You may euphemise me now.

I meant euthanize.

Completed my animal handling course yesterday.

Learnt a new technique to obtain blood from animals, cardiac puncture. Possibly one of the most cruel techniques I know.

We handled mice, rats, rabbits (very cute New Zealand whites!!! Positively HUGE - size of an adult cat!!! So very tame and gentle, they are) and guinea pigs (luckily we didn't have to do anything [horrible] to them). Had to put all of them down after we practised various injections on them. I was feeling quite upset that we had to put down the rabbits. (First time I handled rabbits for experiments, mice and rats I have gotten used to.) I asked the 'lecturer' (by the way, he was quite queer. His voice breaks consistently whenever he addresses the class. I've never known another grown man whose voice breaks as much as this.) if we had to kill (I used the actual k-word.) the rabbits and he said 'Yes, we have to euthanize them.' He kept saying euthanize. I think he refuses to think of it as killing. In my previous company, we referred to it as sacrifice. Isn't euphemism convenient? Helps take some of the guilt away eh? Doesn't do very much for me though. I wish I don't have to kill animals for science, especially not as part of my job. But it's inevitable for in-vivo work. Euphemise me, would you?