It’s funny how one week can both fly by and simultaneously appear to take a lifetime! The past week has felt that way and has been full of foundational lectures, practicals, and social time. The amount of foundation work has been intense and slightly overwhelming, with essentially the content of my whole four years of undergrad jam packed into a just a few weeks. It’s a lot of review (and a lot exhausting!) but one of our profs started a recent lecture by reassuring us that everyone finds it difficult to study all the foundation work since it’s so broad and makes it difficult to focus on what to study. I’m looking forward to our first actual legit teaching block, which will be on the cardiorespiratory system.
In between all the lectures, I’ve managed to sign up for five vet school “societies” — mostly because I like to be busy and also because I couldn’t choose between them! This past Monday I attended my first pub quiz held by the Bristol Farm Animal Vet Society and it was an absolute blast where I met some great people. Shadi and I joined teams with a few later year AGEP students and some second year BVSc students and although we didn’t win, we had an absolute blast! Biking home in the dark was an experience, with the clouds shrouding the moon and casting a moody atmospheric glow over the windy English lanes.
We did a three hour mandatory team-building session this week to get to know our future Case-Based Learning (CBL) group members who we will be working with over the next four years. However, my group (go Group 1!!) has already been hanging out together since classes started, often eating lunch or sitting together during class, so doing forced team building seemed kind of a waste of time. Surprisingly, the three hours of dedicated group work ended up being kind of fun and the time went quicker than we thought it would. We even joined up with a group from BVSc 1 to create our image of an “ideal vet.” Right after that, we did our practical sign off for horse handling — which was mostly on horse models other than learning how to walk a real horse and pick out its hooves… lol.
Whenever homesickness hits hard, I try and get out into nature and just experience the beauty of this new place I’ll call home for the next four years. During the week, life is just too busy to feel anything other than exhausted, but over the weekends homesickness definitely comes unexpectedly and in waves. Behind the house I’m living are the Mendip foothills, with a gorgeous wooded path that looks straight out of Narnia. It’s hard to feel anything but awe when I explore up there, interrupted only by the cheeky chirps of squirrels or birds.
Friday was hella busy — we started with three classes in Langford and then transferred over midday to the Bristol campus, which is an hour away by bus, for two more classes at different locations. That was a fun challenge but we made it to all classes with only one missed turn and change in direction (and a few minutes late to the last lecture!). The lectures were engaging and interesting and one of the buildings is also the museum for different skeletons and bone artefacts, both animal and human — and definitely is a place I want to explore more in the future!
I ended up missing the earlier bus home to Langford, so it was dark and late by the time I arrived back and I hadn’t planned for a late night home so didn’t have my bike lights or reflective jacket. Luckily, my lovely landlady was able to come pick me up and save me risking the bike ride home in the pitch dark! Last night (Saturday) was another late night, since I helped with a soup run for the homeless in Bristol that ended around 10 pm but luckily the organizer gave us all a ride home after.
This coming week will be the official start of CBL work, which is the cornerstone of Bristol Vet School’s coursework, which I’m excited for. It will also be a time where I fine-tune my note-taking and flashcard making strategies before we head into the focused teaching blocks in a few weeks. And this week, my group has the last of our animal handling practicals — this time for dogs. Hopefully, I won’t be as tired at the end of the week!
