RT @voretaq7: Practice = 10 minutes of warm up, "something impossible" for as long as I can stand, then easier stuff (via @zoecello)

Yea, what they said.

Pix: Henrike, from the Goteborg, Sweden aquarium bathroom waste recycling system. They're doing something many people would claim is impossible, on a teaching and commercial scale, in public.

Random notes I write to myself:

• You can't have it till you ask.

• And half of networking is letting friends know what you want. (Thinking of that crazy lady at coffee shop and B+N and how she interviews everyone and then asks em to do small things for her, fix her computer or talk to her friend about your career, etc.)

• Clothes are about looking good, but if you're fit, you look good in all clothes.

• 3rd year is about putting self-knowledge gained in 1st 2y to use. Pursue your loves, don't sweat the profs that don't work with your learning style, learn the bare minimum of things that don't interest you, make contacts and go deeper in your areas of interest. Relax and have a social life and remember what life is about. Come up for hair. Embrace your gunnerness but direct it so the competitiveness doesn't ruin your relationships. Embrace life.

Found these bits scribbled on a notecard and shoved into my notes. Apparently inspiration strikes when motivation is high, anxiety is directed, and I'm surrounded by silence.

Also, on my list for today: I agree with Seth. Despite the bad, I like being surrounded by motivated, optimistic, driven, creative people doing what they love.

Pix: tree in front yard.

Sometimes in life there's a person, who, for whatever reason, resonates in such a way that the act of looking at them, interacting with them, or watching them causes physical pain.

I'm curious how other people experience this - for me it's an almost a painful noise, similar to sustained high violins. Beautiful, intense, but almost too much to bear.

Pix: Me: from the MI State fair 2009

My complaint about gluten and corn-free eating?

There's no readily available "scoop" product that even remotely approaches bread for it's spongy texture (and liquid absorbing ability), portability (sandwich? on what?!), and as a conveyance for the myriad of spreads, jams, dips, and sauces that I love so much.

Guacamole?
Hummus?
Cheese on ?
Liverwurst or pate?
Diced tomatoes or the delicious liquid they leave behind?
Soup dregs?
The dreamy remainder after a bowl of dill-basil-butter flavored peas?
Salsa ?!!

I think I need to buy some potato chips.

Pix: Hard bread, in Sweden. My mouth waters looking at this picture!

Dear surgery group,

Sorry about my attitude. I realize I'm a bit negative in labs (I'd use the phrase Debbie Downer but I don't have the energy for the joking attitude that that implies, so I'm giving it to you dry).

The thing is this - I know I can do surgery and be quite successful at it. However, I'm overwhelmed and intimidated by all the goddamned details, the anatomy, the stupid names for the instruments (and ridiculous details of the best way to hold them, hand them and use them) and the overwhelming verbal avalanche of detail for what is really a simple fucking act.

Cut em open, take out the badness, and sew em back up.

I can do that. Really. I'm bizarrely confident that presented with a unique surgery, one we haven't been lectured to death on, I'd be just fine. I'd review the local anatomy, ask for tips from an experienced surgeon and get to it (and the same goes for the common surgeries, if they weren't constantly piled high with a spaghetti of convoluted, bewildering and obvious detail). And it'd suck, and I'd be terrified, but it'd be fine.

So I apologize for being a lousy team player. I'm not my usual outgoing ebullient self and I'm not sure what to do about it.

Thanks for understanding,
Surgery partner 2A

Pix: Patient.

So apparently my 3rd year in vet school, at least for these first two weeks, is about becoming a social butterfly.

In the time that I'm not taking electives that don't apply to me and only rehash lectures we've already had, I'm reading, thinking, and going for dinner, drinks, or weekends away with friends. It's an unexpectedly good time and not at all what I expected to await me when I returned to school. (Since I was dreading it enough to have trouble sleeping before it started, I'm pretty happy about this improvement.)

Don't worry - I'm out of practice at wasting time so I made sure to pick up an independent study in pathology and I'm working on trading stall mucking for cow horse lessons one day a week (with bonus accidental lessons in cattle ranching and working horse barns, and a double-plus bonus of much-missed muscle soreness). I also think it's time for a job, however, I'm not quite sure how to make that one work out - it's a little embryonic at this point, because I'd like it to be relevant to my interests. I'll keep you posted on how I manage to fill this accidental bounty of time - I hope to keep it meaningful.

Someone on my twitter feed this morning pointed me to Mr Jonathan Fields spot-on treatment of what he's calling his '5 games of life' and I'd call goals or "life" (health, work, family, etc). I think he nails the bigger feeling behind my goal of speaking at TED - that need to build something, contribute, and work for some larger change than a paycheck and a sweet vacation. I'd suggest checking it out - he's cautious, honest, not asking for anything, and verbalizes what I hear echos of when talking to friends about their life goals.

In that same vein of prioritizing important things in life, the Yarn Harlot comes at the fitness aspect of it from a different angle. And Hanne Blank has me drooling over the bolted broccli greens in the back yard with her chatty, brilliant and delicious musings on food (and tangentally, enjoyment and embracing life).

I'm packing and then heading to class. Wish me luck on my very difficult trip home with a friend this weekend (we'll hike in the woods with the dogs, drink beer, and eat delicious food - it's a rough life - and we'll get homework done, pleasantly).

Pix: Me: dinner last night with friends and goofy shenanagans with my surgery group, not yet posted to flickr.

Is it just passion?

More reflection today on what exactly it was that made my time in Okotoks so spectacularly fascinating.

I'm not sure I have answers, but passion of the people there added vitality and interest to the already fascinating but exhausting and demanding work.

Is that always the case? Good people make hard work easier? (When isn't that enough?)

How can I bring that to the table?

Pix: Me: Cattle in Feedlot

Biking today was lovely - it's finally stopped raining!

So what else? Beyond the unexciting minutia, I have a few links to recommend:

• Free online class (from Harvard, of all places) about Justice. Interesting.
• Also, we have MicroEcon101 from Economists Do It With Models.
• Being happy - by writing about someone you care for.
• And I'm drooling. I've never tried tongue before, and that sauce sounds layered, complex and delicious!
  
• Aren't you sick of me recommending TED panelists? I hate to jump on a bandwagon, but I love these people. Today? Healthcare, morality, and decision making. Oh, and I follow this guy on twitter.

Pix: Me: Classmates at a dairy, in Thailand