Friday, June 21, 2002

Went to San Fran last sunday to return Max the poodle to his rightful owners, then went shopping with my aunt, was going to find a nice professional suit, every professional woman must have one I think. Anyway couldn't find excactly what I wanted, funny how the stores never seem to have that excact thing I have in my head... I hate shopping for clothes... Ended up in the GAP for kids buyng clothes for my son, much easier! Clothes shopping is more tolerable with girlfriends, like last may in Copenhagen when my friends came over from Iceland to attend my "fabulous" Eurovision party and shop 'till we dropped!

On friday I was in Davis yet again, this time to attend the UC Davis vet school graduation. It was very nice seeing everyone again, kinda sad though, knowing I probably will never see most of those people again. The service itself was very nice, everyone marched in with those silly hats and capes, but it was a celebration, wish my vet school had something like that, the royal veterinary and agricultural university of Denmark just sends the certificates by mail! Talk about an anti-climax to 5 1/2 years of hard work!! Am definately going to have my own party with family and friends when I finally turn in my final paper this fall.

The last four weeks here have been great, cannot believe how fast time has flown. I have been doing spays and neuters on cats and dogs, so I feel much more confident doing surgery than I ever did after clinics at vet school. Have also learned a lot of other practical stuff, for example how to splint a broken leg on a bird with masking tape and a toothpick! Today I had a wolf as a patient, was tame, very nice animal, friendlier than some of the dog patients I have seen! Am going back to Copenhagen on sunday, will start packing tonight, as I am invited to visit a vet friend tomorrow and going out for shopping (this time I know what I'm getting, have done research on websited, no more spending hours looking for what I want!) and dinner at "the" italian restaurant in town.

Thursday, June 13, 2002

I share my bed with a handsome, black, one-eyed male called George. George is one of my aunt´s three cats, seems to have taken a liking to me, or maybe I´m just sleeping in his bed... Another temporary member of this household is Max the poodle. He is a strange dog, does not respond to any commands, apparently his owners did not deem it neccessary to train him at all and carry him everywhere. Poor dog. Max will be going home to his real parents next weekend. He seems to like me more now, at first he would avoid me and jump off the couch when I sat down, now he seems not to mind too much. The other two cats, Cosmo and Lucky are very friendly too, but not attention seeking. While I´m writing this, all the cats are sleeping on my aunt´s bed, Cosmo and George are bundled up together in a big black ball, sometimes moving to groom one another, very cute.

Thursday, June 06, 2002

Well, my first post in weeks. Survived 4 weeks of internal medicine at UC Davis vet school. Most days spent frantically running around trying to finish everything in time, 12-16 hours every day. Managed to get most weekends off though, amazingly. The whole stay was very educational, no regrets.

The weekend after I finished was memorial day weekend, and I went to San Fransisco. I stayed with Nick and Mias son and daughter in law, and had a very nice time. San Fran is such a wonderful city, I definately like it better than Sacramento, which is the only other major american city I have seen. I used the opportunity to finally meet my penpal of 13 years, Petar from Yugoslavia, who was in SF for the weekend meeting with some friends from Yugoslavia that live in New York. He turned out to be very nice and we were friends right away, was kinda nervous to meet him after the german disaster about 10 years ago that some of you may remember.

Last weekend I went back to Davis to attend the annual "smoker", a pretty wild party held by the senior veterinary students at UC Davis, for all students and faculty of the vet school. It was a lot of fun, definately worth spending the 3 1/2 hours on that Greyhound bus each way. Came back on Sunday and my aunt took me to a quilting show in Santa Rosa, very nice, Stina would have loved to see that...

Now I am staying with my aunt Herdis in Cloverdale, a small town about 2 hours drive north of San Fransisco. I am spending my weekdays at the local veterinary clinic, with two very nice vets. This is the real world of veterinary medicine, more rutine, but for me also more interesting than the specialized work at the vet school. Not every animal that walks in the door has a serious and rare disease...