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Mom and Dad's comming to visit

Tomorrow night my parents are flying by and stays for the weekend.
We planned it so that I have to be super busy because last time we really didn't do a lot else than building furniture from IKEA.
Since the muscle test is done I don't have any big tests on the schedule except for a minor Czech test and some reading up to do in histology.
My hopes are that I can take my parents out for a lot of beer and good food and that they'll be able to see Prague.
Another thing I'm really looking forward to is all the fish they're going to bring from back home.
I haven't had a proper dish of fish in I don't know how long so getting some of my mom's fantastic cousine will not just increase my omega 3 levels but also my mood.

My laptop is still stone cold, the graphic card is all worn down, so my dad will bring it back to Sweden in order to get it fixed on the warranty. I guess I could have gotten it done here as well since Dell got support world wide but it's such a hassle dealing with things through the language barrier.
I'll borrow his laptop meanwhile so expect a lot of photos being published during the upcoming week.

Tonight I'll have to do the laundry and I'll also try to get my ass to the gym for some heavy pec' workout.

Two weeks of Muscles finally over

Today I can lean back and enjoy the result of my hard labour.
Studying for the muscle test have been a top priority for the last two weeks and it have pretty much postponed everything else such as buying groceries, working out, going out, cleaning as well as staying sane.
Looking into the fridge was rather depressing and living off white bread, defrosted lunch packages, egg and coffee have filled me with a crave for proper food.
In general it's not an overstatement to say that I've been studying for at least five to six hours a day after school.
I've even sacrificed lessons in Czech and lectures of biophysics to be able to participate in dissections.

The first week we pretty much broke down all the muscles of the upper limb into compartments of function, innervation and position.
We knew that the test was going to cover both the upper and the lower limb so what I did was to first focus on the upper limb and for the last week spend time on the lower.
This schedule was rather disturbed because it took me more time than I'd anticipated to cover the upper part.
The hand was originally the big bitch in the drama but later on it turned out that the forearm was a lot more complex than I'd imagine it to be and pretty much overtook that title.
The theory of muscles is massive. The upper extremity contains approximately 50 muscles and the lower almost as many. Remember that every muscle have at least 4 parameters (origin, insertion, function and innervation), big muscles often have more than just four.
If you add this up it's going to be a rather big number but note that much of the information is the same for some muscles and you can usually group them in subcategories.

During this time my colleges frequently discussed whether the test was going to be oral or a slide test.
First of all I just have to say it again; making up theories regarding such matters are just time consuming and you better spend that precious energy on revision. (Those who're closest to me know what I mean because I've kept saying that every time a discussion like that started - sorry for that but you got to admit that we all over projected the whole thing a bit, still it's easy to be wise after the event...)

During the last week we confirmed that the test was going to be held orally on the actual specimens of the dissection department.
At first I thought of it as really bad news but after a while I just started to like it more and more. I spent a lot of hours in the open dissections just orientating myself. I joined up with my colleges Solveig and Yonathan and together we tried to prepare as good as we could.
It's really hard to have practice on the dissected specimens yourself since there's no answers to what you think you're looking at.
You pretty much have to guess your way and compare it to the atlases.

There is no simple way of learning this great amount of information and the only tip I can give is that repetition is the key.
I'm glad I've been spending almost 12 hours in dissection because not only did it help for the test but it will be very useful during the future dissections.

Yesterday, the day before the test, I didn't feel comfortable at all. I didn't feel prepared and I know I didn't have all the facts straight to 100% which of course is what you aim for.
Me, my roomies and our friends were invited to Nabeel, a third year student, who had offered to help us before the test.
He held the revision and went through all the structures and compartments of the muscles very thoroughly and I can honestly say that I wouldn't have passed with such a good grade without his help - due to the fact that he mentioned all these small details that I otherwise would have missed. I was also very lucky during my oral test because my questions were on all these small details which I had fresh in my head from the night before.

Before the oral test we had to draw cross section schemes of the limbs, once again divided into three groups. Each group had different tasks and my cross sections turned out to be sections of the foot and the upper arm.
We got twenty minutes to complete these drawings and those minutes sure just flew by. My drawings turned out to really good and I was very satisfied it and left for the dissections with relief.

Tomorrow I'll also get the result from last weeks Histology test but today I'll just let my mind off the studies for once and go get a celebrating beer at the Pivovarsky Dûm with Solveig and Yonathan.

That's all for now, cheers!

No updates

I'm sorry to say that there won't be any fancy post updates for a while, this due to the fact that my laptop's graphic card melted and it needs to get replaced.
I might toss something up from another computer but I'm rather busy at the moment with learning the muscles so there might not even be much time for it.
Stay tuned for android updates via my mobile phone and be sure to check in on the 15th this month, there's going to be a scheduled automatic posting with loads of pictures that I prepared the other week.

Have a nice Sunday...

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The Sorite's Paradox

The paradox goes as follows:
consider a heap of sand from
which grains are individually removed.
One might construct the argument,
using premises,
as follows:

(Premise 1)
1,000,000 grains of sand is a heap of sand.
(Premise 2)
A heap of sand minus one grain is still a heap.

Repeated applications of Premise 2
(each time starting with one less grain),
eventually forces one to accept
the conclusion that
a heap may be composed
of just one grain of sand.

Confessional

Can't believe that it actually took me this long to appreciate Dashboard Confessional for real.

Chris Carrabba, you're a genius...

Microscope Dope

  
Completed the fifth out of the ten biophysic laboratory experiment today.
Me and Paymon tend to start small competitions during the labs and since we were measuring hair thickness this time we wanted to see who got the thickest hair, lol.
My blond Scandinavian hair versus his dark Middle-East hair.
I bet you can guess who won - but only with a few micrometres(!)
Of course Solveig had to enter the game and knocked us both out with her super thick hair, darn.

Last time we were measuring half-thickness of lead and aluminium by registering pulses of radiation sent out by a mega dangerous, neon green cobalt-60 bar (JK). Each measurement was counted from 0 to whatever the random value would end up to be.
Of course we started guessing the value before the device showed us the value and I'm so god damn good - I guessed completely right [the number was 6381] - only one single time thou, but it's still a really lucky shot against the odds(!)

Paradoxes

I love paradoxes.
Here is one about "chance" by the Swedish/Greek author Theodor Kallifatides:

What is “chance”? And where is it?
What if I randomly pick up two stones from the ground,
take one of them and put it back on the ground a few meters in front of me.
Then I take the one that’s left in my palm and
aim a throw for the stone on the ground.
I get a clean hit!

Is that hit just by chance?
I’d say partially yes, partially no.
“Why is that?” you might ask.
The answer is simply:
“Because I could just as well have missed it".

If I pick up the stone again,
close my eyes, turn around and throws it backwards
towards the stone on the ground.
I miss.
Now, is that miss just by chance?
The answer is “no”, but why?
Since I didn’t aim for it.
Though, if it would have been a hit,
it would for sure be by chance.

Sometimes it’s by chance and sometimes it is not.
The conclusion is that chance is not present by itself –
it’s only present simultaneously with something else.
It’s a bigger chance to get a hit without aiming,
hence the smaller chance if I get a hit with an aimed throw.

I need two stones, one to throw and one to aim for,
thus the fact that without stones and the will to get
a hit the random hit cannot occur.
 In other words,
chance is the relation between reality and my will to change it.
The reality is in control, my will chance the focus – but the chance decide.

I can’t eliminate chance as long as the reality and my will aren’t identical...