My mom told me the other day that she checks this blog almost daily for updates. I’ll bet she isn’t checking it today, though, because she’s on her way up north to visit my grandma who’s health is failing fast. Either way, I feel convicted enough to post more often so as not to waste her visits to our blog. We’ll see how long the inspiration lasts.

The reason I was talking to Mom the other day was to ask for her recipe for dinner rolls. I’m supposed to take bread to the church potluck tomorrow, and I was hungry for Mom’s awesome dinner rolls. So she gave me the recipe, along with these instructions: Don’t let the dough get too stiff, and don’t knead them too long.

That gave me sympathy for Gabriel when I’m trying to tell him how do something in the kitchen. So much of cooking is intuitive, but I’ve always treated recipes like the Bible, while a more experienced or talented cook would use them as mere suggestions.

But don’t worry, Mom–I think the rolls turned out fine. Gabriel likes them, anyhow!

This is for people, such as my relatives, who were asking about my exams.  For the rest of you, have a smashing day and pardon the boring post.  Jennifer is sure to come up with a better one in the next few days.

This past semester I had six courses, but three of them had significant laboratory/practical components which are tested, so I actually have nine exams.  In Ireland they have this FANTASTIC concept of “revision week,” i.e., students get a whole week of vacation just before the two week exam period.  Theoretically, one spends the week “revising” the material in preparation for the marathon.  Perhaps for yours truly some of the material wasn’t exactly revised; it was more like synthesized de novo, seen for the first time, etc., etc.  Enough said.  Some of you might see me as a doctor some day, and I wouldn’t want you to have less than ideal confidence levels in me.

(Wait, that was not enough said.  As a highly regarded nurse friend of mine asked me, “Do you know what the difference is between God and a doctor?  God doesn’t think He’s a doctor.”  Enough said.)

Now I am swimmingly enjoying the two weeks of exams.  These two weeks are obviously not solid exams–I still have time to type out the aforementioned boring post–but they sure leave one weary and heavy-laden!

My schedule:

Tuesday (8th): Cells, Tissues, Organs, and Development, written component

Wednesday (9th): Cell Metabolism and Replication

Thursday (10th): Cardiology and Respiratory Function, written component

Friday (11th): practical of Cells, Tissues, Organs, and Development (if you’ve ever heard of bellringers and you’ve heard of Histology, marry the two for a real nightmare); wait, this is a double feature; I also have the practical component of Cardiology and Respiratory Function, which is a bellringer on the anatomy of the thorax

Monday (14th): Animal Behaviour and Welfare

Tuesday (15th): Neurobiology and Structures of the Head, bellringer on the dissection part (the head)

Wednesday (16th): Homeostasis and Fluid Balance

Thursday (17th): Neurobiology and Structures of the Head, written component

Friday (18th): sleep

Saturday (19th): pack

Sunday (20th): fly to Ukraine

~09250671

One aspect of this semester that I will miss: UCD Philharmonic Choir.  I loved it!  And a special thanks to those of you who came out to the concert.  It made my day to see you there.

Oh, and not to mention any specific name as though somebody’s been asking, but yes, Conrad, Jennifer and I both enjoyed being in the choir.  Sadly, though, Jenn dropped out before the concert.  Mixed feelings there… she had absolutely wonderful reasons for dropping out (i.e., it required just a bit more than she and IT were able to give), but it was also too bad she wasn’t feeling well.  This all is a far cry from those happy golden years of going to MMC rehearsals–ok, that just made me a wee bit homesick.

UCD Philharmonic Choir has a most fascinating conductor.  For posterity, I must record a few of his interesting comments.  Not only did he do a superb job of conducting us all, he also taught me a bit of the current terminology.  Apparently here the term “crazy” can be highly complimentary (similar to Canadians calling something cool).  We were rehearsing a piece by a Finnish composer, and Mr. Kehoe appreciated a particular run.  “The Finns are crazy people, and this is a moment of pure craziness.”  When we eventually got it right, Tom was tickled pink.  “Savage!  That was mad.”

Our dress rehearsal was held in the concert venue, a massive cathedral that had a delightful way of making echoes sound magical.  Mr. Kehoe commented, “One of our key moments will be holding the last chord just a little longer than the audience expects.”

This caused a bit of muttering behind me; not everybody liked the idea of prolonging the last note.  “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”  “Yeah, nobody expects half the choir to pass out, either.”

(Not that the first comment had much of anything to do with the issue at hand, but long live Irish witticism!  How can you not love it?)

Poor conductor.  He probably wondered why one of his tenors seemed to giggle a lot right about then.

~09250671

P.S. Just to make you drool (Phil, this is for you), Mr. Kehoe has his master’s in something or the other musical, and just started his doctorate in choral conducting.  We performed Lauridsen’s O Magnum Mysterium, and it was obvious that Mr. Kehoe is earning his degree.  His interpretation was wonderful!

I have to say that this is probably the most un-holiday-ish Thanksgiving weekend I’ve ever had. Gabriel was at school all day on Thursday. I spent a good part of the day at our local hospital for my first prenatal visit. I left the house at 7:45am because my appointment was at 8:30 and it’s a good 40-minute walk to the hospital from our flat. The midwife saw me after a moderate wait, and spent a good bit of time doing a detailed medical history. Then she sent me off to get blood work done, with instructions to go to the ultrasound clinic in the hospital after that. I was confused about what was going on, and didn’t realize that I wouldn’t see her again that day. So my carefully prepared list of questions didn’t get answered. And it’s not as simple as calling her with the questions–I’ll doubt I’ll ever see her again, since the patients see whoever happens to be on duty that day. Sigh.

After the blood work was done, I walked down to the ultrasound clinic and checked in. After waiting about 45 minutes, they announced that the doctor who does dating scans hadn’t arrived yet, but they were trying to contact him, and were sorry for the wait. About three hours after I walked in, I was given the ultrasound. Bigger sigh.

The good news is that our baby is developing normally as per the scan, and for that we are very, very thankful.

Thursday evening was the night of Gabriel’s school choir concert, in which he was singing. It was in a beautiful Catholic cathedral in Blackrock (south of where we live in Dublin). After the concert, we picked up a frozen pizza for supper. A little lacking on the turkey and dressing, but it was delicious anyway!

This morning we are being very lazy in celebration of the end of classes of Gabriel’s first semester as a vet student. After next week, he has two weeks of finals, but we can still say that we are 1/8 of the way through our four years in Dublin. We’re thankful for that, too!

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

Today we had some student presentations, and here are two jewels that indicate that we are in FIRST year, not final year.

Regarding a case of poor stockmanship with a beef herd, the “male cows were left intact.”  In regards to a TB quarantined herd, the disease can be spread “in the milk of heifers nursing calves.”

(These are the same people that know what a BAL, like, a bronchoalveolar wash, is for a horse.  I had never heard of a BAL.  So together we make a good team.)

~09250671

Last weekend I heard a preacher speak about his great-grandfather’s job.  The ancestor worked at one of the great Belfast shipyards (apparently he helped make one of the smoke stacks for the Titanic), just one more labourer among a lot of many other labourers.  And here’s the story of one of the reasons that preacher today is a man of God.

Another carpenter, a W. B. Nicholson (sp?), as “rough, crude, and uncouth” as the rest of the lot, became a Christian.  So he shared his faith.  The shipyard labourers allegedly weren’t the most brilliant thinkers of their day, but God used one of their own to speak to them and convict them of sin.  To make a long story short, the labourers began returning the tools they had stolen.  So many new tools came back that the company built a new shop, and called it Nicholson Shed.  After Nicholson Shed was more than fully equipped–and tools still kept coming back–the shipyard finally told the men to stop bringing tools back!

~09250671

… but I am designing Christmas cards again this year.

You don’t even have to live in Ireland.

I didn’t plan to advertise here, but people have been wondering if I’m still designing since I moved to Ireland. The answer is “yes.” As long as you have access to email, we can still do business! I’d love to do yours, so don’t hesitate to contact me.

Cheers!

-JRJ

This morning we were, uh, excitedly investigating the ventral nasal meatus and discussing the insertion of stomach tubes into horses.  Suddenly the professor shouted at us and the room became deathly silent.  (Have you ever gone into a chicken barn and yelled?  It was like that.) 

“Folks, it’s 11 o’clock.  Is that significant to you?”

(We’re vet students, not history majors.  This is the professor, after all, who took time during our first class to explain that he will be deserting the anatomy class around 11 for his “carbohydrate and caffeine fix,” so we all expected him to say that he needed to leave to go get his coffee and doughnut.  So the chicken barn effect continued.)

“Today, ninety years ago, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns stopped.”

Oh.  The ones like Gabriel who had quite forgotten about the armistice were a little embarrassed, Sean (who had been waiting for the clock to show 11:00) stepped aside and held a minute of silence, and then we all went back to probed around in stinky objects.  I can’t help but wonder about those soldiers.  Like, at 10:30, did they know the Germans were going to sign to end “the war that was to end all wars”?  How would that affect your aim?

That’s morbid.  For something MUCH less morbid, please see the previous post.  Anything by P. G. Wodehouse is delightful.

~09250671

In the wee hours of this morning, I decided that entering the second trimester of pregnancy must be something like recovering from a three-month hangover. (NOT THAT I WOULD KNOW about real hangovers, understand. I’ve only read about them, and P. G. Wodehouse’s descriptions are among the best.) To quote Bertie Wooster after drinking one of Jeeves’ legendary pick-me-ups:

For perhaps the split part of a second nothing happens. It is as though all Nature waited breathless. Then, suddenly, it is as if the Last Trump had sounded and Judgment Day set in with unusual severity.

Bonfires burst out in all parts of the frame. The abdomen becomes heavily charged with molten lava. A great wind seems to blow through the world, and the subject is aware of something resembling a steam hammer striking the back of the head. During this phase, the ears ring loudly, the eyeballs rotate and there is a tingling about the brow.

And then, just as you are feeling that you ought to ring up your lawyer and see that your affairs are in order before it is too late, the whole situation seems to clarify. The wind drops. The ears cease to ring. Birds twitter. Brass bands start playing. The sun comes up over the horizon with a jerk.

And a moment later all you are conscious of is a great peace.

I won’t say that my experience has been that dramatic, but yesterday I realized something; I can walk past the laundromat with its detergent smells, the bus with its exhaust fumes, and the oriental store with its odd aromas without holding my breath. I can even smell The Stench without wishing to curl up and die. All in all, I think life is worth living–not just surviving–again.

And if you haven’t read Wodehouse’s books about Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves, you are missing one of life’s simple pleasures. Don’t miss this one of life’s simple pleasures, y’all! Someday you might need to know what it feels like to get one Jeeves’ pick-me-ups.

I picked up a book on baby names at the library, called Brilliant Baby Names by Laura and Geoff King. I know, it’s probably too early to be thinking about names … but it’s a free country! (The first time I heard that term was when I was about ten and staying somewhere overnight with my older cousins. I was shocked at how late we were staying up, but my cousin Beth told me “You can go to bed if you want–it’s a free country.” She was right!) Besides, our name-choosing history is not good–we’ll probably need seven months to come up with one. And I like names.

Anyway … the book lists some names of movie stars’ babies. What were these people smoking when they named their kids? EXAMPLES:

Bono, U2 singer: Elijah Bob Patricius Guggi Q
David Bowie, singer: Zowie (Zowie Bowie? Come on.)
Jamie Oliver, celebrity cook: Daisy Boo, Poppy Honey
Shannyn Sossamon, actress: Audio Science (WHAT?)
Paula Yates, celebrity: Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily
Michael Jackson, singer: Prince Michael, Paris, Blanket (I knew he was off his onion, and this confirms it.)

But where I really got my laugh for the day was out of the Pilgrim’s baby names. The movie stars have nothing on the Pilgrims, y’all. Apparently they used to close their eyes and jab somewhere on the page of the Holy Scriptures with a pin, and whatever they got was what they named their baby. These names, by the way, are taken from legit records in Britain and America:

Be-Courteous
Be-Faithful
Consider
Faint-Not
Faith-My-Joy
Fear-God
Fear-Not
Fight-The-Good-Fight-Of-Faith (“Get back here, fightthegoodfightafaith!”)
Fly-Debate
Fly-Fornication (No comment.)
Hate-Evil
Job-Raked-Out-Of-The-Ashes
Search-The-Scriptures
Sin-Deny
Wrestling-With-The-Devil

And the winner:
If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned.

I count it among my blessings that my parents were not Pilgrims or movie stars.

Do you have any other weird, fascinating, and otherwise entertaining names to add to the list?