Sorry about the lack of updates

I'm on campus, finishing up my Global Animal Health class, so there's not a whole lot to write about.  I've been procrastinating on putting together my 3rd year presentation, which was originally supposed to be this coming Monday, but got moved to Thursday instead.

Thursday, I'm talking about white nose syndrome in bats.  I'm sure that anybody who knows me knows I have a soft spot for bats.  (Maybe because of all those geology classes taking me into caves growing up?) I may have even called out one of the vets at the LA county Dept. of Health a few weeks ago for her "ZOMG, touch a bat and you'll die of rabies" propaganda.  Anyway, it's december.  I bet a lot of you are going to be doing some online shopping in the next month.  Go to this link, and install the iGive toolbar on your browser.  You know how companies make money by referring visitors to online shopping sites, and get a percentage of the sales?  iGive is set up to make the associate/referral commission on the websites you already shop at, and re-directs that money to a charity of your choice.  If you click on the link above, and install the toolbar on your browser, you can direct a small percentage of what you would be paying anyway to Bat World Sanctuaries.  It doesn't go towards white nose research, but it does go to rehabilitating and providing sanctuary for bats caught up in the pet trade, or from closing zoos.  I think they're getting pretty close to capacity, and are trying to fundraise for a new building. Pretty please.  Click here.  Install the toolbar.  Help out some bats.  

Reason #472 why I can't wait to get out of Pomona

A couple nights ago, Tyler and I were watching TV.  It was somewhere between midnight and 1pm.  I hear a knock on the door.  Assuming it's one of our neighbors, I answer it.  It's this overweight, homeless looking woman.  At this point, my demeanor changes from being worried that one of my friends needed something to being annoyed that a stranger thinks its ok to knock on my door in the middle of the night.  I let out a surly "what do you want?" She asks for money for a cab.  I turn her down.  She asks to borrow a lighter.  I give her one that keeps breaking on me, and tell her to keep it.  I lock the door, she leaves.  That's the end of that, right?

Of course not.  This morning, I hear pounding on my door.  It's 6:40 am.  I'm a night owl, not a morning person.  Once again, I think it may be my next door neighbor, or somebody who's representing the landlord (since I knew they were coming out to make some repairs on her half of the duplex today.) Nope!  It's the crazy homeless woman again.  I yelled at her.  "What the hell do you think you're doing, waking me up this early? How is that ok?" She said she needed me to call 911 for her.  She was feeling suicidal.  I called.  They made me ask her questions, like if she had made an attempt, or had a plan.  She said she swallowed "some pills" the day before, and was still suicidal.  Personally, I don't think she was.  I think it was cold, she was homeless, and she wanted to be baker acted and go to a nice, warm hospital.  Anyway, I'm stuck sitting on my front porch asking her questions and repeating the answers to the 911 dispatcher in my jammies until the ambulance (then firetruck, then two police cars) show up. They didn't seem too worried about her either.

I know I have a problem with stray cats showing up on my porch, but I am NOT ok with stray people showing up.  I hope like hell this doesn't become a trend.  This shit never happened in Colorado.

I need smaller dogs...

...or dogs with squishier heads.  I got home from class today, and bent over to take off my shoes.  Apparently, just as I was doing that, my dog decided to jump up on the couch.  Her hard noggin met my face full force.  I'm standing there holding my hand up to my face, trying to combat the sudden dizziness, Tyler's looking at me asking what just happened and am I OK, and stupid Izmere is just sitting on the couch completely oblivious to the damage that her rock-hard-skull caused.  And Tyler wonders why I like cats so much.  

In other news, I'm still taking the on-campus veterinary public health course.  One of our assignments was that we had to prepare posters and do presentations about zoonotic bioterrorism agents.  My group did a presentation on Hantavirus.  Halfway through doing the project, I started to get paranoid about ECHELON picking up suspicious keywords from my google searches, and considered typing "its ok, I'm a vet student" into google.  Then I realized how ridiculous that was.  Or is it?

I'm working on filing up my 4th year rotation spots right now.  It's so stressful trying to plan out your future over a year in advance.  I think I've figured out a general schedule of how I want things.  Since some of the specialties I want to rotate through don't have good Colorado spots, it looks like I'll be alternating a month in Colorado, then a month in a hotel room in another state. Lather, rinse, repeat for the whole year.  It's so exciting, and so terrifying at the same time.