On my way home!

I am currently in Heathrow airport trying to kill some time since I have a 4 hour layover.  I have been up since 3:45am and have another 12 hours of travel left but it will be worth it to be home!

I finished up my exams yesterday.  I had 5 exams in 5 days which was quite gruelling.  The first exam Monday was a Surgery OSCE exam (Objective Structured Clinical Exam).  It was a practical exam.  For this exam we had to know how to scrub for surgery, put gloves on aseptically (sterilely) two different ways, three different suture patterns and a hand tie.

My three different suture patterns.  Banana skin is good for suturing practice!

My hand tie done with rope

My exams Tuesday and Wednesday were for my clinical foundations course (Anesthesia, Pharmacology, Oncology, Diagnostic Imaging, Surgery and Evidence Based Veterinary Medicine).  Tuesday was 40 multiple choice and Wednesday was 8 written questions.

Thursday and Friday were my pathology exams.  Thursday was 50 multiple choice and Friday was 10 "spot questions".  The spot questions you are shown a picture and then have to describe what you see and answer some questions about how the pathology developed.

I am cautiously optimistic the exams went well but I will have to wait until the end of January to know for sure!

My 600+ pages material examined in five exams

Last night a couple friends and I went out for drinks at a place called the Candy Bar.  They had awesome cocktails we will definitely go back when it is a little less busy.  We then went to the Christmas market and got some fish and chips and split an order of churros with nutella and sugar for dessert.  It was a wonderful end to a very stressful week.

Finally I have a few other Christmas pictures from when I actually left the house during my revision week.

The Dome - always have incredible decorations

The Street of Light

The Christmas Tree in Jenner's

T-minus 12 hours until I am reunited with my family, friends and pets.  Can't wait!

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas

Last Friday I ventured down with a friend to the Christmas Market.  It opened the week before but it was the first chance I had to go.  As usual the market fills you with Christmas spirit (even though it was only the 27th of November... I have sort of always felt Christmas celebrations should only start at the beginning of December but the market is too hard to resist.)

The stalls are very similar to last year with the odd new one.  We each indulged in a Bailey's Hot Chocolate and a chocolate covered marshmallow.  Both turned out to be excellent choices.  I will probably have to venture back at some point as a study break.

On the Sunday, I managed to get free tickets for a friend and I to tour The Palace of Holyroodhouse.  Commonly known as Holyrood Palace, it is the Queen's official residence in Scotland.  Built in the 16th and 17th centuries it has a lot of character.

The Entrance

What remains of the 16th century Abbey at the back of the Palace

Looking toward Salisbury Crags

 Lastly,  this past Thursday it started snowing outside the city.  When I left campus at 5pm there were snowflakes the size of golf balls.  They may have actually been the biggest snowflakes I have ever seen.  And in true Scottish fashion the snow started causing mayhem.  I was fortunate enough to have left campus early in the snowstorm so my bus ride was only about 10 minutes longer than normal.  But into the evening when I was home, we started getting emails about how bad the conditions were on campus and that all buses were cancelled and essentially every bus route was delayed.  It sounded like it was terrible conditions on campus!  But to put it in perspective for my Canadian friends and family, they got two inches of snow...  Not quite a Canadian quality snow storm but all the Scots were impressed.

The beginning of the snow storm

Some snow on the Kelpies the next morning (These are mini models of Kelpies statues that
are about an hour away.  The Kelpies were commissioned to honour the horse powered
heritage of Scotland.  These mini statues have been travelling around Edinburgh.)