Everyone’s a Horse Girl
We all knew that one girl in 2nd grade who liked horses just a little too much. I mean she was decked out, from her shirt, to her socks, to her book bag, she was all about the horses. She knew every breed and could probably quote Seabiscuit in its entirety.
So what happens when that horse girl grows up? She decides to go to college, she has to pick a major and her entire life she just loved horses so much, so she wants to take care of them. So she finds a school with an equestrian program and there we have it she is finally met with all the other horse girls in the tristate area. She finds her place, and she is on the Western equestrian team and in every animal based class she manages to do all of her projects on horses. She is loving it.
Then there is me and I just don’t get it. I mean I came into a school, where every single person in my major (I imagine this was agriculture specific honestly) was the horse girl (or, as I very quickly learned, the dairy cow person) (sorry for my intense use of parentheses in this sentence). To me it was weird, and I’m sure we’re all tired of my “I’m just a city girl amidst the suburban farm kids” narrative but that really was what it felt like being in my major at my school. I distinctly remember my first ever animal science class my freshman year where everyone had to introduce themselves and say their favorite animal. Every single person kept saying “dairy cow”, “horse” (except probably a specific horse, I really can’t name horses), or “chicken” and I was one of maybe three people who said an animal that can’t be found in agriculture. In that same class, I also had the pleasure of sticking my arm into a cow, which was something that I had wanted to do ever since I discovered that that is how you can feel a fetal calf. I was so freaking excited and that difference between me and the rest of my class was highlighted because everyone else kind of judged me for being so enthused as if this wasn’t something I’ve done my whole life. But it wasn’t something I’ve ever done, in fact it was the first time I was ever in front of a cow, and it was always little things like that that always made me feel separate from them.
So yes, I did not fit in in my class, and a big portion of it was my own fault. I didn’t get the farm person and they didn’t get me, and I never tried to mesh with it. It wasn’t until my last year at school that I finally started making friends in my major and then BOOM I graduated. Here are these people that it took me three years to finally start talking to, and I actually liked them. In fact, a lot of them, like me, didn’t like how much focus my professors put on learning about the dairy cow. And it kinda stinks that it took me three years to kind of build up a basis for aquaintenship (not a word, get over it) with them, which is funny considering all of my friends as it is are so different from me, it was just different when it came to non-human interests. (With that said, I really love goats! Easily the one farm animal I can learn about all day.)
Now as I reflect upon my years at school, and start facebook stalking the people I will be going to vet school with, I realize that there are a lot of animals in the world. I mean A LOT OF ANIMALS. And I just happen to be interested in wildlife, but there are people who are interested in big animals and agriculture animals, others in domestic animals, others in marine life etc. etc. So hopefully, going into vet school I’m not as specified in who I am comfortable talking to. Maybe I’ll even become friends with a horse girl.
Anyways, I hope this little trip into what life was like in school was fun to read. I’ll see you all on Friday
