No, We Have No Rhinoceroses

Abstract

<p>I sat stiffly, my back aching from sitting on the wooden chair in the hot, stuffy lecture hall of the old Veterinary Quadrangle. I was surrounded by more than three hundred other potential veterinary students tightly packed into the narrow seats. At precisely two-o'clock, the low hum of constant chatter stopped, as a portly, white haired professor walked purpose- 'fully into the room. The clicking noise made from his black, wing tipped shoes as he walked across the wooden floor, was the only sound made; in the once noisy classroom. He was smartly dressed in a freshly pressed white lab coat along with a contrasting black bow tie. As he reached the podium, he put on a set of reading glasses and began to peer out at us, over the top of his glasses. He did not allow his eyes to meet those of any student, and his face had distant look similar to the ones in the dozen or so portraits that hung in the nearby hallway. He spoke methodically, enunciating every syllable crisply, pausing at the end of each sentence to take a deep breath for added emphasis.</p>