Harvey

So, I can't believe I forgot to talk about Harvey in my last update! He's a 6-month old pup we adopted for my parents as a Christmas present. Not usually the advised thing to do, but we all felt like my parents missed having a dog around the house after Betsy passed away, and that was back in April, and we knew they'd never go out and get a dog themselves. So we found this very sweet (albeit very strong!) Bull Terrier mix at the Alameda Animal Shelter named Harvey.

I don't have a picture of him yet, but I'll post one soon. It's been so rainy and muddy here that he's been too dirty to be very photogenic. ;) He has a great temperment though, loves all people, and is pretty mellow around the house. And despite both being males, he and Bandit both get along great. It probably helps that they're both young, and both good with other dogs. Watching them play is pretty funny, since Bandit is the "gripper" type, in that he likes to grab a cheek or ear or collar of the dog he's playing with, and Harvey is more the kind that likes to bulldoze the other dog over with his head and tackle them to the ground. Harvey's a bit shorter and not as long as Bandit, but he definitely has a lot more muscle and outweighs him by probably a good 10 pounds. The two of them can go on for hours non-stop.

Christmas Tree

I also forgot to mention that I ended up fixing the Christmas lights. I just stripped the ends that the cats had chewed through, twisted the wires together, and taped it up, and voila! happy tree again. So we got a bit silly and took a picture of us and the pets in front of the tree to put in our Christmas cards. We figured it's only weird and sad if we had like, you know, more than two cats, right? Right. So there you have it, our lovely fake tree in (half of) all its glory. And a dog that's looking miserable in a santa hat because it's like the 30th picture we've taken.

Developmental Biology

Woot! I got my papers and my grade back for the class - A! I'm thinking I may have to take a Nutrition class now, since it seems like a few schools require it, but I have to find out where I can find an animal nutrition class, which I think will be a pain. There's also this Pharmacology class I really need to take for work, but I'm hesitant to because I don't want it to ruin my GPA, and I'm not sure it would look good on my transcripts to take a science course for pass/not pass. Fortunately, I've heard it's an easy class, but on the other hand, I don't know if I want to take two classes in one semester. Decisions, decisions.

On top of that, I'm still trying to find a part time job at a vet hospital, which isn't easy, since I work full time, which pretty much limits me to working at emergency hospitals, and they can't take volunteers. On the bright side though, I'm going to start participating in the "animal enrichment" program here at work, which basically means I go and play with and socialize the dogs we have here, but it counts as experience, and should be fun to do.

Stupid Flu, Part 2

I'm still getting better from this, although the phlegm thing has gotten pretty old at this point. I mean, how much mucus can the human body possibly produce? Seems like I hack up one booger and another one lodges itself in my throat right away. I can feel it everytime I swallow. So gross. Lunch, anyone? ;)

Okay, back to reading this stupid paper for work. :::grumble:::