Poplar Hill Goat Farm

It was so much fun playing with the goats today! Poplar Hill was this week's field trip for my Large Animal Med class. We went on a tour of the goat farm and were able to interact with them. Several goats were just born within that last 48 hours, so we were able to hand-feed the kids with bottles of colostrum. Before we had bottles, the goats were trying to suck on our fingers. It was so cute! We also saw a couple does give birth to babies. It was an awesome experience, minus the strong smell of testosterone coming from the buck barn. I can't wait to go back in a couple weeks for more goat interaction.

Raptor Center and W-fest

This past Monday was awesome! Too bad the stupid weather has been preventing me from being on here. It's freezing in the basement! Anyways, last Monday was a field trip to the U of M Raptor Center. I'm not a big bird person, but it was fun seeing all the different birds and hearing their stories. My class was able to see perigrin falcons, bald eagles, golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, american kestrels, and a variety of owls. It was kinda sad seeing them locked up in cages, but at the same time it was exciting to see the birds alive. All of them had either been injured or hand-raised prior to arriving at the Raptor Center. It was a great learning opportunity.

After the Raptor Center, I met up with some people to go to the Winter Carnival. It was a great day to be outside, but 40 degree weather is not good for ice sculptures. Sadly, they were all starting to melt. But we were able to decipher a few of them. There was also an "onscreen" stage fight between the Vulcans and the Ice people. They "fight" every year. It's a tradition at the Winter Carnival. The fight we observed was won by the Ice people, but they were meeting that night for another rumble. Besides the ice sculptures, there was a hot dish tent with food and beverages, as well as an ice skating rink only charging for skate rental. If only we had cash, we could have gone ice skating :( Instead, we wandered the Lankmark Center to see the area in history. There were old court rooms, historical pictures and newspaper clippings. The architecture of the building was amazing! I suggest going inside if you never have. Time to head off school. Have a great week!

Guinness World Records

So most of you may have heard that I recently broke 400 in my rubber duckie collection. One of my biggest goals is to break the Guinness World Record for the largest rubber duckie collection. As off 2003, the biggest collection was 1453, so I was really excited when I recently totaled at 410. However, my dream was flattened a little when I found out the newest record from 2006. I have no idea how this could happen, but the new world record is 2587!! So instead of being almost 1/3 of the way, I am not even 1/5 of the way. I know I can still break the record, but it's gonna be a lot harder than I thought. So I ask of you, please help me break the record! I'm not asking you to spend a lot of money, but if you come across a unique duck, feel free to add to my collection. Most of you have seen the group I created of facebook. It has pictures of all ducks in my collection, so refer to that with any questions. Or just ask me of course. Thanks for all the help and support (in advance). The picture above is the newest addition to my collection. For pics of the rest, heres the link to my facebook group: http://argosyu.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2211530864. Go rubber duckies!

Long week

Hey all! Sorry it's been awhile since my last post, but being sick and busy is not a good combination. I am feeling a lot better though so that's good. Besides all the homework and preparing for my first week of tests next week, Thursday was prolly the busiest day. I went to the Diagnostic Lab at the U of M for large animal. It was pretty interesting. I was able to observe the lab employees make blood agars as well as tour the necropsy room. If you have a weak stomach, I suggest not reading on...

First off, we had to wear plastic bags over our shoes and walk through a sanitizer bath to prevent carrying in any toxins on our shoes. Upon entering the necropsy room, we got to see the placenta of a goat. After that, we saw a dead premature fawn. The joints were squishy, and the bones were like mush. Then it got interesting. A research group brought in a freshly euthanized pig to retrieve its pancreas for a diabetes study. They cut it open and placed all abdomen viscera on the table to dissect its pancreas. After watching that, I observed a dog necropsy, which is the animal version of a human autopsy. The pancreas and liver were huge, so obviously there was something wrong with the poor dog. We were thinking cancer, but we sent the organs in to the bacteriology lab to be tested.

Now that the gross part is over, my weekend was spent working, more homework, and going to the Eagles Cancer Telethon. Hard to believe this year was the 54th telethon! And I haven't missed one yet. Time for more homework, but hooray for no school tomorrow! :)

MAARS

For this week's field trip for Ecology, we went to MAARS --> Midwest Avian Adoption & Rescue Services. I went to the same place for my wildlife class this past semester, so it wasn't too exciting. It started out with a PowerPoint, that was over an hour long. It was kinda boring, but there were was cool pictures to look at so that helped a little. Sadly though, I didn't get to see any other the birds cuz I got sick. It's not fun being crammed into a tiny room with about 17 other people when you are tired. Stupid bug that's going around. Oh well, at least I have seen the birdies before a few months ago. It could have been worse, like during our trip to Como Zoo or something. It's sad that there isn't one next week cuz oh darn *sarcasm* there's no school on Monday. Yay for holidays! :P

First Week is Over!

I have officially survived my first week of the semester! And it was a long one, even it was only 3 days of school ha ha You have already heard about my first day, which was mostly spent at one of the most awesomest place in the world, the zoo.

Tuesday wasn't too exciting. I sat in a 2 hour lecture learning about large animal basics. Then I spent 2 hours learning how to take an X-ray. I got to take my first X-ray on a cat cadaver. How exciting, I know! I even got to develop it in the dark room. It was pretty fun feeling my way around a dark room that I have never set foot in. You never realize how dark a dark room is until you step foot inside one. That little red light doesn't give off as much light as you would think. Good thing my eyes adjust to darkness pretty quickly, otherwise there is no saying what I would have tripped over! Surprisingly, the X-ray actually turned out pretty decent, so that was good.

Today was about as exciting as Tuesday. It was my first Large Animal Medicine lab, which was spent as school as an introductory meeting. After taking almost 45 minutes just to take attendance and go over the syllabus, the equine introductory started. The teacher talked so fast! It was almost impossible to write anything down. After the insanely fast PowerPoint, we got to watch an outdated movie about equine teeth. And boy, was that exciting! *sarcasm* As if that wasn't enough, we then had another hour introduction to the other animals. It was supposed to be on llamas, goats, and cows; however, it was all cows except for one picture that had a llama in it. It was sad. And it went 25 minutes later! 3 hours would have been enough, but no, they had to make it longer. Silly teachers.

After finding something to eat, I had my last class of the week: Microbiology lab. I was stuffed into a 16 person lab room with about 35 other people for 2 hours. We got a little close ha ha The second half of class was kinda fun. We started to grow bacteria. I swabbed my cell phone, so we'll see next week how much bacteria is on it. A little over a year ago I did the same thing on my old cell phone that committed suicide in the toilet, and it had quite of bit of bacteria. So the question is, will my new flip phone has more or less bacteria on it? We shall find out next week!

Minnesota Zoo

Today was an AWESOME first day of the semester! At first I was thinking today was just gonna be a boring day of 2 extremely short classes of my Ecology class. In reality, the lecture was spent learing about birds. And best of all, we had a field trip today to the Minnesota Zoo! Most of you know I LOVE the zoo. It was even better knowing that I go to go there for free! Once the class met, we headed to the monorail for a free ride. It was kinda fun seeing all the animals in the snow. I don't normally go to the Zoo during winter. The Grizzley Coast exhibit is starting to look pretty cool too. I can't wait til it opens in June. After the monorail ride, we ventured through the Tropics Trail. Fish were being fed and the coral was being cleaned, so that was kinda fun to watch. There were baby otters playing with cat toys too (see picture). And of course, I can't forget the vocal gibbons. After that, we had the remaining hour to do whatever we wanted. I wandered the Minnesota Trail for a little bit before heading home. It just wouldn't be a zoo trip if I didn't see the coyotes.

Happy New Year!

So as a new year's resolution, I decided to migrate away from facebook and create a blog of my own to better inform everyone of my ever-exciting life. I'm getting ready to start up Spring semester this Monday. It was sposed to be only 2 days so I could remain working at Kohls, but of course the school had to cancel a class of mine. Now I'm stuck with 3 days of class, not that its a bad thing. I could have been stuck with 5 days like most college students, so I guess I am still lucky. I'll have class Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, which doesn't leave much time for work with my online classes.

Any ways, as of last semester, I am officially done with all gen eds! So this semester is all program specific courses. First, I'm taking an Ecology course on wildlife and exotics. I'll be taking a field trip every week to play with the crazy little animals. Second, I'm taking Large Animal Medicine, which also consists of field trips. I'm excited to play with the goats, even if they love to head-butt people. Third, I'm taking Radiology, so I will be playing with X-rays all semester. The last class I'm taking this semester is Microbiology. I'll get to play with bacteria and viruses, and hopefully they remain at school. Last semester a student with home with strep from the class. Looks like the semester is gonna be filled with me ODing on vitamin C!