Tri-2, Wk8 Day 97

OK - Neuroanatomy is the hardest class I've ever taken in my life.

I was like a deer in headlights when I read that the horizontal gaze center was located in the paramediam pontine reticular formation but, that was nothing compared to the vertical gaze center which, in a previous edition of our book simply stated the location in hte periaquaductial gray matter of the rostral midbrain but, the updated book list the vertical gaze center in the accessory oculomotor nuclei at the rostral end of the medial longitudinal fasciculus.

Just stuff I have to get used to. It's my responsibility to know this stuff and I've got an enourmous hole to dig myself out of regarding my neuroanatomy grades.

It's Wednesday and I really need to stay awake at least until 8:10 Friday morning. My other big hole is Microbiology. One thing is absolutely certain - had I continued to pledge the fraternity I would not have a snowballs chance in hell of getting through all my classes. Only being at home 5 to 8 hours a day just isn't enough.

I may be far away but, I do own my own home and have some fantastic family nearby so I do need to temper my more superficial frustrations with sound injections of reality.

The test continue with Midterm test continuing every day through July 10th.

Spinoza ...All things noble are as difficult as they are rare.

Today's picture is a dorsal or rear view of the brainstem.

Tri-2, Wk8 Day 96

Hopefully, I'm back and don't do anything to screw up my time again. I stopped pledging with the fraternity at school. Living 50 miles from school made it quite difficult to be at home more than 5 to 8 hours a day which is a long time to be away from home everyday. My sleep was getting cut way too short.

For me, sleep is pretty analogous to getting a loan from a bank. If you really need the money then it's hard to get. For me, when I really need sleep then it's difficult to come by. The better rested I am the better I can sleep. Just a by-product of sleep apnea I suppose.

Today's picture is a transverse section of a muscle showing three different types of muscle fibers. The Slow Oxidative muscle fibers are aka Type I fibers, the Fast Oxidative are Type IIb fibers and the Fast glycolytic fibers are Type IIa.

hmmm....I've got an even better pic ... I just made it from an email my brother sent me - he's going to be speaking for the Dead Chiropractic Society on July 8th in California :)

Be sure to click on the picture for a full view ...

anyway - it's midterms time and I've got Physio tomorrow - Neuroanatomy and Professional Development exams on Wednesday and Microbiology on Thursday ...yeehaw!

Tri-2, Wk5 Days 84, 85, 86, 87 (Tue-Fri)

mainly tired and would like more sleep. I haven't had a cigarette since 9:30 a.m Friday, June 12th which puts me right aroudn 60 hours right now. I wish I could say I feel better but, I'd say I feel about the same.

Sometime in the 2 week to 3 month range there's supposed to be an increase in Lung function of up to 30% ....I'd like to see that - waiting for it :)

Tri-2, Wk5 Day 83

blogging is about to get a bit sparse for which I apologize. for the next seven weeks I'll be away from home about 15 hours a day - I might catch a break on a couple Fridays but that's about it. I'll be leaving home around 4:30 a.m. and hopefully getting back home no later than 7:30 p.m. from now until about the end of July

Tri-2, Wk3 & 4, Days 76, 77 & 78

catching up here from Thur, Fri and Monday - 

super busy - still hitting the bootcamp when I can - missed tonights bootcamp due to biochem tutoring - had an interview tonight with Pi Kappa Chi that was pretty cool - should be a heck of a time.  Classes were great today and there's plenty of interesting stuff but, it's well after midnight and my alarms are still set to go off at 4 a.m. so this will have to do it for now.  :)

btw - today's pic is the crest of Pi Kappa Chi - 

It's been an interesting day.  

Tri-2, Wk3 Days 74 & 75

doing double session boot camps now - my days start at 4 a.m. - leaving home at 4:30 - boot camp from 5:30 to 6:30 - shower at school - classes start at 7:20 a.m. - classes ended today at 3:40 p.m. - physio tutoring started at 3:45 p.m. and ended at 4:45 - ready & studied neuro for an hour after that then hit my 2nd boot camp from 6 - 7 p.m. - got home a little after 8 p.m. - soooo ready for sleep - probably will be joining professional fraternity at school - part of the pledging process involves studying every day from 3 - 5 p.m. and I didn't want to drive home during rush hour so I signed up for more boot camp and will simply add the 6-7 p.m. after my studies.  This will go on until August 21st.  

I have a TON of reading to do - more biochem DVDs to make - must sleep now - back up in 6 hours :D

Tri-2, Wk2 Days 71, 72 & 73

This closes out week 2 and what a week!  I did make it to my 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. boot camp everyday this week!  :)

I guess it was important enough to me to be getting up by 4 a.m. everyday so I could get to school by 5:30 a.m.  I am going to skip the Monday boot camp since we don't have school and I don't want to drive 2 hours to workout for an hour.  I do want to maintain a stable sleeping schedule and still get up early tomorrow so I'm still in the groove when school and the bootcamp start up again on Tuesday.

I think I got a 4 out of 5 on today's biochem quiz.  What's really amazing is that the one I missed happened to be one of the exact same questions that was on a quiz from a previous trimester and since I recognized the question I quickly put down the answer without really reading or thinking about the question.  All the questions that were different I got right ...I'll have to slow down next time :)

I bought a model of a human skull from the bookstore on Wednesday (finally had time to take it out of the box tonight)  I think it was a good deal.  I had an outrageous fine from the library last semester for being late so I'm thinking $30 for a skull I get to keep is a very good investment.  Besides, I really like that kind of stuff :)

Neuroanatomy Lab is an absolute blast.  I don't have to sit in a chair and there is lots of interaction.  The teacher, Guy, is fantastic.  

I think I might buy a laminated poster from the bookstore which list all the harmful effects of smoking and put it on the door leading into my home from the garage.  I think that's probably the place where I would see it the most.  Of course ...the only reason I am in the garage is becuase I quit smoking in my house before the first Trimester started so my clothes wouldn't stink.

We have a few test next week - Neuroanatomy and Gross Anatomy for sure (that's why I got the skull) that might be it.  We sent over the TCA or Kreb's Citric Acid cycle today which I thought was pretty exciting because I've heard about it for so long and I've seen the confusing circle of chemical reactions before but never really understood any of it.  Last weekend my studying was very productive so I'm expecting the same or better this weekend.  My weak point in studying was after I got home from school.  Tuesdays and Wednesdays are pretty long days at school and I only have about 2-3 hours after getting home before I need to get to bed but I know I can do better on Monday and Thursday.  Maybe I'll draw out the TCA cycle on my white boards before going to bed.  

I'm making a special stand alone DVD from today's biochem class.  Which reminds me, I need to stop by Creve Coure camera this weekend and see if they have a taller tripod for my little Flip video recorder.  I need the camera to see over the girls heads that sit in front of me :)

I moved the camera around a lot today because I didn't want to miss one drop of the TCA cycle.  Currently the DVD for todays class is 24% done so, it should be ready for me by the time I wake up tomorrow (assuming I dont' stay up too late)

Well, I think I'm going to move some clothes from the washer to dryer, draw out that TAC cycle then read some physio.  For some reason I was thinking of re-reading a book called the Go-Go Years which deals with the stock market during the 60s.  I've been thinking of starting an investment club at Logan every since the girl I sit next to asked me about starting up a Roth IRA ...I kind of get excited about weird stuff like that :) 

(an hour later ...)  OK, I was just going to find a picture for today's blog ...then I watched some YouTube videos on the TCA cycle and now it looks like I've designed a t-shirt and have it posted for sale on the internet ...no kidding - here's the link http://www.zazzle.com/tca_cycle_ivegotkrebs_tshirt-235909759621718295 I guess I'll post a picture of the new shirt I created :)  suppose I should order one for myself.  btw - if anyone orders a shirt, I'll make a whopping $2.70!  (that's the lowest royalty level I could set)

Tri-2, Wk2, Days 69 & 70 - Mon & Tue, May 18 & 19

Busy, busy, busy - really busy - yet, I've got to up my efforts and keep time wasting to a bare minimum.  I was thinking of just going through my notes and recapping my days with these blogs to help gain maximum benefit from the time I spend blogging.

For today - 

Neuroanatomy I - 2 hours - 

HECK! - I just realized my notebook is sitting under my cadaver - on the bottom part of the dissecting table.  Well ...so much for any specific recap - 

We're still hitting the basics in neuro and will be getting to the specific cranial nerves and pathways in about a week

Biochemistry II - 1 hour - 

Here we're delving a little deeper into the 10 (or 11) step pathway of glycolysis.  ...learning the details between conversions from fructose-1,6-phosphate to glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate to 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate and other exciting reactions - I really need to learn that stuff - we've got a quiz this Friday!

Physiology - 1 hour

still basic preliminary stuff here - I'll tell you what was amazing to me ...realizing the membrane of a cell wall is a fluid structure!  it's not like our skin or anything else I ever imagined it to be.  the membrane is a bi-lipid layer - basically two layers of fat cells but those fat cells are free to move around.  quite fascinating.

The way to think of the membrane is like a sea of lipid (fat) cells with iceburgs of protein floating around.  There is about one protein structure for every 50 molecules of fat.  The protein acts as gatekeepers to the cell, only allowing certain things inside our cells.

Memorial Service - 

Physiology was cut a little short so we could attend a very nice memorial service for the families of people who donated their bodies for medical study.  It was a shirt & tie event complete with speakers and a bag pipe player.  At the end students handed out carnations to the family members in attendence.  It was a very classy operation.  

Neuroanatomy Lab - 1 hour

This class was FASCINATING!  OMG - not only were we playing around with actual human spinal cords, at the end of class we looked at cross sections of the spinal cord and the LARGEST part of the spinal cord is no bigger than the width of two standard size pencil erasers - absolutely fascinating!

We're spending a full two semesters to learn all the details of that little thing which scarcely is 1/2" wide at it's widest point.  But, many of the things we are learning are down at the level of the individual nerves that traverse the spinal cord so we are at a cellular level.  

Gross Anatomy II  Prosection - 1 hour

This was another fun class.  This is where we sit in an auditorium with television monitors all around and a camera zoomed in on whatever the teacher is dissecting.  He first shows us on a cadaver referred to as the "prosection" body so we have an idea of what we'll be doing on our own cadavers.  We're working in the neck region ...and there are a lot of regions in the neck. 

Gross Anatomy II Lab - 2 hours

We're working on the anterior triangle of the neck.  It's not a very large region but our Neuroanatomy teacher told us she came up with around 48 different structures in that area ....yikes!

It takes some time to build up a tolerance to the cadavers and this was the time we removed the covering of the head which made it very difficult for one of the ladies in our dissection group.  I took it upon myself to clean the face of our cadaver up the best I could figuring if it was a member of my family then I would want to show similar respect.  I was thinking this person is only going to have a face for another two weeks before it's completely cut off so it should at least be as nice as possible.  

I don't know.  It's a very somber and serious matter.  I'm just doing the best I can with it and learning all I can from the experience.  We owe that to the donors and their families.  

This cadaver I'm working on now has an orange bucket beneth it (next to my notebook) which means anything that gets cut out goes in that bucket so when we are done the entire body and remains get cremated and returned to the family.

It was a long day - the ceremony took the place of our lunch so it was a 9 hour non-stop day.