Wet Cleanup on Aisle 5

The first assignment, and I’m already failing…

T minus three days to vet school (well, vet school orientation), and already I am having trouble with the first assignment.

The assignment is this: “Please bring an object, small enough to be held in your hand, which represents or symbolizes for you the meaning of veterinary medicine in your life.”

First, some background. CSU’s vet school orientation lasts one week, and three days/two nights of that week are spent at Pingree Park, the school’s mountain campus. So, sorta like summer camp. Pingree is supposed to be a bonding experience for the incoming class, and everyone I’ve talked to either loved it… or hated it.

Now, I have to admit that there is a part of me that is cynical, thinking that I am a little too old to play get-to-know-you games. Actually, age is irrelevant. I didn’t enjoy team-building games when I worked for the feds 15 years ago, either.

Part of me thinks it’ll be fun. There’s hiking, that guy from Animal Planet, karaoke… Might as well let myself enjoy a few days in the mountains.

We’re supposed to bring our object with us to Pingree Park, but I’m having the darndest time coming up with a suitable object. I don’t generally have trouble with this kind of touchy-feeliness, but I am having trouble reconciling this sort of “fluffy” assignment with an academic, university setting.

I have bouts wherein I consider what veterinary medicine really does mean to me, and come up with all sorts of abstract concepts that can’t be symbolized by an object (except, perhaps, one of those little garden rocks with inspiring words engraved into them, and I refuse to bring one of those). Then I have bouts wherein my mischievous side takes over, and I come up with all sorts of inappropriate objects. A la:

1) The vet I work for. This was her idea. She said, “I’m busy that day. I can’t be your object.” Besides which, she doesn’t fit in my hand.
2) I just watched Legally Blonde again recently. Remember the über-feminist girl/token lesbian? How fun would it be to pretend to be her and bring, oh, some neuter leftovers in a jar?
3) A marble. Clearly, I have lost mine.
4) A wad of cash, or a Matchbox Porsche. I could go on and on about how veterinary medicine is going to make us all rich! Rich, I tell you, rich!
5) A rock. This was actually a serious thought, seeing as my first degree is in geology. But if I brought a rock, no one would think I was taking the exercise seriously.
6) A beer. ‘Cause it’s all fun and games.
7) A can of alphabet soup, because I’m only doing it for more letters behind my name.

See how much fun this exercise can be?

I finally stumbled upon a suitable object last night, and the more I sit with the idea, the more I’m okay with it. But–I’m not going to tell you what it is. You have to find your own!