Where did the summer go?

Where did the summer go, anyways? I swear it was just May... Anyways, someone's been bugging me about not posting all summer, so maybe I'll do a quick summary for y'all.

I did Summer Scholars, a program where I received a stipend to work with a professor on a research project. I chose to look at MRSA (methicillan-resistant staph aureus) in animals that live in a nursing home in Saint Paul. I'm only 8 weeks into a 10 week project right now, and this week is going awfully quickly... I think I have some serious work to do tomorrow (Friday, eep!). As part of summer scholars I got to go to a symposium in Baton Rouge, LA in August. The LSU vet school is absolutely gorgeous and pretty nifty. Our rehab room is better though :-) (Their equine ICU is absolutely amazing.)

School started this week. I'm excited about the semester, and I fell back into school like no time had passed. I'm still working on getting really "organized". My goal is to be prepared by Monday for anything they can throw at me. This involves an intricate plan of what comes home to study and what stays at school so that when they change classes at the last second I still have the notes that I need. Also, I've been biking to and from school, so I'm trying to cut down on how much stuff I haul back and forth.

We sign up for senior year rotations soon, eek! Supposedly it was supposed to be today, but the system won't let us yet, so maybe tomorrow? I think I've got things just about hashed out. I've got 4 externships planned right now: 2 weeks at the Minnesota Department of Health with Dr. Joni Scheftel, 2 weeks at the Golden Valley Humane Society spaying and neutering dogs and cats, 4 weeks in Amherst, probably splitting my time between the Amherst Animal Hospital (where I started working when I was 15 1/2!) and Dr. Margaret's new hospital in Nashua. I also have a 2 week block planned at the end of January for going to prospective employers and doing a week or so with them to make sure that I could work there for at least a year after graduation. I have a couple of vacations planned: 2 weeks in Nova Scotia, 2 weeks dedicated to playing with Seabass (my best friend) and 2 weeks around Christmas to see my family.

Two of my friends are getting married next year! Fortunately, they've carefully planned their weddings "in between" rotations (the last 2 days of rotations). I know that the boy can't make it to one of them due to a business trip, but hopefully we'll both be able to make it back to Vermont for the second one.

I've almost nearly got the rotations themselves worked out. I still have to make some pretty rough decisions (oncology vs s.a. theriogenology, and the like), but I know that I'm going to like whatever schedule I end up with! I'm actually kinda glad that I don't have to decide when each rotation is myself, because I'm going to learn different things on each rotation depending on the experience and expectations with which I enter it - and I don't think I have enough information right now to actually plan the "perfect" schedule myself.

New favorite things: Google Talk's ability to make your away message whatever your music player (iTunes!) is currently playing. Google notebook (which I can't find a link to) is awesome too!