I had a pretty amazing revelation this week.

A couple weeks ago, before midterms, I was threatening to drop out of school and run away with the circus.  Not because I have anything against school, it's just that tests were looming, and it seemed like a good idea.

I've had this idea floating around in the back of my head for years.  Once or twice a year, I look up Coney Island's sideshow school and wish that I could afford blowing $800 to learn to swallow swords and breath fire.  I've got a mild obsession with the Jim Rose Circus and Cirque Berzerk.  10 years ago, my biggest heroes were Erik Sprague and the Enigma.

Anyway.  Over the weekend, I was looking for summer internships.  I found a Ringling Brother's internship, that unfortunately, I cannot do, since it starts in February.  But for some reason, looking into the circus never occurred to me.  I figured if I wanted to work with exotics, my choices were private practice on exotic pets (most likely), working at a zoo (less likely, and I could never afford to pay off my student loans with a zoo vet salary), or finding a conservation/wildlife organization to work with (once again, probably doesn't pay well enough to handle 200k in student loans.)  I don't know why I never considered running away with the circus and being a vet at the same time.  Hmm.


Anyway, in school, we've got a cow case this week.  Similar to last week's case, but this one's an adult, compared to last week's calf case.  We don't have near enough information for me to even narrow down my list of what the cow has, so I guess in the meantime, I can finish making my study guide for rumen anatomy and physiology.

I also have a Hill's rotation tomorrow.  I made sure to wash and iron my white coat for tomorrow, but I'm noticing it looks kind of dingy.  Now I'm torn.  Do I bleach it again, and turn the embroidery that was once black an even weirder shade of brown, or do I just let it not be quite perfectly white?  I completely understand the rational behind the white coat - studies show that people unconsciously respect doctors wearing them more than other outfits.  The school needs a "uniform" to easily delineate students.  But it's white.  We work with animals.  Every time I wear it, it gets muddy paw prints, or blood or feces on it (no kidding, I actually had a chihuahua I was holding poop IN THE POCKET once.)  Maybe they should make our white coats out of some sort of awesome 70's shiny polyester so nothing stains, and we don't need to worry about bleaching out the apparently non-color-fast embroidery.  I don't think there's really a good solution to the problem.

Later in the week, we have some Halloween stuff going on at school.  Friday is the Spayghetti Dinner, a dinner with performances, costume contests, and a silent auction to raise money for local shelters. We also have a contest to decorate our PBL rooms for Halloween.  Last year, I was too stressed out to really think about doing either thing, but this year I'm pretty excited about both.  I've been searching through my house for decorations, and kicking myself for giving away so many boxes of Halloween stuff when I moved out here.  I'm also looking around at the stuff I do have, and I'm kind of paranoid about bringing it to school.  I pretty much kept my most valuable stuff, and I don't know how safe it is in our PBL rooms, and how much I trust the housekeeping staff.  Even if I leave the most awesome stuff at home, I think if I disassemble my living room decorations, I've got enough stuff to totally win a Halloween decorating contest.