Thoughts

I started my morning with my usual breakfast then checking the blogs I follow regularly. Aside from the veterinary one (I’ll come back to this) Heliocentric’s review of mana regen got me thinking of flasks again, especially since it linked back to Hamlet’s post about spirit vs. int  flasks. Also his healing theory articles, which I will have to go back to when I am not in class and have more time. But reading that, and reading through the comments, makes me wonder. I am firmly in the Int flask camp, and every now and then when I want to put things in the guild bank and see the 3 stacks of spirit flasks I sigh and shake my head. We have 1 healer who uses them (that I know of- maybe more do in flex and don’t tell me) and I wonder often if I should ask him why. Why, when you are healing normal SoO, do you feel you need more spirit? I haven’t used a spirit flask in ages, and I know when I run out of mana it is either entirely my fault for healing too freely, or still partly my fault cause I’m solo healing after our other healer died. And in general, unless someone died because they stood in the Big Red Circle of Death or whatever the fight’s equivalent is, I consider it my fault. Unless you’re the stupid hunter chasing after Thok. That’s all on you buddy. 

But it’s been making me wonder, should I discuss that? I wish we had a guild website that was truly functional- I’m not sure what the heck this interim stop-gap thing is, but “widely used by guildies” it is not. Speaking of, need to ask the GM if I should advertise that a bit. I have a lot of resources (read: other blogs by people who do the math) to share. And that tree-slap DPS thing, which makes me giggle. And the comment on healing priority that is kinda true.

Anyway, back to other things- I’ll leave the flasks alone unless something comes up. On to a brief recap of raiding- Thursday night Garrosh got us many more times. Many. Based on a few things said, I think our RL there feel like he is failing us, and I need to let him know there are 10 people in that raid, and we all have to improve on that fight. That kinda goes back to him trying to find ways to deal with the mechanics that let the DPS ignore them. Now there was talk of gearing up some alts, cause that raid has 2 ranged DPS and the rest are melee which makes some things a little tougher.

Friday’s raid went smoothly enough. We were moving slowly, but still got 4 bosses down easily, leaving us to start on Seigecrafter on Wednesday. I am hoping we can get to Garrosh early on Wednesday and have some decent time to work on him. 

On to the vet things. One of the vet blogs I read is Vets Behaving Badly. And something that comes up there from time to time is how vets appear in the public eye. One of the posts recently mentioned a suicide. Vets have a pretty high suicide rate, and there are lots of things people link to contributing to that. Compassion fatigue is a big one. I’m not sure some people realize how attached your vet clinic might be to their pets. If your pet visits regularly for some reason or another- regular lab work, boarding, needs to be hospitalized for a few days- it doesn’t take a lot of time to like an animal. Heck, I named my anatomy dog after a boarder at a clinic I used to work at. She was deceased, and she’d been a pleasant dog who I really enjoyed coming in. It was a good name, and my anatomy dog was going to teach me a lot too and I thought it fair she have a name as well. Also named a pet in WoW after her so I’d remember.

But back to vets. For all the good clients who listen and love their pets and would go to the moon and back for them, it only takes one jerk to ruin a day or even month. And those are usually the ones people remember. I tend to be rather disconnected from other people’s emotions, so I don’t worry too much about it personally. (Unless I am tired, then I cry easily, but that’s another post) I do worry a bit about my friends. I worry about my family not understanding what I do. I hear repeatedly “you can’t care more about someone’s pet than the owner does.” And I see letters to the clinic, thanking vets and staff for their care, and hear the stories about the genuinely good people. I know they’re out there, it’s just that the bad people are so much more vocal.

And they are. With social media now, people can get really loud on the internet, and gather attention from people who would otherwise not be aware. The whole story, both sides, never gets across on the internet. I haven’t followed the story too much, but it makes me sad, and I dislike portions of humanity a lot more after hearing stories like that. I just want people to know- most vets aren’t in it for the money. Yes, we want to live a comfortable life, but who doesn’t? There probably are money-grubbing vets out there, just like every other profession. I want to be a vet because I love animals, and want to do my best to take care of them. I kinda dread the day when all I can offer someone is euthanasia for a fixable problem because it cost > $2000 to fix. I don’t want to have to turn people away because they can’t afford care.

But I’m going to leave vet school more than $250,000 in debt, and by the time I pay it all back, I will have paid a lot more than that. I’ve kinda resigned myself to being eternally in debt. I won’t be able to take on much more by treating things for free. Pets are wonderful, and do a lot of good for people. But they are a privilege, not a right. I’ve worked at clinics since I was 16, and in that time I’ve had exactly 2 people call up and talk to be about the cost of care for a pet, on an annual basis, before getting one. I told both of them that I thought it was a really cool thing to do. Now that I’m learning more, I realize there are things I didn’t tell them about the importance of emergency funds, but they have the annual cost of a dog or cat.

Anyway, that rambled a bit: my point is your vet can care a lot more about your pets than you think. Your reactions can affect them more than you anticipate. Most vets will have, if not the houseload of debt I will have for going out of state, at least a boatload of debt. We’re not here to get rich and play with puppies.  I know the particular case I mentioned wasn’t about money, but that is the most common complaint I hear from clients. 

So my second point is this: bullying is a big deal, and it doesn’t end when high school is over. It just takes different paths, uses different outlets. I’ve never been bullied. I’ve never noticed a lot of bullying around me, but I think that has to do with my personality. It happens, and the fact that people can be so horrible to others, for usually such stupid, stupid reasons leaves me speechless. Why in the world would you put so much effort into being nasty? Makes no sense to me.