Thank you, biochem

Never thought I'd say *those* words.

And yes, someone's procrastinating. Lotta blog posts, eh?

Though initially exceptionally disappointed to spend a good part of my summer memorizing the second half of biochem because I'm such a spaz, DAMN, am I glad of it now. I'm also glad for the work I did in histo (with Manlocks' help, of course) because there is some mystifying stuff that is only making sense in light of stuff I learned last term, and I don't mean "general stuff you should have conceptualized last term", I mean "piddling minutia that isn't adequately explained, so thank freaking heavens you actually remember it".

Thus, due in large part to biochemistry's unhealthy obsession with enzymes and the fun little things they do, I'm finding error after error in my gastrointestinal system notes, leading me to wonder if, on the exam, I put what I know to be *right* (and what was taught in biochem and histo) answer, or do I put the answers in the new physio lecture notes? Decisions decisions. And I'm pretty sure Intrinsic Factor isn't an exocrine secretion, but I've been wrong before.

For a little background, in physiology, we finished the cardiovascular lectures (which I thought were really good) and started with a new set of notes, a new lecturer, and a new set of potential midterm questions with GI tract.

So far, I'm not finding gastrointestinal that *hard* per se (cardiovascular was harder because this summer made me good at biochem but did nothing for my fifth grade understanding of physics and the CV system is just one big fluid dynamics nightmare taunting me in the voice of my high school physics teacher), but the lecture quality has dropped off, so I'm having to cross reference stuff that "seems wrong", because turns out, it is. Sigh.

But, turns out, all that biochem that seemed irrelevant actually is really important, and may save my butt, which is more important. It's also the only way I can remotely begin to understand immunology, and the parts I understand best are the ones that have an overlap in biochem or oddly enough, parasitology.

So though I haven't taken any exams and certainly have not been a paradigm of "success" this term, if I have any advice as of late (other than parroting my dad's "don't spin your wheels"), it's that so far the best help I've had in second term is understanding first term. Seems obvious, but there ya go.

Physics is helpful, apparently, but for the cardiovascular lectures, that awesome prof started with "I'm going to assume you all think the heart is something on the front of a valentine and go from there." Thank the gods.