We are now 14 days pre-midterm and I'm defintely feeling it breathing down my neck and am trying my best to not panic prematurely (that's a special moment saved for the saturday morning of the weekend before when I realize that I'm counting down in hours before the anatomy midterm). I have to say that the time period between unifieds and miterms feels quite a bit smaller post unified. When I think about the amount of material I have to cram into my poor overstressed neurons I start to get a little faint. Then I start thinking about preganglionic nerves and post ganglionic fibers and Dr. Bashir and how amsuing it is that I finally really get that and then start freaking out slightly because I can't remember exactly which vertebral levels that the parasympathetic nervous system originates from (craniosacral outflow by the way, spinal nerves 3, 7, 9 and 10) and then I start ruminating (inexplicably) on the epigastric arteries which are really quite fascinating since the superior epigastric artery is a branch of the internal thoracic artery and the inferior epigastric artery is a branch off of the external iliac artery but the superior and inferior anastamose with each other and so are in actuality continuous and run in the posterior rectus sheath. My eyes are usually swirling at this point. @.@ As I imagine yours are. Unless of course you're here in term 1 with me in which case you'd probably scoff and wonder why I'm still going on about epigastrics when I should be worrying about five million other more important things that I don't know, such as cardiac embryology because it is currently kicking my sorry self all around the non-existent field I'm frolicking in - it's in my own personal La La land that I frequent frequently these days. *slightly crazed grin* See, normally, the crazy pre-test manic state (which I was recently described as being in) starts a day or so before a test. But here.... You see, in undergrad, if you procrastinate as I did, you'd normally start studying for a test the night before and that was cramming. In med school? You start cramming three weeks ahead of time. Hell, to be completely honest, I should have been 'cramming' since day one. What can I say? I was lulled into a false sense of thinking that studying a few hours a day meant I was doing ok. Yeah, not. I've upped my studying about three fold or so and it seems the more I study the more behind I feel! Gyah! Miterms! Run for the hills!
Hills I could conceivably run to:
Ok, now that I've convinced all of you (that weren't aware already) that I'm neurotic I'll impart good news! I made an awesome score on my Histology unified. Almost perfect, only missed one question. Go me! Go my half hour of power skim studying! Oh Histology, how I love thee. Why oh why can't my other classes be as easy? Or as material light? And the midterm will have photomicrographs (fancy term for 'pictures') which will be make it even better. Looking at slides is the best. I mean, really, how hard is it too tell a pyramidal cell body in the cerebral cortex from a purkinje cell from the cerebellar cortex or from a from a pseudounipolar cell body in a dorsal root ganglion? *pouting* I'm telling you, cellular nervous system is so much easier than gross anatomy level nervous system. Although I imagine there are many people who would disagree with me.Since you've read (or skimmed) this far I will give you pretty pictures to back up my claims of simplicity in Histology photomicrographs. Sorry people, not ocean. The closest my roommate and I have gotten is that we opened our blinds this morning to see natural light. Natural light! It was so...bright. We stayed in studying all day yesterday and didn't venture out until dark in search of something edible that wasn't a sandwich.
Ok, ok, promised pictures! Our first picture hails from the wonderful place called the Cerebellar Cortex. Isn't it pretty? Ok, ok, the arrows are pointing the the aforementioned purkinje cells. See the pretty cells? Ok, those make up the, you guessed it, the purkinje cell layer. The dark layer underneath them is called the granular layer. The lighter area above the purkinje cell layer is the molecular layer. See? Makes sense and is easy to figure out. These three layers make up the outer gray matter of the cortex.
Ok! Next we have something a bit different, a photomicrograph of a dorsal root ganglion (basically, a collection of nerve cell bodies outside the central nervous system, so in other words, other than the spinal cord and brain). See the pseudounipolar neurons? Aren't they just adorable. All round and happy (well, not that happy since they're dead, fixed, sliced and stained but you get the idea). They were happy once. And isn't that what's important? 
Ok! Next we have something a bit different, a photomicrograph of a dorsal root ganglion (basically, a collection of nerve cell bodies outside the central nervous system, so in other words, other than the spinal cord and brain). See the pseudounipolar neurons? Aren't they just adorable. All round and happy (well, not that happy since they're dead, fixed, sliced and stained but you get the idea). They were happy once. And isn't that what's important? Ok, I'm not actually as crazy as I sound sometimes. Really. And sorry for the long post where I inadvertently (I swear!) started teaching you histology. *sheepish* Totally wasn't my intention! But now you know some histology. Ha ha! :P
Back to the books!! I think I'll go 'study' fatty acid oxidation (and if you know me you understand why FAO is in quotations). *grin* Bye!
Listening to: 地獄少女 オリジナルサウンドトラック
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