Boilers and Bananas

It's been a long week, I must admit. And, I'm glad it is over.  My boiler decided to take a leave of absence on Thursday morning.  This is the day I had dreaded all week because I was stacked up. I had several lectures, a meeting for the staff-student liaison committee I'm a member of, followed by a 3 hour frog dissection/muscle contraction lab.  Loooong day.  So, to start it off with realizing my boiler (central heat) was inoperative, was rather discouraging (and cold).  Mind you, it's been really, really cold lately.  I turn my boiler off at night because there really isn't a thermostat here and I'd rather breathe cold air than hot as dream away each night.  In the morning just after I arise (still dark, btw), I first flip on the two switches for my boiler.  One switch is for hot water (seriously weirds me out) and the second for my central heat.  I can see the pilot light fire up and hear the water start to course through the veins of my radiators.  This unit is in my kitchen, where you can feel the draft blowing straight under the door from my back yard. This door is advantageous when I'm cooking because there is a smoke alarm directly above my stovetop, which likes to go off with the smallest wisps of smoke.  My kitchen is so small, if I open the door, cold air flows directly under the smoke alarm, daring it to go off.  'Galley kitchen' is a serious stretch.  I suppose it's a good thing that no one has wasted space on my lifestyle where kitchens are for making drinks.

But, I digress.  So, said boiler went on holiday and being cold enough to ice over my bedside glass of water from the night before, I decided to call my landlord rather than leave for anatomy lecture.  She instructed me to call the company that installed the boiler and turns out they don't want to show up until the next day. I'm not quite accustomed to service without a smile, so I try other companies with the same result.  The roads have been bad for so long, it's been unbelievably cold and I know no one....so, I'm stuck. Until.....my landlord notifies me she got in touch with a personal friend who is a plumber and he will come over the same day.  He did and finally figured out the fan had given up, thereby shutting down the boiler.  All fine and good, but he couldn't get the part until the next day. So, he left me with two space heaters..thank God.  This should give some indication of how chilly willy it was:

Friday morning I go to two lectures and then run home to meet the plumber.  He showed up about 10 minutes after I should have left for anatomy dissection, but I was hugely grateful and was not going to complain. I got home after 530 pm and find the flat warmer...yay. I also find the pilot light out..ut oh.  It's now Friday night and I am not optimistic he will answer his phone. Not only does he answer, but when I remind him I now don't have any heaters, he tells me he will come back out.  He brought his cute little 4 yr old girl and checked out my system.  The radiators got fiery hot and the pilot light kept extinguishing.  Bottom line...it was finally running as it should and never had.  The radiators get to a certain temp and then the system shuts down so it doesn't overheat.  It has never gotten this warm, so I was concerned.  All was good and he left.

That was the end to a good day. I also had an encouraging event happen that morning.  Every morning, I stop by a fruit market that is owned by some Pakistani's and get a banana.  It's really bizarre that there are so many fruit stores because it's obviously not the best place to grow fruit year round.  They display their fruit out on the sidewalk every day and they also have a decent sized inside area.  There is consistently two 'Fruit Connection' vans parked on the street seemingly all day unloading fruit.  It doesn't quite add up, honestly.  With the bad weather, however, I've noticed it hasn't been there as much and the banana supply was dwindling noticeably.  

I'm such a regular, it's gotten to the point that regardless of what size banana I put on the scale, it's always '20 pence please'.  They know I don't like the really ripe ones and want a firm, just-turned-kind-of-yellow banana for my walk to school.  So, waking up to a freezing flat on Friday morning (I didn't trust keeping the two space heaters plugged in all night), I was not in the best of moods especially since everything had to go like clockwork.  So, imagine my disappointment when I went to my banana section to find only really ripe, brown and yellow, baby bananas.  The owner saw me fishing around, came over, broke off two bananas and said, 'Here. You go.' I went to protest and he kind of shushed me away.  I thanked him and was off.  That made my day.  I really appreciated the gesture.

I love it when people 'get it'.

Over-N-Out

And then, the buses stopped running

So, I know it's been snowing for about a week and I have yet to blog about it and show the pictures. Today, for the first time, all of the buses just stopped running!   It was kind of strange because it started snowing a week ago Saturday and today's snow snuck up on us.  It snowed a bit each day until this past weekend, when the sun actually came out to play for a bit. It was cold though.  I really did not even know it was supposed to snow and then it started and didn't stop.

Interestingly, only 2 afternoon labs/practicals were cancelled.  The first one was a dissection that we made up two days later and the second was a practical out at the farm.  As I think I've mentioned, we are moving out to Easter Bush campus next year, as they are completing the project now.  3rd-5th year students are already out there in the older facilities. However, 1st and 2nd years are in the city at Summerhall.  Easter Bush is a bit 'out in the country' and all of their classes were basically cancelled the entire week, whereas ours were 98% on.

Here are some pictures of my neighborhood.  The first was taken just out of my flat door overlooking my front  'garden'.

This one is looking down my street towards the Meadows.

And, my walk to the vet school has been just beautiful:

Notice the pathway in the middle.  Ok, it's snowing and covered up...I get it.  But, it has remained this way for over a week and we have not had blizzards, just a few inches here or there.

Me and the Bingo Boyz' park, the Meadows, covered up:

The snow removal system here is not the best, to say the least.  I saw all of about 2 plows all week and the footpaths were essentially never cleared or shoveled.  It's kind of strange, but the sidewalks are basically ice covered with packed snow.  Which, once the packed snow gets even more packed, it becomes icy again. They use sand some, but this only creates brown slush about 6 inches thick, which is no good either.  The side streets in my rather busy neighborhood did not see a plow.  In all fairness, this weather is not typical here.

I was amazed we had virtually an uninterrupted schedule last week considering staff and students come from all over (even from around Easter Bush).  I'm glad we don't have a ton of classes to make up because frankly there is no time, but I did feel badly for those having to commute, as I've heard some horror stories.

Our class did manage to decorate Summerhall for Christmas.  Each year of classes has certain duties assigned to them, one being to decorate for Christmas. First year students always are responsible for this, as we are for putting on the Christmas party.  A great job was done and many smiles were had in the dissection room, as the Christmas spirit was alive (but not kicking...yuck yuck yuck):

Speaking of Anatomy, we turned our Anatomy workbooks in today.  Whew, that was a LOT of work.  Basically, it's a record of all the dissections, a few histology labs and a few dry labs we've done up to this point.  I took pictures of the end result of dissections, downloaded the pictures and labelled all structures that we could identify.  It came out really good and I'm very proud of it.  I could not have/would not have put this much effort into this project as a younger student.  Many of my peers were up literally all night printing, labelling and putting on the finishing touches.  That was me 20 years ago!  I was on the ball and did not procrastinate for once and it came out beautifully.  We have to do a Volume 2 and our first required entry is our histology  lab we did today on the skin, so I'm going to get to work on it now so I can stay ahead of the game. My first volume was 79 pages if that tells you anything...

Oh, we had our first Clinical Skills Lab today.  It was basic stuff, but I learned.  We discussed items we would need for future clinical classes such as: clean lab coat (as opposed to using our nasty dissection room coat), digital thermometer, pen torch (light), notebook and pen, and stethoscope. We did the beginnings of how to do a physical assessment of a dog. We learned how to SOAP a dog. This acronym stands for Subjective (what you see ie. attitude, physical appearance), Objective (What you actually feel, ie Temp, Respiration, Heart Rate), Assessment (list of 'problems', what your 'assessment' is of the situation. Not a diagnosis) and a Plan (What are you going to do next.  ie. order labs, send home, check 4hrs post op).

The session was given by an equine senior lecturer here who is a specialist in his field.  I met him in NY at our reception last February, as he was a speaker on behalf of the Dick Vet.  There was another speaker there, who concentrates on small animals, and together they were absolutely hysterical.

The introduction to clinical skills today was just that and mostly a group discussion. What was fabulous, was that he threw in some real clinical items and got us thinking as vets...already.  Not that we know cow patties from horse dung, but he really drove home the point that in a few short years, after a massive learning curve, we WILL know these things. He also was apologetically adamant on driving home professionalism, what it means and how we are already in the profession. He emphasized what a small community vet med really is and gave advice that I felt was crucial. I hope my colleagues heard him.  Very interactive and just what I needed today. I am also looking forward to working with him in the years to come, as I think his teaching style speaks to me very well.

Wow, I've had diarrhea of the digits tonight. I must get to work.

Over-N-Out

Friday again!

This was a short week and so it should not be as much of a surprise that another Friday is here, but it is.

I just took the Bingo's out and it's rather warmer today, no wind (yet) and not raining!  Today is a longer than typical Friday (due to the shortened week), but it's a good schedule.  I have two anatomy lectures (joints and cartilage, I believe) followed by an histology practical, then a two hour break.  I will come home, take care of the pooches, grab a bite to eat and head back from 2-350pm to the dissection room for our second half of the skull practical.  It's a dry lab, not a dissection (those start next week), but still a good time.  Yesterday we looked at skulls of the dog, cat, horse, cow and pig.  We did a lot of labeling and coloring.  Today, should be a test of our knowledge....not graded.

So, off to get cleaned up and then start my Friday!

Hope everyone had a great one!

Over-N-Out