Nothing to see here

I was just looking at my blog stats, and I just crossed 60,000 page views.  Wasn't it just a few months ago that I crossed 50,000?

My radiology rotation starts on Monday.  It's the official start to fourth year, and it seems like a good way to ease in.  It's taught by Dr. J, who's a wonderful teacher and radiologist, and whose wife was the founding dean of the school.  Hopefully by the end of the month, I can actually start to feel really comfortable reading films and doing ultrasounds.  Especially ultrasounds. It's a skill I need, but sometimes it's so confusing.  I need to dedicate this month to learning every little thing I can.

After that rotation, I need to get in a truck and drive to Colorado.  We've found a house that we want to rent (since our house has tenants in it until February), and we're just waiting to hear from the property management company about whether or not we've been approved.  It's so close I can taste it.  I'm so homesick, and ready to be back in a state that doesn't smell like exhaust.  Poor Tyler is especially homesick - I've been rather distracted by school for the past three years, and I've have the opportunity to make friends with classmates, while he's been working for a company he doesn't like, ripped away from his friends back home, without a whole lot of opportunities to integrate here.  One month, and we'll get back!  I can't wait.

So over this.

Done with finals. Counting down the days until I can return to Colorado.  Looking forward to my radiology rotation in a few weeks.

I'm pretty sick of my car right now.  I brought it in over spring break to repair a leaking exhaust manifold, and replace the bearings.  They replaced the manifold, and had to replace the intake gasket and re-machine the engine.  Then, it started to die on me again, and Tyler took it into the shop while I was in Oregon.  First they thought it was the fuel injectors, and I had to pay to replace those.  Then they finally figured out it was the O2 sensor.  It's been running fine for about 2 weeks, then last night, the check engine light starts flashing, and it's running rough like it's misfiring.  I am so sick of dealing with car problems, and I'm mad I ever bought this piece of junk.

I was getting lost in some rabbit holes online, and I found a couple articles about CU's dental school.  Apparently in 2010, they got into some problems with the DEA,  and then it looks like just recently, they're under investigation again.  Basically, they were letting students and residents prescribe and use sedatives for anesthesia that were all under a doctor's DEA number, even when he wasn't physically present on campus.  This got me thinking, since we don't have a teaching hospital here, what is the standard operating procedure for prescribing at teaching hospitals?  Does one doctor order all the anesthetics for the hospital, and everybody uses them?  I wonder if there are differences between states, and between the human/veterinary/dental divide.  Leave a comment if you know how your school works.

I bought a powerball ticket for tonight's drawing.  I feel like I should have my grades in statistics revoked from me.  :)

Quickie update

It's finals week, and I just finished my practical exam and necropsy.  A couple more days of exams and I'll be done with 3rd year.  I've been a bit too busy studying to update, so forgive me.

I got back from Seattle on Friday.  I don't know quite what I was expecting while I was there, but I was pretty unimpressed with Seattle.  I think if I'd had a car, and got to explore more than what I could reach via the bus lines, it would have been great, but as it was, it just seemed like a bunch of concrete and chain stores.  By city standards it wasn't awful, but it wasn't as great of a place to visit as I had hoped.

While we were at the University of Washington, they took two pictures of us the first day - one to post on the walls saying who we were (there were similar pics of the residents and people doing clerkships.) That picture was taken at 8 am, and mine and both of my classmates looked tired and awful.  Then we got to randomly walk by the pictures for the next two weeks.  The second picture was for our dept. of comparative medicine ID cards.  Not wanting the picture to look awful like the last one, I tried to lift my chin, and have a neutral face.  Instead I came out making this expression like I was having a mug shot taken.  Not flattering one bit.

The actual rotation was nothing to write home about.  The people there were nice, but I want to treat rats and mice, not run terminal experiments on them, so I wasn't too thrilled about the whole thing.

Anyway, I'm home now, I have a ton of studying to do so I can power through my exams, and then I have a short break before 4th year starts.  I need to figure out what things in California I really want to do before I move back to Colorado, so if anybody has any suggestions, I'm open.