MSRA ⇒ Final Year (BACK IN PROGRESS)

⇒ five

Bring and early at 7:30, Bridge and I were up getting ready for our 8 am internships. Bridget had to go to the school's media center in student success while I had to walk past the barns to the vet's office. I put on my navy blue scrub top and jeans, followed by my new internship-only sneakers. In a small bag, I put my internship books, some pens and pencils, and a water bottle. I said bye to Bridget as I grabbed a granola bar and my stethoscope before heading out.

I checked my phone as I walked over, my ID and keys jingling along as I read my daily good morning text from Noah. As I replied with an obscene amount of heart emojis, I heard someone walking up behind me. I turned to see an unfamiliar girl approaching me, also wearing scrubs.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, doing a half jog, half run to catch up to me. "You must be Kat!"

"Uh, yeah," I smiled at her. She was just a bit taller than me, with a darker complexion and curly brown hair that was pulled together in a bun.

"I'm Olivia, but you can call me Olive," she grinned. "Abby told me you were also doing the vet tech internship."

"Oh, you're Abby's new roommate!" I exclaimed, tossing the trash from my granola bar into a trashcan. "It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too!" she laughed. "So, have you met Dr. Sharon yet?"

I could now see the vet's building just down the path we were walking. "Yes!" I replied. "She's awesome. She helped me out a lot last year when my horse got really injured."

"Oh, that's good," said. "Wait, no, not good your horse got injured; good that she's so great."

We both laughed as we entered the clinic's back door, where we were told to enter. Just as our instructions said, there was a sign-in paper for Olive and me for our internship. As we were signing our names, Dr. Sharon stepped out of her office.

"Hey, girls!" she said with a wide smile. "So glad to see you both prepared and here on time. So, as you know, I'm going to be doing small exams during midterms and finals here - they'll be practical exams, hands-on, so I recommend taking notes and getting as much hands-on experience as possible. And, if you have any questions or are unsure of anything, please let me know! As long as we don't have an urgent client, I don't mind just teaching you guys!"

Dr. Sharon spoke a bit longer about her expectations for the internship and what we would be doing, and Olive and I excitedly sat there soaking it all up.

"So, we'll start with basics today. We don't have any clients yet, so we'll be learning how to take TPR - temperature, pulse, respiration," she explained. "Temperature is pretty self-explanatory, the pulse is heart rate, and respiration is breathing."

"Sounds good!" Olive smiled wide. We both grabbed our notebooks as she led us out the doors and to one of the school horse barns.

-

After about two hours of practice, Olive and I had been thoroughly taught how to take TPR.

"The first day of our internship, in the books," I high-fived Olive as we left the clinic.

"Yes!" she laughed. "Hey, let me get your number so we can stay in touch."

"Sure," I said as I pulled out my phone. We put our numbers in each other's pgones and quickly headed to the dorms to change before our next class. I threw on some shorts and a tank top before rushing over to the math and sciences building for college statistics. As I entered the class, I saw Bridget sitting at a table, absentmindedly chewing on a pencil eraser.

"Wazzup," she said, still staring off into space. "How was the clinic?"

"Good!" I exclaimed, grabbing my planner from my bag. "Abby's new roommate is also working with Dr. Sharon."

"Oh?"

Well, that got her attention.

"Yep," I nodded. "She's super nice. You'll like her a lot."

Just as she started bombarding me with questions, Olive walked into the classroom. She noticed me, waved, and headed over to us.

"Is that her?" Bridge looked up.

"Hey, I'm Olive!" she said as she sat next to her. "You must be Bridget. Kat told me all about you."

Turns out, those two were a match made in heaven. I'm not much of a gossiper, but it turns out Olive is. The entire class period, they were talking about some scandal that happened at Olive's old school, and Bridget soaked it up like a sponge. Thankfully, we didn't have much going on in class.

After our stats class wrapped up, Bridget and Olive headed to a different classroom for their computer science class. I had to walk to the English building for my literature class but was pleasantly surprised to find Abby sitting at one of the desks.

"You met Olive?" she asked as I took a seat next to her.

"I met Olive, and then Bridget stole her from me," I laughed. "Those two will never stop talking."

Abby just smiled and shook her head. "Her and I stayed up pretty late talking last night. She's really nice! I really like her."

"I'm so glad!" I said, just as the teacher walked in to start class.

It was another introduction to the teacher and the curriculum, another syllabus, and another short, pointless assignment to kick the class off with. We then walked over to the dining hall and found our crew. We all ate lunch together and talked about the day.

"So, Olive, what riding major are you?" Bridget asked as we ate.

"Oh, I'm a dressage major," she smiled. "But, I do love cross country too. Showjumping is definitely not my strong point."

"That's so cool," Bridget replied. She continued on talking about how dressage was almost her major, and so on and so forth.

Ready to get to our riding class, we finished eating pretty quickly and all headed back to Acacia to change for riding. I threw on tan breeches, a gray sleeveless polo, a light blue C4 belt, and my black riding socks. Bridget and I headed to the barn together, and as she got Cisco ready on the cross ties, I quick-release tied Finn in his stall. After thoroughly brushing him, I grabbed his light blue tack set along with my jumping tack and brought it to his stall. Once he was all tacked up, I put my gloves and spurs on and brought him out of his stall. I secured my helmet on my head and began on the walk down to the cross-country course. Abby was down there already talking to a few of the other girls, so I joined her.

"Hello, everyone," I heard Anne's voice announce. "It is a pleasure to see all of your smiling faces. We're going to start our fitness tests soon, but I'd like to introduce our coaches first. I'm Anne, this is Beth, and then Lynn - I'm sure most of you know them from years prior. New this year, an exciting addition to the eventing department, I'd like to introduce Cami Taylor!"

"Cami?" I exclaimed, whipping my head around to find her walking toward our group.

"Hello, everyone!"