The Path to Vet School
I wondered as I read today’s strip, why April never asks the question that we are continually asking, which is: If Elly and John move into the little tiny retirement house and Mike and Deanna move into their old house by 2007, the projected end time for For Better or For Worse, then what becomes of April? The options are:
1. She lives with Mike and Deanna. If this were to happen, then you could say “hello” to April, surrogate parent. Neither Mike nor Deanna wants to raise their kids. The strip where Lovey takes over the kids for a time, and it showed Deanna running full out to get away from them has left this impression on me. Plus, we have gone on and on about Mike’s lack of desire to be a parent. If April was with them, I think she would suddenly find her brother and sister-in-law expecting her to share the parenting load.
2. She lives with Elly and John in the small house. John and Elly and April now have all called the new place tiny. If April does this, she can be guaranteed that during university breaks, her room will have been taken over by choo-choos.
3. She lives in Mtigwaki with Liz. The problem here is that Mtigwaki is not where the high school is. It is in Spruce Narrows. Not only that, but the strips have left us with the clear impression that the education is substandard in that area, with the teachers making up their curriculum and making up their rules and apparently not having to meet any kind of Ontario education standards. I expect April would chafe at this arrangement. The other part is that Liz and April get on each others’ nerves and she would lose a certain degree of respect within the community whenever April played some practical joke on her.
4. April goes to Winnipeg to live with Aunt Bev and learn all about horse-whispering. This idea occurred to me, and I couldn’t let it go. It seemed so obvious. If this is what the Lynn intends, then she can’t tell us in advance, because it is a major plot point, but she makes it obvious something is going on, because April’s future is never mentioned. It also makes the separation between April and Becky a necessary ingredient. Unlike Mike and Liz, who maintained their relationships with their best friends after high school, April is clearly not going to, because if she had Becky as a best friend, then she would have a strong reason not to go to Winnipeg. It also makes the line Gerald dropped about the special needs kids make more sense. If Lynn goes this route, then Gerald is next to be taken out of April’s life.
So, I enjoyed posting as April’s cousin Laura today. I got in a little Winnipeg snark, which is a realm that I have not really touched. Also, I had the chance to research veterinary schools in Canada. qnjones so nicely pointed out there are 4 veterinary schools in Canada. That is a freakishly small number for a whole country. It smacks of a profession that intentionally limits its numbers to inflate the salary of its members.
I checked out the curriculum under the local Winnipeg school, the University of Manitoba, and it specifically mentioned Pre-Veterinary Medicine in Agriculture as being a lead-in to going to Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and not any other vet schools. It also pointed out the vet school was very difficult to get into, and persons should be prepared to turn their pre-vet degree into a different with another year of courses, if they didn’t make it.
Remember to keep Agricultural and Food Science degree requirements in mind when choosing courses. If you are not admitted to Veterinary Medicine, you may decide to pursue an Animal Systems, B.Sc. (Ag.) degree.
My immediate thought was, “Laura’s degree was written in the FBoFW website Who’s Who as Agriculture. This all makes sense now. Laura actually did pre-vet with her degree. Then she couldn’t get in, so she worked at a local college. Then she got in and started back to school.” I took great delight in writing this material on April’s Real Blog. It looked like this is an area in which Lynn had actually done her homework, which I guess she should have since her actual sister-in-law is a vet, as I recollect.
Constable Paul Wright – He is in the midst of a visit to Liz, which will conclude tomorrow. He only gets 2 days at a time, sort of like the weekend, except his time off is rarely going to be a weekend, since that is the time when crime is the most active. I have been writing the Shiimsa "Angra Mainyu" story with qnjones. She came up with this very clever way to get into the mind of a cat. It is genius stuff, and I am trying to keep up.
Jeremy Jones – He didn’t do a lot today. Ever since qnjones posting as Becky described their relationship as exclusive friends with benefits, I have been playing off that idea, with other girls considering him available, to create a little dramatic tension in his relationship with Becky. It will either (a) make Becky defend her relationship with Jeremy against other girls or (b) show that Becky really does think of the relationship as an open one. Either option is interesting. I am playing off my own experience in high school, when after my very first high school girlfriend started up with me, then her chief rival in school started openly flirting with me. It really ticked of my girlfriend. However, when my girlfriend dropped me to marry a 20-year-old truck driver, that chief rival wouldn’t even look at me. So, I figure part of Jeremy’s appeal is that Becky is popular and other girls may want to steal from her.
Howard – Tantric Celibacy coming up. So far, I have found plenty of websites to tell me how wonderful it is, but none of them tell what it is. As near as I can tell, the definition of what it is may vary dramatically from teacher to teacher. I will choose the one I consider the funniest for Marjee, Becky and Howard. Becky listed this one for Saturday and my boy tentatively has a chess tournament that day, so I may be late in getting to the story. If aprilp_katje posting as Marjee and qnjones posting as Becky want to go ahead without me, they should do so.
Tomorrow’s strip: April. Man girl. 4 zingers in a row this week and I didn’t even mind the sticky-out tongue when she goes “Ah-hah!” Oh, aprilp_katje, you are going to have so much fun with what you consider to be “gross stuff” on the internet. I look forward to tomorrow’s Blog entry.
1. She lives with Mike and Deanna. If this were to happen, then you could say “hello” to April, surrogate parent. Neither Mike nor Deanna wants to raise their kids. The strip where Lovey takes over the kids for a time, and it showed Deanna running full out to get away from them has left this impression on me. Plus, we have gone on and on about Mike’s lack of desire to be a parent. If April was with them, I think she would suddenly find her brother and sister-in-law expecting her to share the parenting load.
2. She lives with Elly and John in the small house. John and Elly and April now have all called the new place tiny. If April does this, she can be guaranteed that during university breaks, her room will have been taken over by choo-choos.
3. She lives in Mtigwaki with Liz. The problem here is that Mtigwaki is not where the high school is. It is in Spruce Narrows. Not only that, but the strips have left us with the clear impression that the education is substandard in that area, with the teachers making up their curriculum and making up their rules and apparently not having to meet any kind of Ontario education standards. I expect April would chafe at this arrangement. The other part is that Liz and April get on each others’ nerves and she would lose a certain degree of respect within the community whenever April played some practical joke on her.
4. April goes to Winnipeg to live with Aunt Bev and learn all about horse-whispering. This idea occurred to me, and I couldn’t let it go. It seemed so obvious. If this is what the Lynn intends, then she can’t tell us in advance, because it is a major plot point, but she makes it obvious something is going on, because April’s future is never mentioned. It also makes the separation between April and Becky a necessary ingredient. Unlike Mike and Liz, who maintained their relationships with their best friends after high school, April is clearly not going to, because if she had Becky as a best friend, then she would have a strong reason not to go to Winnipeg. It also makes the line Gerald dropped about the special needs kids make more sense. If Lynn goes this route, then Gerald is next to be taken out of April’s life.
So, I enjoyed posting as April’s cousin Laura today. I got in a little Winnipeg snark, which is a realm that I have not really touched. Also, I had the chance to research veterinary schools in Canada. qnjones so nicely pointed out there are 4 veterinary schools in Canada. That is a freakishly small number for a whole country. It smacks of a profession that intentionally limits its numbers to inflate the salary of its members.
I checked out the curriculum under the local Winnipeg school, the University of Manitoba, and it specifically mentioned Pre-Veterinary Medicine in Agriculture as being a lead-in to going to Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and not any other vet schools. It also pointed out the vet school was very difficult to get into, and persons should be prepared to turn their pre-vet degree into a different with another year of courses, if they didn’t make it.
Remember to keep Agricultural and Food Science degree requirements in mind when choosing courses. If you are not admitted to Veterinary Medicine, you may decide to pursue an Animal Systems, B.Sc. (Ag.) degree.
My immediate thought was, “Laura’s degree was written in the FBoFW website Who’s Who as Agriculture. This all makes sense now. Laura actually did pre-vet with her degree. Then she couldn’t get in, so she worked at a local college. Then she got in and started back to school.” I took great delight in writing this material on April’s Real Blog. It looked like this is an area in which Lynn had actually done her homework, which I guess she should have since her actual sister-in-law is a vet, as I recollect.
Constable Paul Wright – He is in the midst of a visit to Liz, which will conclude tomorrow. He only gets 2 days at a time, sort of like the weekend, except his time off is rarely going to be a weekend, since that is the time when crime is the most active. I have been writing the Shiimsa "Angra Mainyu" story with qnjones. She came up with this very clever way to get into the mind of a cat. It is genius stuff, and I am trying to keep up.
Jeremy Jones – He didn’t do a lot today. Ever since qnjones posting as Becky described their relationship as exclusive friends with benefits, I have been playing off that idea, with other girls considering him available, to create a little dramatic tension in his relationship with Becky. It will either (a) make Becky defend her relationship with Jeremy against other girls or (b) show that Becky really does think of the relationship as an open one. Either option is interesting. I am playing off my own experience in high school, when after my very first high school girlfriend started up with me, then her chief rival in school started openly flirting with me. It really ticked of my girlfriend. However, when my girlfriend dropped me to marry a 20-year-old truck driver, that chief rival wouldn’t even look at me. So, I figure part of Jeremy’s appeal is that Becky is popular and other girls may want to steal from her.
Howard – Tantric Celibacy coming up. So far, I have found plenty of websites to tell me how wonderful it is, but none of them tell what it is. As near as I can tell, the definition of what it is may vary dramatically from teacher to teacher. I will choose the one I consider the funniest for Marjee, Becky and Howard. Becky listed this one for Saturday and my boy tentatively has a chess tournament that day, so I may be late in getting to the story. If aprilp_katje posting as Marjee and qnjones posting as Becky want to go ahead without me, they should do so.
Tomorrow’s strip: April. Man girl. 4 zingers in a row this week and I didn’t even mind the sticky-out tongue when she goes “Ah-hah!” Oh, aprilp_katje, you are going to have so much fun with what you consider to be “gross stuff” on the internet. I look forward to tomorrow’s Blog entry.
posted by howard at 9:32 PM
4 Comments:
I'm thinking the likeliest outcome, should the elder Pattersons buy the teeny-tiny house, is that April will move into said TT house with them. I don't think the Mt. Foobers will want to create the impression that Elly and John don't care about April (even though they've largely done so already--farming her out would make it too overt, I think).
qnjones,
Thanks for the information on vet schools. My sister maintained for years she wanted to be a vet, but when she got out of high school discovered it involved more science than she wanted. Now she breeds cats, which is closer to what she really wanted to do.
aprilp_katje,
You are probably right about farming April out, but I am going to wait to see what they do with April over the summer before I completely agree with you.
qnjones,
I feel fairly confident that my sister would not feel comfortable sticking her arm all the way into an animal a la James Herriot. She liked having lots of pets when she was young, so being a cat breeder is closer to what she really wanted. She just had to find a husband who would let her do that, and she eventually did.
I somehow expect that, given how Lynn plays fast and loose with house architecture, the little tiny house could be shown to have all kinds of room. Maybe a full liveable attic or a gigantic basement.
John is making an excuse to move that doesn't make sense unless you consider that Mike and Dee are supposed to move into their old house. It makes me wonder why.
Why is it necessary for Mike and Dee to move into the old house?
Why is it necessary for Elly and John to live down the road?
Are they setting up for an Everybody Loves Raymond scenario?
Then this chilling thought came to my mind. Maybe, Lynn Johnston is handing over the strip in 2007. Maybe one of her conditions in handing over the strip is that the character that most corresponds to her personally takes a back seat, so she doesn't have to agonize over what someone else does to the character. Maybe the strip will be relaunched as "For Better or For Worse: The Next Generation" and will focus on Mike and Dee, with occasional visits by Elly and John. What do you think?
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