Wow guys, it's been a while! I noticed that my last post was made back in the middle of May, and honestly, not too many things have changed since then. I made a second hike up Mt. Liamuiga, I've been to Nevis twice, my parents visited me for a day and I was able to show them the campus and around some parts of St. Kitts....and lots and lots of studying.

There was one span in which I literally had an exam per week for 6-7 weeks straight, and it's almost impossible to keep up with all of your classes in a situation such as that. Most likely, you will try and study for each class 2-3 hours per day per class, and then realize that with an exam on Wednesday, you need to totally focus on PID at the expense of every other class. Then Wednesday night, you realize that you haven't touched Physiology since 3 weeks ago when you had your Anatomy practical and LRC exam, so you buzz through 18 lectures and realize you know nothing. So you panic, and after that exam the following Wednesday is the Micro exam........and so on and so forth.

So my hell month has finally ended, and now it's just crunch time into finals week. We have our Anatomy practical this following Friday, and one final each on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It's a bit overwhelming.

But don't stress! If you are reading this blog with the intention of going into vet school, you should understand by now that this is a serious and difficult endeavor, and vet school will be the hardest years of your life. But if you sacrifice now, you will emerge with a larger understanding both of what you are capable of and how it will all pay off in the long term! If you are like my parents or friends and just want to know what I've been up to, I'm still alive. (Roosifie, unfortunately I'm starting to have cravings for coffee......so I guess you win at converting me to the caffeine life!)

Right lateral view of canine thoracic cavity and branches of the aorta;
nerves are not included and instead are located in another drawing.

If you are interested, I do have an Instagram account where I post pictures of life on St. Kitts and at RUSVM, and recently I have been posting pictures of how I study, mostly through extremely colorful pictures/notes. I am a very visual and action-based learner, so I tend to live in the library with a classical music playlist and a stack of coloring utensils nearby while I draw out necessary anatomical features, species differences, etc. However, for conceptual lectures, I tend to re-write slides in words without pictures, and I'll add in some related diseases/clinical findings. I've found that showing pictures of these pages is fairly intimidating since I tend to write very small and the colors are impossible to figure out if you don't have my brain/method of thinking. There are also hidden references to badass quotes a la Samuel L. Jackson's Snakes on a Plane scene, or plans for what I will do when I get back to the States, or just venting my sheer frustration. Try and find out what your study habits are like as early as possible!

 Only 17 days until I get to go back to the US!!!!!

Thoracic and Pelvic branches of the aorta/ notable arteries directly
mentioned in our notes. Some organs have been removed for clarity.