d'ya think pelvis in plural would be pelvi?

so here it is: my friend j told me that she was tired of reading my 'anatomically corrrrrrrect' post and that i should hop on writing a new entry. however, just to be clear, this is not the reason i am writing a new entry (cuz she's not the boss of ME). i am writing because i want to. because it's about that time.

exam time.

and frankly, i gots better things to do in my life than study. like blog. (yo peanut gallery - ssshhhht! i had better things to do over the past two months, too...)

so....i wrote my anatomy exam this past thursday, and i am ridiculously relieved. in preparation for the big 8:30 am event, i pulled a geriatric all-nighter on wednesday night - a term i coined to refer to an all-nighter with a nap in the middle. y'know, for all of us supah-old-almost-31-year-olds. i also invited another student midwife and friend, L, to keep me from going entirely insane. and with the assistance of coke, chocolate, tandoori doritos, and lots of knee-slapping jokes (which i won't repeat here, cuz our anatomical word wizardry would certainly be beyond you) we were able to stave off our nap until 4 am.

i set my alarm for 6 am in order to re-review respiration, urine production, and the innervation of the penis (what kind of morning starts out like that?!), we drank some scary-ass potent coffee, and we were at school by 7:45 am. but the exam was not the highlight of the day - no, no, no. that honour is bestowed to another fellow midwife-to-be, my friend S, who ate two boston creme timmy ho donuts. in a row. right before we entered a room full of a bunch of pickled organs (yes, including those organs), cadaver portions, and The World's Nerdiest Professors for our bellringer. now that, my friends, is a strong stomach.

in other school-related news, i meant to study the whole of this weekend for my communications exam on wednesday, but it really felt like i had to re-socialize (or de-anatomize) myself. my mind was chock full of the names of blood vessels and their layers, potential pathologies of the kidney, the direction of fetal blood circulation vs. adult circulation, and the path of an ovulated egg. i needed to just *not think* for a bit (not to mention that i really needed some good sleep - takes us seniors a long time to catch up). plus, check out my professor's website for the subject for which i am supposed to be studying. as you do so, try to imagine what kind of lecturer he would be. and then, imagine that he is about 10 million times worse than that, and you may get a glimpse of what my monday nights this term have been like.

so, yeah. studying this weekend just didn't make the cut. but here's what did:
- eating indian food with my bro and B at my new favourite restaurant (and no, smart asses, not cuz it's a buffet, but cuz it's got amazing food)
- being visited by J and baby scouter
- watching our taped episode of grey's anatomy from thursday
- eating party mix (loudly), drinking grape juice mixed with soda water, and burping
- running the 894 killer stairs leading from suburbia-land (where we live on the mtn) to the 'hood down below us
- buying a new stereo for the car (finally - only 9 months since it was stolen!!)
- playing a new video game on the computer
- reading all the blogs i haven't been reading
- burning my anatomy notes
- cuddling with the cat

i figure it's all worth it. and by tomorrow morning, bright and early, i will be ready to conquer lectures with titles like "framing the victorians: the development of photography," "the renaissance computer: being a lecture on the subject of gutenberg's printing press and the consequences pertaining thereto for european societies" and my favourite, "who killed the picturephone?" (within whose lecture our professor actually quoted 'video killed the radio star'). and, if you call me before wednesday and i don't answer, it's probably b/c i've stuck a pencil in my eye from trying to translate his feckin' weekly comedy routines into something i can study to prepare for an exam in which we are expected to write three. essays. in. three. hours. gaaaaaahhhhhhhh.

anatomically corrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrect

i just wanted to share with my blogging public that sleeping with my anatomy notes under my pillow (aka osmosis) must work after all! i am significantly smarter than last term - that is, if we use midterm grades as our benchmark...can i just say that i have never been so happy to be only 3/4 right in my whole life?!

anywho...i am on a library-owned HP laptop sitting smack next to a couple of 19 year old valley girl sound-alikes, but i've had about all i can take. soooo...until later!

a wohk in the pahk (to be said a la dick van dyke in 'mary poppins')

as the mercury in southern ontario rose to a balmy 1.9 degrees, and as i am the world's best procrastinator (self-proclaimed, mind you, but i bet i would beat you anyway), i went into guelph yesterday afternoon to hang out with two of my favourite babies (and their mommies, who are not too shabby either). contrary to the title of this post, there was not really any walking in the park (too much slush and ice to navigate precious cargo down the big pre-park hill), but there was a lot of walking. and a fair bit of talking, cake-eating, and some of us even filled our pants (shame on you, jess!).

it was a glorious day - sunny, crisp, mucky, with a hint of spring, and it was just what i needed to balance out the hours i have been spending trying to memorize the types and functions of white blood cells, the crazy mathetmatical formulas for lung elastance, and what the stomach looks like under a microscope as compared to the jejunum. although i was feeling quite apprehensive before the visit about taking so much time away from my studying/ panicking/desire to ram a pencil in my eye, it was a wonderful reprieve. so thank you girls! and thank you, my sweet babies!!

just one last note...as we walked and pushed the lucky monkeys in their deluxe, ready-to-scale-mountains stroller systems, with their visors to shade their drowsy eyes from the sun, their little warm fuzzy carseat sacs, their blankies, and their soft squishy pillows to cradle their heads...i wondered, for the umpteenth time, why someone couldn't make strollers for adults. someone hop on that, mmkay? i'll tradeja some really cool physiology facts about the liver that are sure to be party pleasers...

it's kinda hard to study when...

...something this cute sits on your anatomy textbook!

newsflash!

so it turns out, counter to my concerns of yesterday, that i was of great use during the karaoke-a-thon last night. though my nasal passages are kaput, my lungs are apparently quite healthy, and enabled me to perform a couple of hits with two other midwives-to-be who shared my penchant for self-humiliation in large crowds (i couldn't help but feel the whole night was reminiscent of tunes that would've been played on winnipeg's 1290 fox station, circa 1992). whatever the case, it was good times.

however stunned we may have rendered the (mostly drunk and oblivious) audience with our unadulterated talent, i must say that my favourite performances of the night came from a rotund, white-haired man wearing a tight, retro t-shirt emblazened with 'super star' (two words, not 'superstar'). it just worked for him, y'know? he first sang something country (wendy the honky-tonk would probably know the artist, but alas, i did not), and then an old showtune that i recognized but also could not name (apparently i need to hang out at this place more to up my 'karaoke cred'). anyways i enjoyed him. i would highly recommend a trip to the snooty fox in hamilton on a sunday night just to hang out with him.

it turns out that i am less and less able to create kleenex art, which is a positive thing. okay yet another tangent...but i have to get it out. every time i say/write the words 'it turns out' i always think of this one lecturer we had for anatomy, because he always used those words to describe things he thought were really interesting, or just really obvious. for instance: 'it turns out that our gastrointestinal tract is just one long tube connecting the mouth and the anus' or 'it turns out that we swallow about 1.5 litres of mucous a day' or my favourite, 'it turns out that people with injuries to their scapula will develop what look like the wings of a chicken' (?!). so now every time i utter/write those words, i can hear his nasal, annoying voice in my head...which frankly, i could do without. it's noisy enough up there already.

okay. i'm going to go watch supernanny, which my lovely woman-servant taped for me to watch upon my return from my class an hour ago. can i just say that i adore jo-jo? (i just about wrote 'and her naughty spot' but that takes things to a whole other level. if you watched the show, however, your mind would be out of the gutter and you'd know what i meant!!!)

human anatomy

okay so here's the thing...i'm at school, studying to be a midwife. yay me. one of the courses we have to take is...okay i need to interject for a sec. i just looked over to my right to find some guy with his whole hand down his pants...wtf?! ahem. okay, as i was saying, we have to take anatomy & physiology all year, & today we were introduced to our lab TA & our whole lab. i have to say the experience was slightly freaky, as the specimens were of human origins. i know, i know, how could i not realize that a human anatomy course would include cadavers (sp?) & parts thereof?! but i didn't consider it. not that it would have stopped me...it's just a bit weird, is all.

i think the hardest part of the lab, other than not feeling like passing out in the tropical-like environment (you'd think they would want to regulate the temperature so it doesn't feel like india in there) will be to refrain from making smart-ass comments. there are a lot of folks using the labs who know someone who donated themselves to science, and obviously we need to be respectful of that. i totally understand, and believe me, i want to be respectful. but at the same time, that shutting up is difficult for me at the best of times! the morbid, macabre, slovenly part of me wants to say things that will inevitably be disrespectful, so i am going to have to work a bit more on self-regulation. and it's like the game where you're not supposed to say a certain word...now that i know i can't/shouldn't make glib comments, i want to. desperately. i am hoping by posting this and 'getting it out my system', as it were, i will be able to maintain a strict moral code of behaviour in the lab. if you can inspire me to remain respectful, i am all ears...

my clever example of 'all ears'