I object!
It's been a helluva week and quite frankly, given the option of sitting in one more lecture or dunking my head into a vat of boiling hot coffee, I'd probably just suffer the thrid degree burns and opt for a morphine drip.
The week strated out innocently enough with a day full of running around chasing profs down for some silly Bacteriology assignment we had. I discovered that the bacteria I had been working with all last week and which I spilled all over me right before lunch was actually Streptococcus aureus which, if you google it, you will realise is sort of the poster-child for "antibiotic resistance" in hospitals and is NASTY if you get the resistant strain of it under your skin somehow. People die of it every day. I'm not kidding you.
My prof told us all to go down to the large animal clinic to look at this really sick goat that came in. It was the cutest thing ever but it was also the sickest animal I had ever seen (well, aside from that time John and Hugh got drunk at my house and puked all over my white carpet and starting talking about gladiators. ha!).
It was this little tiny goat that was white with brown patches and it has a brain infection of some sort which causes it to be all lopsided and it had to lean against the wall and was shaking so badly it could hardly drink. the infection also caused on ear to stick up while the other ear drooped, giving it hte most sad and adorable look in the world. The owner wants it euthanised, even though it is getting better just to see what the problem is cus there are other goats on the farm and they don't want it to spread.
Tuesday was a fun day of going to feed the stupid hawks for the exotics animal club only to discover a pile of dead chicks laying in the corner which, when picked up, proved to be maggot party central. A big, writhing sea of white blind maggots crawling all over each other greeted me as soon as I picked up the first dead chick and as I screamed and threw it down, I noticed that I had some stuck on my hands.
I was traumatised but somehow managed to pick up the other 4 rotting chicks and after staring at the mass of creepy-crawlies oozing over each other in morbid fascination, I bolted from the outdoor barn and fled.
Wednesday, I got to go back to my chicken farm roots and we visited a lovely broiler (meat chicken) operation in Saskatchewan country-side. I could almost swear that if I squinted, I could make out Winnepeg on the horizon. It's that flat here.
I had handled wild birds the day before so I was sort of a biosecurity breach and I had to wear this giant isolation quarantine "stay-puft-marshmallow man" white suit complete with blue shower cap and plastic booties. My prof gave me an XL sized suit so I literally did look like Egon, Ray, Winston and Peter should be shooting me down and the rest of hte class had a good laugh at my expense. My prof was kind enough to rbing a camera to the farm and took pictures of me in the suit.
Thursday, I stayed late at the shcool till 10pm and got a parking ticket. I called campus traffic and parking control and after a quick squabble, I am still forced to pay my ticket or I will not graduate. I also managed to look at this poor rabbit in the X-ward which was so sick that I didn't even recognise it as a rabbit anymore. It was all curled up in this quivering ball in its box and just lay there panting. It was euthanised today.
Friday (today) I got to dissect chickens and was conned into participating in an Animal Welfare debate about swine housing. Most of the pork you eat was from pigs that are raised in little cement stalls that isolate them from each other and limit their movement and ability to turn around.
My side was arguing for "group housing" systems where the pigs can all party together in one pen and get fed inidividually by this machine that detects special tags we put around each pig's neck and allots each pig a certain amount of feed per day. Problem being that group housed pigs all fight with each other and can be dominant and bully subordinate pigs.
Well, my team lost which is absolutely pathetic considering we had the easier side to argue. My joking excuse is that our opposition's team leader is dating hte president of the Animal Welfare Club. (haha, actually, the other team kicked our asses as they all worked with pigs before and only one guy on my team had ever worked with pigs while the rest of us were hardcore city girls. that and the fact that the girls on the other team were our class "hotties" didn't hurt them either. Hey, if I had flawless skin, perfect eyebrows, a nice rack and a tube top, I could've done wonders too).
As it is, we not only lost the debate (which was judged by geeks, no offence to Jeff or Salima, from the U of S deabte team) but we also got harangued by the crowd afterwards to the point where the lead geek of the debate team had to tell the audience to stop picking on us.
I felt like the subordinate pig in the group housing system that was being bullied by all the other dominant pigs and being starved in the corner. Oh man. Quelle disastre! (my French is atrocious and I allow Jeff and Salima to laugh at me at this point for putting down univeristy debate team members).
I am consoling myself tonight though with free pizza and a talk by some sort of Christian Vet group that did a trip out to Haiti.
"And so, if we just go into our kitchen, rearrange some things, we could totally party with the Haitians! And may i remind you that it does not say RSVP on the statue of liberty! Thank you."
*smiles, puts gum into her mouth and curtseys*
-Vivian "clueless" Lau
PS: got to see some wicked X-rays today from a bald eagle and a deer that were shot down with a shotgun and a .22 calibre. Crazy stuff. Lead shot is kinda neat in X-rays. It leaves this "snow" of lead debris behind it so you can tell the difference between that and steel shots. Random factoids I thought you'd all love to know.
PPS: The movie I downloaded the other day that was in mandarin with Japanese subtitles was 2046 starring Tony Leung, Faye Wong, Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li (I think) and Maggie Cheung. Anyone seen the preview for "Memoirs of a Geisha"? Pretty intense huh? And that was just the preview!
The week strated out innocently enough with a day full of running around chasing profs down for some silly Bacteriology assignment we had. I discovered that the bacteria I had been working with all last week and which I spilled all over me right before lunch was actually Streptococcus aureus which, if you google it, you will realise is sort of the poster-child for "antibiotic resistance" in hospitals and is NASTY if you get the resistant strain of it under your skin somehow. People die of it every day. I'm not kidding you.
My prof told us all to go down to the large animal clinic to look at this really sick goat that came in. It was the cutest thing ever but it was also the sickest animal I had ever seen (well, aside from that time John and Hugh got drunk at my house and puked all over my white carpet and starting talking about gladiators. ha!).
It was this little tiny goat that was white with brown patches and it has a brain infection of some sort which causes it to be all lopsided and it had to lean against the wall and was shaking so badly it could hardly drink. the infection also caused on ear to stick up while the other ear drooped, giving it hte most sad and adorable look in the world. The owner wants it euthanised, even though it is getting better just to see what the problem is cus there are other goats on the farm and they don't want it to spread.
Tuesday was a fun day of going to feed the stupid hawks for the exotics animal club only to discover a pile of dead chicks laying in the corner which, when picked up, proved to be maggot party central. A big, writhing sea of white blind maggots crawling all over each other greeted me as soon as I picked up the first dead chick and as I screamed and threw it down, I noticed that I had some stuck on my hands.
I was traumatised but somehow managed to pick up the other 4 rotting chicks and after staring at the mass of creepy-crawlies oozing over each other in morbid fascination, I bolted from the outdoor barn and fled.
Wednesday, I got to go back to my chicken farm roots and we visited a lovely broiler (meat chicken) operation in Saskatchewan country-side. I could almost swear that if I squinted, I could make out Winnepeg on the horizon. It's that flat here.
I had handled wild birds the day before so I was sort of a biosecurity breach and I had to wear this giant isolation quarantine "stay-puft-marshmallow man" white suit complete with blue shower cap and plastic booties. My prof gave me an XL sized suit so I literally did look like Egon, Ray, Winston and Peter should be shooting me down and the rest of hte class had a good laugh at my expense. My prof was kind enough to rbing a camera to the farm and took pictures of me in the suit.
Thursday, I stayed late at the shcool till 10pm and got a parking ticket. I called campus traffic and parking control and after a quick squabble, I am still forced to pay my ticket or I will not graduate. I also managed to look at this poor rabbit in the X-ward which was so sick that I didn't even recognise it as a rabbit anymore. It was all curled up in this quivering ball in its box and just lay there panting. It was euthanised today.
Friday (today) I got to dissect chickens and was conned into participating in an Animal Welfare debate about swine housing. Most of the pork you eat was from pigs that are raised in little cement stalls that isolate them from each other and limit their movement and ability to turn around.
My side was arguing for "group housing" systems where the pigs can all party together in one pen and get fed inidividually by this machine that detects special tags we put around each pig's neck and allots each pig a certain amount of feed per day. Problem being that group housed pigs all fight with each other and can be dominant and bully subordinate pigs.
Well, my team lost which is absolutely pathetic considering we had the easier side to argue. My joking excuse is that our opposition's team leader is dating hte president of the Animal Welfare Club. (haha, actually, the other team kicked our asses as they all worked with pigs before and only one guy on my team had ever worked with pigs while the rest of us were hardcore city girls. that and the fact that the girls on the other team were our class "hotties" didn't hurt them either. Hey, if I had flawless skin, perfect eyebrows, a nice rack and a tube top, I could've done wonders too).
As it is, we not only lost the debate (which was judged by geeks, no offence to Jeff or Salima, from the U of S deabte team) but we also got harangued by the crowd afterwards to the point where the lead geek of the debate team had to tell the audience to stop picking on us.
I felt like the subordinate pig in the group housing system that was being bullied by all the other dominant pigs and being starved in the corner. Oh man. Quelle disastre! (my French is atrocious and I allow Jeff and Salima to laugh at me at this point for putting down univeristy debate team members).
I am consoling myself tonight though with free pizza and a talk by some sort of Christian Vet group that did a trip out to Haiti.
"And so, if we just go into our kitchen, rearrange some things, we could totally party with the Haitians! And may i remind you that it does not say RSVP on the statue of liberty! Thank you."
*smiles, puts gum into her mouth and curtseys*
-Vivian "clueless" Lau
PS: got to see some wicked X-rays today from a bald eagle and a deer that were shot down with a shotgun and a .22 calibre. Crazy stuff. Lead shot is kinda neat in X-rays. It leaves this "snow" of lead debris behind it so you can tell the difference between that and steel shots. Random factoids I thought you'd all love to know.
PPS: The movie I downloaded the other day that was in mandarin with Japanese subtitles was 2046 starring Tony Leung, Faye Wong, Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li (I think) and Maggie Cheung. Anyone seen the preview for "Memoirs of a Geisha"? Pretty intense huh? And that was just the preview!
posted by Viv at 5:29 p.m.
1 Comments:
Wow...autopsies...ballistics... you're doing more forensic science than me!!
P.s. WEE-IRD! I wanted to watch that 2046 movie too....hmmm....although it kinda looked like a Chinese Moulin Rouge from the previews
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