I realize I’m kind of late getting this post up but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween. For my Halloween I sat through a three hour lecture on depression (literally) then spent my afternoon and most of the evening in our cadaver lab. It was kind of reminiscent of my childhood days when we would go to homemade haunted houses and have to stick our hands in a bowl of “brains” made out of cold spaghetti or hold a handful of “eyeballs” which were really peeled grapes, only this time I had to hold real brains and eyeballs. Nothing like spending your Halloween with disarticulated spines, bisected heads, and formaldehyde.
Also, it’s the lady and my one year anniversary from our first date. I asked her out on Halloween last year and I took her to Korma Sutra and then we watched The Descent (*swoon*). To celebrate, and along with the fact we have a big test on Monday, I picked up some take-out Korma and we’re going to study ’til the cows come home… Happy Halloween. Or should I say, Happy Halloversary!
(1) To keep with the running theme of the last few family posts, I would like to formally announce my endorsement of Barack Obama for President of the United States. He came to K.C. over the weekend for a rally and yours truly and his main squeeze made it out to show their support. The turnout was incredible (though I hear our neighbors showed us up earlier in the day) and I knew it was going to be a successful rally when I saw both protesters (Fred Phelps, anarchists, etc.) and snipers. Two essential components to any successful rally. In case you didn’t believe that I made it to the event, I took the liberty of pointing me out in the picture above.
(2) For the past two years I’ve gone with medical students (read: nerds) to the haunted houses for a quasi-school sanctioned social event. But alas, not this year. There wasn’t enough interest generated to justify renting a bus, or so I’ve been told. On the bright side, this allows me to go to the annual Halloween party this Saturday with a guilt free conscious. But this brings up the new dilemma of figuring out a costume to wear. To complicate things further, I’ll be attending the party with the Mrs. so the costume has to be couple themed. Since I’m super busy with studying and taking naps, I’m asking you, the loyal readers, to come up with a brilliant costume idea. If I choose your idea, you will be handsomely rewarded. Trust me. Oh, and don’t suggest Tron Guy and Tron Girl. She already shot that one down.
(Update)
(3) If you look below, Jay Maynard (Tron Guy) has once again graced my humble blog with his presence and called my girlfriend out on her unwillingness to be totally awesome. Mr. Maynard is a pretty neat dude so I hope we can be friends.
On one hand he’s a P.C. and he’s the most famous person to read my blog (besides theAlek Pochowski). But on the other hand, I think he hates Obama (who I recently endorsed).
Tron Guy fights for the users. Obama fights for the people. I fight for hamburgers. So yeah, we should pretty much be best friends.
Since everyone I know is lame and didn’t post any questions they had on my previous post I decided to make up my own.
Why are you Mom and Dads’ favorite? - Rachel, age 27
“A number of studies have shown that the prevalence of myopia [nearsightedness] increases with level of education and many studies have shown a relationship between myopia and IQ…. The relationship also holds within families, and siblings with a higher degree of refraction error average higher IQs than siblings with less refraction error.”(Source)
I’m an American history teacher and am currently teaching my students about the French and Indian War. What can you tell me about the process of scalping? -Aaron, age 24
The scalp is made up of five layers (skin, dense connective tissue, aponeurosis, loose connective tissue and periosteum). During the process of scalping the top three layers are pulled off due to the weakness of the loose connective tissue layer.
Scalping was done during war so the victor had a trophy or proof of the kill. More recently, scalping has been seen in Cougar (not that Cougar) attacks. A cougar attacks its prey from behind by clawing the head, which in humans will sever the aponeurosis. Not only will this scalp the victim but will also essentially render them blind because the forehead, which is now free, will fall over the victim’s eyes. Of course, the victim will also be bleeding a lot and still has to worry about the lion. (Source)
Hey! Long time reader, first time commenter. I just got accepted into medical school and really look up to you as a role model. Do you have any advice for how I could prepare for school with my time off? Brett, age 24
Hey Brett! Thanks for the compliments but it’s really you, the readers, that inspire this blog and keep it going.
The most important thing to do is to enjoy your free time because you will never have free time again. Ever. Next, the way I prepared for medical school was by watching lots of documentaries. For instance, our professor asked a question about Munchausen syndrome by proxy the other day and I knew the answer thanks to watching a documentary about the disease. (below)
We just finished the midterm for the first half of our Brain and Behavior module and most everyone was pleased with the results. We’re still waiting to hear back on our “challenges” which should increase our scores a bit.
Our tests are taken on computers and after we finish, the computer will list all of the questions we got wrong and what the correct answers were. We are then given the chance to challenge any questions we felt were unfair or not represented well in lecture by writing out a brief defense. In general the class, as a whole, receives a few points back which pretty much serves as a curve so the majority of the class doesn’t fail (score below 70%).
On this test, I considered taking our challenge system a step further. When I was confronted with a difficult question over a topic I wasn’t completely comfortable with (optics), I was tempted to write about a topic of my choice, that I’m more familiar with (zombies). Or as I like to call it, “pullin’ a Palin“.
(As a side note, my baby brother called me tonight, while I was watching the second presidential debate, to talk to me about the episode of Scare Tactics he was currently watching. Let me reiterate that my formerly politically charged and enlightened twin was watching people being chased by fake werewolves and rat monsters instead of a pivotal political debate. I’m worried that small town America has inflicted some permanent damage on him and it may already be too late.)
