After our exams were over, a few of us went down to Prince’s Street to celebrate before we fled town for our various respective destinations. Tomorrow night, I’ll be meeting up w/some folks again to celebrate Hogmanay, aka the New Year. (When I asked the Scottish farmer in charge of us wee students and cows what Hogmanay meant he said, “I don’t know. Ask Jeeves. So here’s wiki’s take….) O. Since my camera has died, I’ve borrowed these photos from Beth (who was there but not in my pictures! boooooooo.) If you lift the images, please give credit and cash to her, okay? Thanks.

Granted I’ve moved on to cows but STILL, the time I’m spending on these farms in some ways is absolutely eye-opening. You’ve thought of it, I’ve thought of it but in different therms than these: how do we feed the people of the world? In my months here my mind has been better woken to the questions of colonialism, capitalist fallout and global equality but the pulse my hand may actually reach is hunger. Step one: strategise better farming solutions. Conceptualize applicable alterations to factual problems to optimize yield and quality of life. Growth is a competition between speed and size. Breeding programs aim at a profitable median which pushes the norm ever upwards. This time, I’ll ask myself to address the question without my usual neophobic veil: “when is enough enough?” What is quality living, objectively?

Went to Oxford, fed chicks and considered issues of food production poultry-style. Took pictures but camera died after being covered in muck. Returned to find my wireless refusing to allow my computer internet access. Happy Xmas and Boxing Day. Start milking cows for two weeks as of tomorrow. You fill in the rest.

Am done for now. Have been raked over hot coals and am finished. Could have been walking out saying, ‘That was so reasonable’, but appalled because my mind went blank. We’ll see in late January just how blank. For now it is time to eat, drink, and be merry - at least until tomorrow, when I start with the chickens and cows. I’ll be out of town for a week (OH JOY!) - just like on a real holiday break!

Happy Holidays, Joy To The World.

“I just got fucked up the ass by a great big Royal Dick and now I’m going back for more.” –Heather Feather.

Yeah, baby. Open wide and take it ALL The way in. Had our spot and oral exams today. I blew it. Had one of my favorite clinicians as my examiner so it should have been a breeze, easy peasy but nope. I left my brain at the door. Walked in, went to the wrong station and it all went downhill from there. Was explaining the basic items in a radiograph. She said, “What’s that tube?” Relief! Easy! “The Oesophagus.” “Really? How do you know that?” “Because it’s got cartilaginous rings, and a trach-tube,….. oh. Right. That would be the trachea.” DOH! F- Me!

Going to drink lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of Scotch tonight. Hopefully on Friday the hand will just know what to do without the brain participating. ;-x