One Week Into Fourth Year

Well here we are, already one week into the fourth year. And what an interesting week it has been! But first, some stuff about my holidays.

During the past two months I have visited IVM in Kluang, Johor, the Hong Kong Ocean Park, and the Taiping Zoo. All were awesome in their own way and I was really inspired by the practicals I did this semester (as usual).

Che Giap, Vania and I were at IVM for 3 weeks at the beginning of the hols. Minus Yuan Yih. We got to get more confident at handling ruminants big and small, woke up super early (5am!!) one week to help at the milking parlor, did a lot of wound cleaning and picking at maggot wounds(I enjoy that for some reason:P), did pregnancy diagnosis for the first time, practised our lassoing skills one afternoon (I'm really bad at it), had dinner at a different place every day, went bicycling at an organic vegetable farm, ate delicious teochew porridge at Air Hitam, went shopping at Kluang Mall, and tried the famous Klang Railway bread and coffee. Altogether a pretty enjoyable practical at the 'countryside'.

But the next month was the really inspiring one for me. I would call it my Month of Wildlife. After a really really nice trip to Macau with my family, I stopped over at Hong Kong to check out their Ocean Park for 2 weeks. Although I'm pretty sure I can't write anything about what I saw behind the scenes due to confidentiality reasons, I will say that what I saw there really showed me how excellent conditions can be for wild animals kept in captivity. The empathy and dedication shown towards those entrusted into their care was something I hope Malaysian zoos may one day be able to emulate. I really loved how much effort was put into each case we saw and the patience they showed in making things as stress free for the animal as possible.

So after my stint in Hong Kong, it was back to reality at one of our local zoos, the Taiping Zoo. I always have a great time whenever I practical there and this time it was no different. There was something new to learn every day and especially since there's a new young genius just got from the states but really mischievous vet working there, we got quizzed every day on things we were supposed to have learned but didn't learn properly and went home every night very suitably chastened and did revision. We worked hard but we played hard too, with water fights and blowpipe battles and some incidences involving ice cream, root beer and civet faeces. I feel that the zoo has so much potential but at the moment its just lacking enough of the right people to get it there.

So, having finished my practicals last week, it was then back to home to collect all my stuffs (which my darling mother so generously packed all sorts of gadgets for me to bring, I didn't even know what was in all the bags till I got back to KL), and off to settle into my new home. Which has been simply awesome so far. I'm really liking all the quiet and lack of distractions here. Its definitely worth the few extra hundred RM per semester. Had to keep calling back home to ask how the various things worked though. Sigh, what would I do without my parents.....

Fourth year is definitely the best and most exciting thus far, with us going into rotation and getting course schedules that are full and really challenging and really damn interesting. I am going to enjoy this semester to the max... Just today we had a lecturer tell us about the art of history taking, and how every client and patient that comes in has a story to tell and how it is up to us to fit the whole story together and put the jigsaw puzzle into one piece. So cool!:P

Have to be a study geek from now on though. Determined to work my hardest this semester and read and cram as much knowledge as I can into my brain. I have so many holes in my knowledge but I shan't dwell on that and shall just start filling them up, one hole at a time. I'm a STPM 4 flat student aren't I? This should be no harder than that was.

Feeling good, hope it lasts, got to keep my head in the game and my eyes on the prize and learn learn learn, study study study!

Off to equine rotation first, yay!