Geriatric kryptonite

Apparently, I am a granddad magnet. Since I got back, I have been perved on by the extremely elderly AA guy, who asked me about a scar on my chest which he can’t have seen unless he was looking down my shirt. "Is that a burn scar?" he asked, pointing. Apparently, Mr. Elderly-and-Observant was looking in great detail.

Sigh.

I was also invited over for dinner by someone older than my father. This is a man who apparently owns 50 cats and is in contact with the White House for a symphony to commemorate the victims of 9/11 with a 2001-strong international orchestra with the surviving families of the victims standing behind this gigantic orchestra banging girders and ringing bells, with real cannons for emphasis, like the 1812 overture. So, elderly AND crazy. Go, me.

In other news, I spent a good hour in a lab the other day making female reproductive organs of production animals at various stages of pregnancy out of rubber balls, water balloons, various surgical supplies and My Little Pony toys. I am proud to say that I managed to fashion an extremely convincing ovary complete with corpus luteum out of a tiny water balloon and a rubber ball in a surgical glove. Take that, Project Runway! Sadly, our My Little Pony foetus was abnormally large for a 7-week pregnancy, but we had to work with what we had. I've also done my first ultrasound while armpit-deep in a gorgeous, albeit unhappy, Standardbred.

It's not all fun and games though. The first week alone has convinced me that I should be scared this year, very scared. The work started on day one and hasn't let up yet. I've been so tired that I only managed to properly unpack today. We've also been informed that there may be times where we need to take sexed-up yowling female cats back and simulate sex with it using a cotton swab. And no, once is not enough. All aprt of the job. Tres, glamourous. And I've come to the realization that much as I like my course, I really don't like where it is. I'm already counting the days...