I more or less guessed that I would not document any of my first week of internship as it happened, so this past week’s entries were about as expected. But now here I am to report on everything!!

This office is super cool. So far it seems like just the perfect type of place for me: a good pace for slow fat me; cool, laid-back employees, none of whom are dudes; and easy, flexible scheduling with people that understand I have a money-style job elsewhere.

I’m not going to detail every little thing that happened this past week, but here are some items of interest:

First off, the conspiracy theorist. You’d think I would start with animals, wouldn’t you? Alas, no. Upon discovering that the dental treatment performed at this clinic includes fluoridation, this guy launched into a twenty-minute lecture about the worldwide conspiracy involving fluoride. I was vaguely aware that there was a fluoride controversy, but when Nazis appeared I was like, really? When he came back to pick up his dog, he performed a reprise. It was hilarious and obnoxious.

Then there were the rescue cats. Some cats were rescued, and one of the rescue groups brought nine of them to us for castration, vaccines, microchipping, and whatnot. Eight were male and one was female.

You know a cat neuter takes about two minutes and is about the easiest thing in the world? Having seen it several times, I feel as if I could perform it without any difficulty whatsoever. Yeah, so the vet neutered the eight males one day and saved the female for the next day. That was pretty cool.

The next day, we got the female ready for her operation: anesthetized her, shaved her abdominal area, scrubbed her up, all that good stuff. Then the doc goes in to spay her, and after about ten minutes declares that, based on total inability to locate a uterus, this cat must already have been spayed. So good for that cat; too bad about going in a second time, but better safe than sorry, right?

Only then, a bit later, the tech pulled the cat back out of the kennel to microchip her, and notices, um, a penis. So, yeah. Tried to spay a male cat. While this is somewhat hilarious, it’s also kinda sad and horrible, because the poor thing (obviously neutered; the balls are a lot harder to miss than the penis) wouldn’t have needed to go under and have his abdomen cut open if we’d noticed.

And the saddest thing is that inexperienced I did notice the penis while I was doing the surgical scrub, but, since cats keep it in a hairy sheath, it just looked like a sort of lump to me; I didn’t examine it closely because I thought, Oh, the doctor will be working right in this area; she’ll take a look at that. So I have learned my lesson about assuming what the doctor will and won’t notice.

Oh, man, there was this one sweet little Pomeranian that was having trouble breathing, and when we took an x-ray we discovered, among other things, a massively swollen heart, a displaced trachea, a diaphragm that had crept way up in order to attempt to help the dog breathe through its compressed lungs, and incidental bladder stones. It was sad, but so interesting an x-ray.

I’ve gotten to draw up a lot of vaccines and restrain a lot; it’s all been super cool so far. And I do feel like I’m learning, and even helping a little on occasion.

The problem is that, as is par for the course with me, I have been FUCKING EXHAUSTED. Internship combined with work equals about forty-two hours a week (not including drive-time, which is actually a fairly significant number)… I know that isn’t too terribly dire, but I’m soOoOo not used to it. By the time I got home from intern times on Thursday, I was so tired I was actually dizzy, using the wall for support when I attempted to walk, blah blah. I got home at 1700ish that day, but then I just sat around trying to stay awake until it was a reasonable time to go to bed. Friday was a little better, though. I’ll get used to this.

So, yeah, an internly week. Good stuff.

Some dreams I’ve had recently:

There was a pedal-powered roller coaster. It looked like not a lot of fun, but when my dad went on it he was shouting to me about how great it was and how I had to try it. So, mostly to humor my dad, I agreed to give it a try. But then, dad being dad, he had to go all messing with the seats and trying to reinstall them in different ways and stuff. It took so long that there was no chance to actually ride before the next part of the dream started instead.

This part of the dream was just next to the roller coaster. Incidentally, this dream happened before fluoride guy appeared in my life. A bunch of Nazis, including Hitler, were up on a ledge singing a Nazi song. I was grabbing something from my purse, which was nearby, and I saw my parents playing along with the Nazis. Dad was up on the ledge singing the song too, and mom came along and did that horrible salute and tried to sing also, but remarked that she’d forgotten the second verse.

I woke up in some horror at this, and reflected on how awful it would have been to really have to pretend to be a Nazi sympathizer so you didn’t, you know, die.

So in real life, I really wanted this dress, and kept going into JC Penney to glance at it… but I wasn’t ready to pay more than about $30 for it. It dropped to $30 on the website to tease me as soon as it was completely out of stock. And this next dream had a lengthy and extremely pointless mall segment all about this dress and other similar dresses.

It got less pointless when I was preparing to leave the mall (I think to go home and enjoy Christmas festivities with my family), because there were terrorists outside the mall shooting everyone in a certain demographic. I think it was age-related, but I’m not quite sure; in any case, I fell into it. I found some way to escape the mall in a different direction that would, of course, not put me anywhere near my car, but this was OK because I figured I could call my parents for a ride. Which seems, in retrospect, a really mundane way to go about not being shot by terrorists, but I guess there’s not really a wrong way to not be shot by terrorists.

They got after me as I ran out of the mall anyway, though, and then there was something about hiding under some freshly-laid sod and making my phone call from there.

Another dream was the first Disneyland dream in a while. There was the usual “ZOMFG I’ve been here a day and a half and haven’t gone on any rides yet!!” business, and also we were driving across the park either to stop at a nightclub or see a Beauty and the Beast show of some sort; not sure which. When we reached the show and started watching it, there was this employee walking around in a suit made of apple cake. If you wanted some apple cake, he would cut some off his suit for you. Because that is a Disney tradition.

Enough dreams. Today I have had a choir practice morning, wasted a lot of time at Wal-Mart and the mall, and filed my taxes. Smallest return in my life this year; sigh. Once I’m done with this entry, I shall deal with all the emails that have piled up this week, and then WRITE FANFICTION YEAH.

Man, I still really want that dress.