[sophistacavy]

Thank you everyone for your input. I honestly never ever considered doing the whole Vicks Vapo-rub or peppermint oil thing. I'm pretty sure (since I know myself best) that if I do that, I will be just fine. Also, my teacher said that he ordered cats that were packed in a new fermaldihyde-free wetting solution called bio-fresh or something like that, and that it doesn't smell nearly as bad as fermaldihyde.
I can't wait! I hope its really as fascinating as I imagine it will be.

And yes, it is intended to be a human anatomy & physiology class, but I, out of my whole [small] class, am at a particular advantage because we dissect an animal, and I want to be a vet. And of course in high school, we can't dissect human cadavers, so we have to use animals.

And I apologize if anyone thinks that high schools shouldn't dissect anything "real". But fyi, I'm in Anat.&Physiology 1, dissecting cats. In anat.&physiology 2, which my school also offers, they dissect dogs. When I was a sophmore 2 years ago, the anatomy class (I'm not sure which one) had a fetal cow. That was the single most fascinating thing I had ever seen in my whole life. I was literally like "Holy cow!". P.S.: The teacher brought it across the hall into my biology class for us to see while we were doing frogs. I got to touch it and everything, it was completely amazing!

Thanks again everyone who replied for your input!