A difference between year 1 and year 2

First year, I was so delighted to be in vet school that it took until second semester for me to have the days where you say, "I hate vet school."

I'm not having those days yet, two weeks into second year, but the quality of joy when I think "I'm in vet school" is definitely tinged by near-panic. When sitting in lecture, the thought hangs over me: "They expect us to know this stuff." Worse, I expect myself to know it. Not for the test, because the test is just the tool to see if I know it. No, I expect the facts and outlines to magically transmute themselves into usable knowledge sometime between now and fourth year.

Actually, that was last year. Last year I got to be a clueless first year, and all the mysteries would unveil themselves at the proper time. Now it looks like the mysteries like it right where they are, thank you very much, and shouldn't I be studying the five billion ways a carcinoma can occur? And spending afternoons in the clinic, so that I see how real medicine makes use of that knowledge? And practicing people skills, because it's not all scientific jargon that makes a vet?

Excuse me, I have to go panic. I mean, study.

Why I just paid for wool

*Loooong pause*

It was soft?

I went to the Sheep and Wool Festival. Two big barns were full of vendors selling yarn, spinning supplies, and innumerable balls of batting. And lots of stuff with sheep on it. And some alpaca stuff. Even some angora rabbit stuff.

It was with some baffllement I realized I was carrying a skein of alpaca-merino blend. I had made it all of three booths from the point of purchase before the thought rose unbidden: "I just spent most of my money on this. Why??"

It didn't help that at the time I was passing some really shiny, pretty bamboo yarn. It was cheaper than what I had just bought! The yarn across the aisle was cheaper than what I had just bought! Why on earth had I sprung for this reddish grayish twist of fiber, when there were so many other gleaming options?

I think it was because it was soft. Alpaca wool and really fine merino doesn't feel like scratchy wool, it's just sort of kushy and almost silky.

That and the woman who sold me the stuff was very nice, and suggested that it was good yarn for weaving. I hadn't told her I was looking for weaving stuff. It took me by surprise. I hadn't caught on yet that the heddle I had just bought and was carrying under one arm was an obvious giveaway. I might as well have carried a sign: I'm a weaver! I am a sucker for weaveable yarn!

While knitters just shell out for the yarn, and maybe the occasional knitting needle, weavers require a whole lot more equipment, bigger batches of yarn, and more accessories in general. Ergo, weavers have the potential to spend way more money, which may explain why salespeople were suddenly very nice to me.

Unfortunately the fact I only bought one skein meant I needed more yarn, to go with it. I couldn't afford more alpaca wool, so I went with cotton. It's not nearly as soft, but at least I am clear in my mind of why I bought it. To go with the first skein!

Why wool pays (but not to you)

(School has started, yet I continue to go on about fiber arts)

I'm looking forward to the festival next week, which is essentially an opportunity to spend huge amounts of money on yarn. Since I have very limited amounts of money, I went to some of the vendors' websites to see what sort of budget I've got. For instance, I like the look of the wool-bamboo blends that are out there.

35 dollars a skein. That's about one small scarf.

I made a really interesting sound when I found that.

Still, that's a fancy bamboo blend. I checked the price on more normal yarn, and even that is listed around 28 dollars.

So, let's say you don't feel like spending a ton of money on pretty yarn, but you fortuitously own sheep (or llamas. Or camels! I'm not picky). Getting your own wool processed is cheaper, right? Well, as long as you give them an impeccably clean fleece (20$ an hour for skirting it, otherwise), it only costs 5$ a pound to wash it. And a further 7$ a pound to card it.

So we're at 12$ a pound, still a steal by comparison. Except it's not actually spun into anything usable yet, and it's still the same color as the sheep. Or camel.

Did I mention there's a 50 pound suggested minimum?

Then, to spin it, that's positively cheap, just 2$ a pound, but getting it dyed pretty colors more than makes up for it, around 12 $ a pound.

So, let's see:

washing: 5

carding: 7

spinning: 2

dyeing: 12

Total is 26 dollars a pound, a skein is typically half a pound. So congratulations, you've gotten your yarn at half price (a total of about $1250, not including any sundry processing fees).

And what's more, you now have forty pounds of it.

*I don't actually mind the price of good yarn, though I am of course regretful I can't afford much of it. I suspect there's a healthy profit margin, seeing as raw wool prices have been tanked for the last decade, but letting someone else deal with the steps is fine with me. For weaving I actually need much better yarn than I could possibly handspin.

**prices obtained from Briar Rose Fibers and Blackberry Ridge Woolen Mill, both very good suppliers and supporters of wool industry. There's huge variation in prices, though. While these are pretty representative, they are not the final word.

Yep, I'm makin' a scarf!

It's fall

This morning, my contact lens solution was cold. Sure sign of winter coming.

Currently things are dull, after a flustered morning. I discovered around 9 am that I was supposed to work at 10 am, and after one false start (I had to turn around and drive home to get my penicillin, since strep is a bad thing and we don't want to encourage it to set up shop on my heart valves) I finally made it in around 10:30. But it turns out we only have one surgery in the OR today anyway. *frustration, tears, whimpering*. If anything turns up, the day will return to frantic haste status.

The thing with strep throat...so, I found out about two weeks after the appointment that I had trace amounts of strep virus. The doctor told me, over the phone, that I should go ahead with the antibiotics, even though I seem to finally be recovered. I hate taking antibiotics, and if I was fully recovered why did I need them? Just take them, he said.

Second-opinion time! I asked my dad (a vet). He said strep likes to catch a ride down to heart valves and after a period of lying low, causes endocarditis. In other words, I'm now dutifully taking penicillin. The moral: explaining the medicine leads to greater patient compliance!

(Further internet research turns up factoids about streptococcus pyogenes, or 'group A': it's pretty contagious, it can lead to sinus and tonsil infections, and more ominously rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever is the complication that can cause the damage to the heart, since it involves nodules being deposited in all sorts of places, and they can cause scarring wherever they end up. Thanks, mayo clinic website!)

School rumbling on the horizon

So.

Second year!

Oh boy.

Last year around this time I was contemplating the mysteries awaiting me as a first year vet student, the challenges, the joys, the large amount of cleaning my apartment required. This time, much more sanguine about the apartment. I didn't know how exactly vet school worked, going in, but as time passed I found that, as harrowing as it was, I loved it. I have trouble with studying enough, of making it through long lectures and labs with my attention span intact, but it's the sort of challenge that is exhilirating when I succeed (mainly because if I do a good job at it, my brain goes into its happy place and I find myself with a lot of really weird cartoons illustrating my notes, and only a vague sense of time having gone by).

If I were going into first year again, there are some things I would try to do better. I would be far more obsessive about anatomy (though goodness knows I was pretty obsessive the first time around, it just didn't feel like it). I would try to sketch everything, since I found out a little too late that I learn things by drawing pictures of them. Besides, all those missed opportunities to publish a complete anatomy of the cow. I would make flash cards for neuro after every lecture. I would actually USE said flash cards. I might still slack in nutrition, but I would try to more wisely slack in pharmacology. More flash cards (again) and fewer charts. Charts were lovely for histo, lousy for pharm. I would still take that one afternoon off early from lab to go to the zoo. I would think long and hard before taking on quite so many bloody electives second semester.

Of course, most of the things I learned that I should do don't easily translate to second year (at least I don't think so). No gross anatomy, so sketching animal parts is probably out.

We only have one lab that runs all afternoon, though there's always opportunities to stay to the end or to skip out (mentally if no other way presents itself). I learned you should always stay to the end (although a judicious walk to the bathroom that just happens to involve collapsing on a couch for a thirty second time-out is sometimes necessary).

I have a shelf full of index cards awaiting my loving attention--that, at least, I'm sure will be a common theme.

Things I'm worried about not doing so well with: being utterly fascinated with everything. Getting to class on time (usually with three seconds to spare).

Managing to exercise every day. I did so well all year, and then summer came...

And things I want to improve: food management. I'd like to avoid some of the more dangerous of the free lunches (pizza hut's idea of pasta is a macabre joke).

Studying! Always there to improve!

And remembering people's names and actually studying with them. Heh. Found out the hard way that there are some things you can't learn by yourself (thy name is neuro...).

Finally, I'd just like to survive this year of being a surgery tech part time. I think it was a won-der-ful lear-ning ex-per-ience over summer. I think it's decidedly not my career of choice, and I say this now that I have gained a rudimentary level of competence. I'd like to get to a commendable level of competence, this year, but I'm afraid I'll have to muster the enthusiasm on a case by case, day by day basis.

Scarf done!

Warning: weaving jargon follows


I finished weaving this the other night. It's destined for Sister #2, who was visiting when I set the loom up and will be visiting again, probably about the time I get around to setting the loom up again for a second scarf. This time there will be less joy of discovery (cor, it's a piece o'cloth!). Maybe. I am still a rank beginner, so I'm sure I can discover some new problems to overcome. See the diagonal stripe? Turns out you end up with a lacy pattern of holes all along the edge. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, I will be putting yarn on the shuttle a whole lot more. It's hard to pass an entire ball of yarn through the narrow passage of threads, but I did not realize how much easier the shuttle makes things until half way through. Not until after the stripe, of course.

Once I use up the rest of the yarn I've got (further lessons of past debacles: don't use fuzzy for the warp!) I can think of other things. I'm tempted by double-weave. This is basically quantum mechanics for a rigid heddle loom: you end up with a folded piece of cloth twice the width of what you'd been weaving. *Oooo, ahhhh* It takes another heddle, though. And pick-up sticks, which I'd never heard of before putzing around online today. See what wonderful things vacation inspires?