The last blog I wrote in February ended with my mum coming to visit, we had a lovely weekend where she stocked up on some homemade food for me to have in the freezer. She made Norwegian Kjøttkaker and Labskaus..mmmmm.
A couple of weekends later Ivan came to visit. At this time id been asked to photograph the 5th years for this years naked calendar. They aren’t actually naked, they do wear underwear and then place animals or instruments to hide the underwear. The money for the calendars are given to charity. It was a lot of work trying to organize the 5th years and get them to meet at the sites that we were photographing in the end, but everyone seemed happy with the outcome. I’ve always been a landscape photographer so I got a crash course by Scott McGinley (http://www.scottmcginlay.tk/) who is a graduated vet from Glasgow. He had been doing the calendar before and gave me some really good pointers. He also helped me edit the calendar=)
Anyways Ivan came to visit. Spring was coming to Glasgow compared to Norway which still had now. I went hacking with Ivan on horse, which was quite funny seeing he hadn’t been riding since he was 8 years old. I must say he did very well, but he was walking a bit funny on the next day! We also went reading at Garscube state park and went to the lock 27 with the other vets one of the nights which was very nice.
I decided to do something fun and educational one day and went to Strathblane Falconry, which works with birds of prey. For two hours, north of Glasgow in the country, we worked with Graeme and his birds, learning about the different popular breeds, seeing them fly, basic first aid, how to handle them when the come into the clinic, and common diseases we might see with them. At the end, we even got to have one land on us. It was truly amazing to see these birds and I really would like to spend some more times with these amazing creatures. Graeme knew everything there was to know about these birds and I think we all walked away a little bit more interested in Birds of prey.
After the dramatics and the hospital during easter break I came back ready to kick some butt and get the may exams done. As I said in my last blog I had convinced the doctors to let my try and take my exams even though id missed all the reading during easter break, but its better to have a few resits in may than all of them. We had 1 month to read all that we could to pass our exams. Me and Brianna paired up like last year. We worked out from 7-8 then showered and started reading at 10 everyday until 10 at night. It was hard days so when the annual Glasgow Rodeo came we decided to read in the morning for then to give our self a treat. The committee for this year’s rodeo was from our own 2 year (the 51th annual Rodeo) and I must say they had done an amazing job getting everything in tip top order for the day. There were dog shows, duck herding, birds of prey, agility, stands from all the animal charities and some breeds, ferret races, exotic and small animal tents, face painting, amusement parks, farm animal etc. Me and Brianne got our faces painted with flowers.
In the evening of the rodeo me and Brianna had got tickets to the Scottish Ballet who were played Alice in wonderland. They are amazing dancers, but they had changed the piece, so I wouldn’t say I liked that Alice in wonderland as much as others I’ve seen before.
My mum came over for a weekend and cooked for me and Brianna. She also helped us made a plan for the remaining days until our exams so that we would get an idea to get through it all. Even though she was there, we still ran or did Tracy Anderson every other day and read from 10am to 10pm. There was as you see underneath quite a lot of material to get through and the picture of all the labelled noted under was only in anatomy.
Time flew, It was warm and sunny in Glasgow so we really just wanted to go outside rather than sit inside all day reading for professional. One day Brianna got flowers on the door from here boyfriend Ryan in the US. I told Ivan about it at night when skyping him. A couple of days later I got a huge package outside my door when I got home at night. Inside was an apple tree. There was a card. This is the tree of knowledge, love Ivan. I laughed so hard, I’ve never been given a tree before and he assured me that a tree lasted much longer than flowers:P
The professional exams came and we started off with biochemistry. The following day we had physiology. Physiology was cumulative meaning they would test you on material from both year 1 and 2. It was a double test, where you first had 3hours in the morning, then a break and 2 hours in the afternoon. Even with all this time, I felt like there wasn’t enough time in the test. We had a day break and then Husbandry for 3 hours. We were lucky and had the weekend off before anatomy written was on Monday and practical was on Tuesday. This year was different than all other years because you no longer have the opportunity to have an oral if you are between 45-50%. In phys I was unfortunate and had about 47% and therefore had a retake. But because of my situation with the gallbladder I kind of expected a resit. Just happy it wasn’t four, but only 2. I’ll catch you up on the summer break another day.
Love
Annette
A Vet In Training 
