Your endochondral ossification is showing.....

So I've successfully navigated my first week in my Human Anatomy class. We had our first test today on Intro to anatomy, the integumentary system and bone & connective tissues...did I mention that I've only been in class for a week?! I think I did alright, not stupendous, but not horrible either....luckily, I can drop my lowest test score and now I know what to expect from the tests....and knowledge, as they say, is power...

I'm actually enjoying the class and Dr. Anderson, my professor is a pretty cool cat. Within the first hour of lecture on the first day of class he showed us several pictures of himself when he was younger (the moustaches were awesome!) a picture of Raquel Welch (so that we would have a point of reference when she showed up in the story problems on our exams--this made me feel old as I realized that there were fellow baby-students who really had now idea who she was), a picture of Kate Beckinsale in Underworld, two gunshot wounds and a man who was stabbed in his thoracic cavity with a kitchen knife!

I also survived my first anatomy lab which involved hanging out in the cadaver lab. We haven't had to view the actual bodies yet, but we did have to sit around with them on their tables in their body bags....I think they're trying to acclimatize us to the idea of being around the bodies. Above each bodies is a whiteboard that contains their name, the date they died, how old they were, the cause of death and their occupation at the time of death. I hung out with Isabella, an 87 year old homemaker who died of natural causes, as I learned about the axial skeleton. I'm not creeped out by the bodies...I'm more fascinated than heebed, but I know I'm going to have a hard time separating the person from the body....I just can't seem to make not myself think about the family they left behind and the fact that they woke up one morning, ate some cereal, kissed their wife, went off to work and then had a heart attack....I feel like a voyeur. Annette's Mike gave me the excellent piece of advice to focus on only what I need to learn from the lesson. Hans then told me I should pretend they're all hobos. I'm thinking maybe I'll take a combination of both approaches to not end up barfing!

So, a story for you all. As I was sitting, learning the bones of the skull & vertebrae, I glanced up from my notes and saw a clear plastic bin filled with liquid sitting on one of the cadaver tables. And floating in that liquid was a pair of blue eyes STARING AT ME! I realized then that I should get used to seeing odd things floating in liquids. I'm not even going to tell you what was in the bin next to it!!