Crash

For whatever reason, this has been a really loooooong week.

It probably has something to do with spring break now being a mere 7 days away.

It probably also has something to do with the massive numbers of exams, homework, and other assignments that have been filling up my days recently.

And with the inevitable accumulation of a massive sleep deficit caused by having class at 8 am four days a week.

So when, at 9 this morning, yesterday's intermittent headache returned in full force, I knew that was not a good sign.

Despite several hours of attempting what I like to think of as "multimodal analgesia" (thank you, vet school, for making me an even bigger nerd than I was 2 years ago) -- including napping for most of one class, popping a couple ibuprofen, chugging large amounts of water, eating some real food, and downing a bar of Dove dark chocolate -- the headache only got worse until, at 11:50, the prospect of attending three more classes on a Friday afternoon was just too daunting and I headed home.

To no one's surprise, after falling asleep at 12:45 pm and waking up at 4:15, I felt remarkably better!

I cannot wait for spring break. I think what I really need is just a couple days when I don't have to do anything. Yes, I have spent several weekend days this semester doing just that (nothing), but I can't pull that off without the nagging feeling that I'm just digging a deeper hole, and knowing that I'm going to pay for it in the near future with an even greater workload.

I need a Saturday when I can sleep in, AND spend multiple hours zoning out while listening to the funny shows on NPR (Car Talk, Whaddya Know, Wait Wait, This American Life), AND run weekend errands (grocery store, library, laundry), AND play a game or watch a movie with CLH after dinner, AND still have multiple free days coming up when I can buckle down and get my real work done.

Except for that one week in February ("Finals in February"), I haven't necessarily had any other periods of time in which my academic responsibilities were catastrophically large. But I have had a constant influx of new assignments, new material, new homework, more and more and more exams to do (mostly online, so we have to do them in our own free time, not during class time)...

I'm also having some attitude issues, because several weeks ago we transitioned from "small animal stuff" in Clinical Sciences to "cow and horse stuff."

I really hate to sound like one of those people who just "knows" what they want to do as a DVM and doesn't want to learn the rest of it. Yes, I 95% expect that after graduation I will never touch a large animal in a medical capacity ever again. Yes, all I'm really interested in doing is fixing cats and dogs.

But I know that I have to learn the other stuff - if for no other reason than to pass national boards so that I can actually be licensed to actually practice as an actual veterinarian.

All of my curriculum thus far has actually been half small animal and half large. It hasn't really bothered me. Sometimes the large animal stuff is even interesting, especially when compared to small animal medicine.

I think it's this semester's class schedule that has been creating my attitude/focus/motivation issues. We've transitioned into having 10 hours a week of ClinSci lectures about large animals, which has happened to coincide with 4 hours of surgery lectures a week that are also about large animals, and 4 hours of therio a week that are mostly focused on large animals.

I can't take that much large animal medicine all at once!

Really, could any of YOU sit in a lecture hall for 6 hours over two class days learning about diarrhea in cattle? (Diarrhea in baby calves. Diarrhea in juvenile calves. Diarrhea in adult cattle. Diarrhea in beef cattle. Diarrhea in dairy cattle. Invasive diarrhea. Septicemic diarrhea. Hypersecretory diarrhea. Inflammatory diarrhea. Malabsorptive diarrhea. Infectious diarrhea. Source-unknown diarrhea. Yellow diarrhea. Brown diarrhea. White diarrhea. Red diarrhea. Clostridial diarrhea. Rotavirus diarrhea. E coli diarrhea. Coronavirus diarrhea. Parasitic diarrhea. Coccidial diarrhea. Diarrhea. Diarrhea. DIARRHEA.)

But: 5 more days of class, and I am home free on spring break!

(Well, except for the Surgery and ClinSci finals I have to take over spring break. And the shelter medicine project I have to do over spring break. And the BoD test right after spring break that I have to study for. And the imaging, anesthesia, and therio material I've been neglecting and need to catch up on....)