Philosophy during lunch time

I haven't had time for anything else but studying for the two last tests. I know people from the 1st and 2nd Faculty are waiting for the pictures, from the last Winter Party event at Jetset, to be published. Just hold on guys, they will be uploaded by me and the other photographers at Saturday to different forums such as facebook, AIMS, LF1 and of course here on my log in HQ for you to save.
Anatomy went down quickly and I hope I did good, I don't want to have the test nagging my heels as I continue on next year.
Right now I need to navigate through the thick mist of haemotopoiesis and haematology. It's rather detailed and I really don't like to learn things shallowly.

My head is pretty much starting to shut down, it's just one more day left.
Sometimes you just have to take breaks from the books and as soon I get some time over I've been reading up on philosophic history.
"Strange" you might say, "interesting" is my answer.

Do not spoil what you have by
desiring what you have not;
remember that what you now have
was once among the things
you only hoped for...

- Epicurus [341 BCE – 270 BCE]

I can easily conceive, most Holy Father,
that as soon as some people learn that in this book which I have written
concerning the revolutions of the heavenly bodies,
I ascribe certain motions to the Earth,
they will cry out at once that
I and my theory should be rejected.

- Nicolaus Copernicus [1473 – 1543]

A well-deserved thank you

Just wanted to give my dissection group's TA and responsible dissection leader Kristyna, demonstrators Sara, Zuzana, Shrey and Nabeel a well-deserved thank you, for a great job during dissections instructing and teaching.

Waiting is the worst part

The hallway outside the dissection rooms were packed with anxious students. I wasn't as nervous as I usually am before these kinds of exams, more focused and just wanted to go in there and preform.

The waiting is the worst part and it's interesting to see how different people cope with stress. Some persons do crazy revision, some sits down on the floor just quietly drowning in nervousness, some guys are jumping around joking and some just try to block everything out with music.
There are some things that I really don't like to do and some things that I have to do before a big exam, this is my protocol:

- I never study on the day of the exam. I don't believe in last minute learning.
- I try not to discuss the exam material before the exam.
- I need at least 8 hours of good sleep to get all the information straight.
- I need a good breakfast.
- I try to drink or eat something rich in sugar right before the exam starts.
- Being nervous is fine, to a certain level. I always try to calm down and even if I'm not
I always put on a calm mask during oral exams.

The first names started to get called out and after 5 minutes the first two guys came out, with smiles on their lips. Facial expressions are the best way of telling if a person passed or not.
Over all the exam seemed to be easy and I confirmed that just minutes later. I was called in and had to sit down and watch my colleague being examined by the head of the Anatomy department Professor Grím. This is where my pulse went up. My exam started off on the anterior compartment of the upper limb and I got approximately ten questions.
It was amazingly easy and I feel a bit disappointed, not only because I screwed up one of the questions but because I wanted to be examined on all of my knowledge. I guess it's supposed to be an introduction because I doubt that the finals are going to be this comfortable. Of course I am glad for passing but the thing is that I was so prepared and I really wanted to get my knowledge confirmed. I still don't have the answer to the question: "do I know enough?"

'Valerie Lights'

It's something about this song that really made me smile this morning :)

Dissection #4

As we get closer to the test the dissections get more and more intense, I understand why.
The specimens are almost dissected so that all the structures are visible and orientating details is no longer a guess in the blue.
Reading the previous post you already know about my horrible night and good morning with the insomnia and skull test so this is the rest of the day.

After anatomy my first priority was to get home to eat, being tested and having introductions just drains one's energy and my breakfast wasn't the best of breakfasts. Eating and revising goes hand in hand most of the time so reading up on some topography and vessel pathways got me prepared for today.
I went to the dissection earlier in order to repeat the structures and not very surprisingly a lot of my colleagues did the same. The dissection tables were packed with students starting to freak out over the exam and you could tell from the sound level and the hectic atmosphere, I don't blame them thou, I have the exact same feeling starting to grow within.
Even if my common sense tells me to stay relaxed, focused and that it's not that great of a deal - I think we're making it bigger than what it really is - it's dangerous to underestimate such things as well.

Today was a really interesting and worthwhile day. I actually got to see some very important structures, due to an amazing dissection job from our teachers assistant Kristyna and Nabeel. They spent a lot of time to thoroughly dissect the inguinal canal - the one that is rather tricky both to find and to theoretically visualize.
I've been trying to fill my gap in detail knowledge as well as repeating old stuff such as origin/insertion of muscles which can be confusing sometimes.
Me, Niyat, Jean, Malek, Thomas, Arani and Nina gathered for revision after the day finished and with some supervision from Suresh (2 year student) we managed to repeat the most sufficient parts.
We ended about an hour ago close to midnight and now I really need to get some sleep, or I rather say TRY to get some sleep depending on my brain, because tomorrow morning I have a seminar in the subject we all forgot we have; Histology.

Let's call it a day already, shall we..?

Insomnia part 2

When I was on my way home I really thought I'd get one night of proper sleep.
But gosh, I really can’t sleep any more.
Usually when I have this insomnia I tend to be very sick, starving or a complete nerve wreck about something – like the first night in the army.
This is something different. My head is so filled up with thoughts, course material, upcoming presentations and philosophic questions, and the only time I can really, thoroughly think it all through is when I go to bed.
It’s like putting a computer to waiting mode instead of shutting it down. The shell is quiet but the core is still making calculations - my body is sleeping, almost paralysed, but my head is in a high activity state.

I hardly hit any REM sleep at all and my curve should look like a straight line of 'xtc. I usually remember the majority of my dreams and I am often able to share them but lately I hardly dream at all, which is a big loss since I really like dreaming.
Now it is more like I’m processing and sorting all the incoming information during my “not-asleep-nor-awake”-state.

This quote is from one of the posts from one of the nights during the premed in Stockholm and I've been waiting for it to come back. Imagine this and then compare a Duck Tales Magazine with Sabotta Atlas of Anatomy and then you'll get the estimated difference.
Surprisingly it's showing up rather late which of course is a good sign.

Tonight was bad. My head was sort of imploding from hyperactivity and I mixed foraminae of the skull with visions of my future, dreams about spiders laying eggs in my throat (after paralyzing me with venom) with anatomical topography repetition, good memories from the past with nightmares of being chased by mouthfaced zombies (zombies with faces only containing a big mouth), pasta recipes containing not pasta but optic nerves and so on, the whole night through.
I think I got one hour of effective sleep and on top of that I twisted my neck so now it hurts.

By that processed and said, I'll end this post with some rather good news. Anatomy seminar just ended and I finally got the skull test out of the way so now I can concentrate 100% on the dissection exam on Friday.

Dissection #3

Notes from the dissection black board. Covering the Brachial Plexus and the Axillary Spaces.
Today wasn't as good as the last two days.
Sure, I saw some new structures and learnt a couple of new things but my head just wasn't there with me. I wasn't tired really, nor hungry, I just didn't feel it.
And now I really regret not taking the skull test last Friday because tonight I have to pick up the bits I didn't study a week ago. I'm not getting confused but imagine pouring hot water into a glass of ice water and expect the ice to still be there. I guess you understand that the ice is a metaphor for my skull knowledge slowly crawling deep into the neurons as new fresh information enters.
The glass is bigger than I thought thou, there's still some space left.

Next week is countdown for the semester break and it's only 9 days left until I get to go home again for the first time since I got here. I'm really looking forward to it - but more importantly is to keep the focus to the end.

If you still haven't understood what we're doing in dissections the best thing I can do is to toss you a link to videos. I'm not allowed to publish anything from our class but this might give you a hint and maybe you'll see that it isn't as bad as you think.
On the other hand, I find it very disturbing that there's a lot of dissection videos available at youtube etc. even for younger audiences. If you find the second one disturbing then do not try out the clip labeled "autopsy" in the menu to the right.

Link to Muscle video (good for understanding/insertion/origin/function of muscles)
Link to Dissection video (in my opinion better for dissection of specimen)

Got to get back to the books now, over 'n out...

Dissection #3: Preparation

Inguinal Canal Scheme

The inguinal canal is rather difficult to visualize and there's not too many good pictures out there.

I wonder if this one is a good one and if it's correct(?) - I hope I got the idea right but I'll see during today's dissection.