Flipped again...

If it's not Manlocks, it's something else...

I don't like cytochrome P450, despite it's grooviness in ethanol metabolism, because it smacks too much of chemistry, talking about oxygen electron transfers, which is confusing to me, despite the fact that determining the differences in levels of conjugated versus unconjugated biliruben was just something I found to kick ass and didn't send up my "chemistry danger!!!" alarms.

So what does my brain do as I try to study it? Wanders off. Now, gloriously etched in my notebook, I have the adventures of SuperOxide.. namely, a free radical in a cape and underwear. I'm not sure how I got an O2 ion with an extra electron INTO a cape and underwear, but I'm talented like that.

Somehow, Superoxide ends up taking on a hero role, despite his tendency to rip into our genetic material like a fat kid after cookies. In other words, "Here, I'll break... Your DNA!!" all done in a singsongy voice.

So what to do when you have free radicals without a cause running rampant through your cytosol? Why you SCAVENGE them of course! Depicted as a giant superoxide dismutase vulture swooping down on the frightened hero, who naturally has a "Ruh roh!" exclamation bubble.

This scavenging leads to the production of hydrogen peroxide... which still sucks, as depicted by a picture of a crying liver with eyes. But at least we can use catalase (drawn, obviously, as a cat) to attack it... unless of course we have Renee Zellweger syndrome, which means our peroxidases are screwed, and we get into cat fights (catalase fights?) with Catherine Zeta Jones in movies based on popular Broadway musicals.

So yeah, my brain is fried. And after reading all that nonsense, yours probably is too.

The air conditioning is broken in the wet lab, speaking of fried brains, and boy howdy is that starting to smell stellar. Not surprisingly, dead bodies aren't ALL that nasally pleasant to begin with and when you warm them in the sweet salty Caribbean air, the aroma is made all that much worse. Vicks anyone? However, wet lab today WAS probably the most productive one all term because, realizing that there were a ton of hot, anxious, pissy students fighting for room around the demonstrators to get some last hopes for the final, our benevolent professors set up a camera and a single demonstrator and broadcast it to the tvs in the lab, doing an overview of structures they could tag for the exam. Love you guys, seriously.

Four lectures today, which is usually brutal, but today's were really interesting, including biochem, where we're doing a lot of nutritional evaluations and getting to look at the horrible multitude of complications that hit when you starve yourself. We also learned that "kwarshiorker" is how you say "The disease the older child gets when the new baby comes" in Twi (Ghana language). Talk about having a word for everything! I think the Germans have finally been beaten!

Some of you may be wondering whatever happened to poor Manlocks, by the way... Unfortunately, since I haven't picked up a histology textbook, oh... since midterms, this has left Manlocks with little to do except traipse around the pharynx and larynx wondering just how many freaking branches the vagus nerve could possibly have (a lot). It's a jungle in there!