A Cuban-Rican's odyssey in Scotland

Noche Buena, Part Three

2011-12-25T21:11:00.001Z

Let them eat!!!

Finally it was time to eat dinner! There was laughing, dancing, queueing, and I’m pretty sure someone cried.

Feeding and sitting fourty+ people is no easy matter. It took a good half hour for everyone to get situated. For dinner we had the two lechones, two types of frijoles, yuca, and so much rice… Dessert was a yummy mix of coconut brittle, Christmas tree cake, rum cake, flan, and bunuelos (MMMMM!!!!). By the time 10PM rolled around, we were all ready to collapse into a food coma.

Dinner was followed by a rousing game of White Elephant.

Then we had a surprise visit from Santa.

The evening was a great success and everyone made it safely home by midnight, giving Santa plenty of time to get back to business and deliver all his presents.

Noche Buena, Part 2

2011-12-25T20:44:00.000Z

The Cooking of the Pigs
Roasting a pig (or lechon) to perfection is a long process that begins with picking out the right one. This year, I went with Duly and Tio Fran way out into the boonies of Miami and we picked out the perfect one. I have no idea where the Rodriguez clan found theirs.

This is not her, but is representative in size.

The piggy came to us frozen, so we needed to thaw and then season her to perfection.

On Noche Buena, the pig is then placed into the cooking device of your choice. This year, there was an argument of whether the caja china was better than the hueco, so we did one in each. With the caja china, the pig is placed inside of a box and the coals and laid in the lid. With the hueco, the coals are placed on the ground and the pig is suspended over them, and covered with metal siding to keep the heat in.

After a few hours, you need to turn the pig so the skin is evenly cooked on both sides.

Tio Fran and Duly flip the pig

Once you flip the pig, cook it for an hour. Then check it every ten minutes until the skin is nice and crispy.

After the pig is nicely roasted, it is time to bring it in and take it out of the rack. People flock like raptors to get the choice pieces of skin (the best part!) and ribs.

Nati gives us a breakdown of what goes into cooking the pig

Tio Fran and Duly bring the pig into the madness

When everyone is satisfied with their share of the skin, the pig is carved up and then it’s time to eat!

Noche Buena 2011, part 1

2011-12-25T19:48:00.000Z

The original plan last night was to live blog the whole event. However, the iPad technology was not quite up to snuff so I’ve deleted all the posts and decided to start anew.
The day began with an absolutely mad trip to Publix. I was seriously about to start drop kicking the families that decided it was absolutely necessary to bring ALL of their kids, spouses, in-laws, AND cousins to the store. YOU DO NOT NEED TEN PEOPLE TO DO THE SHOPPING!!!!!

I then called my little helper elf (the one with opposable thumbs) for an afternoon of baking!

We made apple pie muffins, pumpkin bread, cranberry bars, and coquito.

Meanwhile, at my aunt’s house, the party was beginning to come together.

On the left is La Caja China. On the right is El Hueco. The competition is going to be fierce, but only one lechon can win!

Forty pounds live weight of pure yumminess!

Horsies

2011-10-05T16:45:00.001+01:00

So I have survived a week anda half of equine medicine so far. I've got a bit of knowledge in my gaps, and probably am not impressing anyone with my inability to retain things they have told me os vital for passing. One day I will be able to learn all the antibiotics and the specific dates that the stupid jockey club says you must give the flu vaccine. Today is not that day, and tomorrow isn't looking good either. At least cske friday's are something mice to look forward to. This week I am making Libby's pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling!!!!!! This friday we also have "cupcakes and cocktails" night, created by the awesome Erin. Should be good good times.

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Location:Bush

Start of Module 2

2011-09-27T18:58:00.001+01:00

We started the second module yesterday. I am on equine for the next forf weeks, starting off with orthopedics. I feel so useless; somehow I always manage to forget all the material that I had learned the night before. At least the clinicians and redidents that we've been working with are nice.
Today was exciting since the new build had it's official grand opening and Princess Ann came. I didn't get to see her, but the event was in the news. It's always exciting when royalty comes round.

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Sunday

2011-09-18T21:17:00.001+01:00

Went into the city today to work on our neuro presentation. We ended up talking about our weekend more than working on the presentation; hopefully we do ok tomorrow.

Afterwards, I went to Sainsbury to pick up food for the week and some more clothes. I need to go try those on soon. Spent most of the evening cooking food for the week so that I could have proper meals. So far I've made chinese vegetable soup, spicy 'sausage' sauce to go with pasta, creamy butternut squash and sage sauce to go with gnocchi (which I need to get), and roasted some butternut squash and onions to make more soup tomorrow. I also have stuff to make thai 'chicken' green curry and eggplant lasagna. I'll have to make those Wednesday.

Tomorrow starts my last week at the small animal hospital; next stop is four weeks at the equine hospital. Have to do a lot of cramming for that next weekend!!!! At least I won't have to dress nicely for that since we have to wear boiler suits.

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Crazy Night

2011-09-18T12:03:00.001+01:00

As usual, my neighbors were very noisy and banged lots of doors when they came home (drunk) last night. A little while later, somene kept buzzing to be let in. I finally got annoyed and let them in, and they promptly started to clump about and bang on all the hallway doors. I thought it was the drunk neighbors' drunk friends that didn't know you had to open the hallway door so to get to the flat doors. They eventually figured it out and started banging on my neighbors' door. From the sounds coming out of the hallway, I thought something was up so I went to my door to look out the peep hole.

To my amazement, there were two cops in my hallway!!!! I opened the door to see what was wrong, and they started asking me about my neighbors (if they were home, who lived there, what kind of people were they, etc). I told them that my neighbors had recently gotten back in, and they were a young couple with a kid and a big dog. Cops said thanks, I said you're welcome, and then I went back into my flat and locked the door while they went back to banging on the door and looking through the mail slot. The cops started shouting that they could see my neighbor's shadow and that she needed to open the door. She shouted back that the cops needed a warrant.

I quickly went to the living room, to be as far from the action as possible. A few minutes later, I looked out then window and saw a taxi, two cops cars and a cop van. There was a lot of shouting, walkie talkie talk, and guarding of the hallway door before the lady cop was able to convince my neighbor that no warrant was required and she (neighbor) had to open the door because she (cop) needed to make sure everyone was ok.

Long story short, the taxi driver noticed the couple arguing in his cab and then saw blood when they got out. He called the cops reporting a possible assault. My neighbor claims that they had gone out drinking with another couple, and that at some point she fell and busted her nose. They did have a fight in the cab, but she was not assaulted. And now her partner was passed out in bed and she was fine (swollen eyes due to the drinking). I don't think the cops were convinced, but there was not much else they could do except inform child services that the police had been called there. That led to another tear fest and more arguing. But the cops have to involve child services whenever they are called out for domestic issues, even if the child was not present.

All of this drama started around eleven and finished just after midnight. There was more shouting and banging coming from my neighbors this morning; lord only knows what they were up to. So glad that we won't be living here too much longer. Have already lived next to crazy neighbors with domestic issues (chick was CRAAAAZY and eventually arrested), and don't particularly want to go through that again.

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Count down

2011-09-17T22:44:00.001+01:00

Just bought my plane ticket for my Christmas holiday. I shall be in the States 19 Nov - 6 Jan. Only 63 days to go!

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Woot

2011-09-17T18:04:00.001+01:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Getting familiar with my new iPad2. This should make blogging from school and stuff much easier. But we'll see. I am not very consistent with these things, lol. Also, please forgive my typos when I post from the ipad since I've turned off autocorrect.

Location:Penicuil

Ugh…

2011-03-20T15:28:00.001Z

This last semester of lectures seems to be dragging on forever! Not only are we learning about equine AND exotics (who came up with that pairing?), we are also doing our public health module. Doesn’t help that being cooped up in the same lecture theatre for hours every day makes us very prone to getting sick. And it REALLY doesn’t help when you have to set up EMS on a different continent with a five hour time difference! I cannot wait for spring break since that signals the end of lectures.

All of the EMS has made me anxious, so I’ve come up with a plan of sorts to help me organise myself. If I can get 10 weeks done through the summer, then I’ll only have to do 3-4 weeks (depending if I can squeeze in another conference) during my externship period, hurray! Hopefully I’ll hear back from my cousin soon so that I can plan (or not plan) some equine EMS. I also need to get in touch with the Patrick AFB in Cocoa Beach to hopefully get two weeks out of them. After that, I’m hoping to do two weeks of exotics work for fun (and practice for next year’s exotics rotation). Vacation in the US? What vacation? At least there’ll be sun.

Then is back to the UK to hopefully not take any resits, have a bit of a breather, and then (cross my fingers) three more weeks of EMS at RAF Feltwell. That is, if they’ll take me back after my two weeks with this this spring break. The CPT seems keen to have me on but is a bit concerned with housing and transportation. I’ve managed to find a nearby B&B, and the owner mentioned using a bike to get to the base. I’ll have to ask her if she’s got one to loan me, or if there is a place to hire one in town. Feltwell, by the way, is this tiny town outside of Cambridge. After several tries at using a Journey Planner, I’ve figured out a route that will get me there for about £55 return, not including a short taxi ride.

Some time during all of this, I also need to write up my SSC2 (student selected component 2). My project is a literary review on campylobacter in the poultry food chain (probably just in the EU), from ‘farm to fork’. It’s got to be a bajillion words long (I think) AND I have to design a research project. Funny thing about that… I went for a lit review to avoid coming up with a research project. And yet, there it is. I have to design one. Sad.face.

Things I have learned since quite possibly, maybe, breaking my foot

2011-03-20T15:27:00.001Z

Horse shoes leave interesting bruise patterns.
Do not walk 4 miles on your injure foot. It won’t end well.
Your trainers/sneakers are a lot tighter than you had imagined.
Your foot may no longer look swollen, but you are very very wrong. Do not try wearing steel toe boots.
A&E doctors do not like radiographing your foot/toe because even if there is a break, ‘there is not a lot [they] can do about it’.
Ibuprofen + paracetamol will NOT take away the pain, contrary to what the A&E doctor tells you.
Your GP will give you a stronger NSAID, but will still not radiograph your foot because ‘it will heal in another 4-6 weeks if it is broken. wear good walking boots if you can tolerate it.’
Just because your foot feels better in the morning doesn’t mean you should stop wearing the elastotube.
Shower water falls with a lot of force…
… and so do ping pong balls dropped from waist level.
You will have to stand like a rock star to wash dishes. You will look stupid, just deal with it.
Your feet carry a lot of weight when you sit on the toilet. Be careful how you position yourself.
Do not massage your foot to make it feel better. The delayed pressure/pain will be a whole lot worse than the initial injury.

Foot, evening it was stomped on. Bruise not fully developed.

RIDING!

2011-02-21T14:26:00.001Z

YAY! One good thing that seems to be taking off are the riding lessons with the Horse Society. Due to illness, snow, finals, the winter holiday, and a lack of interest, we only got out two novice lessons last semester. This semester we are moving to Tower Farms, which is much closer and only requires TWO people! YAY!

I also took a ‘lesson’ a Dryden a few weeks ago. It was really the try-outs for the international competition, but the lady was super nice and coached me over a few jumps. Didn’t make team, but that’s ok since I learned that I can still jump. Hopefully I’ll be able to take some more lessons out there since the instructor is super awesome and the horses are FANTASTIC. I absolutely loved it.

Technorati Tags: horseback riding,Horse Society,Tower Farm,Dryden,RDSVS

Eih

2011-02-21T14:09:00.001Z

Woah, haven’t posted in nearly a month. Will fix this shortly (this post not included). Days seem to drag on when they are filled with lectures and waiting for things to happen so that you can plan more things. But at the same time, I never seem to have time to do much of anything.

I AM A CHAMPION!!!

2011-01-20T20:47:00.002Z

Well, that’s what I like to tell myself. Started playing foosball again this week and, ZOMG, my skill level has gone like +5 since last semester. I actually beat Pookish, the undeniable champ, by a point! Granted, he was playing one-handed, with his right hand (he’s a lefty), but I still beat him! Woot woot!

Then, we played teams. Me and Poon versus Pookish and T-biz. Then, to keep it fair, T-biz and I switched sides. Pookish and I DOMINATED! Even after Poon and T-biz switched so that Poon could be on offense (his preferred position), Pook and I still dominated. One day we will shut them out and make them do the Naked Lap of Shame around the school. Tee hee (and totally j/k).

If you are wondering how we have so much time to play all this foosball, the TTO generously allows us an hour lunch in addition to inexplicably long breaks between classes. If you are wondering why I don’t use this time to study, I totally do! But you can only study poop and coughing for so long before losing your mind. Solution? FOOSBALL!

Glossary

Poon: Alan Poon
Pookish: Allen Putzig
T-biz: Tara B
shut out: don’t let them make a goal

LA ICU

2011-01-16T17:28:00.001Z

Ok, since I REALLY don’t feel like reading 20 pages on colic and why horses do it, I’ve decided to post on my large animal ICU week. I started 20 Dec at 9AM and finished 27 Dec 9AM. The first few days were tough since we had to get up in the middle of the night to do colic checks and give meds, but as horses got better and went home the workload got easier. We were very lucky since no emergency colic cases came in (in previous years. they’ve had 2 to 4 cases come in over-night on CHRISTMAS!).

Not pictured: Demon shower

The cottage was way more comfy than I thought it would be. Two twin rooms and a bathroom upstairs, two single rooms and a bathroom downstairs, and a kitchen/lounge. Only thing was, the upstairs shower was possessed by some evil demon, so we all had to share the downstairs one.

I can has some foodz, pleaz?

The on-duty resident would bring his dog with him when the hospital was closed for Christmas, and he’d follow us around all day. Poor thing has really short legs, so he’d always be the last one to arrive. Someone said he was as old as dinosaurs, lol.

For Christmas, we joined up with the girls doing small animal ICU for a very scrumptious dinner. Kit was awesome and made some crumble and key lime pie for dessert!

Even the guys came along for some fun (and food). They weren’t too keen on having their pics taken, though.

It was very cold during our week, so we spent a lot of time hiding in here ‘learning’ about horsey things. But really, we just ate chocolates and goofed around. And wrote in our charts, since that is very important!

We had some good cases in and got to see several endoscopies, stomach tubings, how to work up an ophtho case, and how to manage ortho cases. I even learned how to place an IV!

The new build is coming along nicely. Hopefully it will open soon so that we can enjoy it before graduation!

Winter Holiday

2011-01-16T12:56:00.001Z

Guess I’ll start with the most recent events. I was able to go to Miami for a few days over the winter holiday. Travel was much better this year since I did not go through the North East. Why I ever thought that was a good idea is beyond me (I’ll post about this later). Even though we were delayed a bit due to strikes at CDG, I was still able to make it home in time for dinner. : D

This trip was jam-packed with people and events. The day after I arrived, there was a HUGE family reunion at my uncle’s house. Thank goodness not everyone was able to come, cuz we would not have fit!

We barely fit in the pic!

It was nice seeing (most) of my family again. I even met up with Franchie and she invited me to a New Year’s Eve party. It’s the first proper NYE party that I’ve been too! I didn’t know anybody there other than her and her little brother, but I still had a good time.

A few days before I had to leave, we got to do our Secret Santa exchange. The presents this year were amazing! JP won; he gave Christian a ‘chick’ to keep him from getting too distracted by going out to get chicks.

Naturally, no one wanted to take care of the chick, so I ended up keeping it for a few days. (S)he was so cute and even bonded with me! Eventually we gave it back to JP so that he could take it back to the farm.

Nap time!

My dad broke out the nommy Puerto Rican food a few times while I was home. They’d been keeping it in the freezer for me all month since they knew how much I liked it.

I even got to have some proper paella!

Heck yeah! Seafood!

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games. I had to squeeze in a week of EMS, so I spent a few days working with Dr Mendez. It was fun, and I got to practice doing physicals and giving IV injections.

The flights home were fairly uneventful, though I did get delayed at CDG (again) for a few hours. It wasn’t their fault this time, though; EDI opened late on account of some snow and all flights in and out were delayed a few hours. For some reason, Air France felt bad about it and gave me 1000 miles! Woot!

Miami from above

Some place in Scotland from above

Revival

2011-01-16T12:26:00.001Z

So, it’s been ages and ages and ages since I last posted on my blog, but I finally figured out how to use this fun blog toy on my computer which should encourage me to post more often. Lots has happened in the past few years, so I will try to fill in the gaps between postings of my current activities.

I’m now halfway through fourth year, and we are learning about equines, exotics, and public health this semester. Last semester we did farm animals and a bit of epidemiology. Our farm marks come out Thursday and I can’t wait! We won’t get our epidemiology marks for some time, but I do not have high hopes for that test. Oh well.

Me, Abuelita, and the girls

Monday Nite Madness

2008-12-25T17:56:00.000Z

Ok, so this is a little out of order, but I'm blogging as I remember. Monday was the first official day of Fresher's week, even though the vets unofficially began on Saturday.

Monday began with this awesome free lunch at Southsider's, the official vet watering hole. We all got a free bag o'goodies at our very first Southsider's/Dick Vet t-shirts! Lunch was a tastey combo of chips (aka french fries), curry, chili, and some pastry stuff with stuff in it. There was such a huge croud of fresher's there, that the GEPers were lost in the crowd. We eventually got tired of the noise and went on an eshopping spree across town.

Since Lindzie lives so close the the stores we did a lot of back and forth to drop things off before treking out to Princes Street to marvel at the glory that is the POUND STORE. Everything you need for only a pound! I got these really cool stripped knee socks, a thing of salad cream (the most amazing condiment in the world), this cute hanging basket thingy, and various other things.
On the way into the mall we passed by this candy stand what was so huge my pancreas fainted and I got contact diabetes. No lie. There are actually quite a few candy shops like that around town. I don't understand how there are not more obese people in this country.

After shopping, we all went back to our flats to chill. Pookish and I decided to go out running in the Meadows. I am so out of shape it's not even funny. It took us 45 minutes to cover 2.5 miles! I can only hope that our regular running sessions become more productive soon. After running we were hungry, so we walked around looking for a place to eat. Peckham's (great organic/weird food shop) has a diner downstairs with student specials, so we split a za. While walking out, we ran into Barbara and she invited us to go out with her and some other GEPers.

Since I was all sweaty and gross, I decided to take a shower before heading out to Southsider's. By the time we finally got there, it was so full of Fresher's that our group had abandoned it in favor of Adrian's flat. But when Pookish and I arrived it was so crowded in the common area that you could barely more, so we talked some people into going to Brass Monkey with us.

Viva Las Vixens

2008-09-19T09:10:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday there was a Sports and Societies fair in Summerhall. I ended up signing up for the Pony Trekking Club, the Expedition Society, and last but not least, the Ladies Football Club (soccer for you Americans)!!!!

Fast forward to Wednesday afternoon, 2pm. I hustle over to Summerhall (late as usual) to meet the girls for practice only to learn that they had already walked over to the Meadows. So I had to go wander around the Meadows until I found them tucked away into a little corner. Turns out that a lot of girls are still out of town, and a few are also in the Rugby club (boo). We did a few introductory rounds of pass the ball, then had a relay race (twice) and my team lost (twice). To be fair, the grass was real slippery and I fell (once), but so did another girl.

After that, we played for football! Yellow shirts versus non-yellow shirts. My team won the first round, and I helped score two or three times. The second game was neck and neck , and we only lost because I was an inch shy of blocking the ball. Playing goalie was a lot of fun! My most epic almost-save involved me knocking a girl over short of the goal, but when she feel she some how tapped the ball into the goal with the bottom of her foot! It was such great fun. During the term we have practice twice weekly, once on the school's turf field with coaches, and once in the Meadows just for fun. I think our games are on Saturdays.

Later that night, we met back at Summerhall (I was not late!) and walked over to the captain's flat for some pre-partying before heading out to Lava/Ignite for a wild foam party. Words cannot describe how much fun we had. Let's just say that I wowed the Scottish girls with my Miami dancing, Pookish got hit on by this weird, short dude, and foam is an incredible thing to have at a club. We dance so much that my legs still hurt two days later!

Monday Nite Madness

2008-09-19T09:05:00.001+01:00

Dinner at Lindzie's

2008-09-18T17:13:00.010+01:00

Fresher's week is a crazy week where the older students take the fresher's out on wild and crazy adventures. Tuesday was Safari night, but since we didn't have any safari attire and were not too sure about the "feed and water part" since vet students are well known for their drinking habits, we decided to have our own safari night, or "Farm Night". The idea came to use while sharing a few 'zas close to Lindzie's place. So after lunch we all trekked down to Lidyl's, and el-cheapo food place, to buy supplies for the evening. Dinner for five was about 12 pounds, and wine for five was a bit more. We all split up to shower and recover from all the walking and then headed over to Lindzie's at 7ish.

The evening began with some fine wine, lots of ComedyCentral podcasts, and Pookish attempting to burn down the place with really hot olive oil. Bout an hour later, dinner was served! Pasta, some nice sauce, veg, and shredded pork. Ha--mazing!

After we finished eating, we watched Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. That movie never gets old, and get funnier with each viewing, mostly because you can quote more and more of it. Afterwards, we had some good old-fashioned shinanigans involving a cube, the other Alan/Poon/Canadia "killing" everyone, and Pookish trying to hide under the bed.

It was such a great evening and I hope that we have many more in the near future.

Animal Husbandry

2008-09-17T17:15:00.026+01:00

Holy smokes! The past five weeks of school feel like they just flew by! Now we are in Fresher's Week and on Monday we start "real classes"... da dum dun... doom! I have to say that most of the classes were not all that interesting, but animal husbandry rocked!

The first one that I did was the milking parlor. We weren't allowed to bring in cameras, but I got some outside shots. We mostly talked and then spent an hour or so milking the cows. The hardest part was not getting splashed by all the pee and poo. Then we had to scrub down as thoroughly as possible. I never realized how hard it was to get cow poo off until two days later when I realized that my water-proofs still smelled because I had missed a few spots!

My next class was horse handling. Being the organized human being that I am, I naturally forgot the battery to my camera in the charger! However, I do have stories. We split up into four groups of one horsey person and three non-horsey people. My group ended up getting the twitchy TB-type dude. He was a little difficult to halter, but behaved so nicely for us! He even trotted up over and over and over again while we tried to assess his gait. Once everyone was comfortable handling the horses, we rotated through a few stations. The first was groom, blanket, and shave. Apparently the Brits and Scots are really into clipping and blanketing their horses. I also learned that I have been using my grooming brushes wrong for years and years! Interestingly, nothing bad ever happened because of it.... We then moved on the wrapping legs and tails. That was fun since the pony had a really thick tail with mud in it, so we couldn't take the bandage off properly. The last station was tacking up, but we ran out of time and didn't get to do it. Overall, the afternoon was a lot of fun and the weather was lovely.

A few weeks later it was our turn to learn how to handle sheep. Sheep are very interesting animals that tend to spaz out over just about anything that does not involved eating. It was a lot of fun trying to catch one to put it on its bum and trim its feet. You have to shove a bunch into the corner and then smoosh one and grab it by the chin before it has a chance to run away. To put it on its bum you have to turn it side ways, pull back on its head and lift its leg up while you step to the back and hopefully knock the sheep off its feet. It does not like to fall, but then it just sits there like a teddy bear.

The following stop a few days later was back at Langhill for some more cows. This time we had them in cow stocks and we learned how to look in their mouths, halter them, and pick up their feet. I think I was doing the mouth thing wrong at first because my cow started chewing on my boob; she left a great big drool spot on my waterproofs. The poor instructor walked up to see how we were doing just as I said "my boob was violated!" He turned bright red and became so flustered that he couldn't talk for a few minutes. Eventually he recovered and was able to show us how to do it properly. Since the cows were in stocks and we were mostly working with their front ends it was much easier to dodge the pee and poo.

Our last stop was back at OatC to play with the piggies. It did not smell nearly as bad as I thought it would until we had to go into the weaner house (and no, I did not see Myers there, hee hee). Then the smell of ammonia was so overwhelming we had to keep stepping outside for fresh air. Naturally, our favorite part was when we got to handle the babies. They were so cute! We had to shoo them into the front part of the sowing crate and trap them in their warm houses, then we reached in, grabbed one, held it, and gave it a vaccine. I was good at the picking them up part, but two times in a row I made a baby bleed with the vaccine so I just gave up on that. The instructor was not happy that I was making them bleed.

We then went into the weaner house to move a set of piggies from one room, into a weighing crate, and then into another room. It was so much fun since they kept smelling everything and licking invisible food off the floor. Once we got them through the weighing crate they were allowed to roam around for a bit while we got the rest through, and they were running around like little puppies. Then we put them in their new home and they started chewing on everything!
The last stop was the breeding shed were we met the breeding boars and the mama's to be. One of the boars could eat a small dog whole he was so big!

I don't know if we have any more animal husbandry this semester, but I can't wait until the winter holiday so that I can work with cows and pigs again! And then in the Easter holiday I get to do two weeks of lambing!

Life of a Dick Vet

2008-08-29T17:05:00.009+01:00

I've been in Edinburgh for all of 3 and a half weeks, but it feels as if I've been here ages. I spent the first week having a great time touring the city with my parents and meeting the other students in my program. The second week I started classes and it has been non-stop school and socializing since! It's lecture after lecture of anatomy with a few breaks for animal husbandry and veterinary public health. We did get to go out to Easter Bush and Langhill for our equine and milk practicals. It was so much fun! Who knew that getting pooped and peed on by a cow would be so cool?

We do make sure to get in lots of socializing time as well. The group that lives in Pollock Halls pretty much see each other all day long. We make plans to meet up for breakfast and dinner just so that we can pull together the tables and take up the entire width of the cafeteria. I think that we amuse the workers when we do that. They already recognize us when we walk in. One of the older lady even makes sure that my food doesn't have milk or cheese in it, since it tends to make me sick.
Speaking of food, Scottish food is great as long as you eat outside of the Halls. There is this little green sandwich shop at the corner of the school that makes the BEST baguette sandwiches ever. There is also this bakery called Greggs that makes good wraps and has tasty rolls and such. There is even an Elephants and Bagels close to school. For those of you that don't know, that is the sister deli to the one where J K Rowling wrote her Harry Potter books. They have great hummous.

This weekend I think I'm going to do a lot of studying with a short break to climb up Arthur's Seat on Sunday to watch the fireworks show in celebration of the end of the Festival. I'm actually happy that it's going to be over since that means all the weird people will be leaving town and things will quiet down. Well, for about two weeks until the uni semester starts and the city is flooded with students.

ps. even though anatomy is probably the worst subject ever, we try to make up for it by being as silly as possible during lab. = )

Airport

2008-08-12T08:06:00.008+01:00

We arrived at MIA with plenty of time to spare. I am glad that we went early since there was hardly any line at the security check. We sat at the gate people-watching, and I worked on my glove for a little while. The flight arrived on time and we had no problems getting on. We even sat together. It was a short flight and less than two hours later we arrived in Atlanta.
I thought MIA was a pretty large airport. Atlanta is HUGE! There is a little train that takes you back and forth between the terminals because you won't have enough time to walk from one to another if your connecting flights are scheduled to close together. Abuela Mercedes would not last long there though, since you have to take an escalator down to the train. They also have people movers, another foe of Mercedes.
We sat around waiting for our flight and intently watching the screen in hopes of seeing our name on the "Cleared" list (meaning we had seats assigned), but to no avail. Not only was the flight late, but it was also overbooked! Some poor guy have to give up his seat and wait for the next flight to NYC. Delta was nice to him though and gave him food vouchers and a $400 coupon for a flight within the next year.

My mom and dad called Rudy to find out when the next available flight was. Turns out that the 1:30 flight was canceled because it was too empty, and the next flight was not until four. However, since the early flight was canceled it looked like the 4:3o might fill up as well. We went to Chilis for lunch and to pass the time. Chilis has the absolute best margaritas in the world!

After going back and forth across the airport a few times trying to find the right gate (the gate was changed), we finally found the right one. After what felt like an eternity, the plane finally arrive half an hour late. Our hearts sank when we saw how many people were getting on the flight and how far down we were on the stand-by list. We stuck around just to see what would happen, and then on the screen it showed that there were no more seats available. Our hearts sank because that meant we would miss our flight to Edinburgh. My dad and I went to the counter to check when the next flight was, and all of a sudden a flight attendant called out "Chavez!" I said "which one?" To which he replied all three. We had to run into the plane and find an empty seat as quick as we could. I was soooo happy!!!

Catching our plane to Edinburgh was not nearly as stressful. The flight wasn't even full. We were lucky because they assigned to us the seats that the flight attendants use to sleep in during the flight, so we had business class seats in coach. That means we could recline and prop up our legs. It was comfy. I watched Horton Hears a Who and part of Kung Fu Panda before falling asleep for a little while. Then they served "dinner", which came on little trays with little plates. I've seen kid meals which were bigger. The food wasn't all that bad though, considering that we were eating packaged food re-heated some 30k feet in the air. I went back to sleep when they collected the trash and didn't really wake up until it was "breakfast" time. After that I just stayed awake listening to Jimmy Buffet and ABBA. I know, I'm a dork.

We landed ok, and passed through immigration without a hitch. However.... when we went to collect our bags we quickly discovered that my red duffel bag was missing! My most important bag since it had most of my shirts and pens. I was not happy. Neither was my mom, so she went to file a missing bag report. Thus began the missing bag saga.... but that's a story for another post.

Leaving

2008-08-05T10:56:00.005+01:00

This past week has been so busy that I didn't even notice the time passing. It felt like every day there was some sort of gathering so that people could say goodbye to me.

Thursday I went lobstering with my uncle Toto, his brother and a friend of theirs. It was so much fun! The morning started off real slow, but thanks to the miracle of GPS we found a few spots that the previous owner had marked that were just crawling with lobster. Catching them was not as hard as I thought it would be. The tricky part was keeping them in the net. Most of the nets had holes in them and required minor surgery. Hurray zip-ties! After fixing the nets there was no stopping us. We worked as a team, with someone "tickling" the lobsters out of their hidy-hole and someone else chasing them down. We kept finding so many lobster that we lost track of time and headed back nearly two hours after we had planned! At the end of the day I took home 6 lobster and my day made a delicious "lobster in beer" with cilantro rice. Mmmm!
My BFFL Mari came over on Friday to chill with me for a little bit. It was nice seeing her one more time before leaving. She could only stay for a few hours since she had to take a microbiology final that afternoon. Mari called me yesterday to tell me that not only did she get a 100% on the test, but she didn't have to take it since she had an A in the class! lol. At least she can say that she ruined the curve for everyone.
Mari and I decided to go watch Mama Mia! since she hadn't seen it but was hearing really good things about it. We arrived at the Falls early so we to Johnny Rockets for our traditional pre-movie snack.
The movie of course was awesome.

I spent most of Sunday with my uncle Duly. Since we both worked so much this summer we didn't really have a chance to spend time together.
That morning we went to the cemetery to visit my grandfather and great-grandfather. It was been a really long since since I last went and I wanted to say goodbye before leaving. Even though Abuelito Papi died eleven years ago, we still get very emotional when we visit him. We all miss him very much. After the cemetery, we went to have breakfast at Delicias de Espana. They have the best hamm and patatas in the world there!

Later on that day my uncle called to let me know he was taking me and my cousin Julian out for dinner. We ended up going to RA Sushi. Wow, what a place. They have such interesting rolls there, most of them involving mango or avocado. Very non-traditional, but very tasty. If you go, I recommend the crazy monkey roll and the crispy spicy tuna roll. Go for dessert somewhere else though; theirs are tiny.

I have to go get ready now, we leaving soon for the airport. If I can I'll update and add pictures throughout the day. Wish me luck!

Family Reunion

2008-07-28T00:38:00.008+01:00

Yesterday part of the family from both sides gathered at my house for a pool party/lunch/dinner shindig. It was loads of fun with good food, good peeps, and good music. Not to mention tons of pool time with my cousins. I was able to see family that had been MIA for some time. = )

Nat, Leanne and I listened to ABBA followed by some Saturday Night Fever. I was flabbergasted to learn that Nat did not know how to use a cassette player! Thankfully Leanne did know. I don't feel quite as old with her as I do when I'm with Nat.
The day slowly wound down into a quiet evening. My BFFL and I spent some quality time together and made plans to hang out on Wednesday/Thursday. Might go watch a movie or chill on the beach. I need all the sun and tan time that I can squeeze in while I can. Daily forecast in Scotland calls for clouds and/or light rain, with a sunset of 15:30 during the winter!

Today was my last day of work. I'm going to miss being one of the Smoothie Queens. = (
Kristen is so sweet. She brought in a carrot cake that she stayed up extra late to make. It was a quiet morning, but then the next Smoothie Queen came in for some training. I think she has potential. Hopefully Kristen Classic can groom Kristen the New into the perfect Smoothie Queen before scooting back up to G'ville (GO GATORS!). I'm going to miss all my buds at SK. It was a great summer, even with all the crazies, and the rain forest, and no A/C that one time... lol. Not to mention free smoothies and lots of experimentations with fruit. YUM! I have found that I now prefer to eat blended food, and that chewing my fruit seems strange. lol.
There are still many things for me to do before d-day. Cross your fingers that it gets all done.

ps. for the non-computer savy, if you click on the purpley words it will open up a new page with pictures. enjoy! : D