Had my last sunday morning at the animal sanctuary today. Its weird but I think I'll actually miss it! Wasn't expecting that - early mornings and lots of cat poop. I know I'll miss Jim (the rabbit)! and the kittens that were born a few weeks ago have grown so much! (see picture) but they are still smaller than my hand. Everyone there was so nice, I'll definitely keep in touch.
Another day full of plans (revision) turned into setting up a Twitter account. I don't understand it (:
So 6 months at the animal sanctuary means only 12 months left to do for my Duke of Edinburgh volunteering section. What to do next? I might do weekends volunteering at a farm vets or there is a conservation thing thats being set up at Port Lympne and Howletts zoo which is near me - I'm not sure exactly what thats about - a teacher mentioned it to me in passing and I haven't seen her since. Need to find out more details.
This weekend has gone past wayyy to fast - with a week full of tests ahead I'd best do some revision....
After 3 days lambing things really quietened down so instead of spending a full week there I went to a dairy farm for a few days instead. It was great! The first day was spent doing general cow things like marking them, feeding the calves and helping with the milking which was all really good fun. On the second day the scanner came to check if the cows that had been AI'd (artificially inseminated) about 35-45 days earlier were pregnant. Most of them were which was good news. The scanner was really interesting; I'd been imagining a kind of giant screen but instead the probe projected the image onto glasses and I got to see a cow embryo! I'm going back to the farm on Friday and the vet is coming. It'll be good after my new found love for farm animals to see how a farm vet works and the differences between a farm vet and small animal vet.
Yesterday I went to the abattoir. It was definitely not a gory as I'd been expecting, everything was clean and sterile and very humane. I think its important to know where your food comes from and am glad I went. One of the most interesting bits was helping the meat inspector check the lungs and liver of the carcasses to check for tapeworm, liver fluke and pneumonia. I had to get up at 5.45am in order to be at the abattoir for 7am - I still haven't fully recovered!
I finally got into my revision gear and so far have done chemistry and physics. Its going.... alright. A lot more work is needed before my first exam in just over a month!
I'm 2 days into my week of lambing at a nearby farm and I love it! Even from my first day I was lucky enough to be able to get involved in everything; from feeding sock lambs to ringing the newborns to loading the truck to take them to the fields (harder and more exhausting than it sounds!). Today I delivered twins which was amazing (the ones in the picture). Gross and weird as it may be but since all the vets on the TV programmes I watched as a child always seemed to end up with their arms inside various animals I've been dying to have a go. And today was the day!
The family who own the farm and the shepherd, Jonathan, are so kind and the farm is beautiful, especially on sunny days like today.
I can't believe how close exams are. I HAVE to get back into work mode. I haven't finished the homework from 2weeks ago, never mind started any sort of revision.
And now I have to get the grades so I can become a farm vet!
Today I passed my driving theory test and have been appointed Head Girl of my school after a long interview process, so I'm feeling pretty happy! One problem is that I'm meant to be at the abattoir tomorrow but we're being introduced to the whole school so I'm not sure I can go... and they're not answering the phone!
Last weekend I went to Manor Vets on Saturday and had another amazing day. I saw a rectal prolapse which was pretty grim but is rare so I'm glad that I had the chance to see it. They didn't have a puppy party at the end of the day which was sad because the puppies are SO cute but it meant I finished a bit earlier than usual so had more time to do the insane amount of work I have piled up.
On Sunday I went to Lord Whisky, same as I do every week!, and had a good time. I'm in love with a rabbit. Its so cute but I'm not sure what to name it... Peter (Rabbit) seems a bit predictable!
Nearly time for the Easter hols which means LAMBING AND CALVING! I am a little bit excited for that! It'll also be good to have time to catch up with some revision - apparently we're already meant to have started revising for our AS Levels which I may not have, oops!
I had my first (of many) easter eggs today! I'm part of Interact and we had a charity event to raise money for Help for Heroes and there were a few eggs left at the end which looked unloved, I'm going to try and not eat quite as much chocolate this year as normal but things aren't looking too promising.
Have a good Easter!
Friday the 9th of March was my army interview and I think it went really well! They want me to go back after I get my AS results which just hammers home the fact that I can do all the planning I want but grades are still the most important thing.
I can't believe that my Easter holidays start next week! My first week is packed with lambing and calving but I think I will leave the second week for some good ol' revision - I'm really looking forward to that! Next Wednesday I'm going to J R Farm Meats abattoir which I'm still really looking forward to, everything is coming round so quickly!
I spent my Sunday marshalling one of the many Sports Relief miles and had a great time, some people dressed up amazingly, my favourite was some 118 guys with moustaches still intact after 3miles! After the event all the stewards got even a goody bag, in which was a prune?! Just one single wrapped prune... very intriguing.
This means that I now have 45 hours of the 50 that I need to complete my V50 Award!
Sorry its taken me a while to get round to answering your question OCICAT93: after a while of googling, I found the BMAT results, this is the direct webpage...
http://synergysolutions.org.uk/Workshop/Bmat%20Xmas%202009.pdf
Good Luck!
Last night I found myself at my schools Oxbridge talk. I'd never even considered Cambridge an option before I always just thought only true genius' or the exceptionally talented even thought about applying. but now all of a sudden... Cambridge is starting to look pretty nice. Its a 6 year course rather than 5 like the other vet unis which is because the 3rd is spent doing in-depth research on a certain area which I think is good. I like the sound of doing zoology.
well I'm now truly confused - I thought I'd finally managed to narrow down my choices to my final 4 (bristol, edinburgh, RVC and liverpool) and then cambridge came into consideration. when I was younger it was always my dream to be a vet and study at cambridge... It would mean a LOT of hard work.
I finally got round to checking the results of the BMAT test I took while at the Vet-Med Link course and turns out my results were in the top 25% which is pretty cool.
Last weekend I went to meet the farmer I'm doing my lambing and calving work experience with. I turned up on time Saturday morning and got a tour of the farm. some lambs had been born earlier that day and were so tiny and cute. I tried to impress with my (limited) sheep knowledge which was quite amusing but at least he knows I'm keen (:
can't wait till the easter holidays!!
Saturday at the Vets was really good fun. I forgot how much I really enjoy doing work experience there. I got several chances to see how to deal with clients; from an owner refusing to muzzle her staffie to a woman upset about having to decide whether to consider euthanasia for her elderly collie. Dealing with the owners is clearly as much a part of being a vet as making a diagnosis or surgery.
Sunday at Lord Whisky wasn't quite as good... mainly because it rained heavily the WHOLE time so I came home soaked and freezing. and of course it was the only time I've forgotten to take my gloves!
I spent most of Sunday night looking up university open days.
Its very scary that after researching all these vet things for so long its finally time for them to happen.
Recently I've been quite unmotivated at school. Its hard to put what I'm feeling into words but I think its roughly along the lines of 'I've worked so hard at school for 5 years, surely it must be time to actually live my life now.' If someone could just make me a vet without me having to go through another 6 years of education it would be much appreciated. Saying that though, I can't wait to go to university.
I spend so much time planning for the future (like the army), organising work experience, getting all the different uni prospectuses (whats the plural for prospectus?) that I keep having to remind myself that these are all going to be relevant if I get the right grades. Which at the moment I don't seem to be doing...
