It's Franken-STEEN

David was a VERY good boy by having his laptop, on the wireless connection, in class, because the powers that be of the Surgery Club announced a suture clinic that had limited space (though since it was limited to members, not TOO crowded), and he hooked me up with a spot by emailing on the double so I got to spend two hours of this evening practicing on ropes with various professional ways of making square knots and THEN, cadaver stitching! It's like sewing, but talking about it in polite company isn't considered to be socially acceptable, and hopefully, there aren't any cats playing with your yarn.

What did I discover? On the practice ropes, I am smokin'... which apparently means that if I don't pass biochemistry, I can make a STELLAR living selling friendship bracelets by the side of a freeway.

Stitching up cadavers? Not so hot... gotta practice if I'm ever going to make it to that surgical residency I'm shooting for, though since I like orthopedics, any discipline that involves power tools can't want your stitches TOO neat... right? Right??? Those needles are little!

But I'll get it! Laila and David are regular pros.

I'd make this entry longer, funnier, and full of pictures, however, I've been lead astray by Sarah, who peer pressured me into abandoning studying to dive tomorrow in the guise of an email saying that Phil told her to ask me if I wanted to dive the Atlantic side of the island tomorrow.

This may not SEEM like peer pressure until you realize that I've never dived the Atlantic side, it's for advanced divers only (thus stroking my enormous ego), and exposure to currents means we may get sharks (the more benign ones, Jaws fans). When I called Phil and he confirmed we'd be diving "Shark Reef" with a try for a dive on the Hema (a wreck), I was completely sold.

I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that I am now completely down with hemoglobin, having gotten my omitted lecture note page the long way by reading it (with the rest of the information) out of the Lippincott Bible. I've re-discovered that the long way of reading the relevant information out of Lippincott, and THEN recopying the lecture notes cements things pretty well.

So does learning about things I've seen disguised as episodes of House. Wilson's Disease, baby!!! Who could forget a disorder that was not ONLY figured out by Hugh Laurie, but (in real life!) gives you copper rings in your eyes? That's pretty cool!

I'm also down with problems in heme synthesis (porphyrias) because they have a historical precedent for the creation of vampire/werewolf myths, and I'm a history nerd.

So that only leaves extracellular matrix, special liver functions, vitamins/cofactors, eicosanoids, and hemostasis to re-cover before Monday before they CONTINUE to throw new material at us because they're... ya know, evil. Hey, it could happen!

I'm also playing catch up in anatomy because there's still a lot I don't know and resting on your laurels tends to bring trouble. As noted, the ear is still a great mystery, summed up best by Eddie Izzard's: 'hmm... the ear... we'll have that cover... hearing and vomiting... yes, that should be fun'

Speaking of vomiting though, I need to go and slap a patch behind my ear to prevent just that. I hear that boat trip is *rough*.