Spring Break

Spring break sure did fly right by! It was really nice to go home for a few days to relax and recharge myself for school. With only six more weeks total, it sure is going to be a very busy time for a little while. Fortunately, the break helped me destress and take my mind off school for a bit.

While I was home, I was able to do quite a bit instead of sitting around. Last Monday and Tuesday I went up to San Diego to visit my girlfriend and spend some time with her there. She goes to San Diego State University, so it was really interesting to visit her there and see what it is like at a much bigger school. I can’t believe how many people are there! Here at Lewis & Clark, I usually get a sense of who everyone is after a while, but there it was a different face every minute. It definitely has a different feeling. Mostly though we stayed in her apartment and did work since she was still in school.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I rode around and shadowed a large animal veterinarian at home in the Imperial Valley. It was such an awesome experience to see what he did and help hi. Wednesday morning, we started off by vaccinating 150 head of heifers that were being shipped back to Utah and needed the vaccination to travel. Once we finished with that, we spent the rest of day gathering data on an Excel file in order to track calves that were coming in from different places. While that wasn’t as exciting, it was still neat to see all the different feedlots in my area. Thursday, we spent most of the morning riding around the feedlot where I work when I am home, looking at the various lots of cattle, just glancing over them and observing their health. After we had lunch, we then went to put a cast on a calf that had broken its back leg. Before we were able to anesthetize it though (give it a sleeping shot), the calf charged me and almost took off with me even though it could only run on three legs! Once we had finally roped it and given it the shot, we were able to put the cast on. The procedure was very similar to a human broken bone, the vet told me. Once that was done, we called it a day. I am looking forward to going again in the summer.

On Saturday, my family and I left to drive here to Portland. What a long drive! It took us two days to get all the way up here. It was amazing being able to see the entire state of California and see how different each part of the state really is. Driving through the Central Valley was the toughest part, since it was almost flat all around us. The variety of crops growing was interesting though. Once we made it into Northern California and Oregon, it was so pretty to drive through. I had driven through once before, but it was a long time ago so I don’t remember much was amazing to see it all over again.

Now that I am back here at school, it is straight back to work. I have an o-chem test on Wednesday already, and a lab paper due Friday. I am busy with study and work groups. The end of the year can’t come soon enough.

Until next week,