It took a couple of weeks for the findings to be tested and analyzed, but Cricket's necropsy results are finally complete. It turned out she died of mycoplasma, a very common infection for adults rats to die from and contract (it's one of the top 2 causes of non-old age death in rats, along with cancer). The necropsy found an abscess on her lungs, and the abscess was tested and confirmed to be myco. What's bizarre about Cricket's case is that she showed no typical myco symptoms (all of which Siam has and is being treated for), which usually include respiratory distress, raspy breathing, frequent sneezing, wheezing, etc. Had she displayed symptoms, like Siam we would've taken her to the vet and gotten her antibiotics.

Siam, meanwhile, seems to be doing pretty well on his own. I'm sure he'd be happier with a buddy, but he's not showing signs of distress or loneliness like other rats I've had when they lost their buddies. He's enjoyed the extra attention and treats he's getting, and since he's old and lazy mostly seems content to nap in his hammock. I am a little concerned he will get lonely when we leave him at bloodewine's parents' place without us for 10 days, but hopefully it'll be ok. Siam, if you decide to croak of old age soon, please do it in the next 48 hours or wait until we get back!

My wonderful old rat Cricket had to be somewhat unexpectedly put to sleep early this morning. She died at the vet's office at about 8:30am. Last night she was acting normal and active, running around the couch, snuggling in my sweatshirt, and eating her favorite treats. Sure, she'd lost weight, and she was less active than she once was, but at over 2 she was an old lady in rat years and was expected to slow down some. So to wake up this morning and find her cold and barely breathing was a bit of a shock.

Amanda took her to the Davis vet center to be put to sleep before class. She reportedly died very peacefully. The vet hospital is very confused as to what could have led to her quick downturn, so they requested our permission to do a necropsy on her. We'll find out in a few days what happened.

Here are some pics of naked Cricket:
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Cricket is survived by her cagemate Siam, but I'll be surprised if he outlives her more than a few months. He is also old, and he never fully recovered from the bout of pneumonia he was diagnosed with in September (he's on antibiotics and a bronchial dilator twice a day for chronic respiratory issues from the pneumonia). It's strange to think of being without rats, but for now what I really have to focus on is finishing my degree.

RIP Cricket. Your death was so sudden I keep looking over to the cage and expecting to see you. The apartment isn't the same without your lively and charming presence.

I've survived my first week of my new schedule (Mondays off / studying, Tuesdays in class for 6 hours and commuting, then three eight-hour days of work Wednesday - Friday). I'm pretty tired but think the schedule will be just fine. It even appears that a lot of the student events (club meetings, unofficial happy hours) are taking place on Tuesday evenings, which hopefully means I won't completely lose touch with my classmates. Vet school classes also officially started this past Tuesday. They get to play with kittens in their handling class! (Basically, the school is taunting them with rescue kittens in hopes everyone will adopt one at the end of the quarter. Sorry, but Darwin is enough cat for me!)

Classes are ok. Immigrants and refugees seems like it will be really interesting. Our first assignment is to interview an immigrant, so I'm going to interview my dad this weekend. Research is a little meh. I'm trying to think of my project for the year. So far my idea (based on something I can do in 9 mos and data available at internship) is to possibly compare the demographics of our program to general prison demographics. Mental Health Policy is extremely boring, which was to be expected.

Internship isn't bad so far. I have my own desk and computer with internet! yeah! My supervisor is pretty awesome too. She's one of those keep is real, no bullshit types, which I do well with. So far I've mostly been observing meetings, groups, and sitting around trying not to get in people's way. Hopefully I'll be trained more and can do more soon.

Sooo... here I am in really, really boring Vacaville. Yeah, this town pretty much sucks. It's really hot here - yesterday is hit a ridiculous 108 degrees(amazing how the weather goes to really nice in Berkeley to horrendous just a 45-min drive away), and there's not a lot to do, we're quickly finding out. Since Vacaville is the next town over from Fairfield, which has Travis Air Force Base, a lot of military people live here. It's also a bedroom community for Davis, Sacramento, the near East Bay, etc. The apartment complex seems to be mostly families, some military, some not. There's a hilarious 5-year-old upstairs who comes down sometimes multiple times a day to play with the cat and the rats. He adores them all! Sometimes it's a pain, but it's good socialization for Darwin, who's so shy he runs under the bed when anyone he doesn't know is around. He's already not instantly running away when unfamiliar people are around! But yeah, restaurants. It's mostly boring middle America chains (think Olive Garden, Chevys), although we've found one really good local Chinese place and a few more mediocre family run restaurants. There doesn't seem to be a lot in terms of nightlife, although I haven't really checked it out yet. Most age-appropriate entertainment, as well as young people, seem to be in Davis.

The good news is that we asked sweetly to get a 10-month lease rather than a year, and they said yes. The apartment itself (a 2br/2ba, about 850 sq ft) is quite nice, aside from some 70-style decor and a rather small kitchen. It's nice to have pretty much all the extremities fit in closets, rather than have them spilling over everywhere like in the last apartment (which had no storage space to speak of, just one small bedroom and one small coat closet). The second full bath is a nice plus too. I think this is actually probably more space than 2 people need, since instead of stuff spilling out we have gaps where furniture and stuff could go, but it's nice not to be super cramped and tripping over stuff in every which direction.

Grad school started Friday with a field work meeting. It was nice to see classmates again but also a distressing reminder of how far away I am. My concentration is offering the option of a capstone course next year, but the time that works for everyone but me is 8am-10am Monday morning, which would mean making the long commute the day I don't have class just for a pass/fail course, paying a ton for parking, paying the $4 toll, and getting up really early and hitting rush hour. So it doesn't look like it's going to happen for me. I must've looked cranky about it because my FW advisor called me over after class and asked if I was mad at the school! LOL. I've e-mailed my profs to let them know I won't be in class next week for training, so nothing to report back on there for awhile.

I'm hoping the temporary stay here will get easier once I get busy with schoolwork and internship in the next couple of weeks.

On Monday night, my rat Ruby died. As I'd mentioned in a post a few months ago, the poor thing had been sick for quite awhile. Although she didn't get any more tumors, she kept fighting a variety of other health ailments, including a skin condition that made patches of her hair fall out. Her body finally gave in, but she at least died peacefully in her sleep in her favorite place in the cage. Her sister rat, Pie, is really lonely and is now being treated for a chest infection that she contracted from Ruby before Ruby died. I didn't get much sleep that night.

On Tuesday, Obama won. I was following election returns in my 4-6 class on my laptop when I saw that he won Ohio. I sort of figured at that point that he was going to win early, so I skipped the gym to watch the returns. Sure enough, it was official at 8pm! The scene was absolutely nuts in Berkeley - people were honking horns, screaming, and partying in the streets. I also kind of wished I'd had the foresight to vote absentee and fly back to my hometown, Chicago, to be in Grant Park for Obama's speech. It was still nice to watch on TV. I was too exhausted from Monday to join in on anything, but I think I might go celebrate a little tonight.

Wednesday I woke up to the news that Prop 8 had passed. A lot of my happiness from Obama went away. This isn't just about gay marriage - it's also about the fact that California is the first constitution to be amended to take rights away from people, rather than protect rights. Regardless of each individuals' feelings on same sex marriage, I find it disgusting that 52% of Californians found it ok to strip rights out of a constitution. If we keep following that line of thought, all kinds of measures to take away rights could be introduced. We could have measures about separate but equal water fountains and interracial marriage. (BTW, when the CA courts ruled that interracial marriage was constitutional, the majority of Californians were against that ruling.) I hope the courts determine this constitutional. Meanwhile, it's a good thing I'm enrolled in graduate school in California, or I might be very tempted to come back to Illinois!

What a roller coaster this is, and I'm not sure it's over yet...

Now that I'll be living in a place in five days that is cat-friendly, I have a cat! I didn't plan on having one until the actual move, but he sort of dropped into our laps six weeks ago and has primarily been living at Amanda's vet clinic until we can take him to the cat-friendly place. What happened: a little (3 month old) orange tabby kitty from the shelter came to Amanda's clinic to be neutered before an adoption, which is a common occurrence. It turned out he couldn't be neutered yet (in short, his balls hadn't and still haven't dropped), and the vet did an exam and discovered he has a fairly severe (Grade 3 on a 1 - 6 scale of abnormality) heart murmur. The potential owners decided not to adopt him. Because nobody really wants a kitten with a heart defect, the shelter was going to put him down. Because he had such a wonderful temperament and I love orange tabbies, he came home instead. The shelter was so glad we took him off our hands we didn't even have to pay the adoption fee! His name, because he is going to be a scientist someday, is Darwin. Even with the heart murmur, he should be able to live a normal, hopefully not shortened by heart troubles, life as an indoor cat. However, because of the heart issues, he's going to be a small cat (he's now almost 5 months old and barely over 4lbs) and slow to mature, hence the inability to get him neutered yet. I'd actually wanted to get a special needs cat that likely wouldn't have otherwise had a home, so I don't mind. (Previously I'd been planning on getting a cat with FIV - feline AIDS when I moved, but she found another home.) Now that he'll be legal in the next apartment, I'm very excited!

I'm also sad because our albino rat, Ruby, had her third operation in two months. She's had two tumors and an abscess, which is a lot of health issues for a rat who's only 16 months old. (Female rats are prone to tumors but not usually until after the age of 2 or so.) If she gets another one, I don't want to put her through surgery again - hence, she'll probably just be kept comfortable until her quality of life becomes poor.

Yesterday was my last day at work! It was difficult to say goodbye to the clients but exciting that I'm moving on to something more fabulous. My coworkers had a party for me last night, which I paid $40 for the privilege to attend and mostly seemed to be an excuse for my new boss, who just took her kids and separated from her husband, to get plastered and hit on men 15 years her junior. Meh, it's over now. The equine therapy center, where I've been volunteering Saturdays for the past year, is taking me out to dinner tonight. Yay. :-) After that, I have a ton of moving crap that I'm not looking forward to doing up until the big day, Thursday. I can't wait to be out of her in a few short days.

The good news is that I've been very happy since moving to SLO. The apartment is all unpacked and looks fabulous, and Amanda and I both love it. I've had a chance to do all kinds of fun things, like fourth of July beach party, SLO Pride, and volunteering in the Triathlon tomorrow, and Amanda and I now have two pet rats on top of it!!! :D Their names are Ruby (a shy albino who likes hiding in small spaces) and Piebald (an outgoing black and white rat who loves eater and running on windowsills). But shhhhh, 'cause our apartment complex doesn't actually allow pets.

The bad news is that almost four weeks after finishing City Year, I still don't have a job. I've been working extremely hard at it, but the job market just isn't that great around here. So far, I've had interviews with Tri-counties Regional Center (as a case manager for developmentally disabled children and/or adults), Applied Learning Systems (as a tutor for autistic kids / teens), Boys and Girls Club (as a case manager for teenagers on parole), and the EOC (as a health educator for teenage males). I also have an interview this Thursday with the AIDS support network as their volunteer coordinator.

Unfortunately, it looked like I had a job, and then it fell through. Applied Learning Systems was going to hire a bunch of us as tutors (with great pay / benefits, etc), but then their funding for the new program fell through indefinitely. Shitty. I've been kept on file there but told I should try to find other work. Still waiting to hear from Tri-Counties (in spite of the voicemail i left for them three fucking days ago) and the EOC. The BaGC position was part-time, so I don't want it. It's just very frustrating because I was all excited to begin working as a tutor, only to have to slip between my fingers.

It would be great to get a job offer before I head to Chicago with Amanda on Friday for my grandmother's 80th birthday, but I'm not counting on it. just crossing my fingers I get something decent soon...