A busy beginning

Fourth year has suddenly begun in a pace faster than what neither I, nor my colleagues, could ever anticipate. The first four courses, ranging from a week each, included Clinical Anatomy, Bioethics, Psychotherapy and Immunology - the latter still ongoing.

Additionally, Pharmacology just won't cut us some slack that easy and hang over our shoulders as a grim shadow and reminder of the final exam to come, with both practicals and lectures running simultaneously.

So, from "early" morning to late evening we've running between the weekly yawn-generating morning subject and the busy Clinical Anatomy dissections in the afternoon until about when both the hour and minute hand of the wrist watch point to six.

I think we all knew that the exams will be plentiful this year so mentally we settled with the idea of taking exams more or less every week. However, time is a precious resource and one have to spend it wisely in order to manage the exams in such short notice, especially when being used to have weeks for preparation as was the case in the second and third year. Using the time in between lectures is a good idea, and pushing oneself to go on reading after school and at weekends is paramount.

Fortunately for me anatomy comes easy, as I've repeated it during second year. This gave me some time to focus on the other topics, i.e. biomedical ethics and psychotherapy.

Unfortunately, to my big disappointment, these topics seems to be of rather low priority and judging after the event I think I spent too much time in proportion to the actual gain. A real shame indeed, as I believe ethics will be an important part of the future praxis.

Back to exams. When to take exams and general planning of one's studies is alwas a topic of discussion among us students. I figured that booking them as early as possible would be the way to go and it proved to work out well so far. Postponing only makes a student's life difficult, even thou doing so is tempting.

Semper Paratus, Scientia ac Labore, no procrastination

Retrospective Ethics

This Friday we finished our second and last part of the biomedical ethics course and next week I will go for final examination, thus I dedicated the whole weekend for reading ethics and have stumbled across some rather interesting and horrifying examples.
I think all of us are aware of the atrocities taking place during WWII in the Nazi concentration camps and the human experimentations performed on the captives. However, what I didn't realise was that just as in any other experimentation these "researches" also resulted in collection of data and conclusions.
   A straight forward examples are the "studies" of hypothermia, a critically low body temperature. This was conducted by putting living humans on ice to see how they reacted to low body temperatures and the following recovery from it - cruel and highly immoral indeed.
   But what perhaps chocked me the most was how this data has been referred to in recent articles and modern studies. The ethical question is of course, whether or not to use such data in the first place.

Ethics of research is really interesting once you dig a bit deeper.
I can recommend some horrible but mesmerising reading on the topic, even for those not interested in medicine in general.
   Another good example is the Tuskegee Experiment, where a dark history of U.S. public healthcare is brought into light.

Study Weekend

The winter suddenly hit Prague.Snow was falling from morning to evening non-stop. Unfortunately the temperature never dropped blow zero, which means a lot of slush-puppy on the roads. More fortunately thou, is that is it perfect weather for reading, something both me and Kristýna need to do.

I'm having the very first checkpoint test for this semester, in the only subject we will get continuously tested in; pathophysiology.

The other subject are Pathology, Pathobiochemistry, Microbiology and Propadeutics of Internal Medicine but no tests will be held - instead you are expected to read up on each subject by yourself.

Kristýna will face her state exam in paediatrics in less than two weeks, so of course her mind is in between the pages as well.

The pathophysiology course began four weeks ago by introducing a hardcore chapter right from the start, namely haematology - including all the leukaemias, lymphomas, coagulatopathies and anaemias. An interesting but heavy chapter which takes time to wrap your head around.

Yet another Recap

A cup of coffee, check.
Rainy weather, check
Studies done, check (or should I write czech?)

Last time I posted a decent strip of text in this thing they call blog was almost a year ago. You see the pattern, the further one advance in these studies, the more difficult it gets to get some time over for other stuff.
The last year was a turbulent but yet exciting one.
I must admit, year 2 of medicine took me by surprise. I was told that it'd become easier but oh what a  fool I was to begin the year with hopes of an easy life.
There is no such thing.

For those who are not acquainted with the 3nd year study plan we have two main courses; Physiology, Biochemistry and Genetics.
The latter is one of those "stuck-in-between-two-semester"-courses, where we take the final exam in the end of winter, i.e. February. The problem is that you have no time but to barely keep up with the lessons during the first half, and then you have double the trouble before the exam.

I wont elaborate much further on the individual courses, just settle with the fact that it was yet another year of heavy studies - although much different from the first.
Reading and understanding it taken to another level, physiology is not so much about memorising as is Anatomy. Biochemistry on the other hand, is an endless road down the land of metabolic pathways and such, which I found initially overwhelming but later much appreciated.

After not too much trouble with the physiology final exam, in the week number 2 of the examination period, I took another two weeks boot-camp for biochemistry and it was obviously too little time to cover it all to a satisfying level - so I ended up walking out on the exam with a rather painful D in my book.
The result was of course a summer spent reading the chemistry back and forth, booklet cover to cover - although I did not really mind. Once my mind was settled with the thought of a "shorter-than-normal" vacation all I had to do was to see the good with the bad.

Due to troublesome dates of examination terms I ended up taking it in the beginning of September, just days after finishing my summer intern-ship at the surgery unit back home and with mere weeks left for next year's enrolment.
Going through this "sudden-death"-like exam with an excellent grade was like dropping the largest of stones off my shoulders and I could finally enrol for 3rd.

Well, already 1 month into the third year (time really pass by quickly), I have completely changed my study strategics - getting ready for another amazing year -  but that is another story I'll share later.

My Medical School Paradox

The more I study, the more enlightened I become.
However, the further I advance in enlightenment,
the more I realise just how little I actually know -
and it is really frustrating...

Histology Final Exam

The last days have held nothing but good weather, hence the long trip with the boat both north and south of the west coast. However, we didn't have to travel far - the very best spots are close to the harbour.

The jet ski have been a steady companion and together with the newly imported GoPro HD camera mountable on pretty much any solid surface I've snapped some rather amazing photos and videos - videos that are to be retouched and edited into a neat film later when the weather is getting worse.
As promised, I will give a recap on my preparation of the final exam from histology.
Straight after anatomy I booked histology in the end of June. However, as I finished anatomy the relief took over and the motivation of studying was completely absent. I took almost a week off, spending time with Kristýna and fixing in the apartment. The fact that Kristýna wouldn’t be done with school until the end of July, due to internships, made me rearrange my plan. One day before the deadline I cancelled the term in June. My plan was that, since I would stay in Prague until August anyway I might take the time to study properly.

Rushing things are never good, but after the event I think it was a bad choice.
As I previously posted, there was quite an unfortunate issue with the sign up system and I did not get a term. I could blame it on the system, but I’d rather be honest and say that it was my bad from the beginning to cancel the first term. However, more students were struck by the lack of slots in the July term and together we managed to open up more slots.
I now spent almost 4 weeks of studying the histology with increasing intensity towards the end. It was very difficult to sit inside studying when the sun was shining, knowing that I could have been done already. Kristýna was a huge support, kicking my ass to study and took me places to rest my head in between.

The histology questions are divided into three categories; cytology, systemic histology and embryology. I finished off the first part during the first half of the second week of repetition. It took me way more time than I had anticipated. My plan was to finish the systemic histology in the next week and leave one week for embryology. I was told that embryology was manageable in one week but since I didn’t really keep up during the lessons it would prove to be a lot tougher. The systemic histology took a bit longer as well, and in the end I had only 5 days for embryology.

Drawings are essential for embryology in order to understand the developmental steps which are rather complex. There are different books to study from and I recommend one that is well illustrated.
The day before the exam was like every other day before an exam, freaking out feeling like a complete idiot with no knowledge stuck in the head whatsoever. My exam was scheduled at Friday and my flight to Sweden the very same day. I knew it would be stressful so I contacted the histology department in order to change it to Thursday. It was a bit of a problem but after much doubt they agreed and let me in to the exam – as the first student. I got Prof. Kucera, a young professor who I had no contact with earlier, since he was not holding any seminars.

The exam is held in two parts, first the oral examination and then a practical microscopical examination from three slide preparations. The oral part contains one question from each chapter, as mentioned earlier; cytology and general histology, systemic histology and embryology. My three questions were:

-          Blood Smear, preparation and interpretation.

-          Islets of Langerhans

-          Development of the Heart

Really nice questions, indeed. However, I had quite a hard time at the exam. I didn’t know the questions as well as I’d hoped.
It was a success after all, and I could finally finish the first year.
Now a lot of preparation must be made for the upcoming second year. But first, vacation.

English stripped Naked

I very much indeed enjoy studying Latin and its marvellously paradoxical two sides; complexity and simplicity.
By the end of the previous sentence I've used at least four strong words in English with non-English origin. Can you guess which of the following belongs to what language? 

Study
Marvellous
Paradox
Complexity
Simplicity

Study actually derives from Old French estudie, but for our sake lets deal with studium from Latin.
What about marvellous? Latin? Greek? Not at all, to my surprise, it actually is from Old French as well in the basic form merveille.
So, Paradox then, sure this could be Latin but by dissecting the word we can get the Ancient Greek prefix para-, and suffix -orthodoxos, indicating that this is of Greek origin. As commonly seen, many Greek words adopted a Latinized form and Paradoxos became Paradoxum meaning: 

"a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth" or "a self-contradictory and false proposition".

Complexity and Simplicity are English words with pure Latin origin; in its naked form rather complexus and simplex.

Latin at first sight is as complex as any new language (except Czech that is, which seem to origin from the green man "a planeta confusa") but as one embrace it and digs deeper it actually makes a lot of sense.
It's a language of great structure, at least if you have the honour to follow Prof. Svobodova's text book, and it can be broken down in an organized matter with, mostly, strict rules that can be applied to whatever sentence you'd like to create. This is the part of simplicity.

To give a brief indication of how a task and its translation might look like I'll give you an example from the book at page 172.
Translate:
- Superficial wounds in the pubic region.
- Bruises of the soft parts of the body.
- In the state after a severebilateral inflammation of the lungs.
- Sufficient doses for children.
And the solutions, in order:
- Vulnera superficialia in regione pubis.
- Contusiones partium mollium corporis.
- In statu post pneumoniam bilateralem gravem.
- Doses pro infantibus sufficientes.

I wish not to seem posh or act as some kind of Smart Aleck, nor will I in any way conceal my gratitude towards the Latin course - gratitude, when from my side expressed, has mostly been getting dull half-witted responses with little or no enthusiasm.
 Anyone that have had Prof. Svobodova, might not share my view - and so be it. You might even think I am vastly exaggerating by saying that she was indeed the best teacher during the first year. Again - so be it.
My opinion might echo alone but I believe that the facts speak for themselves; the structure and discipline of her lectures were always high and, if ever so often threaten, well maintained. She spent time explaining and made us practice in between - to me that is true teaching.
 The fact that she actually wrote the book, covering more than well the medical perspective of Latin, is something not to forget.
 This greatly shows itself in the way the course is built up, step by step until the rope is tightly shutting the sac closed. Unfortunately, for our group but mainly for the professor herself due to some family matters, we missed out on the last two lessons dealing with numericals and verbs but with some set aside motivation that was a part not too demanding, however, using the word "easy" would be a lie.

Preparation Propaganda

I’ve already implied many times that my main way of studying anatomy is through drawing. For anatomy all you really need is a good atlas, a source for regional dissection topography and a source for PNS and CNS pathways. I can write a whole chapter on which literature to prefer and for the beginning of next semester I hope I can share my thoughts to the first year students.

The first thing I should have done differently in anatomy was to print the exam questions in the beginning of the course, not in the end. It is true that you answer a lot of the questions during the year but it is one thing to know the fact and to be able to present it. I started with the first questions and it took me a great deal of time to write it all down. I understood that this was not the way to go so I started to build simple skeletons of the questions with criteria I had to cover.

By putting up a simple model of each question and by repeating the anatomy in the atlas I was able to recall the knowledge – it is true that once you’ve touch a subject, even just briefly, the knowledge comes back to you. There are some questions that require more theory than others, for example the general structure of bones and muscle, so those you must read up on a lot. More straight forward anatomy questions I found being up to date in my head and I spent little or no time on those.

I was told that being able to draw something about everything was a good way to go and I spent a lot of time repeating my schemes and drawings just to get the details right. My girlfriend Kristyna, who’s in fifth year of her studies and an anatomy assistant, helped me out by listening to me – mostly via Skype since she were by this time about to end her vascular surgery Erasmus exchange in Helsinki, Finland. Reading up on the questions and presenting them for someone is a great, and perhaps the very best, way to practice for the oral part of the exam.

I also found out that having a drawing to relay on during the presentation is, at least for me, essential. If I forget something I can go back to the drawing, re-present the statement and even expand it by adding things as I go.
Some of my preparations were drawings only, and I just kept the written things in my head, some examples below:

Great Measures in Busy Times

As usual, I make a meme-spoof...

So here I am again, in a defensive stance against myself and the optimistic thought that keeping this journal alive would be a piece of cake. It most certainly is not.
You all most probably know why, especially if you've gone through the same thing and for those who yet have the experience ahead of them I will in the following posts tell you a bit of what to expect.

Since the previous time I posted here, about a sunny day filled with highlights if I recall it correctly, there have been both ups and downs.
March 22nd is the date stamp and, to be perfectly honest, all that follows is rather blurry.

I can happily say that I am alive and more than just alive. I lived through what might have been the most intense three months of my life "so far" - and with that said in quotation marks - I expect more of it.
If I look back the winter was just about to turn its back on us and spring came rushing in through the door. Anatomy and histology was just about to step up their games by introducing the head-on Anatomy Dissection course simultaneously with the Peripheral and Central Nervous System (henceforth PNS & CNS), all together stretching over one month.
I was prepared for a rough ride but when Histology finally swapped into developmental Embryology, a complete different subject, it just hit me in the face like a metal bucket filled with icy water - and by that I mean water first and bucket next.

As the finish line got closer for every day and with more and more material to conquer I entered a sort of pseudo-doubting roller coaster. The only way to cling on to sanity was to prioritize, hence, histology simple had to end up on the self for the time being.

With my mind freshly set on Anatomy there were days I felt I had it under control. I passed all my practical tests with good marks and was, with a good push in the back from Kristyna and my colleague Gal, almost ready to book a pre-term final exam.
CNS dragged me back into obscurity and that was the phases I gently swayed between; pre-term or not pre-term. Gal is amazing and I admire her for staying on track with her plan. Damn sure, she did it to the end - as one of the very first to fight and survive against the professors of Anatomy.
I failed in staying to the plan and scheduled my anatomy one week after the school ended, something that after the event seems to have been a good move anyway. Since I'm not much for "what-if's" I tend to save my energy not speculating whether it would have been better to do the pre-term.

The last day of school came to an end and the real preparation could begin.
My own final battle with Professor Elizka sure is a nice story, with an outcome that I am mightily proud of, and I am sure I will find the inspiration to give you the details in a separate post later on.

But for now I'm satisfied, and done, with wrapping up the prologue...

Sunshine and Pineapple

Sunset over Anatomy Department...
Some days are just better than others. Today was such a day.
There are not really solid criteria for what makes a good day, I rather find the spontaneous and come-by-chance moments inspirational and "day-seizing".
  Me and my friend Paymon usually talk about this in terms of "highlights of the day" which can take the form of pretty much any random situation.
A completely random thing that might turn into a highlight of the day is for example when you watch a beach saleswoman from Thailand teach the world how to slice up a pineapple on Youtube.

The weather today was like waking up from a shitty dream due to the sunlight shining through your dirty windows - okey, that was what really happened this morning and with that revealed; yes, I really need to clean my windows. I believe it's a good thing that mum is coming here on Friday.
  After waking up, starting off the day with some histology and bio-genetics I went for the first lecture on the interesting topic "cell cycle and its regulation" but it was honestly and most unfortunately not very effective, knowledge-wise speaking. I dare to say and, although this is not the right place, to give the constructive criticism about the Uni power-point presentations that overall, just like in the Swedish Army, are very disappointing from many perspectives. If time allowed I would gladly make a template and convert them all just to get rid of eye burning colours and massive text boxes - maybe an interesting future project - but for now, neither of my concern nor place to complain, which means I'll leave this thought here.

The two and a half hour break before this day's last class in Czech language came as a relief because this meant that I could catch some hours in the blazing spring sunshine.
Right above the Institute of Histology and next (laterally?) to the Institute of Pathology there is a nice sloping park that got to be the cleanest park in Prague. There wasn't much wind at my spot and the sun was facing the hillside just right for maximum exposure - and that we enjoy, right?
  I occupied a bench, took off my shoes and socks and for the first time this season my white, clean soles got to feel grass and gravel - just as my face got the first effective time in the sun.
The books were with me and I eliminated one hour by reading and the second and last one by taking a nice lying position and sleep off the recently ingested salami sandwich.

On my way home I took a right turn and bought a fresh pineapple at the Potraviny.
Not much is needed to create an over-the-average good day...

Medical Dictionary for Word

I got really tired of all the red underlining correction due to incomplete dictionaries in my Microsoft Word 2007 while writing the medical report for my seminar on Wednesday so I took a minute off to search for an add-on to make it correct it properly.

I didn't find one that's legit for MS Word directly but I found out that there's another way of doing it.
MS Word use files called *.dic which is simply a text file with words lined up alphabetically.
There's even an option to add you own dictionaries stored in the folder:

In Windows 7
\\PC-root(C:)\Users\'Yourname'\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Uproof\

By downloading this medical dictionary to your PC, unzipping it with WinRar or WinZip etc., and putting it into this specific folder, or equally located in Windows XP or Vista, you can open Word and go to the path looking something like this:
Word Start Button > Word Options > Language Options > Own Dictionaries

There you may import your own dictionary and by adding the file you just saved you're done with a fresh word list of medical terminology.

Winter Semester finally came to an end

There's a thing or two that happened and now I got the time to put together a neat summary.

I left off by telling you I failed my first biophysics exam. A lot of different parameters influence the examination and this was my first encounter with this type of examination.
I could write many positive things about it, but more importantly also a lot of negative things - in a constructive way - although I wont bore anyone with such details unless they are interested.
The following week I dedicated to the gym, the booklet and to sleep.
I studied a lot and threw the notes that I've been studied from in the trash bin. Instead I changed perspective and started to break down the green booklet thoroughly. It helped a lot and that's just another proof that there's no point of taking short-cuts.

I rebooked the exam to the upcoming Thursday and this time I felt ready. My questions was good and I switched tactics. Instead of leaving out knowledge on the preparation paper I wrote a lot, and didn't leave anything out, even if is was just remotely connected to my topic.
I believe that when the examiner saw my papers he understood I knew at least something and therefore didn't push me hard.
It took me approximately a minute to explain the first topic; Light Propagation, properties and light spectrum. He heard me out and just asked a follow up question in optics, one of my favourite subjects among the biophysics material - which means that I didn't have much trouble answering that.
I kept talking, in contrast to last time where he did the talking, and the next topic, Particle Accelerators, went through the same procedure with a follow up question on magnetism.
The last topic was about Phase Border Phenomena and I had trouble remembering the different subjects under that topic which left my paper rather blank.
I tried to explain in a non scientific way and the good thing about this examiner is that he is not impossible in any way, especially since we had such a good discussion up until now.
He guided me through it and dragged some knowledge out of my head and the result ended up in a passing credit which made all the effort during these 2½ weeks worth it all.

Next up was celebrating at the Asian sushi restaurant that just opened up around the corner while simultaneously studying for the next exam in First Aid.
First Aid is another course that sort of just have been there as a side dish not really contributing to the meal, so to speak, which is a shame because I really like rice, or potatoes.
It was time to show of some military paramedic training - well, at least that's what I thought in the beginning of the course.
I thought I'd remembered it all, and also know it all - and I was proven wrong badly.
There are always updates and in this topic, as in everything else, repetition is the key.
I think I could have skipped out on the course by giving the examiners my documents from the Army but now when the exam is over (I passed even if I got the hardcore examiner) I'm rather happy I didn't.

It seems that I haven't been taking any short-cuts lately, and I start to wonder if I will ever be able to do that in the future.
When it comes to biophysics, unfortunately and to my utter surprise, cheating is to something worth considering and what scares me even more is the fact that it is to some also a "level up" in the social group interaction.

Regardless the time spent I can now happily conclude that I made it through the winter semester and that I'm excited to begin the summer semester. It's a true fact that studying anatomy will be a blessing to the brain after the massive texts about heavy atoms, quarks and gamma rays.

And, at last, I'll end this with a nice way to confuse your teacher:
(more nice exam answers at smosh.com)

Biophysics: Day #4 - 6 + First attempt

You how authors sometimes begin their books with the end and then what follows is the story of how the character(s) got there? I'm about to do just that.
If you're just here to find out how I did on the Biophysics all you have to do is finish this sentence (although it is not the end).

I've already taken my first attempt and I did indeed fail it, hence my humble adding of the sentence: "I was naive to think that one and a half week of studies was enough to cover the whole course".
But before I begin to explain how it was being examined let me first tell you about the way there, just as promised.

During Friday there wasn't much going on. I hardly left the apartment and tried to dig through the two last chapters in the booklet.
The pages in what we refer to as "the green booklet" really is horrible to read. Not that it lack the information, the other way around actually which cause it to be difficult reading.
My friend said it in a nice way: "...it's medical orientated physics, not physics orientated for medics..."

As I try to write down what I've been doing it hit me that the days all go blurry and starts to get mixed up in my head which is a sign of too much reading and to little living. The fact that I've sacrificed the workouts is not making me too happy but it's exam period and if that's what it takes then fine.
It's safe to say that I got all the other credits and the only obstacle left is the biophysics.
Saturday went by with at lot of formula memorizing and not too much reading which was sort of a good break from all the reading and sorting of terms.
During Sunday I mostly looked over it all and one minute it honestly felt like I knew enough but then waves of doubt went through my mind.
I scheduled for at least 8 hours of sleep and went to bed rather confident.

I wasn't nervous as I waited to get in for the examination. It started at 9 and I woke up, got ready and dressed up nicely one and a half hour before that. Note that the biophysic-department is in the building right next to my apartment so I didn't
have to stress.
During the exam it's really strange how everything in your head seems to just crawl up and hide.
It's easy to be wise after the event but another week would be good to have and a reschedule would have been the right thing to do.

Taking water over my head is just fine, failing an attempt is also fine - mistakes made are almost always good things, because one can correct them.
There's also rumours roaming around that it's fairly easy to cheat during this type of exam but I honestly rather get put down proven to have a lack of knowledge, do the second attempt better and finish it all of with a solid knowledge.
I discussed this matter the other day and the conclusion was as solid. The hard way is the best way, taking that road down will lead to more knowledge, experience and memories. Even if this philosophy covers life in its whole, not only biophysics, one is still able to apply it.

Now I have to schedule another week and I think that will be just enough in order to learn the booklet from inside out.
Although I'll look like this when I'm done it's going to be worth it.

Knowledge is easy to carry...

Biophysics: Day #3

Today have been a really great day, even if I didn't study that much biophysics I've got a lot of other things done.
Since the Latin test is tomorrow I've mainly studied the Latin vocabulary and the declension table. The grammar patterns are pretty much stuck in my head from the first revision for the first test which saved me a lot of trouble this time.

Biophysics are progressing thou, today I spent some time to repeat yesterday's material covering Thermodynamics and Electrical Phenomena. There's still a lot left but I'm slicing it down into pieces and in that way I can easily see how I progress.
I'll post some nice videos for basic understanding in X-ray and MRI theory and once again, check out Kahn Academy for Thermodynamics and Electricity - he is simply amazing.

The weather today was so nice, almost early spring, and I could leave my jacket at home. I took a stroll up and down the streets next to the apartment in search for a printer. I've been needing one for a long time now and today I felt the urge to get it. That didn't happen, all I ended up with in the end were a new set of colour and sketch pencils, new folders and blank papers.
I know what kind of printer I want to buy, the problem is just to find it without going to the outskirts of Prague where I guess all the shopping malls are located.
That reminds me of the fact that I need to go to both Ikea and to a place that sell vacuum cleaners and washing machines, but I'll deal with that after the exams.

So, videos below, enjoy.

Biophysics: Day #2

The title isn't really correct since yesterday was more about Latin.
The final Latin test is held on Wednesday and if one pass it's automatically going to reward in a credit and with that, the subject is out of the way for this semester.
I got some biophysics done after all, a bit of reading in the morning before my friends came over and as well in the late afternoon before, and after, the gym.
We had a co-revision in my room and I went through the first two declensions and did some exercises from the book.
The rules and the grammar tables are easy to learn and the major problem is to learn the vocabulary. Easy you might think, it's just memorizing, and yes it is indeed although that takes time and as I've been stated numerous times before time is of great value these days.

Today I'll try a different approach on biophysics because I'm honestly keeping myself from freaking out - it's only 6 days left now and it feels like the things I read wont stick to my head at all which is really frustrating.

I'd just like to add, and this is a great deal off topic, that making sushi and listening to Christopher Hitchen's book "God is not Great" is a really nice and relaxing thing to do.
My sushi turned out to be amazing (even though it was vegetarian and 40% of the sushi was missing - aka the salmon) and Hitchens can also amaze me in many different ways and I think that I'll quote him later in my 5 minute break from biophysics. Another great thing that amaze me and inspire me lately is to make Skype-calls to Finland.

For those who think in a scientific way, like myself, and that isn't very familiar with Hitchens, Russell, Sagan and let's put Dawkin's in the name drop as well, should really "googl'em up".
If it turns out that you are, or after googling them become, familiar with them and it happens to be the very case that they do not amuse you in any way and are in fact not sharing your opinions at all then just drop it and leave it be - I'm not about to start any discussion, not just yet that is.

8:30 and it's time to get some revision done before the anatomy lecture.

Biophysics: Day #1

I woke up at 8 and started my studies at 9 while eating breakfast. It get a bit messy sometimes with all the papers, the laptop and the salami slapping the keyboards, but it's worth it since eating and studying is a rather nice combination. Or studying while eating, either way you want to put it.

I began with the part that I'm already familiar with just to get my brain in the right mood:
Phase states, Gibbs Law, Analytical and Colloidal Dispersion Systems, Henry´s Law, Properties of Water, Diffusion, Fick´s laws, Viscosity and Viscous Flow, Stokes Law, Surface tension, Biophysics of Blood Circulation, Laplace Law and last but not least Poiseuille-Hagen Equation.
This is just one chapter out of eight so if I calculated the days correctly I should be able to cover it all properly at least once.

The different sources I use is a review and summary of the exam question which helps a lot. Sorting out information in the course booklet takes time and that is something I do not have enough of.
Youtube is another underrated source of knowledge and especially one guy there called Salman Khan (link: Khan Academy) is doing a fantastic work publishing over thousands of free lectures in different subjects.

I'm happy that the exchange of knowledge between the students here is great. Martin, who already have faced the ordeals of physics and have been teaching it before set up a small gathering and held a lecture on the fundamentals of physics.
It was a great improvisation and it really sorted out a lot of blurry stuff and prepared all of us for the more complicated subjects.

I can also say that since Facebook pretty much tracking everything we do, nothing bad about that, I believe most of you guys visiting my pages already know that I found my self completely lost in a box of 'certain' wonderful feelings during the last month. My head is so far up in the clouds sometimes that I forget time and space. I have a lot to look forward to and by getting reminded of that everyday is sort of a love/hate thing that just build up these amazing feelings.
I could go on like this for hours but it's now 9:31 and I'm one minute late.

Photos below from the study session at Martin's, and for those of you that still wait for the photos from the dinner at Lemon Leaf have to be patient, they will be posted but I believe you can imagine the work that must be done during exam periods.
Enjoy!

Quick note on Biophysics

So, yesterday I finished off the remaining school work before the biophysics boot-camp week.
My exam is scheduled at the 24th and I realized that it will be a bit too soon. There's no good dates to reschedule too so I guess I'll have to give it my best shot.
The worst thing that can happen is that I don't manage to cover it all and fail, which means a rescheduled date for a retake. We have three attempts so it shouldn't be impossible.

So from now on I'll try to prove that it is possible to break down the biophysics course in one week. Note that I have orientated myself in the syllabus during the holiday and that I spent yesterday going over one chapter.
Any hints or sources on the material is appreciated.
And with that said, wish me the best of luck - I'll need it.

The game is on...

Dense Regular Skeletal Connective Muscle?!

Histology is finally over, or at least so I hope - it all depends on how my slide test went.
I feel good about it, but as I recently discovered, feeling good about something is usually a bad thing.
We got two random slides each and was supposed to identify the tissue(s) within the sample as well as label them in a short description.
The first look at my first slide puzzled me. It saw for sure a lot of parallel fibres but also a lot of nuclei. My first thought was dense regular connective tissue from a tendon sample but it still had too many nuclei around the fibres from what I was used to see in this type of sample. So perhaps it's striated muscle? but there was no striation visible what so ever.
I wrote down a quick description and moved on to the next slide which was easier. The description didn't take too long and I could go back to the first slide again.
It really bugs me because I still don't know whether I choose the right answer or not.
Especially these two types can be really hard to distinguish since it looked like an awful mutation between these three pictures:


From left: Skeletal Muscle (1), Dense Regular Conn. Tiss. (2 & 3)

As you can see there's many similarities and it's going to be a long and curious wait for the answers next week.
Below I put up some nice mobile shots from our histology slide practice as well as a photo from today's anatomy lecture.

Today should be a day off, but I doubt that'll be possible since biophysics and Latin exams are just around the corner...

The Road

Histology is not the easiest reading in the world, and to be honest I'd rather read ten anatomy pages instead of one in histology. It's not that it is less interesting, it's just difficult reading.
Music makes it better and since I'm currently listening to the official soundtrack of The Road I thought I might as well recommend this amazing, post-apocalyptic movie by John Hillcoat for you.

Listen to the soundtrack above and read about the movie here

A breif history of butterflies and hurricanes

I was asked to publish more photos from my portfolio, this is a really old one from a series of photos shot in my parents garden - if there's someone out there good at species - then please let me know the name of this little guy.

I wanted to write a recap of New Year's Eve... not going to happen.
I wanted to write a recap of Christmas and the holiday... not going to happen.
I wanted to write a recap of my lecture for the students at my old High School... not even that, is going to happen.

All sadly due to the lack of time and energy.
You see, lately I've been occupied by winged creatures and hopefully, in a short matter of time, me myself will grow wings.
Now, unfortunately that's just wishful thinking and neither will I have more time on my hands nor will wings start to grow out of my back... It will, simply... just not happen.

This looks like a disturbingly depressing beginning and I can gladly tell you that's not the case - the other way around - actually a lot have happened, a lot of good things.
I can honestly reveal that a normal and sane person would probably be stressed over the situation regarding the studies; the pile is just growing but therefore not said the pace is decreasing, hence the reason to be stressed... and that's why it is great that I'm not sane at the moment.

While trying to stay insane, since that (briefly proved by my speculations above) obviously helps, I'm digging through that growing pile of work.
I just passed the final Czech test with a mark B which sort of boosted my insanity and what's left to conquer are the final anatomy and histology tests for this semester.
Anatomy is shouting "finale!" while throwing a slide test and a scheme drawing right in our faces - covering random parts of the Gastro-Intestinal System which some students rate as the toughest part so far in the anatomy studies.
Basically it consists of muscles, gross- and micro anatomy of the internal organs such as; the liver, gall bladder, pancreas, intestines (large/small) and other specific compartments not worth mentioning since my eyes and brain are starting to shut down this very second.
My plan is to go through the whole system, organ by organ and put it all together in the end applying that knowledge to as many different atlases as possible in one week.

Simultaneously histology did the feared jumped from level 1 to level 4, or rather; like playing Pac-Man with 4 times the normal amount of monsters.
Next test is the first real slide test on the samples of all the tissues we've been through so far, approximately 25 samples.
It's going to be the biggest challenge next week and preparing for it is going to result in a lot of coffee, and less time for very inspirational things such as hitting the Facebook update button 6 times per minute.
By now I can feel my own sarcasm slapping my tired face like bricks of concrete to a Shaolin Munk's head , and I apologize for that - I'm writing on pure will power now - but I guess no one dares to blame me since I've been studying since 17:oo straight.

In two weeks the last checkpoint will be reached; the final Latin test. I have high hopes for that test since Latin, or more correctly Medical Terminology, is very interesting and I'm very much admiring our great teacher.

I would like to write a novel right now but I think this will do for tonight. Now I'll enjoy the butterflies and hurricanes and with that said I'll close my eyes... take a deep breath... and... slowly... fall... asleep... dreaming about... butterfl...z..z...Z