SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

I keep telling the mister we have room for a capybara, but he isn't buying it.

Big deal. Got one living just 20 miles up the road. Or it was, 6 months ago. No follow-ups in a while suggest that it migrated north up the Salinas River. Monterrey County gets to have the coolest stuff...

Oddly enough, my animal nutrition prof was going over a website (I'll link it later when I find it again) that shows the digestive tract for various animals, and when he popped up the Capybara page, I heard several people go "What is that???" and I'm just sitting there thinking to myself "Don't you people have internet?".

Sigh. Kids these days.

Noooooo! My favorite.

Okay, here's the site: Digestive Systems of Vertebrates, and a quick handy link to the Capybara (monogastric, herbivore) page.

Animal nutrition class? COOL! That is so great, ufez. What are you studying? Vet med?

Little capybaras, marching, marching, marching... to destroy us all! Run!

But I for one welcome our new capybara overlords.

Yeah, we had a three black bear sighting last week just outside of the-other-side-of-town-than-where-I-am-just-outside-of, which people who know bears think was a mama bear and two almost-grown-but-not-moved-out adolescent bears and I was thinking "bring back the capybara! I don't want to have deal with no teenager bears!"

That's the hope, shane. I'll be applying this coming Fall for matriculation in '13. Sweet jebus, it's been a long road knocking out pre-reqs.

Is that just a giant intestine?
I was listening to an old Radiolab about the many faux vaginal routes of ducks.
Nature. So very wacky.
Now let's talk fungi. Fungi is so enchantingly bizarre.

I hear getting into vet school is rough. I know someone who went in some island nation because it was impossible for her otherwise. She was a rather odd duck herself. I will forever remember her running the noisiest power washer ever against her 8 month old pregnant belly on a wooden deck. Her baby was eerily quiet.

Is that just a giant intestine?

The giant flappy bit* that is connected to the whole line? That's the Cecum, which hosts a bunch of bacteria useful for breaking down cellulose (which is why it's so prominent in herbivores but nearly absent in carnivores).

And yes, nature is so very very wacky. Yet so damn fascinating.

And yeah, V-school is incredibly competitive. There are only 28 programs in the US and all have a limited number of slots per year. I'm doing my damnedest to build as good of an application as I can, while trying to keep my expectations tempered.

Oh, I hear you. I'm trying for a super competitive field myself and my school is such a Mickey Mouse affair, it's ridiculous, and yet easy to stand out.
Hoop jumping is just so-- yeah. I bet you have to humor people less, though, and less biased "science."
Do you have to do research or publish?

No, there's no research or publishing expected (thank goodness). Any lab experience would be a bonus, but most of that'd be from a clinical perspective as opposed to research. There is a research track available in DVM programs, but I would think most folks that are shooting for the academic/research side of the science would be more likely to go into a Ph.D. program in biochem, organic, or microbio or whatever.

When would you be applying, eth?

Oh, fuck. Late this year, next year? I don't even want to take the GRE and I'm already questioning academia.
What's your exam called?

I got a contact at HBO and I'm tempted to just write comedy in the form of research articles and entertain at conventions. It would probably be the only way to get away with any kind of criticism.

I've got to do the GRE (again*) as well, which I'll probably knock out sometime this Summer, and the Bio Subject GRE exam, which I'll take in April (and again in November if I happen to tank it the first time. It's only available three times a year).

(*took it once in 2000 when I was still a "traditional" undergrad pondering applying to Econ Masters programs, then again in '03 after they changed the format when I applied to a Public Policy program [got accepted - barely - and it was a top-ten program, but I was tired of doing gov't work and declined. No regrets])

Why would you have to take it again? They changed it again, you know.
I figure I have to get at least a 1400 equivalent unless I come up with the most astounding personal statement ever.
I figure I just find whoever I want to work with and just concentrate on that, but it's got to be a fellowship or funded somehow.

I can't even figure out why most of these kids want to go to grad school, except not wanting to get a job.
It seems purely symbolic to some people.
I have a friend I'm hoping forgets we have tentative plans tonight who keeps talking about law school. I have no idea what it means to her, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with using the degree.
Hell, it's better than that book she was going to write.

I think the cut-off for keeping scores is something like six years. Pity, really, b/c I studied my but off last time (mostly on the vocab section) and scored somewhere in the 1500-range. At the very least, the math section should be doable thanks to two recent semesters of Physics.

And yeah, Law School. I haven't read anything remotely positive about those prospects in at least eight years.

I'm not worried about the vocab (but try shoehorning pavonine into a sentence), but I've been math avoidant forever. Got a nearly perfect score on the SAT but that was generations ago and I do believe I was tripping. I think it's a full fledged phobia when you freeze for a moment before each equation.