seemed so horrible. It made me feel better that I wasn't the only one completely overreacting! Seriously. Geez. I suffered similar crippling anxiety when I started the MLIS program but that didn't (doesn't) make me feel any better at all. I know I have a tendency to make things seem much harder and impossible than they really are but having that knowledge doesn't keep me from doing it or mitigate the effects!

• Another and no less stressful thing causing me stress was (is) my lack of experience. There are about 50 people in my class and during the first week we all had to introduce ourselves to everyone and describe our experience and interests. I am one of about 7 people (and I'm not exaggerating - I counted) who is entering the program with zero clinic experience. That was an immediate stress inducer because everyone already knows a bunch of this crap because they're already doing it! Suckballs. (If you've ever watched Gilmore Girls and you remember the episode where Rory discovered she was sorely lacking in the extracurriculars department and so tried to cram 10 years of volunteer service into one Saturday you'll know how I felt. And still sometimes feel.) So that was one thing.

• The second big thing bumming me out was (is) my lack of friends in the program. Everyone and their brother seems to know someone from work or from volunteering at the same place. I am one of few dorks who sits alone and reads a book between classes. Everyone is chatting and yukking it up with their table mates while I'm scoping out the room frantically trying to count how many other people aren't talking to someone. Seriously. I am a 30-year-old loser trying to make myself feel better by finding other potential losers in the room. It's really pathetic. I still do this now but much less than I did the first couple weeks of school. I was obsessive about it the first couple weeks and came home almost everyone night whining to Robert about my lack of friends and how the window of opportunity to ingratiate myself into a group was rapidly closing. (Robert really got to work out his 'Calming Lauren Down' muscles a LOT this past month. He's a very patient and encouraging man, let me tell you.) There was one girl I sat next to during lecture a few days in a row and she seemed like a possibility... ish. But I was always the one to plunk myself down next to her so I wasn't really sure if she actually enjoyed my company or thought I was a stalker. So I decided to test her out one day and sat a few seats away from where I knew she was sitting but since she wasn't in her seat at the time maybe she didn't know I knew that was her. (You may need to reread that one...) When she returned to her seat, she grabbed her backpack and skooched over a seat and asked me how I was doing. Success! But, in all honesty, she's not really someone I'd want to hang out with a ton. Still, at least I know someone... sort of... so that's a teensy bit reassuring when I start going goon. More often than I should, though, I feel sort of sad that I am a lonely loser. *sigh* I am just not a people person, damn me! It sometimes poses problems.

• As I mentioned, Robert has just been a super trooper since school started. Aside from all his encouraging and calming and support duties, he gets up with me every morning and made my lunch and snacks so that I don't have to wake up freakishly early or go without, and also so I'll have a little company in the morning. This may not sound like a huge thing but...

• You must understand that my schedule is kind of wicked. Although I only have class three days a week, I start very early two of those days. Very. On Tuesdays, I have class from 8 to 4; I have to wake up at 5:30 in order to be out of the house by 6:30 in order to be on campus by 8. (One Tuesday a month I have a SCNAVTA meeting from 5-6 and a seminar from 6-9 so those Tuesdays are loooooooooooooooong.) Wednesdays I have Animal Care from 6 to 8 and class from 12 to 5; I have to wake up at 4:15 to be out of the house by 5:15 to be on campus before 6. Thursdays are the best - I only have class from 12 to 4 so I can sleep in a hair those mornings. Robert, of course, would normally not ever have to wake up so early so he's really a very nice man. :o) A life saver and a time saver, all in one hot little package. I'm not sure how many weeks he'll do this but I'm taking it while it's offered!

• What is this Animal Care, you ask? Well, it's something each student has to enroll in every quarter during the program. Foothill has 1 horse (Charcey), 2 sheep (Alvin and Theodore), 1 goat (Bonnie), 5 dogs (Radar, Rodney, Foxy, Ludo and Popcorn), 6 cats (Moo Moo, Miss M, Carbon, Cleopatra, Meitzi and Selma), 4 rabbits (Maggie, Margie, Zoe and... the other one), several rats and several more mice. Of course, these guys all have to be cared for 365 days a year and it's the students' responsibility to do so. There are two shifts - 6 to 8AM and 4 to 6 PM - and you have to fill out a little preference sheet at the beginning of the quarter indicating when you would like to work, when you can work but would prefer not to, and when you absolutely cannot (which requires supporting info to verify). It just so happens that I got assigned to the AM shift every Wednesday for this quarter; that will change every quarter hereafter, of course, but for now I'm happy with my shift. Yes, it's a drag getting up so early on Wednesdays (which is also when I have tap so it's a loooong day and I'm completely pooped when it's over!) but it affords me 4 "what else am I going to do but study?" hours every week and that's exactly what a procrastinator like me needs. Plus, you really wake up when you have to clean cat cages, shovel manure, brush a horse, wash towels, scrub rabbit cages, walk dogs, parse out hay... Seriously. I am going to be thinner and more in shape after this program, it's ridiculous. I have such spaghetti arms that I was very sore after shoveling manure the first day. It's sad. I am just happy that I have my shift on a day that I have to be on campus, anyway. Trekking out to Los Altos Hills for a two hour poop fest on what would normally be a day off would truly suck.

• I had my first midterm last week and it has very rudely brought my lack of focus thus far painfully home. My brain is just as rusty as it was when I started the MLIS program and I have just not put my non-school days time to good use! At. All. I am not a good time budgeter or multi-tasker, apparently. (I think the exam was a rude awakening for several of us, though, and I was invited to a post-test Happy Hour at Chevy's on Thursday. I'm not a drinker, as you know, so I didn't really want to go but was encouraged by a fellow student and also by Robert that it would be a good way to meet people and it was. I am feeling a bit better on the friends front after Happy Hour so I think it was a good decision.) So, this weekend I am going to try and kick my ass into gear to study for my next midterm, which is on Thursday and covers everything from a clinic's Material Data Safety Sheets to identifying types of abnormal heart sounds. It's gonna be a doozy. Bleh.
  

And that is my first month in the veterinary technology program in a (rather large) nutshell! As overwhelming and sometimes soul-deflating as it has been, I can tell I truly do find the material interesting and that gives me hope (as I stare down the barrel of much more difficult quarters to come). And please understand that I know I'm completely neurotic and making things much more scary and intimidating than they are and that most of you would not be quite so goony while pursuing an A.S. But that's just how I work. I'll adapt... eventually. I hope. I'm pretty sure. I think.