Good Old-Fashioned Griswold Family Christmas

Ho-ho-holy crap it's nearly 2008...I hope you all enjoyed your Christmases. I have eaten about a million cookies, watched a ton of hockey, and spent an inordinate amount of time in my pajamas. I am still trying to get rid of the cold I picked up on the plane two weeks ago, but other than that its been good to be home. To understand how dorky our holidays get, you need to know something about my family. We're usually a mixture of the Cleavers and the Griswolds. Around the holidays you have to throw in a bit of the family from A Christmas Story as well. They waited until I got home to decorate the tree, which turned into me decorating the tree while everyone else sat on their asses. The Perfect Child (my 18 year old brother) and I kept up the tradition of spending a day with my mom's mom and doing most of our cookie baking. My father has come up with a new ingenius method of getting us to help him shop for my mom - bribery with breakfast out at a little greasy spoon near our house and then kidnapping to do said shopping. Said presents then end up miraculously in my room to be wrapped.

Christmas Eve usually means evening Mass and then dinner at our local Chinese Buffet. This year I ended up having to help out with the earlier children's Mass 'cause my old choir director didn't have anyone to do the solos. Singing soprano with a cold is always a good time....Anyway, we did the whole dad-reading-The Night Before Christmas- hanging the stockings bit.

Christmas Day dawned sunny for once, and it was the usual struggle to get everyone but Animal (my 16 year old brother) out of bed at 10. Animal also didn't get any presents from Santa this year due to his, ah, less than stellar academic performance. Among other things, I got an iPod Nano from The Wind (the 21 year old) and Santa, which was all I really wanted anyway. :) My dad's parents came over for dinner, which required us driving them to and from our house. My grandfather, at 87, refuses to drive in the dark anymore. TPC and I drove them home around 8:30 which resulted in a half hour diatribe against President Bush and Dick Cheney by my grandfather. I have no idea who started THAT conversation...

The next day I had to get a vaccine (never a good time, but seriously not when you have no health insurance 'cause you're only home for a few weeks). I have no idea what the nurse did, but I have a bruise on my arm where she jabbed me! I also got dragged out to Longwood Gardens in the rain to see the Christmas display (most of which is inside thank God). My mom's family came over to do presents on Friday. That's always a good time as everyone is as crazy as us! (I kid you not - two years ago myself, my mom, my aunt, my female cousins, and my GRANDMOTHER got into a discussion at the table about what a FUPA was!) I only got asked when I was getting married once by an uncle, which was a nice little bonus for me.

All the fun and festivities were, of course, peppered with the usual sarcastic comments, jabs, and wet-willies that occur the rest of the year. I can say it was one of the hap-hap-happiest Christmases this side of the nuthouse! :)

I'm off for NYC in the morning to ring in the New Year in Queens with friends. For some reason this year, the theme is the 90s. Why does everyone feel it necessary to have a theme?? Anyway, there should be a good story or at least funny pictures. Happy 2008! See you in all in the New Year!

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Ho, ho, ho!! The presents have been wrapped. The Night Before Christmas has been read. The stockings have been hung. According to the NORAD Santa tracker, the big man has already visited my house and is currently over Louisiana. "Santa" is downstairs distributing presents. But before all the merriment commenced, there was this:

This horrifying spectacle is currently outside St. John's church, scaring the crap out of any child that walks in. I'm not entirely sure why Mary felt it necessary to rip the Son of God from her womb, and then tear off her breasts as well. I'm sure the Big Guy would have had no problem with her giving birth by a more conventional method, and that He'd want His Son fed properly. She did get pregnant as a teenager, so maybe this was her way of rebelling. Being sinless has its drawbacks.

This is the scene that popped into my head upon seeing this sculpture:

Wicker Mary: "RWOAAAAR!!! I AM THE MOTHER OF GOD!! ALL SHALL FEAR ME FOR I RIP CHILDREN FROM THE WOMB!!! AND I SCOFF AT THOSE WITH BREASTS!"

God: "Um, Mary, perhaps we should let Joseph take over for a while dear..."

Infant Jesus: "You guys better listen to my mom. She means business. So there."

God: "Where's the Holy Spirit?? If I've told him once, I've told him a thousand times. Prophets can get away with crazy. The Mother of God, not so much."

I would love 5 minutes with the artist responsible for this just to find out how twisted his mind really is.

Ok, the man in red is now in Guadalajara, Mexico (crap I think I'm addicted to this thing...), so "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

I'm Gettin' Nothin' for Christmas...

At least from the vet school....So our exam was yesterday. As much trouble as I had motivating myself, I went through my cattle and sheep notes (74 lectures worth) THREE times. I felt I knew the big cattle problems enough to be able to answer our case-based essay questions. Our exam had 40 multiple choice (worth 25%), and 2 out of a choice of 3 essays (worth 50%). (The other 25% is covered by clinical exam practicals we have in April.) However, in order to pass the module, you have to pass both components (written and oral). I'm still slightly confused about the grading, but moving on. There were 2 cattle essays and 1 sheep. There was no way in hell I could answer the sheep one, so I had to do both cattle. The first was on digestive issues (even if half of it did involve diagnostic tests grrr), and I think I managed to write enough to at least pass. The second question, however...

They spent all semester telling us that trace element deficiencies in cattle were RARE. We only had two lectures on the subject. I felt safe in not meticulously learning every detail. So of course they decide this is what they need to ask us an ESSAY on. I was furious. There were 4 parts to the question. After the case history we had to give our main differential diagnoses - fine. Then how we would go about further investigation - fine. The third part was blood results that WE HAD NEVER BEEN SHOWN HOW TO INTERPRET. Let's just say the marker reading my paper will have a good laugh on that one. The last part had to do with how we would correct the problem. The supplementation methods are pretty similar, so I may get points for knowing the major techniques even though I managed to diagnose the wrong deficiency. It depends on what kind of a mood the marker is in. GRRRRRRRRR

This is really just the straw on the camel's back this semester. I don't know why I'm surprised anymore when they ask us evil exam questions. Of all the very IMPORTANT cattle diseases, they choose to ask a question on an issue that most of us will NEVER see.

This also emphasizes how much I DESPISE the testing system here. I am very uncomfortable with the idea that my passing a qualifying exam comes down to the mood of the exam marker and whether or not they like my writing style. (I kid you not! The Americans tend to score slightly lower because the Brits don't like how we answer our essays.) It's way too subjective, and I feel does not adequately test my knowledge. Also, there's so much information we have to take in now that there's no way to learn it in depth enough to be able to write a solid essay. Multiple choice or short answer allows a greater range of questions and can ask about the major concepts without forcing us to memorize arcana. I despair, I really do...I hate to say it, but, right now, if I had the opportunity to transfer to a US school without having to redo any time, I would. It's not the quality of the education so much as all the crap we put up with. I suppose it's not any better anywhere else. :P

Anyway, it's over and done and there's nothing I can do now. If I fail and end up having to resit the exam in August I will make my displeasure heard. I don't think the school realized that when they started to admit more Americans they were going to have to deal with the American attitude toward getting the most out of our money, education, etc. Hehehehe

It takes a lot to make me cranky this time of year as I LOVE Christmastime. I think I'm one of the few people who don't get stressed. :) (Appropriate I suppose as my name means "Christmas child".) So, enough about my exam. I'm flying home on Saturday - hurrah! Hopefully KLM won't have crappy television and the snow will hold off 'til Saturday night....

I'll have a few thoughts on Christmas to post in a few days. There's an incredibly creepy Christmas sculpture outside St. John's church here that I'm hoping to photograph tomorrow. Next post will be on US soil - woohoo!!

In Defense of the Broad Street Bullies

Ok, so I have to admit that since the Philles made the playoffs in September, I have been rather religious in following my home sports teams (well, not the Sixers). Not to say I didn't follow them closely before; now I just tend to read the Philly Inquirer online and ESPN updates. It tends to be a helluva lot more interesting than sheep respiratory disease, but I digress.

For those of you who are not hockey fans or root for NY teams, you can stop reading now. (NY fans should seek therapy immediately.) Everyone else, let's chat, shall we? Ok. The Flyers came out of last season dead last in the NHL. They did some hardcore restructuring in the offseason, picked up a bunch of new talent, and trained their asses off. Their slogan for the year is "Back With a Vengeance", and how! They had a dynamite start: went 6-0 at home, stormed into first place in their division, and all of a sudden there was life in Philly hockey! Then we hit the end of October....Simon Gagne went down with a "concussion" after an elbow to the face. After a week off he came back, took another head shot and has been out since. (He has been skating with the team, but no contact yet. Baby steps...) Derrien Hatcher was out 4 weeks with a knee injury. The team couldn't seem to find a groove; they played kick-ass against the best teams in the NHL and won, then had lackluster perfomances and lost to teams they should have beaten. They are currently 0-3-2 at home, and in second place to the bloody Rangers...

And then there were the suspensions: Steve Downie and Jesse Boulerice took monster suspensions of 20 and 25 games respectively due to pre-season idiocy (both of these were warranted). Jones hit Patrice Bergeron (Boston Bruins) while his head was down near the boards causing injury and was out for 2. Scott Hartnell finished a check on another Bruin who decided to go after the puck on his knees and sat 2. The latest is Riley Cote who gave an elbow to the face of Matt Niskanen and will sit for 3. (That one was deserved.) The team is now on watch by the NHL discipline board, or as Philadelphians are calling it "double secret probation". It seems that hockey fans and administration alike are on a witch hunt, and the Flyers are living in the heart of Salem.

As I see it, the penalties to Hartnell and Jones were unnecessary. If the Bruins players don't know enough to keep their heads up and not put themselves in vulnerable positions, then they should go back to peewee. Bergy is still out, and I wish him well, but come on! Even Messier said he should have known better! The inconsistency with penalty calling is appalling; the Flyers are not the only team making these hits, but God forbid anyone not in black and orange serve a suspension!

I'm sick to death of people bashing Philly, its fans, and its team. Yes, we can be a VERY unforgiving sports town; you would be too if you hadn't had a championship in ANY sport in 24 years. However, we love our teams with a vengeance, and wouldn't have it any other way. Woe to the city who attacks us! The Flyers have always been a physical team, and this year we have the size to play our brand of hockey. As someone over at ESPN said, let the Flyers play; the league commissioners can go have their tea party by themselves. And oh my God the Boston fans (as if I didn't hate them enough already *cough Cheatriots and Bo Sux cough*). Yes Bergy is still out. So is Gagne!! He took an elbow to the face, but there was no penalty on that one! Deal with it. Sigh.

I have to give the Flyers coaches credit. In the face of the latest suspension, they have called up Steve Downie from the Phantoms to fill the roster spot - take that Colin Campbell!! Talk about giving the league commissioners the finger....The next few games should be VERY interesting indeed.

So in defense of my boys - they're young, and there are a lot of new guys. They've had to face lots of line shake-ups due to injury and such. The consistency will come with time played together. They've already shown they can defeat some of the best teams in the league (Ottawa, Carolina), and they're improving all the time. Once Gags is back, and the guys have found a rhythm, they're gonna be scary good. So beware NHL - the Flyers are back with a vengeance, and they're coming for YOU! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm turning into my...Father?? (And my mother before parties)

Yes, it's true. Most girls fear turning into their mother. Me, I'm Dad all the way. Now, to be fair, I've been like my father most of my life. Super type-A, organized, tidy, stubborn, anxiety prone overachievers. (Too the point of OCD with me when I was younger, but again, story for another day). I also inherited his metabolism (thank God), lack of tolerance for fools, and the Italian temper. (Quick fuse, but mostly just bark. Heaven help you if you REALLY piss us off...) This caused us to butt heads quite frequently when I was in high school, but we've since become pretty good friends. :) (I turned 18, and he got cool. Go figure!) All this truly hit me this afternoon...

Allow me to set the scene: We've got a fairly tiny kitchen area as it's combined with our living room. It's about the size of a postage stamp, but not usually a problem (especially since my usual idea of cooking is removing the packaging and sticking it in the oven). However, if the dishes pile up, it becomes claustrophoic FAST! My flatmates are fairly tidy, but with the quick approach of exams, household chores fall by the wayside. This drives me NUTS. We had leftover desserts and salad from Thanksgiving last week that have been sitting on the counter since. We had a nice little penicillin farm going by today, let me tell you - YUCK! (Refrigerate people, seriously!) This combined with quite a few dishes of several days duration makes for a mess. Also, I tend to be the only one who takes out the trash, a job the germophobe in me HATES. Today was no exception.

I'm also one of those people who can't sit down and concentrate on things (like studying) if there's chores or errands to be done (my Zeigarnik, I suppose. It's a tension for unfinished business. Overachievers are prone, and I've got a big one. Could be part of the reason I don't sleep well...). Anyway, when I need to procrastinate, I clean. This causes me to become extremely productive around exams. Today I've been to the post office, picked up my contacts, done my grocery shopping, did the dishes, emptied the trash, swept the kitchen floor, started my laundry (drives me up the wall not having a dryer...), changed my sheets, put away the Thanksgiving decorations, and settled my accounts for the month. Hahahaha I would have decorated for Christmas but have been warned my flatmates this is not allowed 'til tomorrow. :P (I've got Christmas music on now as I needed a bit of cheering up today.)

So, it seems I am my father. He's the one at our house who freaks if the dishes sit for more than a day. Mostly he's got to do them right after dinner, while my mom is content to let it sit 'til she has enough to run the dishwasher (which in a family of 6 doesn't take long). She also doesn't really clean unless we have a party at the house (and then she turns into a psycho...). She used us kids as labour when we were younger. We'd get paid by the hour for doing the den, kitchen floor, etc. We HAD to either clean our rooms or our bathroom once a week. I don't understand why my younger brother rushes through his chores - the longer you work, the more you get paid! Hell, I still get paid for cleaning and ironing hahahaha. My dad is the one who cleans their room and bathroom once a week. My mom refuses to share the laundry, though. It's the only time she can escape to the basement and be left alone. She calls it her therapy. We all do our own now, but she still has enough to keep her busy. And in true homage to my dad, I'm sure I'll have the flat spotless before I leave for Christmas break in two weeks.

Ah, well, I suppose I could do worse than be my father. He's smart and active and hasn't truly grown up (and I hope he never does!). He's got a great sense of humor and never lets us take ourselves too seriously. He can be a bit intense, but sometimes you need that. To be fair, I see him turning into my grandfather - no matter what you're going to do, he'll tell you his opinion and what he thinks you should do. (Grandpop is still telling me I should have gone to vet school in Florida where his sister lives or joined the Navy and had them pay for it. [shakes head and grins]) Now if I could just find a guy like my mother to balance me out, I'd be set. ;-)

I'm going to be a crazy old lady, aren't I? :)

P.S. Flyers update - back on top (for now), but Hartnell's suspended for one more game. Broad Street Bullies are back...now if Gagne would just get well... Now off to eat lunch and study for real!

Inevitable Conversations & Why I'm Becoming a Bear

Happy post-Thanksgiving! I'm sitting here a bit fuzzy headed from a big meal last night (everyone had class' til late on Thursday) and too much sleep today (and quite possibly the animal welfare legislation notes I'm reading...). I think I've been out of bed for a grand total of 30 minutes. It's just so warm and comfy...but I'll get to that in a minute.

I got speak with my whole family on Thursday while they were at dinner, which was great, but it always makes me incredibly homesick. However, there are things about these conversations that I absolutely dread. The background to this is my chronically single status. I've dated off and on, but never anyone seriously (or longer than a few weeks). There has been serious (on my part) interest in a few guys over the years, but the stories are messy and best left alone. If you ask me why the singlehood your answer would be lack of time and opportunity (and that most guys are idiots). If you speak to my friends, it's pickiness and fairy-tale syndrome (Damn you, Disney!). Ignore them. ;-) Anyway, at my age, this tends to prompt incomprehension and suspicion in my relatives. My mother has asked me twice if I was a lesbian (which I'm not although since vet school have considered in passing just 'cause my odds are better LOL). All this leads to the inevitable question every time the holidays or summer vacation roll around. "So, are you seeing anyone?" I got a new variation on this from my aunt this week and was asked, "So are you having sex?" (I'm praying to God my mother wasn't in the room at the time, even though the answer was no. That's a conversation I would rather avoid.) After I stop laughing and my inevitable answer of "NO" is given, I am then forced to explain why. (Like I know??) At least this year I had my speech ready. Let's do the math, shall we?

There are 21 guys in my year at school. (I'm discounting the other classes as we barely ever intermingle, and the story of the Big Bad Wolf in the year ahead of me is best not told to the fam.) 13 of these guys have girlfriends. 21-13=8. 3 of the guys in my year are gay (2 of which came out to me within 24 hours of each other in October - yeesh.) 8-3=5. The remaining 5 guys are undateable for various reasons of personal hygiene, age, manwhorishness, and extreme reserve. 5-5=0. Now add to this that the vet school is rather isolated from the rest of the uni, and the course leaves little time for outside activities = I remain single. :P At least this year, my equation managed to stave off any more questions, even though I did get the sympathetic and pitying "Oh." (God that makes me crazy. Why do I have to be dating someone as well as training as a vet to make me a whole person?? *HUGE PET PEEVE ALERT TO BE COVERED WHEN I'M MORE AWAKE*) I suppose we'll go another round in a few weeks when I'm home for Christmas. ('Cause of course the answer will be different in 3 weeks...) Maybe I should ask for a mail-order husband or an arranged marriage this year. Certainly would make life easier, and I'd love to the see look on people's faces if I actually answered yes to the inevitable question.

Ok, so have spoken to the family and managed to depress myself about being stuck here. Now I'm going to combine that with the lack of daylight we're currently experiencing. We're down to less than 8 hours of sunlight a day, and it POURED rain all last week. Oh, and it's FREEZING, although for some reason we're the only place it's not snowing. As you can imagine, this induces an extreme need to hibernate. I want to crawl into bed, snuggle under a million covers and sleep 'til March when the daylight starts coming back. However, not being large, hairy, and clawed, this is not a feasible option. I just get a wee bit irritable and depressed (to the point where I almost started crying in the grocery store yesterday 'cause I couldn't find minced onion. Oi.). During the winter, it's constantly a wonder to me that more people don't jump off bridges or something. At least there's Christmas to look forward to, although I have to get through an exam first. Yuck. :P

P.S. For those of you that were worried the paper with the pink Post-It was found, signed and sent to me a week ago. Too bad it arrived a day before the paperwork needed to be in NY. Thank God I had badgered the office into signing another copy 3 weeks ago so everything would be in on time. I swear this place is going to drive me to insanity one of these days....

This is why I don't sleep...

So I have figured out why I don't sleep at night anymore...I do things like stay up to keep an eye on the score of the Flyers game. Then the Flyers do silly things like lose to the damn Rangers for the second time in two weeks in overtime, causing them to have to share first place. As a Philly fan, this scares the crap out of me because we know the slide into suck is likely to happen at any time and without warning. Anyway, it's now nearly 4 AM, and this all serves to make me too pissed off to sleep.

Oh, and will someone please tell Simon Gagne to DUCK the next time someone takes a swing at him? He's been out of action since October 24, and as much as I want him to recover to his old self, this indefinite absence worries me a wee bit....Sigh. Couldn't we just have one season where we run away unchallenged with the whole thing?? Just one?? Good thing I only have one lecture tomorrow morning...

Top 10 Reason NOT to Attend (Foreign) Vet School

Ok, so our class has been having some MAJOR issues with our course organizers this year. For instance, one of them has changed an exam format from open to closed book in CLEAR violation of uni policy, and is using semantics to get around said transgression. Anyway, when they asked to have a meeting with us to discuss said issues, we were treated like 5 year olds throwing a temper tantrum. Fabulous. In response to the lunacy, I am taking a page from David Letterman's book, and making a top 10 list. I'd post it on Facebook, but the vet school police would find it and expel me. :P

Without further ado I give you: Top 10 Reasons Not to Attend (Foreign) Vet School.

1. Debt, debt, and more debt. Made all the worse by the amazing exchange rate. Thank you, Mr. Bush.

2. No one works here. EVER. I'm serious; trying to get someone to even answer an e-mail is like going on a damn Grail quest. I realize everyone needs a holiday, but you don't get to take one once a week!

3. High School, take 2. Imagine your high school. Now imagine your high school if you were at least 5 years older than most of your classmates. Now imagine your high school if most of said classmates were girls. See where I'm goin' with this? Which brings me to...

4. Love life? What love life? My class is 80% female, and my male friends are gay. You do the math. I got asked the other week if there was anything new with my love life. My reply was that it had disappeared 2 years ago, and I haven't seen it since. If you find it, could you please tell it I'm looking for it? Thanks.

5. Rampant paperwork thieves. Apparently even if you drop off a form and leave a HOT PINK Post-It on it with your details, it's not safe from these criminals. Unfortunately, the office is run by the visually impaired, and they don't realize it's missing 'til a week later. Or if it's the finance office, not at all.

6. Politics is alive and well. Admin figures if they pay us lip service now we won't make a fuss when they screw us later. How very American of them.

7. Common sense is not required. Let's give the kids 106 lectures worth of work to learn, and then schedule the external lecturers for the Thursday and Friday before their exam the following Wednesday. Or this - let's offer 80 places for graduate entry students. No way they all accept....Genius.

8. The GIANT money pit. We have class at our hospitals 20 minutes outside the city, but we're the only school within the university that has to pay for our own transport out there. They decided not to give us printed notes, but printer credit to print most of our notes ourselves. Where is my tuition going, exactly??

9. The slave labour clause. Oh, you didn't see that? It stipulates you have to do 12 weeks of farm/horse/kennel work FOR FREE, and then a year or two later 26 weeks of unpaid interning on your vacations if you want to graduate. Not to mention ICU duty and final year itself during which time half the clinicians will treat you like crap. Oh, and I hope you don't like to sleep or eat. We don't do those here.

10. Animals? Who said anything about animals? I hope you didn't think you'd actually get to work with LIVE animals did you? That's only for the final years. And I think most of them would be happy at the end of the week to never see another animal again....

Someone remind me again why I'm doing this? I can't for the life of me remember right now....

Bonfire Night....

It's actually Guy Fawkes, but same difference. The whole thing has to do with the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament. The funny thing is no one here can actually remember if they're celebrating the fact it didn't get blown up, or the guy trying to blow it up. What really worries me, though, is the sheer amount of fireworks involved in this holiday. You can buy them in the grocery store!!! The purchaser is supposed to be 18 or over, but we all know how that goes...

14 year old kid to the homeless guy: Oi, I'll give you money for a pint if you'll buy me rockets....

Homeless guy: mmmmm, beer.....

If you can't find a handy homeless person, just ask an older sibling, parent, uncle, whatever. Working the ER tonight must be such a joy.

The best part is that they start celebrating Bonfire Night at least a freakin' week early. There have been fireworks going off at all hours of the night for at least that long. And they won't stop for a few days. I think people here want to set things on fire. I've already heard one fire truck come screaming past outside my window, and I'm sure there will be more as it's only 6:30 PM. This is incredibly conducive to the studying I have to do. Sigh.

At least on the 4th of July we know what the hell we're celebrating....

Failte!

It's 3AM, and I've got class at 9, so of course I'm setting up a blog... Hello! Not sure what prompted me start this other than a need to have a place to generally rant, have a laugh, share moments of pure stupidity (mine and others), and try to figure out these crazy years they call your 20s.

I'm not sure who's reading this, or if anyone will, but I'll introduce myself for the one or two people who stumble upon my musings. NL, 25, future veterinarian at your service. I’m a Philly native currently living across the pond to gain the means of future employment, namely working my ass off to put the letters Dr. in front of my name in a few years. And putting myself into a debt large enough to rival the national deficit (okay, maybe not quite that much, but it sure feels like it). For any future veterinarians out there reading this, let me give you one piece of advice: win the lottery. Let’s see, other vital stats: 5’2" of Italian descent and mostly average looks unless I have 2 hours to spend primping, which I usually don’t. My saving grace is an athletic build thanks to good genes and seven years of competitive rowing. I’m a roll out of bed, throw on something clean, brush hair and teeth, and out the door kinda girl. In my "spare time", I catch up on sleep, read pretty much whatever I can get my hands on, row (natch), play basketball, and whatever else allows me to avoid studying. I hope that some of what I have to say at least makes you laugh. Now, as they say, on with the show.