Classes and life continue

This is only my second blog post of the semester because this semester has contained just barely enough information and activity to be worthy of a full two blog posts in two weeks.

Sigh.

Don't get me wrong -- my classes have improved over the last week or so. Practice Management is, at time, positively tolerable to attend. We've had better speakers recently, with more animation and enthusiasm, lectures that could actually qualify as organized, and several specific topics that are relevant even to the 75% of the students in my class who don't want to own or manage a practice someday.

I'm enjoying applied animal behavior. We had our 3rd day of lectures today. I respect the instructor and her ideas about dog (and cat) training. She keeps lectures light and entertaining by interspersing a fair number of YouTube videos (all related to the lecture material yet still almost invariably amusing) in between her PowerPoint slides. Unfortunately, I was so involved with the school's behavior club (for which she is the faculty advisor) last year, that I've basically already heard these lectures from her before.

Small Animal Medicine & Surgery is progressing decently. I really enjoyed the dentistry section we started with, which was followed by about a week of meandering, hilarious-yet-disorganized presentations by a gastroenterology faculty member who hasn't lectured to us much before. We've now moved on to liver disease taught by one of our best professors, which is a subject for which I could definitely use some review.

I've not yet managed to convince myself to sit through any of the equine or food animal medicine lectures that I thought I might attend in my free time. (I know, I can tell you're surprised.) I haven't had the opportunity to go to any of the small mammal disease lectures, which I guess means it's a good thing I dropped my enrollment from that class.

I've had plenty of non-class things on my mind. I trained 5 new tour guides the week before the semester started, and 2 more last Monday. It's been quite an 'experience' getting them all up to speed, and primarily helping them jump through all of the university's hoops required for official employment (which include a formal application, background check, sexual harassment training, sharps policy form, and meeting with the personnel director -- and that's in addition to my 2-hour tour guide orientation followed by several practice tours and shadowing experienced guides). However, I'm thankful that 7 of my original 10 recruits have stuck with it to this point. The added new guides are really taking some of the stress off of my experienced guides who were overworked last semester.

In addition to routine coordination of tours (including scheduling regular guides and scrambling to find replacements when I get last minute emails announcing "I have the flu" or "My dog's in CCU so I can't make it this afternoon"), I'm trying to arrange two more special extended tours for the university's pre-vet club, which will take place in March. These tours have big groups (20-30 students) requiring 2 guides, last longer than usual (1.5-1.75 hours), and include special exhibits (ophthalmology, anesthesia, junior surgery models, and necropsy presentation), all of which I have to coordinate.

Outside of school, we have handbells. Oh, handbells. We do 3-4 concerts plus an open dress rehearsal at the end of every season, which in the spring means May. Unfortunately, we don't actually know any of our concert dates yet, which is unusual and, especially for me, problematic. You see, by the time our spring bell concerts roll around, I'll most likely be a senior vet student for most if not all of the performances. Sure, I'll be on Community Practice which doesn't require weekend attendance at school, but any weeknight evening concerts (2 of which we have tentatively scheduled) may pose a serious conflict. Here's hoping we can figure that all out soon.

Then there's the house. For those who don't know me personally, the hubby and I are in the process of selling our condo. Why? Because it's currently about a 35-minute drive in morning and evening traffic from home to the VTH. Aside from the fact that I'll be on call a lot during senior year, which has a mandatory arrival time of 20 minutes from the time they call you in (which I could potentially make from our current location if all the stoplights, weather, and traffic were on my side, and if it was the middle of the night), I fear for my sanity if I were to try to commute 35 minutes each way for much (or any) of my senior year.

So the basic steps to selling the house are done. We have a realtor recommended by several of my classmates. We have had the house interior measured to create a basic floorplan. A professional home stager was consulted and I did my best to follow her recommendations. Photographs were done last week. During the entire month of January, we have been fairly consumed with deep house cleaning, organizing, packing, and moving anything not immediately needed over to our newly rented storage unit.

And.... drum roll.... as of yesterday afternoon we have a 'for sale' sign out front, a lockbox on the door, and an MLS listing on the web. Now to just wait for those oh-so-lucky buyers who want to make us a terrific offer based on the extremely excellent nature of our condo. Well, that is if the cats haven't just dropped a huge load in the litter box anytime within the 4 hours or so prior to a showing...

There's also that little matter of taxes. We've gotten almost all of our required tax documents -- except for a W2 that's gone missing, a tax form for CLH's health savings account that we can't find, a form from the mortgage company that hasn't been sent yet, and the fact that due to changes in billing practices, my school tuition tax statement will have 1 semester of tuition for 2010 and 3 for 2011...

Throw in a few potlucks to bake for and attend, and you can imagine why I'm glad that this semester doesn't seem to be too intense as far as coursework goes. I'm sure things will pick up once we get back into junior practicum, but for now it's a good thing that I have extra hours in my day to devote to the house and everything else going on.