RL Achievements and ToW

[Marah]

congrats Silver Link! And I can totally understand your reaction, I always have a similar one when people do sneaky stuff like that and surprise you!

[Alicorn]

Congrats Silver Link! Hehe, I can so picture you in that scene. XD I sometimes act like that to a surprise, all matters how it happens and what the surprise is. :3

[Fjorab_Teke]

Congrats! Sneaky SOB, hehe.

[Kantark]

Aww, congratulations!

[KauKrazy]

Achievement - I logged in over here, I think it's been a year or something since the last time. I have not been to NeoPets for a year too, today suddenly I felt like playing Hasee Bounce.

I've got my driver's licence in between, that's the biggest achievement. I'm very proud of it, as I never ever though I'd be able to do it.

P.S. Congrats Silver Link, that was so cute

[Xelio]

Woe - Hit a deer on the way home from work tonight. Or rather, a deer hit me. One was in the middle of the road, so I slammed the brakes. Two more came out of the field and one of them ran smack into my car. Deductible payment, here I come. ><

As for the deer, I hope she was all right. She ran away, at least.

[Marah]

*waves to kaukrazy*
Welcome back!

I'm glad you got away in one piece too Xelio. I'm going to pretend the deer learned a lesson in road crossing safety from it! (Unlikely, bit it would be nice)

[Kantark]

Hey, welcome back KauKrazy! And congrats on passing your test!

Xelio, glad you're OK - and I hope the car's not too badly damaged? I've had a couple of near-misses with deer, fortunately only close shaves.

Speaking of which, I narrowly avoided a ridiculous super-slow-motion crash into a telegraph pole just now, because I had the audacity to try and turn a corner at about 8mph. It's still snowing a lot here, at this rate I don't fancy my chances of getting to work tomorrow. Not sure if that's an achievement or woe.

[KauKrazy]

Thanks you guys! For some reason, every time I come back, I think nobody will remember me

Weird, for the last 3 or so years I get the urge to play NeoPets again when the Advent Calendar starts. It's such a silly activity but I love Christmas so I always seem to start playing again when it's that time of the year! And when I get back to NeoPets, I always get back to Neocolours too.

[Xelio]

Well Kantark, I think your work situation is why the term 'achieve-a-woe' was invented.

And I, too, go back to Neo or Subeta (or both if I'm on hiatus from the two) around the Christmas holidays. Gotta love (making fun of) the goofy animations and the snazzy avatar wardrobe items this time of year always brings.

[Kali_Lupine]

I just got back from setting up the first half of the paperwork for my disability retirement savings plan through the bank. It was scary because I had to deal with more people than I am comfortable with. The scariest was talking on the phone to the investor. I have a HUGE phone phobia, my dad used to have to e-mail me to get me to answer the phone (ie-I'm calling you, so pick up) and my family had a code, they would call, let it go to a machine, then hang up and call right back. Then I knew it was someone I trusted.
Anyway, the good part is, for the initial deposit the government will give me 3x what I deposit, then for EVERY other deposit I make they will match it. Very lucky for me and Alicorn as I doubt I will ever be able to work again.

[11th]

This is Molly. I adopted her just under a month ago, hoping for a companion for Hawk.

Unfortunately, Molly has a few rather serious problems. (One of my friends affectionately called her "Project Cat.") Her eyes are scarred and clouded from a bad infection she had as a kitten. She has a heart murmur, that the shelter told us was a 1 or a 2 (the scale goes from 1-6 for severity), and this is where the trouble starts. After a check up from our vet, we found out that it's actually a 3. On top of that, she has a nasty bacterial/yeast infection in her ears, that we brought her home with. Meaning the shelter either knew she was sick and just wasn't treating her, or paid so little attention to her that they didn't notice the disgusting brown goop dripping from her ears. The shelter also must have never groomed her, or played with her, since she's extremely overweight. They didn't even name her; they just called her Kitty.

The good news is that we got her started on antibiotics for her ears, and I can see improvement already.

The bad news is that a feline cardiologist visit will set me back $450 dollars. An ophthalmologist will cost even more money that I don't have right now.

It isn't a question of whether or not to give her back, because she's the sweetest cat I've ever seen, and we've all fallen in love with her already. (I'll get a job to cover her vet bills if I have to.) But with so many preventable problems (her ears, her coat and weight), was the shelter neglecting her? And can I do anything about that? They're a No Kill shelter, though, and I'm just not heartless enough too take any action.

Any advice, NC?

[Jessi]

Honestly, yeast infections in cat's ears are relatively common, and sometimes even caused by food - and also can be slightly contagious. My cat, Wyn, gets awesome care, is on great food, goes to the vet regularly, and he -still- gets yeast infections in his ears. It's also fairly normal for shelter cats to have dull/dry coats and to be slightly overweight, especially depending on the conditions she was handed over in. They honestly -might- have thought her heart murmur was only a '1or a 2'. It doesn't sound like a case of neglect for the shelter, but just REALLY bad luck that your kitty has all these problems! My boss recently adopted a cat from our shelter here, which is -amazing-, and found out after he got it home that it had feline herpes, something pretty easy to clear up with antibiotics but also fairly easy to miss. It's fairly normal for shelter kitties to have ear infections, feline influenza, etc - things that are easily transmitted back and forth from cat to cat.

You can always contact the shelter directly and let them know, and that's probably what I'd do, but it doesn't sound like neglect to me.

[Seerow]

I worked in a shelter for several years back with the cats. While I can't speak for all shelters, the majority of the time that workers are there because they love animals and want to help them in some way, we definitely don't do it for the pay
The yeast infection should clear up nicely, like Jessi said. A lot of cats that stay in shelters for any length of time will get the common ailments just because of the close quarters.

Sadly overweight cats are definitely common in shelters. Unlike a dog who usually gets walked several times a day, a cat is lucky to get out of the cage to stretch it's legs once a day. When people do handle them, they are usually held or just pet through the cage door. This makes for very very little chance for a cat to get exercise, and thus they get fat. It is rather sad how quickly they put on weight, I've watched several healthy and sleek cats get huge in a very short span of time at the shelter.

I wouldn't be too concerned about getting her in to see an ophthalmologist right away. If her eyes have been that way since she was a kitten and aren't causing her any discomfort, she's probably fine right now. If they start bothering her, change appearance, or get infected then I'd take her in, but in the meantime she should be okay.

Regardless, I'd like to say I'm glad you adopted an older cat! Too many people go for the "adorable kitten!" and the older ones get lost in the mix. I love dilute calicos and I'm sure Molly will make a great addition, if a bit pricey at the moment, addition to the family

[Huggles]

So, I'm in college right now making my third attempt to get some sort of degree. Yes, third. Expelled the first go through, dropped out the second. Third time's a charm? Anyway, one of my classes right now is Visual Basic programming. We get one assignment each chapter and the last couple have been driving me crazy. You either get something to work right, or you don't. There's not much room for any sort of middle ground. But Visual Basic is easy and I had been getting 100% on all my previous assignments. There were two chapters in particular that I just couldn't get right. It probably didn't help that I started them only a couple hours before they were due. But this last one I was determined to get done early. Basically, I had to create a single-player Bingo game. Oookay. I didn't know how to play Bingo, so I had to spend some time actually asking people how to play since there a million versions online. I spent a totally of 17 hours over three days trying to get this thing done and failed. Alas, I had been bested by the infernal programming beast. An hour before it was due I just went through all my revisions and threw all the code into one file and turned it in, knowing full well it wouldn't work.

Well, my assignment was finally graded today. My grade was 135%. Wait, wtf?! I knew we got bonus points for managing to randomly generate numbers for the bingo card, but as the grades are a direct point conversion, those extra 35 points are enough to turn the other two assignments I messed up into A's. Squee! In the long run, I'll probably try to fix the damn game over Christmas break. But for right now, I so happy!