Week one : Orientation

It is an interesting social experiment to try and instill a sense of team spirit in a group of complete strangers who have been thrown into an utterly novel environment. The first week of vet school was like this. It got better as the week progressed, faces eventually became names, and the week culminated in us sharing a major milestone where we were welcomed to the college and the veterinary profession along with family and friends at our white coat ceremony. But that first day was a fast and dirty mini-course in team building. 

From day one of orientation, we were indoctrinated with the value of eschewing any natural inclinations to compete with each other in favor of a team-minded work ethic.  As a result, we were thrown into several mini team building projects, such as fabricating a tall paper tower with nothing but pieces of newspaper and scotch tape. Our tower was more like the (rapidly!) falling tower of Pisa, but subsequent team building efforts proved better, and some were quite impressive.

Now I realize I need to  backtrack a couple days and remark on my drive to vet school - where I left off in my first post. Although the drive was uneventful from Potomac (aside from the fact this Angeleno was not accustomed to the plethora of deer crossing signs on route, and one unfortunate deer carcass on the highway - insert obvious "The Deer Hunter" reference here), the arrival to my new home put a heavy ink-dripping exclamation mark at the end of an otherwise dry sentence. As in, the 4-hour drive to Blacksburg was fine until I arrived and exploded with panic at my new life!

When I moved across country for graduate school some 14 years ago, it was different. I was still young and moving beyond my geographic comfort barriers seemed like a  natural progression. Sure, I remember being nervous, but they were the nerves of anticipation. This time, I felt like I had made a monumental error in judgment. What otherwise stable semi-professional 30-something homeowning city dweller would leave their life for a probable tortuous life as a struggling veterinary student in the country?

I reached out to family. I called my mother. She was helpful...to an extent. True to form, she reminded me that I had willingly made this choice. "You always do what you want to do," was the gist.  I reached out to friends. I called my old friend and roommate Todd from grad school. Todd had his own monumental life events happening - he was soon expecting a baby and recently started a new job. He talked me down a cliff that only he could do. Todd is a great person to build you up when you need it. Within about half an hour, I started readjusting. It was a weekend of adjustments. So when I went to that first day of orientation, I felt ready to begin. I had to build myself up first, before helping build  a paper tower, or a team, for that matter. It continues to be a work in progress.