As You Like It - Or Don't

I don't like writing cheesy bragging essays about myself. I'm working on one now, for the AWV scholarship. There's basically no chance I'll get the money, but you never know unless you try...

***
Normally my library job requires very little. Saturday I spent over an hour trying to get one of my colleagues' computers to print to the library printer, and we never did get it to work. We almost reached the portion of the network where the library printer is to be found, but her computer didn't quite make it.

***
Last Wednesday I was on my way to J&J — I had just exited the freeway and stopped at the end of the exit ramp. I started up again, and my car seemed to ail. It would go fine, then cease to have any power, go fine, cease to have power.
"It seems like my gears aren't engaging correctly. Oh, no, maybe my clutch is finally going out after all the grinding I have put it through." - that was my first thought.

Then later, as I travelled toward J&J... "it seems like my fuel injector isn't working right."
And from that I stepped to the "out of gas" possibility. I lifted my small beanbag frog from before the gas tank indicator, and lo, the LCD was blinking at me. So much for stuffed frogs in the instrument console.
It so happens that I work for a trucking/farming company and they had a tank of gas on the premises. JK filled it half way, and I was fit as a penny.

***
There is a bridal shower next week for a girl who is marrying a guy from my church.
Another couple announced their engagement last week.
What is this world coming to?
Actually, the wedding (and new baby) phenomenon is heartening because it suggests life - it is not stagnant.

Veterinary Business

As semi-promised...

I clashed (not to his face) with at least one of the opinions Mr. Wood presented in our class last week.
He seemed to come from the standpoint that veterinarians historically have not made enough money for the extent of their education. Because of that, they must think of ways to increase their profits.

Now, I think it's fine to be a good business person -- maximize your profits, minimize your losses, use your brain. But a good business person will also remember the three-fold purpose of veterinary business: support your family, benefit your clients, benefit society as a whole. A good businessman will be ethical, he will look out for the well-being of his client, he will be open and honest in his dealings.

There are a lot of ways a veterinary practice owner can ethically build a better business:
Advertise in an attractive manner about services your clients will honestly benefit from (e.g. yearly physical exams to keep tabs on their pet's health).
Create a positive atmosphere that your clients will want to return to (put a fish tank in the waiting room, play Beethoven in the background, hire a friendly and attentive receptionist).
Surround yourself with support staff so you can maximize the time spent doing DVM work and minimize the time cleaning floors and shampooing dogs.
Develop your own personality so clients enjoy conversing with you. Connect with them, ask them about their hobbies.
Stock the right amount of stuff, sell pet food, make efficient use of space, install triple-paned windows, conserve materials, do your own repair work on down time, etc.

Do all that and your profits will increase.

I'll hand it to him -- Mr. Wood talked about a lot of it. What bothered me was the philosophy surrounding the concept that "clients who pay more money are happier clients," that we should get them to consent to more services so we make more money per office call. That is apparently the new way to do veterinary medicine, that is the way to make the triple digits and buy a new yacht.

There's nothing ethically wrong* with more services if the animal would honestly benefit from them. There are even important zoonotic and herd health concerns that justify "blindly" testing every animal -- the risk is high enough to make testing the entire population significant, even if it only picks up a few positive animals. Do you want your children to get worms? No? Deworm your puppy. Do you want your neighbor to get bitten by your illegally un-rabies-vaccinated dog? Well, get it vaccinated. You can't go wrong there.
Vets should do their research, find the stats, see if a service positively affects an animal's health. But to give services blindly, because they might unveil some uncommon disease we had no idea existed in the animal? To run blood work every year on apparently healthy animals? I mean, people don't go to such extents for themselves! To prescribe heartworm preventative to dogs living in a place where the prevalence is close to 0%? Any person off the street could grab a veterinary pharmaceutical catalog and randomly prescribe every test and every prophylactic measure available. Veterinarians are trained to play the odds, prescribe with reason, steward well the trust bestowed on them.
That's what I think.


* At least, nothing wrong as regards a client-vet relationship. One could make the case that pet owners should not spend as much money on their animals, there are people starving in the world and we have no excuse to spend money that way. I won't go into that right now.

An Interesting Day

Yesterday I called my friend CS to tell her I bought some stuff for her birthday and I wondered when I could bring it by. We planned for that evening; shortly after getting off the phone I realized that perhaps the stuff was not in my car. True to form, I had left it at home.
I was presented with a couple options:
Call CS, tell her I'd bring the stuff by some other time.
Go home (i.e. the one hour drive north, one hour drive back) to get the stuff.
Buy her something else.

I didn't want to call off the visit; it would cost me $5 to drive home and back (besides wasting a large portion of my afternoon, and time is money); so the semi-logical decision was to buy some more stuff for about $5. And that's what I did, aside from some aberration on the $$.

I ended up spending the night at her place, and found out (to my enjoyment) that I still talk in my sleep -- and, furthermore, that I can respond to questions. I am told that I said "Would you stop that?" CS said "Stop what?" and I said "my youth group". I still don't know what dream it went along with.

Today I signed on as an alternate in the vet school Hood to Coast team. Crazy, yeah, but it'll give me something more to get in shape for.

Today we had large animal surgery lab, from which I derive an unusual amount of enjoyment (I like surgery and I like working with hoofstock).
We castrated our pony and set a half limb cast on one of its legs. The castration was complicated -- our pony was too young and/or too small for the method we used. He survived nonetheless.

Not Worth Reading?

Yesterday I was honored to eat lunch with the honorable HH at her grandparents' house. It was a very timely meeting, because I may not see her for the next two years due to a mission project on which she plans to embark.

Before church my youth group practiced for another of our singing programs. The occasion produced a couple scenarios of potential note.*

For instance, our leader was looking at one of the songs before we sang it. "I don't know what the deal is with it, but there aren't enough notes for the altos," said he.
I looked over the bottom 1 1/3 scores and boldly stated, "There are enough."
"How do you mean?" asked our leader.
"There are enough, maybe more than enough, but they're just syncopated with the rest of the singers," said I.

Well, turns out I was looking at a different part of the song than the leader anyway, and the extra notes were actually parts of slurs that lacked their connecting ties. Way to express my intelligence.

Later we were working away on a song where the men say a phrase and the women repeat it with a (possibly) different tune. Well, our leader was trying to help the men with their part, and he sang the proper "do-re-mi" syllables (Mennonites often rely on shaped notes, or the "do-re-mi" system to sight read) instead of the words to the phrase. So he goes like "mi-do-mi-sol" and the women's part is next and I find myself saying "mi-do-mi-sol," too. I realized what I was doing part way through.

After church that night I proceeded through the nursery and was on my way down the steps when LG (a girl, in front of me) poked/something HM (also a girl). Duly inspired, I tweaked HM's braid and continued on my way. HM thereupon said, "I saw that smirk," and I screeched and hightailed it for the basement to the astonishment of one or more. I thought she might be after me to repay the act.

*As usual, quotes are subject to paraphrasing/partial inaccuracy.

A.S.A.P.

How do you feel when you receive a note ending in A.S.A.P?
How do you feel about the note's author?
Does it motivate you or make you procrastinate further?

Because it Rained

Wednesday my class sat through 6.7 hours of veterinary business management training. It was a long day, but strangely I did not grow very weary of it (I think that exercising in the morning works wonders.). The speaker (Fritz Wood) supplied enough anecdotes to grab my attention and provided enough controversial (to me) ideas to keep my mind moving a bit. Maybe I'll write about my ponderings tomorrow.

Yesterday was unlike any other. I started for school at 6:19 and did not reach it until ~10:50.
The previous night there was some flooding at the stop light just to the east of the Willamette River on Hwy 34. I got to drive through a large and deepish puddle and they routed us to drive in a west-bound lane.
Flooding is exciting to me (there I go again, showing my immaturity), and yesterday as I travelled north toward 34 I wondered if the road would still be partly flooded. The Willamette seemed higher than I had noticed it before, so I was somewhat hopeful. I reached 34, and found that it was completely blocked going to Corvallis. I tried to find Hwy 20 without going into Albany, and ended up asking at a gas station and being misdirected such that I ended up back on Hwy 34. I then sat in Albany for 45-60 minutes, creeping along in traffic headed for Hwy 20. A conservatively dressed professional lady driving a white Mercedes with a Montana license plate (or tag, if you prefer) gestured for me to allow her in front of me. As she waited for an opening she seemed to be checking a map on her built-in touch screen computer.
After a while she came back to inform me that Hwy 20 was backed up for 11 miles (as she had learned from the police whom she called). Later she informed me that she had cancelled her seminar and would return next month. She was certainly in a much worse scenario than I (who only missed my classes for the day). It was a nice encounter in spirt of the circumstances.

Then thought I, if 20 is backed up 11 miles and since it took me an hour to go about 0.5 mile (maybe it was closer to 1), wouldn't it take me forever to actually reach Corvallis that way? So I headed north on 99E, hoping to find a road that would cross over to 99W and allow me to enter Corvallis from the north; or, variously, planning to go all the way to Salem (perhaps I should get an Oregon atlas so my ramblings are based on more than my senses of direction and adventure).
I ended up having way too much fun. I drove through Jefferson, crossed the freeway and travelled Sunnyside road, took Kuebler for a long way. It ascended a hill and I ended up in a very affluent neighborhood. Went down the hill and engaged River Road. Seeing a sign for Independence, I tried to go that way but turned around when I saw the "Road Closed in 8.5 Mi due to High Water" sign. Went all the way through Independence, failed to catch the turn onto 99W, went down the Corvallis Rd to Lewisburg, and finally made it to OSU. I felt out of it and somewhat stupid.

I suppose that I could have gone down to Junction City or have waited out the traffic on Hwy 20 (which would probably have been faster). But then I wouldn't have gotten to see all the delightful scenery and it was not nearly as much fun.

It sounds like the flooding resulted because a dam was opened upstream (likely done to restore the dam space for future rain).

Lousy Pony

"They" always say that lice are species specific, and I sure hope it's true. HN was shaving our pony's face today and we discovered some biting lice (as opposed to the sucking kind, which have pointier heads). I kept finding them on my overalldress and I began to itch (a partially psychosomatic effect, I'm sure). I don't mind arthropods in general, but the sort that could grow on me is not welcome in my sphere.

Clueless

You'd think I wouldn't be as clueless as I am -- considering my skeptical view of things like this and my dad with his dead-pan jokes. You'd think I'd be used to analyzing what people say. But, no, sometimes my brain has the viscosity of elbow grease in a lazy individual.

For instance, back at the Faith Builders College Retreat I was talking to CA and MS (both male) and perhaps a couple girls. I was speaking of how I'm not good at accepting chivalry and shortly thereafter CA asked, "Can I get you a cup of water?"
I, not desiring to support any such offers from a guy and being totally unaware of how his request fit into what I had just been saying, said, "No" in an "of course not" tone of voice.

More recently, back at the "Party After Church", I was listening to JB talk about some "picture" he "saw" in a book, a portrait of some Pharoah. Now, to me it is feasible that a painting could exist after four thousand years and while skeptical of the veracity of his statement I expressed some belief in its possibility (though at the same time asking if it was true). Apparently it was a complete joke and JB stated "Gullible is not in the dictionary." I thought briefly that the statement made no sense, but didn't actually figure it out until the next day. Very slow on the uptake.
I'd offer for y'all to share your "clueless moments", but maybe you never have any or are wise enough to keep them secret.

You know you're a vet student if...

You find a package of suture material inside your check book. It happened to me the other day.

My Collection

My collection of unused-by-me insulated coffee tumblers/mugs is still increasing. I haven't made any effort to increase my collection numbers -- the individuals more or less fall into my hands. A promotional gift from Purina, a George Fox graduation acquirement, a white elephant gift -- and my latest, a shiny dark red Fort Dodge cup with matching coaster. They're sort of fun to have, usually aesthetically pleasing, have neat little slidy tops. (I haven't progressed beyond the stage where Micro Machines were neater the more doors, etc moved on them.) Very nice, very nice.

The only problem is, they have served me no purpose aside from the few fractions of calories I expended to pick them up. I don't drink coffee, not even socially -- and I'm still learning to endure herbal tea.

But I feel like I should put them to work, show off my collection (ha), be like everyone else. I always feel jealous at the attention garnered by knocking over a coffee mug and spilling its contents on some lecture notes. I'm not sure I can bear it much longer. JK.

But seriously, perhaps I should take on green tea. It decreases the chance of getting cancer, decreases bad cholesterol, improves the immune system. It contains less caffeine than coffee -- would that make it less addicting? On top of that, I could use my lovely collection. But - sigh - I probably wouldn't bother to brew the stuff.

School News

The winter term started on Monday. It's going to be an interesting term — lots of variety, neat professors, etc.
The list of classes:
Small animal medicine
Large animal medicine
Large Animal surgery
Animal behavior
Practice management
Ruminant nutrition
Small animal nutrition

It's not as bad as it looks -- only the first four classes are graded and the rest are pass/no pass.
I always have a daily planner, but usually don't make much use of it. This term will be an exception — the last four classes are taught on sometimes varying days at varying places in the term. For example, today practice management took the place of large animal medicine and extended an hour beyond the normal class time. The first two morning classes were cancelled. That trend will become somewhat familiar by the end of the term, I reckon.

Tuesday half of the large animal surgery class (myself included) received their surgery ponies. My group of three received a small, <8 month old, rather well behaved chestnut. It is underweight, appears to have rainrot and might have had worms. Hopefully it will pick up in health... and then we might have a little terror on our hands.
Each group is to check on their pony once a day and write a SOAP (= medical record including subjective and objective data plus an assessment of the data and plan of action). We should all be semi-pros at pony medicine and care by the end of this quarter -- and I can sure use the hands-on experience.
***
Our small animal dermatology professor (whose speaking style/delivery remind me of David Smucker) is enthusiastic, friendly and very knowledgeable -- it's amazing the stuff he says off the top of his head!

What if They Didn't Know?

"No man cometh unto the Father, but by [Christ]." John 14:6b
"The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin." I John 1:7b

Is it possible to be saved with no knowledge of Christ? Can the blood of Jesus cleanse you if you never heard of it?

I don't know for absolute certain. But it's something I think about.

It is possible to follow God's law while knowing nothing of Christ. Nature testifies to God, and it seems that many cultures have some knowledge of a supreme Creator God. Paul writes of how Gentiles are a law unto themselves (see Romans 2:12-15) -- it is not those who have heard the law, but those who do the law that will be justified. If they follow God to the best of their understanding, and seek for more understanding as they know how, it seems that is all God would expect of them. Maybe I'm way off on that... let me know.

I do believe that many Jews who lived before Christ were saved. The deeds they did, sacrificing sheep, etc to God, didn't save them. They didn't necessarily worship Christ as Lord, and I don't even know if most believed their sins would eventually be absolved by Jesus' sacrifice. How can they be saved? It would seem that Christ's blood can save people throughout all time, even if they lived before He came and therefore never had a chance to ask for the atonement of his blood. Is it possible that God will judge 20th century Papua New Guineans who never heard of Christ, as if they lived BC?
But then what of the verses in Romans 10: "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of who they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?" Romans 10:13, 14ab
Will Christ give them a chance to believe on him after they die as he did with "the spirits in prison" (1 Peter 3:19)? And then those who sought to follow God during their lives will be enthralled to find out the missing pieces to their understanding of God? I don't know... and I don't think it would be right to form a doctrine based on any unclear suppositions like the one I've just made... (That's got to be about one of the worst things -- people fit to die over manmade ideas they vehemently take to be truth.)
We do know that God is Just... and while I don't profess to possess all of God's wisdom, it does not seem that justice would involve eternal damnation for those who never had a chance to choose for or against Christ. But then, I am but a woman. It's okay if I'm wrong.
I do not believe that God predestinates a select few to be saved -- having certain people born at certain times in certain places would predestine them to hell IF they had to profess the name of Christ before dying.
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts. I suppose that whether or not people can be saved without knowledge of Christ should not materially affect our lives. Either way, our attempts at evangelization should be strong. God wants everyone to know about the Good News -- it provides answers, fulfillment, joy, and love.
But I still think about it... if you think I'm all wet, or if you have any thoughts on the matter, please comment.

What do you think?

The Bible says "...no man cometh unto the Father, but by [Jesus]." John 14:6b

Is it possible for a person to go to heaven if they never heard about the Christ?

Let's hear your thoughts (and then I'll share a few of mine).

Party After Church

Allow me to apologize for the belatedly related information... but I'm not really sorry on your account because you don't have to read it if you don't want to. :)

Wednesday the 21st my brother and I invited some church youths (which, for my church, = unmarried people age 15-30) over after prayer meeting. My parents were in town.
Three of the G "children" and two cousins (JB and BB) of J&J from the "Fishing" episode decided to take their chances and visit the Varney household. We were a lively crew almost from the start. Words and jellybeans flew as the "party" (= occasion sans-alcohol where friends get together to enjoy fellowship) escalated. I brought out the violin my grandma gave me a couple years back. I didn't play, no way, but JB was easily enticed and fiddled away at some gospel songs. My brother and I searched about the house for the banjo my mother's father made for the family — figured JB could entertain us further on that instrument. We searched to no avail (my mother found it later in the depths of her room), but the negative result actually produced the crowning point to the evening.....

"Maybe it's in the barn," said one.
"Do you all want to go for a tour of the barn?" questioned my brother.
Nothing more exciting presented itself and we trundled out the door. The white four-story edifice loomed in the foreground as we approached and entered.
"You must all come see the skull," said I.
"The skull?!" said LG.
Ah, yes.
Out to the lean-to with its heap of junk, table of junk, Allis Chalmers tractor and tractor corpse. We peered into a small depression in the dirt floor, and observed the skull which I partially excavated some years past. I am very proud of our skull.

We navigated through the junk within the barn, and reached the western room. JB, in reference to an old incinerator (which used to heat the Hopewell Church building): "It looks like you'd find some [metal] coils inside." (I.e. coils for an alcohol distiller. There aren't any in there.) The banjo was not to be found in that vicinity, so we returned to the central barn portion.

"We must show them the hole."
"The hole?"
My brother pried up a board in the floor of the barn, and revealed the small, cement-lined cellar beneath the floor. We peer inside and screamed (some of us) into the void, listening to the "eerie" echoes beneath the floor. "If we were less mature, we'd probably run out of here," it seems like someone said.

Most of us climbed the stairs to the third floor, where the lighting does not work. My brother carried the only flashlight.
Perhaps it was then that he told the story about the bodies in the barn.
One day after we purchased the place, my dad was visiting with Al Schlabach (who built the barn and house and lived there for many years).
My dad, being the way he is, said to Al, "You didn't tell me about the bodies in the barn." Knowing my dad, he probably sported the straightest face in the world.
"There aren't any bodies in the barn," said Al, in an Al-type voice (which some of you are familiar with). He was overly serious, as if trying to cover up the truth. As far as I know, the only bodies in the barn are dead animals... but you never know.

"Don't fall down the elevator shaft," I warned in the semi-darkness. And then my brother told the story of the time he and my dad were removing junk from the fourth floor of the barn. They had the elevator loaded with items, and my dad was manning the controls as he allowed the elevator box to descend. My brother, it seems, was higher up, and observed as the elevator box got stuck on a two-by-four and began to tip... my brother dissolved into laughter as the junk proceeded to pour from the two sided box. He laughed for 30 minutes, so I am told.

We traipsed across the third floor and looked over and behind a small partition. 20-30 slender green bottles reflected back at us. Some were empty, some corked and containing a liquid. My dad opened one of them once, and declared that it smelled like wine. We are not given to wine tasting and have no information about the gustatory sensations it may produce. Who knows when it was made.
Shortly thereafter the party ended.

The Brother Arrives

It was Monday, the 19th of December. The happenings of the day itself were relatively normal... but the day was made special by anticipation... Anticipation of the arrival of a young man who is very dear to me.

The hour approached, and my mother and I drove to PDX in my dad's Scion hatchback. As we waited I read in "Persuasion" by Jane Austen. The flight was delayed because they had to de-ice the wings in Denver, but my brother arrived safe and sound before midnight and we drove home.
My dad had just arrived back from Alturas, California where he spent a few days visiting our old friends the Johnsons and doing some videotaping at the local elementary school.
We stayed up until 3 am and then hit the hay.
***
Tuesday my brother accompanied me to the research lab holiday party at Grempsey's, an American/Cajun restaurant in Corvallis. Somewhat ironically, one major topic of discussion was the problems with the French -- and there we were eating food with French influences.
I showed him around the vet school. As we walked into the large animal hospital, a forklift came toward us bearing a dead colt. So much for a pleasant introduction to my vet school. :) It's sort of funny, really, depending how you look at it.
The Goertzens had us over for supper, and the evening became reminiscent of the fateful night in summer of 2004 when we stayed until midnight and Peter told Matt about the bookstore job at Faith Builders which my brother ended up taking. By rights, this evening should serve to undo the harm of the previous Goertzen midnight visit, and bring my brother back to Oregon. :) Actually, if Peter and Matt end up writing the book they were talking about, Matt might have to move back so they could work on it together. Wishful thinking, I know...