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Monday, November 26, 2018

Burning Bright Or, Wave Goodbye

Hello Dear Readers,
The term is rapidly drawing to a close, with finals starting on Friday. This term has been kinda all over the place and I feel like it just started last week, it also feels like a year has gone by. The realty I started this dumb blog a year and a half ago, that is... just wired to think about, 1.5 years since I first stepped foot on to this little island nation. I have manged to learn more information then I would have thought possible, but now I get to experience another unique aspect of island vet school... saying goodbye to friends, yes in state schools you still have to say goodbye to upper term friends when they graduate, but hear there is something happy sad about knowing that you won't see someone around school anymore. We are all happy to see them going to clinical year but when they go they get scattered all over North America, which is kinda sad to think about, also the fact that no matter how much we all say we will get back together. Someday is a awful long way away and time pulls everyone in different direction, don't miss construe my words I believe that at some point I will get to hang out with those friends of mine that are leaving this at the end of this term. I will really miss seeing them around campus, talking to them about vet stuff, improv things, and car stuff (even if they didn't care), thanks for all the support. I can't wait to see how you all change the world my 6th term friends, I know you will even if you don't really want to, because that is the power of this crazy stupid way of going to school has, we are all stronger then we where and waving goodbye to good friends has never gotten any easier for me even though I have more then my fair share of experience at it. I am starting to get a bit of experience waving hello to old friends, and that gives me hope.
Goodbye till next term Dear Readers have a very merry Christmas, TTFN
 
 

Monday, November 19, 2018

Incoming Or, Why Vet School In Grenada Is Not Bad

Hello Dear Readers,
Firstly let me apologize for not giving you a heads up on the date switch, if you didn't see, I will be doing a post this and next week but then finals start so I will be "done" for the term with posts. So I will still have the right number of post for the term, anyway on to the meat of this post.
a couple of weeks ago I was talking to my family and they told me that one of the people I knew back in my rabbit show days was going to be starting vet school in the spring? I don't remember of the top of my head, the important thing is that she would be starting vet school HEAR at SGU. To which I responded "Why?", and to understand this reaction you need to understand the group attitude at SGU SVM which in a nutshell is that most of us did not get into the schools we wanted to, and this was are 2nd, 3rd, 4th...etc etc etc choice, some people start hear so they can get a leg up and then try to transfer out as soon as they can, there are parts of the ladder group that transfer out, and some of the later wind up staying.
The really interesting thing is that most of us love "most" of the professor, the classes a good, the schedules are bad but you get used to that, and sure the schools higher ups care more about the med school, but you have to remember that this "school" has a CEO. But overall the SVM side of things really cares about us students and wants us to be good vets someday, so let me get back to my question of Why? she was coming hear for school, and I will be honest I don't know the actual reason why she decided to come to an Island school, but I have decided to devote the rest of this post to why SGU is actually an amazing vet school and why people might make the choice to come hear, so buckle up, sip the kool-aid, and lets see if I can think in the positive for once.
Let's start with my favorite thing about going to vet school here in the Caribbean, the people, not just the locals (which are great but I have written about them before) but the professes, and other students, and staff, are amazing. I have classmates from all over the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, UK, Grenada, and the professors are from an even wider range. On top of the sheer range, people here are super nice and welling to help out, I think I've been invited to no less then four Thanksgivings this term (unfortunately I need to Study), vet school is hard but being able to hang out/study with friends makes all the difference. Also we are all on an island together so the vet school as a whole is a very tight family, where professors do there best to look after the students, and we students try our best to keep professors happy, the long and short here is simply that, the people are SGU SVM and without them it would suck. And it's still going to suck at times, but the fact that the Twinkie (yellow food trailer) lady knows what kind of bagel you like makes things a little better, when a professor tells you a funny story about how he had a professor fall asleep during his own lecture will help, and when your friends go out of there way to cheer you up that will also help a lot.

Island School is little scary when you start, and a little tiring once you get going, but all in all I wouldn't trade the friends I've made or the experiences I have had here! For all the pie and ice cream in the world. I feel like I lost the flow some where in there... maybe not? Talk to you next week TTFN. 

Monday, October 29, 2018

What To Write Or, There is a group for that.

Hello Dear Readers,
I don't think that in all my time at school, I have ever truly be afflicted with a writing block. But after the last two post being sub par, plus the skipped week, and now I still have nothing to write about. In some ways this is because I am trying very hard not to get kicked out of vet school, in other ways it is because every 5 seconds something studying, assignments, study buddy, class, lab, food, sleep, and the all consuming metric ton of groups that term 3 forces you to schedule times to meet with around an already bonkers schedule. Since the groups are all randomly assigned no one has the same lab times, which then means that Thursday mornings (which have been left open for the research group) are absurdly busy with running around trying to meet with groups, advisers, professors, other groups, then class starts at 1:30 so it's a very limited window that demands my attention. It's gotten to the point where I will turn my phone off so that I can study without getting immediately desecrated by the latest group trying to figure out a time to meet (Thursday at 9?) or figuring out what the next step in the group project is. Do not take this the wrong way I am in some of the best groups of people, groups where everyone is trying to pull there own wight and help anyone is struggling, which is also what I try to do in the rare instant that I might hold some small nugget of knowledge or understanding that has escaped one of my classmates, anyway hopefully I will figure out some great secret of the universe to share with you in two weeks TTFN my friends.

 

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

The Tingler Or, My Tell Tale Heart.

Hello Dear Readers,
It's been longer then I would have liked it to have been, however I felt like I needed to focus on my schooling for midterms but now that is over with and I can finally talk (again) about my love of Fall, and Halloween time especially. You see it's got the best movies and music and it's just the right mix of spooky and fun, The Tingler is a perfect example of a "scary" campy 1959 Vincent Price movie that if you have watched, makes a perfect segue to what I really want to talk about (if you haven't seen it then now is probably the best time ever to go and watch it... No really go watch it and then you will know what this weeks post is about... the words will still be here waiting for when you get back...). Okay so now that you have seen The Tingler you know that I am talking about Fear this week, because last week I was terrified and if I am honest I have been terrified since starting vet school, it's not a constant fear thank God I would be dead by now (spoiler) just like the people in The Tingler who could not scream I would be have died of My fear.
You see My fear all starts with that little voice of doubt whispering though the wind that I am going to mess up, that no matter how long and hard I study, no matter how meany times I talk to people about better ways to learn, or how meany people come up to me and say that "you've got this" That in the end I will fail. (It's here that I feel based on previous responses to my posts that I know that I am not stupid and that I am more then likely Not destined to fail, and I remind myself about this fact almost every day) My fear is two fold, I want to be a good Vet (or if I do fail I want to be good at whatever I end up doing) and I am afraid that I won't be good, pretty straight forward right. The 2nd thing I am afraid of any kind of failure at all, and I know those are the same... maybe but for me they are different. So taking test has been necrotic to my Nerves, I used to be a mostly calm test taker who only got nervous about the big stuff, well now everything is big and the pressure is getting to me.
I mean anytime I am in a high pressure situation I get nervous which is not a bad thing on its own, I even get nervous when I am about to go racing after I have been away from it for any meaningful amount of time, but that is more of a excited man I hope I can still drive fast kind of nervous. however Tests which used to lead to a healthy amount of nerves, now only lead to Fear, 
I am afraid, and if it wasn't for God, friends and family, then I would probably would have no hope moving forward as happy and as confident as I am, I just want everyone to know that when you see me standing around before or after a test happy as can be, It's not that I am full of confidantes in my self, It's mostly Doubt, It's not at I am not scared, because I am Terrified. The Reason I can look so calm on the outside is because I know for a fact that no matter the twist and turns my life may take it's all going to be alright in the end...TTFN 
(P.S. Sorry that this post seems so scatted I just finished my last midterm) 

 

Monday, September 24, 2018

That Time Already Or. Ethical Dilemma's

Hello Dear Readers,
I'm just going to jump right in with, I couldn't think of anything to write. And I know that I have two weeks to think of something, but those are also still two weeks of Vet School term 3, which really keeps me busy trying to not fall to far behind in any one subject while prepping for whatever test I have coming up (there are a lot) so instead of me just cutting this post short I am going to present my Ethics paper for your reading pleasure? (sure why not) and some photos because I can.
TTFN and sorry for not having something more pertinent if I think of something I will make a post next week.

Cloning for the purpose of de extinction: an ethical dilemma



The bucardo became an extinct species in 2000, in 2003 the last bucardo was born and died of respiratory failure minutes after birth (Choi, 2009). This singular case brings the ethical dilemma of de-extinction with its various avenues and rabbit holes. However, the purpose of this paper is to explore what the ethics of de-extinction are today, and what the ethics of de-extinction might be one day; by looking at the welfare of the animals involved. As in case mentioned above, if de-extinction were to become a viable process, what would the effects be on animal conservation, what would the impact on the environment be when releasing cloned animals and what changes in legislation would be required.


The process of de-extinction has several steps starting with sequencing the animal’s complete genome and ending with the implantation of a fertilized egg in to a surrogate dam. These processes are, for the most part, out of the scope of this paper, however, the last step is of great importance and is the beginning of the animal welfare issues. Evaluation of animal welfare will use the 5 freedoms 1) no anxiety, 2) behavior is to be normal, 3) to be comfortable, 4) free of disease, pain or injury, 5) have energy from food and water. (Kirwan, 2018, p1) The act of implantation causes the surrogate to lose three of its five freedoms; the freedom from fear and distress, the freedom of normal behavior and the freedom from pain and injury.  Most animals that are proposed for de-extinction have no domestic relatives, so in the act of tranquilizing, moving, and handling the surrogate is exposed to mental suffering; this is the loss of freedom from distress.  The freedom to normal behavior is loss by having to care for the fetus of a different species; therefore, that animal is being deprived of its normal behavior. Undue pain or injury caused by the pregnancy and parturition is the final loss “Cows and ewes used as surrogates for SCNT-derived pregnancies appear to be at increased risk of late gestational complications” (U.S. FDA, p, 199) (somatic cell nuclear transfer, SCNT is a method of cloning). Care of the surrogate is of the highest quality; however, it is currently impossible to complete the task with out compromising the before mentioned freedoms.

What of the offspring? What would its welfare look like? “There is an increased risk of mortality and morbidity in perinatal calf and lamb clones” (U.S. FDA, p, 199). Even with a high quality of care this seems to negate the freedom from pain. What happens to the welfare of the cloned animals once born and healthy? There is a very limited gene pool to pull from, the process of inbreeding would only be viable to an extent (Choi, 2009), so cloning and genome sequencing would need to continue.



If de-extinction were to become a viable process, there could be a fundamental shift in thinking about how to conserve endangered species. The possibility of cloning for the protection of endangered species is already being considered one of the better options available; “Conservationists in Brazil are poised to try cloning eight animals that are under pressure” (Coghlan, 2012). However, there are problems with this way of thinking, consider the Mammuthus primigenius one of the more popular de-extinction candidates; a 10,000-year-old woolly mammoth carcass that preserves muscle tissue the color of fresh meat (Wong, 2013). Consider the welfare of the cloned woolly mammoth, while in captivity its’ shelter, food, and water would be provided for, as well as the freedom from pain and injury. Nevertheless, the freedom to normal behavior, and freedom from metal suffering is not guaranteed. Now consider the mammoths welfare if it were reestablished as a wild species. Think of the welfare of the native intact species. The mammoths could presumable maintain normal behavior, and might also be free from mental suffering, there should be food, water and shelter. Still the environment has changed, “evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.” (NASA, 2018), which would lead to the loss of normal behavior and could create fear and distress, it could also lead to pain or disease. Three of the freedoms are potentially compromised for the mammoth, which might or might not be the case in the real world. Considering the impact on the native species there are invasive species models which could help shed some light on their welfare if mammoths were introduced; “Many species are limited primarily by food availability and secondarily by density-dependent factors” (Lohr, 2017 p.3), showing that they could impact the supply of food, the quality of shelter and the normal behavior of animals. There is also the potential for physical harm to humans. There is also a small possibility that through the cloning process unknown viral DNA could be copied leading to a viral outbreak in livestock, exotics, companion animals, or even humans. This is a very unlikely outcome, but all possibilities need to be considered. Another possibility is that the reintroduction of the wooly mammoth could help the environment (Mann, 2018) making it an important ecologic species.


Currently de-extinction and animal cloning have no federal laws. Rather, de-extinction has a set of guidelines laid out by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Cloned animals used for food have a set of health guidelines that need to be adhere to. For example, if the dodo bird were brought back, and subsequently domesticated in the U.S. using an entirely cloned population for the production of meat and eggs for human consumption; there would be a required health check to insure quality of the products. If the animal did not meet FDA standards for human consumption then they would, like non cloned animals, be used in animal feeds. “No animal feed risks unique to clones were identified in the Risk Assessment” (U.S. FDA, 2008, p.3). Now reflect on human cloning and the field which is more associated with the genetic manipulation processes of de-extinction eugenics, which also have limited laws and regulations. Currently Australia has very strict laws allowing only curtain licensed individuals to perform certain parts of the process but never to complete a human clone; Offense—placing a human embryo clone in the human body or the body of an animal” (AU, NHMRC, 2017 p7). The U.S. has no federal laws banning cloning, only sanctions on government spending in the areas of human cloning. However there are no such sanctions for animal cloning. Revive and restore a non-profit organization, and one of the largest de-extinction groups is based on charitable donations and not government funding, thus circumventing the limitations of government funding. (“Lour, 2018). Still once an extinct species has been successfully cloned it could come under the endangered species act, and thus government protection and taxpayer money, or they might be classified as invasive (IUCN SCC, 2016, p17). The lack of federal laws in the U.S. leaves it to states to regulate human cloning. The lack of laws means cloning is essentially an open field where abuse of processes and techniques designed for de-extinction being used in human cloning is a very real possibility. Having the partial genome for a person could lead to the cloning of historic figures, although unlikely, as current cloning techniques would allow for the cloning of those living as well as the recently deceased, albeit with many failed attempts. It is this fact which has kept full human cloning from being attempted as it would be unethical to have hundreds of failed attempts. Just as the de-extinction process calls for the use of hundreds of surrogates, 208 embryos were implanted for the cloning of the bucardo, 7 goats became pregnant and of those 1 made term (Choi, 2009), while these are only animals there is still an ethical dilemma that faces those seeking the return of extinct species.


De-extinction is mostly still theoretical in nature, with the single exception of the bucardo. As such the ethics are still only mostly theoretical as well. Yet the current state is only for today. Looking forward as de-extinctions techniques evolve and change, so will the ethical issues surrounding it. The facts remain the same, some species have become extinct, whether due to environmental changes or the effects of the human population, makes no difference to the extinct species. A dead animal no longer requires welfare, so we should instead focus on the task of preserving the welfare and lives of living animals, and the welfare of the animals used as surrogates.  “UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” (Seuss, 1971).




References:


Choi, Charles Q. “First Extinct-Animal Clone Created.” National Geographic, 10 Feb. 2009, www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2009/02/news-bucardo-pyrenean-ibex-deextinction-cloning/.


Seuss, Dr. The Lorax. New York: Random House, 1971.


“Our Supporters.” Revive & Restore, 19 Mar. 2018, reviverestore.org/our-supporters/. https://reviverestore.org/our-supporters/
 

Kirwan, A.P. (2018) Ethics in Veterinary practice, St. George’s University.


United States, FDA, “Animal Cloning: A Risk Assessment.” Animal Cloning: A Risk Assessment, Center for Veterinary Medicine, U. S. Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, 1 Aug. 2008. www.fda.gov/downloads/AnimalVeterinary/SafetyHealth/AnimalCloning/UCM124756.pdf


Coghlan, Andy. “Brazil Aims to Clone Endangered Animals.” New Scientist, New Scientist, 12 Nov. 2012, www.newscientist.com/article/dn22493-brazil-aims-to-clone-endangered-animals/


Wong, Kate. “Can a Mammoth Carcass Really Preserve Flowing Blood and Possibly Live Cells?” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 30 May 2013, www.nature.com/news/can-a-mammoth-carcass-really-preserve-flowing-blood-and-possibly-live-cells-1.13103


NASA “Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?” NASA, NASA, 8 Aug. 2018, www.climate.nasa.gov/evidence/.  


Lohr, Cheryl A., et al. “Modeling Dynamics of Native and Invasive Species to Guide Prioritization of Management Actions.” Ecosphere, vol. 8, no. 5, 15 May 2017, doi:10.1002/ecs2.1822. 


Mann, Paul. “Can Bringing Back Mammoths Help Stop Climate Change?” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 14 May 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-bringing-back-mammoths-stop-climate-change-180969072/.



United States, FDA, “Guidance for Industry Use of Animal Clones and Clone Progeny for Human Food and Animal Feed” Guidance for Industry Use of Animal Clones and Clone Progeny for Human Food and Animal Feed, Center for Veterinary Medicine, U. S. Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, 15 Jan. 2008 https://www.fda.gov/downloads/AnimalVeterinary/GuidanceComplianceEnforcement/GuidanceforIndustry/UCM052469.pdf
 

Australia, (NHMRC) National Health and Medical Research Council,“Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction Act 2002.” Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction Act 2002, 21 Sept. 2017. www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2017C00306


IUCN SSC (2016). IUCN SSC Guiding principles on Creating Proxies of Extinct Species for Conservation Benefit. Version 1.0. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Species Survival Commission https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/Rep-2016-009.pdf

Monday, September 10, 2018

Cry Out Watch Out, Or Me in Mentor

Hello Dear Readers,
So I had no clue what I was going write about, then I realized that Today is World Suicide Prevention Day, I know not my usual happy post but it is a very impotent topic especially for a field with as high a stress rate as veterinarians. With a higher attempt rate then the general public all over the world, and when a veterinarian attempts Suicide they will probably be successful, since they are trained to kill and use that skill set often. So today I would like to speak out about this problem however I don't have any direct experience, or training SO if You are reading this and are considering Suicide Please visit these sources or call the numbers below...or your local emergency services... or friends or family...  
In the US.
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/Call 1-800-273-8255
In AU
https://www.lifeline.org.au/ Call 13 11 14 
In Austria 
http://www.telefonseelsorge.at/ Call 142
In Bangladesh
http://shuni.org/
In Belgium
https://www.zelfmoord1813.be/ Call 1813
In China
http://www.crisis.org.cn/ Call 800-810-1117 landline or 010-8295-1332 for cells
In Czech Republic
http://www.modralinka.cz/ Call 42 060 890 2410
In Denmark
https://www.livslinien.dk/ Call 70 201 201
In Greece
http://suicide-help.gr/ Call 1018
In Hong Kong
https://samaritans.org.hk/?lang=zh-hant  Call 2896 0000
In Ireland
https://www.samaritans.org/  Call 116 123
In Malaysia
https://www.befrienders.org.my/ Call 603-79568145
In Mauritius
In Netherlands
https://www.113.nl/ Call 0900-0113
In Singapore
https://www.sos.org.sg/ Call 1800-221-4444
In United Kingdom
https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us Call 116 123

Now I just want to say a couple of things to people who might be the recipients of a Cry For Help, firstly if you think it might be cry for help respond Immediately Stop whatever you are doing and Respond it could save a life, second If you think something might be a Cry For Help, no matter how slight the chance or if it's just a nagging thought in the back of your head Respond, do it then, don't wait you might save a life. I would rather let someone know that I care and look paranoid or stupid then to risk not acting when it counts. 
Okay I will leave the rest to the pros, Suffice it to say that if You feel like you can't contact anyone else (really they will be better at it) Email me! GetAwayWithVetSchool@gmail.com I will do my  best to help.
Wow we are far down the page now, but anyway I wanted to answer a question posed to me by my Mentor from Undergrad, She is literally the reason I am at SGU (since I didn't even know about it before), but my mentor asked how it felt to be a mentor myself, you see I recently received a message from a guy that I went to school with thanking me for helping him out when he started back (which means a whole heck of a lot to me). So to answer the question posed to me, It feels good...  and it feels scary at the same time, I don't know that I feel that I have any right to be a mentor I barley feel like I belong in vet school most days, however this is just going to push me to became a better student, and a better mentor to anyone that might decide that I am the kind of person they want to look to for answers, just know that I am still figuring out what I am  doing with my life every day, and that I am still learning every day, but most of all know that I am honored by the trust placed in me. Thanks, stay safe, don't be afraid to ask for help, and I will talk to You again in two weeks TTFN

   

Monday, August 27, 2018

Term 3 Or The Hardest Way To Fall

Well Hello there, Dear Readers

It's been a while but I am Some how back and I yet again writing in this, honestly fairly depressing blog. You might have noticed that I decided to spruce up the place so it would better match what actually gets written here, that is to say trashy despair with the odd ray of hope and some random stuff thrown in. And since I am talking about me blog I might as well remind you all that I have decided to move to a biweekly posting schedule, this is to try and cut out some of the straight up garbage random post that I was making far to often last term, this was mostly do to a lack of time to devote to the blog every week, moving forward I will be trying to right a mildly high quality of content (grammar however will probably remain at it's current low standards).
             It is also so that I can open the floor to you my Dear Readers to write your own posts for this blog, since I know that at lest some of you will have read one of my post and thought I can do better, now is your chance without having to go though all the crap of starting a blog, writing a weekly/biweekly post, and posting it to social media so that everyone can judge you on how bad you are at writing. No all you would have to do Is email me your post in a Word Doc to GetAwayWithVetSchool@gmail.com, but don't get crazy about it if i don't have a guest post to post then there just won't be a post between my post's which again will be biweekly. (P.S. if you look at the side bar I added this email so you won't have to dig for this post later)

Okay so now that the house keeping is all out of the way we can get to the heart of this post, I did have a resit at the start of this term which I passed, however the fact that I had this scary scary test looming all summer didn't do wonders for my nerves. This whole week (This was the first week of classes and the resit was on Monday morning) has been a wired mix of relief, exhaustion, and getting stressed about Term 3, which is widely held as the worst term of vet school at SGU, manly do to it's poor schedule, and high concentration of "difficult" course's. Honestly though I am so Happy to be in term 3 since that means that I am not the total failure that I felt like this summer, I went so far as to try and avoid people that know me because I was afraid that they would ask how vet school was going, and while in my heart I know that they don't care what I do and actually just care about me, my brain is absolutely certain that if people knew how much I struggle with school, and with myself, that they would look down at me like a worm on the hot concrete, with petty and disgust in their eyes as they step over my rapidly drying carcass. Obviously this is just my internal conflict, since I don't think I will ever fill like I deserve any kind of praise, let alone peoples respect, but before you start thinking bla bla bla we have herd this same thing from you ever term, which you have I went back and checked the archives, although I have never stated it so plainly before (side note, Please don't go back and read old post, I promise that they are all worse then even I thought they where when I wrote them), very long story short (no really I cut about 500+ words from this post) that is how I was feeling this summer, It's not like I didn't do all kinds of fun things this summer, I raced, went to LBL, hung out with my family and animals, but I always had the stress of school right there in the back of my mind no matter how long I studied it was never enough to satisfy my own sense of un-accomplishment. That's okay though because I have Family and Friends, and Friends that are Family, and they all accept the facts of who I am, and what I am trying to do with my life, and while most of the people I know back home only know the strong, confident, compassionate, outgoing, well put together me, and nothing of the stressed and struggling me, I know that they would understand and empathize with me, Just like you do. Thanks If it wasn't for you all and the grace of God I don't think I would be capable of tackling what is shaping up to be my hardest Fall ever. Well I suppose I will talk to you again on the 10th of September, Till thin
 TTFN

Monday, April 23, 2018

Getting Though it All, Or Story Tellers, Or Finals Again.

Hello Dear Readers, I Have been writing this blog for over a year now, I obviously plan on keeping it up as long as I am here, vis-à-vis finals are coming up and as per my usual I am not sure how I am going to make it though them. I am not as bad off as I have been in the past, Pharm and anatomy lab are going to kill me, they are pretty much straight memorization and there is a lot there to remember plus this weekend was one of those where I try to do something like study but my brain says no lets wonder off and do something else and then by the time I lay down to sleep it snaps back and says "you didn't get enough done your going to fail so" I lay awake clear in the knowledge that I am a worthless idiot who has no right to be here, and the sane part of my mind is saying that the best thing to do now is to get some sleep and get up and get some work done, then by 2:30am I am finally able to fall asleep. I wish I was one of those people who could just sit down and study all day, oh while at lest vet school is getting better, not easier mind you just better what does that mean you ask, well I am getting used to the level of work and stress, which means that I am enjoying my time here a bit more it is not as strange and foreign as it was before. So hopefully I can make it though finals and move on to term 3, and as long as I can I think there might be some changes made to this blog, since the last couple of posts have been very short and frankly stupid. I can do better but apparently not weekly so since you dear Readers deserve the best I can muster I will probable make it into a Bi weekly post. Something else that I think would be interesting for this blog is adding your the Readers story's to it, I know that some of you probable have better things to talk about then I do. So we will see how finals works out and then I will figure out how that would work and go from there. Anyway I think this will be it for me this term, hopefully though the grace of god I will be back next term, till then...

 TTFN

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Trying to be a Pirate Or Draw me a Blank

Hello Dear Readers, So I had a idea for a post early last week but then after sitting on it for 5 days I changed my mind and decided that that would have been a stupid post! And now I don't have anything even remotely interesting to write about, which usually means that I would just say "hey its going to be a short one this week" but I did say that last week so I feel like I should at lest try and write something interesting for you so here goes I am literally going to just dig up some of my old projects and ideas, to throw at the post this week and we will see how that goes? (spoiler it goes bad so you might as while stop reading now and save yourself)
Well this went not great turns out that I don't have the documents that I thought I did and I do not have time to recreate them, so here is my pet project this term.
Being a vet student in the Caribbean means that you absolutely need one thing, a pirate flag! Now obviously I don't have just buckets of free time so it takes some time for me to decide what works and what looks good, now this started because 1. I felt like it would be fun to have a pirate flag hanging on my apartment, 2. since there is a large banner of Nic cage hanging in one of the buildings on campus, I wanted to make a Nic cage flag since he is the patron saint of SGU.
This is what came from that endeavor
This one is pretty bad but I liked the skull
 This one was better but still not great
Since I already had the stuff together I had another Idea for a more vet/Grenada and this one is what came out of that, (this took about 8 weeks of very very rarely working on it)
but this still looked like crap but I let it sit for a couple of weeks during midterms and the following weeks, but we had that long weekend so I jumped back on this purely selfish project and see if I could sort this out.






So I started by figuring out the V I wanted it to be a bit more medical while still trying to keep a realistic feel, so this is what came of that.
Then I turned to the center peace the Heartskull (fun fact I used a dog heart as a base) then I needed a bit more behind that in the center I started with just lines but I didn't like how clean that looked so I went with period fishing spears and that fit so nicely.
Finally I needed to put all of this together and make a flag (or at least a mock up of a flag) which lead to another small problem where do I put everything, I liked that fraction look that the last prototype, but I wanted to have a better balance so I staggered them across the flag, I really like the way this one turned out.
Sorry this one was pretty random, the next week will hopefully be better, it will also be the last scheduled post this term so I will make sure it is on time. TTFN
Varrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!