The Century Tree

Well, Matt was home when I got back from my test. The plan was for us (me, Matt, Em) to have pizza rolls from Double Daves. When I walked in the door, Matt was there, and one of the first things I noticed was that he had a red bandana around his neck. Interesting...so I put my stuff down and checked my computer and then I inquired about the pizza rolls. Then Matt informed me that we weren't have pizza rolls - we were going somewhere else and I had to wear the bandana...as a blindfold. Curiosity reigned as I goofily agreed. We went to the car and I was blindfolded. I didn't even think about trying to keep track of where we were going. It wasn't too far away, and we got out of the car and Matt led me along a sidewalk. My first thought was that we were at a park because I could hear people playing. However, two-thirds of the way through our walk, I heard a train. Judging from the sound intensity and the direction from which it was coming, I knew we were on the A&M campus...which made me quickly realize where we were probably going. And then we were there - the Century Tree - the most romantic spot at A&M. Tradition has it that if you walk under those oaken boughs alone you will be single forever, and if you walk under it with another, that is the person you are going to marry. And Matt pulled off my blindfold. He said, "it's about that time in our relationship..." and got down on one knee, and asked "Cameron Hall, will you marry me?"

* pause for the collective "awwwwwwwwww..." *

Guess what, I said yes. And here are the pictures to prove it (hopefully - I'm new to blog pictures, but what a good event to try to put them up!)















Then we went to dinner and came home. I tried to do homework. It didn't take. Oh well, I'm too happy to care! :)

Wohoo!

Matt left Dallas around 2 pm, so he will be waiting for me at the duplex when I get back from my physiology lab test. Speaking of that test, I just haven't studied very much for it. Everyone has heard stories about how horrible the lab tests are, but I don't really see what could be so bad. Besides, this test grade is worth only 5% of my grade, so I want to do well but a B or C won't sink me at all.

I met with Dr Hildreth (my boss) today to discuss working for the second summer session. Organic labs start July 6. He wanted to schedule me for lots of hours, since I am the most experienced person at work now, but I just didn't think I could handle it. This summer was supposed to be my relaxing pre-graduation summer, with only two classes including one online, but it hasn't turned out that way at all. I mean, I'm not stressed out, but I fill my days with class, SI's, online health lectures, and studying. Throwing 15-20 hours of work into the mix would've been unacceptable. I told him I could work a maximum of 10 hours a week, and I think that's more than enough to cramp my academic style. Oh well...we'll see what he comes up with. And the good news is I still have three-day weekends, since labs are only Monday-Thursday. I would've been totally opposed to the idea of working on Fridays. Oh, this made me happy: one of my favorite people at work last fall - John - came back from his spring semester internship at a nuclear reactor to work in the labs this summer (and beyond) and take summer school. That's pretty exciting for me, because he's super nice and makes work more fun. :)

Next week I have my second physiology test and my health midterm and I start work...I am going to crash that weekend (good thing it is three days long!). Well, I should probably try to study before I have to leave for my test.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Matt comes to College Station today! Yay! ...Unless he decides to come tomorrow, which I hope doesn't happen. But regardless, he's coming soon! In other good news, I only have three health lectures left to watch before my midterm. I finally heard from my professor - the test is 75-80 multiple choice questions and we can just show up on whichever testing date/time is most convenient. Good stuff.

I couldn't wait :)

Well, I couldn't wait ... I wanted to change my template and so I just did it. I tweaked it a bit from the default. If any of my readers notice any problems, like something is hard to read, doesn't work, I forgot to put something back in, etc, please let me know! I like it overall, though - I think it fits the whole "Kokiri Forest" idea very nicely. :)

I'm investing in hydroponics

There is an incredibly huge blob about the size of Maine on the radar heading our way. I don't know why I was surprised. But it may prevent me from going to SI because, after last Thursday, I am done with driving in the rain.

I'm thinking of changing my blog template. It worries me, because it is a big step, but I think it'd be fun. Thoughts? Leslie also promised to hook me up with picture-posting capabilities (i.e. hosting pictures somewhere on overt so I could display them here) but she has neglected to tell me how to go about doing that. :(

I have a lab test tomorrow ... :( ... but Matt might be coming! :) [at the latest, he's coming on Thursday!]

*whimper*

This is going to be a crazy 10 days or so...I have errands to run tomorrow (grocery store, bank, etc), a lab test Wednesday night, my long day of class on Thursday plus Matt will probably come that day (that's one of the two positives in this list), July 4th weekend at the lake (the other positive element), my health midterm July 5, 6, or 7, and a Physiology test July 7. Throw in starting work again in the organic chemistry labs, attending a few SI's, answering online physiology questions every day, watching health lectures (six left before the midterm), studying, and going to class, and ugh - I want to cry.

On a positive note, I slept fabulously last night, probably because I was in a real bed with clean sheets and freshly showered body, I wasn't in the living room, I was tired, and I could extend my legs to their full length. Oh, and although I miss him, not having the dog probably helped too...no late-night chewing, scratching, or bladder needs to attend to, and no - as he was doing in Dallas - thundering up and down the stairs in the middle of the night.

Well, time to hit the books. :-\

Disclaimer

I did a search for "cameron blog physiology" on google and my blog was the first thing that popped up (well, actually my blogger profile was)...with that in mind, I'd just like to say that I really like physiology and I don't really think any of my professors are insane (just eccentric). That is all.

rain, rain, go away

The rain has followed me from College Station. It hadn't been raining so much in Dallas the last week, but when I came up, it decided to go all out. First off, there was the exciting drive I had from College Station to the miniranch - near-white-out conditions forced me to pulled over once (not too far from the car that had fallen/been washed into a ditch; I had to cautiously cross inches-deep water running full force across OSR; my average speed the first half of the drive was typically 30 mph under the speed limit. But I made it eventually to the miniranch, where I got to see Leslie again (she was either sporting her awesome laser surgery goggles or sunglasses indoors and out to protect her eyes). We fed the cows, relaxed, ate dinner, etc. On Friday morning, Murphy went on his first boat ride ever - he had an awesome time, I think because it was somewhat akin to sticking his head out a car window. He only scared us a few times by jumping onto edges or the back of the boat where he could've easily fallen off. But I take that to mean he's a natural on the water. Surprising. Yesterday afternoon Leslie and I headed back to Dallas, with Mom and Dad not too far behind. Last night we all watched the third Lord of the Rings movie. Mom and Dad hadn't seen it, and Leslie and I had only seen it once (with each other over Christmas break in California, oddly enough, considering how little of Leslie I see these days). Today Leslie and I took Carolyn to Cisco for lunch, which was lovely (except for the rain). Leslie has retired to the bed for a nap (she got back in the wee hours last night after spending time with Sarah McCall at some bars) and I just watched a health lecture (woo). I only have ten left now (that really isn't very good on my part, considering I've only watched 15 lectures so far and the midterm is in about 10 days). I want to watch at least two more today. Yuck. Anyway...the plan tomorrow is lunch with Midhat (I want to hear how medical school is going so far!) and then heading back to College Station. I really hope it doesn't rain on my drive tomorrow, but the forecast suggests that it will. That's just great.

Definitely insane

Today's physiology lecture reinforced the idea that my phys prof (Dr Hunter) is at least partially crazy. We were talking about reflex arcs and how they occur independent of the brain. The science - when your body notices that something really bad is going on that you need to get away from (ex: you're touching a hot stove burner), the pain receptors (in this case, thermal pain receptors) send a signal along an afferent pathway to your spinal cord, where the afferent nerve synapses with an interneuron (or more than one), which synapses with an efferent nerve that makes you jerk your hand away (ex: an excitatory interneuron sends a signal to your bicep to contract while an inhibitory interneuron sends a signal to your triceps to relax, so that your hand is pulled away from the heat source). The afferent nerve also sends a signal up to your brain to let it know what's going on (as in, wow, my hand was on a burner and that hurt) so that it can learn from your mistakes (don't put hand on burner, fool). Your brain had nothing to do with the reflex that pulled your hand away - if you didn't have a brain, your reflex would be the same (however, you do need your higher brain to perceive pain). Apparently in the olden days (pre-1990), they would illustrate this principle by taking a bullfrog, chopping its head off, and then dipping its toes in varying concentrations of sulfuric acid. But, Dr Hunter said, they can't do that anymore because people thought it was too cruel (surprise). Then Dr Hunter proceeded to point to a cage up front and said "this is what I would bring the frog in to class with...wait, I think I do have a frog." He reached in and slowly pulled out a high quality paper copy of a frog and proceeded to "perform" the entire experiment with it, including the chopping off of the head, the dipping of the toes in sulfuric acid, neutralizing the acid in between dips with sodium bicarbonate, and making the frog head talk to the class.

He also told us to test the "crossed extensor reflex" on one of our roommates when they're sleeping. This is the reflex that you use when you step on a nail or something else sharp - as soon as your body feels the pain, you pick up that foot and automatically support yourself with the other leg. He told us to go into our roommate's room when they're asleep and carefully move a hand into position without waking them and bite a finger. He said to watch out, because as they withdraw the bitten hand, their other hand will come across and punch you in the face. Cool. Emily better watch out... :)

Other cool physiology info recently learned:
-We talked about how our perception of reality is far from what the world is really like, since we lack the sensors for all sorts of energy (this we know - like how we can't perceive x-rays or microwaves or IR or magnetism, etc)...but he said that 1 in 20,000 people can detect magnetic fields. If you spin them around blindfolded, they'll always where north is.
-Ever wonder why many Japanese people can't tell the difference between 'r' and 'l'? It is because all people as infants can distinguish between and articulate the entire range of speech sounds (used in every language), but as we mature we lose the ability to distinguish between sounds not used in our native language(s). So Japanese people can totally lose the ability to tell 'r' from 'l'. You can look them in the face and say "la...ra...lake...rake...lack...rack..." all you want and they won't be able to distinguish the 'l's from 'r's.

I took Murphy for a walk in the park at the end of our street last night. He had a really good time. And then when Emily and I watched the Real World later that night, he sat in her lap and allowed her to hold his chicken stick for him. How generous of him. Matt called from Nashville last night - they'd drive for 10 hours yesterday, and today's drive to Indianapolis was to be much shorter. They were going to stop at Churchill Downs to watch a horserace on the way. The Phish concert is at 7, but they have to get there early to get good lawn seats. So all is going well on the great Phish roadtrip so far - I'll get another update tomorrow afternoon. I'm heading to the miniranch as soon as I get out of lab and pick up the dog tomorrow. Tonight I'm supposed to have dinner with Amanda. FUN! There is much catching up to be done. :)

crap

I have about 10 hours of health lectures left to watch before my midterm (July 5, 6, or 7)...that may not sound awful to you, but I stop paying attention when a lecture runs over 30 minutes long, and most of these are 45 minutes to an hour. Add in that the lectures keep repeating the same information over and over in the same way and it all equals...YUCK! Still better than having to go to class, I suppose...

100

I got back from school today at 1:00 because I was having lunch with my physiology professors. Why, you might ask? Because they invite anyone who misses 0-1 questions on their tests to lunch, partially as a reward and partially to talk with the students and find out how they did it. So, yeah, I made a 100 (36/36) on my physiology test...they couldn't remember the last time someone had done that. I thought two other people had gotten a 100 as well, because I looked at the grade sheets posted in the hallway, but it turns out that those two people were fictional students created to determine the max number of points possible at any point in the semester. So it was just me (no one got a 35/36 either), Dr Herman and Dr Hunter and another random professor whose name I didn't catch. Dr Hunter brought us all sandwiches from McAlister's Deli (on University). Lunch was an okay experience - we didn't always have stuff to talk about, but I just enjoyed the opportunity to get to know my professors outside of class. That happens so infrequently in college. But now the pressure's on, because they seem to think I might get a 100 again (they talked about one girl who got lunch after every test...and they said something like "I wonder how you'll do on the lab test) and that's a little scary, just because I'm no longer a name without a face - they'll be checking to see how I do on the next tests. Eek. But like I said, I enjoyed hanging out with them all the same.

Class is going well, although I don't particularly like what we're doing right now (central nervous system) because it is something we can't go into much depth with (would take too much time) so we're just memorizing the functions of various brain parts. My health class is also going along fine, although (surprise) I seem to have gotten somewhat behind on the lectures. Probably because they say the same thing over and over, and I don't particularly care about hearing how African-American men's health differs from Latino men for hours. I ran into Stacey (met him working in the organic labs last summer; he just finished his first year of vet school) while I was waiting for lunch. He's TA-ing anatomy this summer - he was dressed in blue coveralls and big rubber boots. I think they're standard issue for all vet students - there's something to look forward to.

Murphy is sitting upright in my lap right now. It makes it very hard to type. He's having a needy moment. Matt left for Phish today with Luke. With their new nationwide cellphone plan, he'll be able to call tonight so I'll get an update. :) Em and I were going to see about horse lessons again today (a reschedule from last week's rainout) but it rained again. I'm beginning to think we'll never make it out there. But since it has been raining so much, even if I wanted to take lessons from this place, it has been too muddy and rainy, so...whatever, it just needs to stop raining. I hydroplaned twice on my way to school today. Exciting.

Now my posts have titles...

This weekend was very fun. On Friday, I had pizza at Matt's, and after hanging out there for a while, Matt and I went back to my house to swim and talk. On Saturday, I went over to Matt's for lunch and he left me on his computer to watch one of my health lectures while he went to the bank with Emily to switch the duplex bank account into her name. We went to Bed, Bath & Beyond that afternoon to buy a pillow for my bed in Dallas (both of the ones that were there were too big and not soft enough). As soon as we headed out, there was a freakish thunderstorm with really high winds - exciting. Matt bought himself a body pillow (justification: it was only $10). We went back to my place to drop off the pillow and for me to change shoes (Birks + rain = wet feet and oddly sticky leather). I had a load of laundry to switch into the dryer, and when I went to switch on the light, nothing happened. So I tried to turn on the kitchen light to find a new lightbulb, and it didn't turn on either...slowly it began to dawn on me that something was not right. The storm had knocked out our power, which was unfortunate for me but much more so for Amore, which is on the same grid as us. So Matt and I went back to his house. We went to Noodles & Company for dinner (mac and cheese so good), and then we met Em and Jeff to go see the new Harry Potter at the IMAX. I enjoyed the movie (seeing it at the IMAX was awesome), but...well, here...[warning - minor spoilers to those who don't know the story]

Good: The kids are getting better at acting. Cinematography. Time travel sequence at the end. Emma Thompson. Music. Whomping Willow. Seeing more of Hogwarts. Darker and creepier than the first two.
Bad: Cutting out so much of the book - it would've taken them 30 seconds to explain the map and what the deal was with the stag patronus; having NO secondary storylines made the main story the only thing going on in the movie. It made it hard to believe a whole year passed within the telling of the story - Matt said it felt like one day. Ending on a freeze frame. Lupin's character (I liked Lupin in the book SO much and I didn't get attached to him in the movie). Little Quidditch...or magic...

After we saw the movie, we went back to Matt's and I made him listen to the video game remix CD I made for their Phish road trip (it is made of quality remixes from video games Matt or Luke actually played - Street Fighter, Excitebike, Zelda, Metroid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Halo, F-Zero, Mario, etc). Then I went home to meet up with Mom and Dad to go pick up Leslie at the airport. Her flight got in around 12:30 am. Fun stuff. We got home and went right to bed. This morning we had a Father's Day brunch for Dad (the four of us and Carolyn). Matt came over to say hi to Leslie and then took me (and Murphy) to their house to leave for College Station with Emily.

Yes, Murphy is in College Station now. I'm going to the miniranch on Thursday, so we thought this would be a great time for Murphy to visit the duplex - if it doesn't work out, it is only a four-day visit. So far things are going great - he trails after Emily just as much as me. I constructed a "Murphy Box" to enable him to get into my bed (and off). It consists of three bankers boxes (two steps) covered in a blanket for traction. He's already got the concept down, although making him use it to get down will take some more training, I bet. Right now he's laying on my pillow in my bed. Nice. :)

This week will be uneventful, other than having the Murph around. No tests or anything...just SIs and a visit to the horse lesson place (hopefully) on Tuesday. Then off to the miniranch on Thursday afternoon. Matt leaves for Phish with Luke on Tuesday. They have shows on Wednesday and Thursday and return on Sunday. Matt may come visit in College Station later that week (June 30 or July 1 or so). So I have that to look forward to already. Leslie gets her eyes lasared this week. All of Wednesday she has to keep her eyes closed. But if there aren't any complications, we'll meet at the miniranch on Thursday. She goes home next Sunday morning - we did some calculations and it looks like the week she'll be here will be more time than she's spent at home since she moved to California. Ridiculous. Well, I haven't done any physiology homework all weekend, so I should really attend to that.

I think blogs are contagious. Perhaps the first to be infected within my experience was Leslie, who was given a blog by Clare so that Leslie's grand California adventures could be documented. In January of this year, Leslie decided that I would be much easier to keep track of it I had a blog, and Kokiri was born. Later on in April, Taylor and Brittany joined the blogging community, with much guidance and words of wisdom from yours truly. Brittany is turning out to be a delightful blogger [not much surprise here since this was the girl who wrote me pages of letters my freshman year of college, not to mention the longest e-mails I've ever seen - look at her first blog post and you'll understand :) ]. And now the newest member of our little community - Emily. Welcome, Emily. May your blog be a source of information for your friends, a scrapbook of thoughts for yourself, and a well of procrastination when you're stressed. :)

In other news, yesterday sucked. Well, it was ups and downs. The major source of stress - class, then lab, then a test. But the lab was actually very cool. We were measuring nerve conduction velocities and compared the sciatic nerve of a frog with the ulnar nerve of Travis (a volunteer). The frog had been chemically pithed and his sciatic (big leg) nerve removed and put into a chamber where it had current run through it. The time and distance traveled by the electrical signal were measured and a velocity found. Then Travis got hooked up to electrodes on his palm and a stimulator at his elbow (the ulnar nerve is what you hit when you smack your funnybone). As Dr. Herman turned up the voltage (it was being pulsed once a second), Travis' fingers started twitching slightly, and when the voltage got high enough, his fingers started coming in to make a fist every second. It was cool. So we were able to find his nerve conduction velocity using distance and time (supplied by a computer) and by factoring out the time added by Travis' muscles (poor frog just had a nerve). The rest of the lab was participatory, measuring auditory and visual reaction times. We got to suggest the two groups we wanted to compare statistically. Dr. Herman said that last Valentine's Day, they compared the reaction times of people with and without significant others and found that those without significant others were not as quick. His conclusion: "and that's why they don't have significant others - because they're a little slow..." Anyway, the suggestions made were girls vs boys (boring), people with pets vs not, video games vs non (guess who suggested that one), and corrected vision vs not (Dr Herman: "20/20 vs The Blind"). The last one won out. We had to record our times at the end, and when I wrote mine down it was the fastest I saw so far. :) I attribute it to the video games.

So anyway, lab turned out to be really fun and we got done in an hour and fifteen minutes, which left tons of time for studying. Elise (girl I have gotten to know in phys) and I went to the West Campus Library and studied for a while (hours) and then went to take the test. Let me refresh your memory on what my SI leader had told us about the test: "it is 36 questions in one hour, don't skip things because you won't have to to come back, don't think you'll get to check back over - you won't, you may not finish...and every minute you go over the hour given, you lose a point...it is super-tricky and hard...you'll think you know it all and then you'll get in there and have no idea because they are real application questions...(etc)." Needless to say, I was worried. But the test wasn't bad. Now, I have no idea how I did and there were some questions I guessed on, but it wasn't bad. I finished with some answers skipped in 25 minutes, had all questions answered in 45 minutes, turned it in after checking all answers in 55 minutes. Hardly rushed.

When the test was over, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and I rushed home happily. Emily and I made dinner and watched Seinfeld. Then we played Mario Kart for hours, and it was good. :) Today I'm waiting for her to get out of class and lab so we can drive home to Dallas - I need to see Matt before he heads off on his great Phish trip on Tuesday, Leslie gets in late on Saturday night, and there's Fathers' Day on Sunday. Yay!

I have a test tomorrow. Not only that, but this is my schedule: 10-10:50 am = physiology lecture (including stuff that will be on the test that night!), 1-4 pm = phys lab, 5 pm = test. I'm pretty worried. Everyone says that the tests are really hard. :(

So anyway, I need to study. I just wanted to post an update so that no one would think I died in the ridiculous thunderstorm we had yesterday. The weather this summer has been crazy.

See, the difference between my two physiology professors is this: both can be entertaining while lecturing, but one (Dr. Hunter) has to get completely off-topic to do so (pyramids built by aliens, anyone?), while Dr. Herman can tell incorporate amusing anecdotes while still lecturing.

One example [warning - contains science]: we were talking about membrane potentials today and how sodium wants to enter the cell because of the negatively-charged proteins inside (electric gradient) and the relative lack of Na+ inside the cell compared to the outside (concentration gradient). So sodium will stream into the cell through leak channels, but eventually the positively-charged Na+ will neutralize the (-) proteins inside the cell, eliminating the electric gradient. However, the concentration gradient will still cause more sodium to enter the cell, causing the formation of an electric gradient in the opposite direction (inside of cell more (+) than outside now). Eventually, the electric gradient pushing Na+ out will equal the concentration gradient pushing Na+ in, and the net movement of Na+ will be zero (Na+ equilibrium potential). Dr. Herman's analogy was this: when the new burrito place opened in College Station, they were handing out free burritos, but there was a big line to get said burritos. Dr. Herman was driving by and thought "I want a free burrito" but saw the line and thought "but not so much" - and he was acting like the sodium at the equilibrium potential - it wants to enter the cell but looks at the positive inside and decides "not so much."

Okay, so maybe that isn't the most humorous thing to my readers, but I was amused (being there helped). Dr. Herman also gets credit for making me laugh by getting dry erase marker residue all over his face today. You should never erase with your fingers and then rub your face. Ever. Unless you want me to laugh (it was like Leslie and me at church at Christmas - the inappropriate giggles you try to hold in but just can't) (I had to stop looking at him for the rest of class).

Not having class on Fridays really makes the weekend fun - all yesterday I felt like it was Sunday and got to remind myself that I had a whole other day before Monday. :) It has been a good weekend. Emily's Judo friends Arjun and Stan came over on Friday night and we made beef stroganoff and blueberry pie. Then we played some Mario Kart. Emily's practice paid off and together we totally humiliated the boys. Yesterday was a very lazy day - I watched the movie Now and Then, an old favorite, with Em and watched a health lecture ("Minority Participation in Clinical Studies and Research Trials"). Then I was bored, so I IMed Em from 15 feet away and suggested we play more Mario Kart (practice makes perfect). Then we made some macaroni and cheese (with green squigglers) and watched Aggie baseball (we lost game 1 of the super regional to LSU), the Olympic Men's diving trials, Trading Spaces, and Trading Spaces: Unglued. Like I said, it was a lazy day.

Other news of note ... I tried one of the new C2 cokes (the "lower sugar", diet/regular hybrid). It was okay. Sometimes I could taste the aspartame, sometimes not. I'm generally supportive of the idea since I love regular drinks and hate diet ones ... next weekend I'm going back to Dallas with Emily. She wants to see Jeff, I want to see Matt (he leaves for Phish on the 22), and Leslie gets into town late Saturday night. I also plan to head back to Dallas or the mini-ranch again the following weekend to spend more time with Leslie before she goes back to California. Her school's last day of class was Friday, and it is very exciting that she gets to take a nice long break from teaching for a while ... a friend of mine IMed me yesterday for some relationship-related advice. I won't go into more detail on the 1:1x10^9 chance his girlfriend reads my blog, but I'd just like to say congratulations in advance! Very exciting! ... I checked out a book from the library that Amazon.com had recommended to me. It is called For Love of Insects by Thomas Eisner, and I would highly recommend that anyone who is interested in or intrigued by insects and/or chemistry check it out. I'm really enjoying it. Cool pictures, too.

I have a physiology test on Thursday. I'm already getting nervous because I've heard it is one of those tests that you can walk into feeling like you know everything and walk out knowing that you didn't have a clue. :( So I'm going to do some studying for that now. I meant to start studying on Friday, but...hey, it's the summer. I'm still getting more of a head start than I usually do during a regular semester, so that's good. Wish me luck.

If memory serves, I should be saying...
Happy 21st Birthday Graham!
[it is possible i still don't have his birthday right, though...maybe he'll actually post a comment on my blog to correct or congratulate me]

Yesterday was rough. I had class and a double lab (we have to double up on labs three times this summer to get them all done in 10 weeks). The worst part of lab was that Dr Hunter talked for two of our three hours! Then we had 1 hour to do 4 different lab procedures. The easiest was making 1% glucose and 1% NaCl solutions. The hardest was making a 300 mOsm/L salt solution using only: a tongue depressor, string, two sticks, two plastic syringes, an indeterminate amount of salt, a 1L bottle, distilled water, wax paper, and a plastic spoon. It reminded me of an OM spontaneous problem. I came up with an idea, though, which was good since none of the other girls had any. Oh, and our lab groups are randomly assigned every week, so I didn't know any of my partners. We also got to work with dog blood and a microhematocrit, which was cool and different. So lab went late about 10 minutes (just think when we could've gotten out if Dr Hunter hadn't insisted on going through every step of the mathematical calculations that show we all inhale one molecule of air from George Washington's last breath ever time we breathe [and have 4-6 in our lungs at all times] and talking about his burger flipping days in high school).

Emily and I ordered Papa Johns in the evening and then watched a couple Aqua Teens. At 8, I went to the Rec with her and watched some of her Judo practice. It was really cool and Em kicked some butt (well, technically she threw and choked some butt - no kicking in Judo). She's really good, and she didn't even run away when the leader, Theo, the 6-ft-plus extremely buff black man, made her spar with him (she didn't kick his butt). But she put some other boys in their place. :)

I slept in today, along with the rest of the Aggies who didn't have class because of the National Day of Mourning (I'd like to refer people to Bryan's website for an interesting political idea, speaking of that). A couple of Em's Judo friends are coming over later and we're cooking. So that's what's going on. Yay for weekends!

I always had a hard time remembering Elliot's and Graham's exact birthdays. I knew they were both in June, roughly the first half of the month, close to each other...and that was about as far as I got. But then Elliot gave me a way to remember his that did the trick. He said "it's 6/9...69" and silly Cameron thinks, "yeah, okay, multiples of three, I can do that" and Elliot said something like "people are sick" and I realized "wait, 69 has another significance." I'm a little slow sometimes. But anyway, thanks to that little exchange, I'm here to say
Happy Birthday Elliot! :)

(and number 21 at that!)

I think Dr. Hunter (one of my physiology profs) is a little crazy. We were talking about osmosis today and all of a sudden he starts talking about how he believes the pyramids were created by aliens because there is no way humans could've made them 5,000 years ago when we wouldn't be able to recreate them today with modern technology. To be fair, they was some trail of logic that got him from point A to point B - when talking about the power of osmosis, he mentioned that you could lift your house by inserting wooden wedges under the foundation and by getting them wet, they would swell with water and raise your house. That is also supposedly how the Egyptians cut the huge limestone blocks for the pyramids, by inserting wooden wedges and water into cuts in the stone. But then he went off for several minutes on visitors from outer space and ... I think he's a little, um, eccentric. But that's okay, it keeps things interesting.

My great SI-attending experiment came to a premature end yesterday when I neglected to go. In my defense, I was really tired, it was rainy outside, and the material wasn't looking too bad. But I still felt guilty. I'm going to try and make it this evening. *sigh*

How is it that I could get so wet in the time it took me to close my umbrella and get in my car?

So I'm halfway through my great SI attending experiment (going to every SI for a week to see if it's worth it). Here's what bugs me: the SIs are over the next day's lecture material, not a review of the earlier material. Now, going to SI would never make me decide I didn't need to go to class, but going to lecture where the material is really easy would let me know I didn't need to bother with SI (if SI followed lecture). I don't want to waste my time at SI, and only lecture attendance will help me decide whether I understand the material. Matt thinks that's why they do it this way - so you'll go to both. I don't know about that...but regardless of their motives, it bugs me. Also, this is my first class in a while where I have to read the book. Last semester consisted of anatomy - no book, and biochemistry, micro, and genetics - book was totally unnecessary and contained no additional material that we were responsible for. However, in physiology, we're responsible for everything in the book; lecture covers about half the book material; SI maybe half of the lecture material. There's nothing wrong with that (except that it means more work), but it's taking some mental adjusting. Luckily, I'm still finding the class interesting and anticipate it will become even more interesting after we finish covering topics such as the plasma membrane and move on to muscles, circulation, the nervous system, and the like.

Damn. ER Doesn't Renew Alex Kingston's Contract. Why couldn't they get rid of Chen instead? Or Weaver? Or Pratt? Dr. Corday was one of my favorites...I wonder how they'll write her out?

I forgot to mention this - our second round of bird eggs ended successfully, when the two birds that had hatched left the nest last week. They were looking pretty big and mature except for some peach fuzz sticking through the feathers on the tops of their heads, and I took some pictures sometime last week thinking they wouldn't be with us much longer. And the next day, they were gone. All of them (parents and 4 children from two rounds of eggs) still hang out in the trees out front. :)

Good news: I watched my Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home DVD I just got from Amazon [also got the third Harry Potter soundtrack and it is great] and it plays fine, even though it was loose in its case when I received it, which had me worried. I love that movie!!! "Name?" "Whose name? My name?" "No, my name" "I do not know your name" "Listen buddy, if you don't stop playing games, you're through" "I am? May I go now?"

And more good news: Despite losing their game to Rice earlier today, A&M beat them this afternoon to advance. From the Aggie Athletics website: The Aggies took a little “Olsen Magic” with them to Houston this weekend as Justin Ruggiano hit a grand slam homerun with one out in the bottom of the eighth to lead No. 14 Texas A&M to a 7-5 win over No. 4 Rice and a regional championship at Reckling Park. With the win, the Aggies improved to 42-20 and will play a three-game series with LSU next weekend with a trip to the College World Series on the line. WHOOP!

I went to my first SI (supplemental instruction) tonight for physiology. And it was pretty helpful. Rather than review the material from class, this SI teaches ahead. So tomorrow I'll gauge how helpful SI really was. It meets Sunday-Wednesday, so I'll also need to figure out how often I'll actually go. We'll see.

Matt left yesterday to go back to Dallas for good (he'll visit, of course, but he is officially moved out of the duplex now). So I'm a little despondent. But the week he was here was really fun. My last post was from Tuesday, I think, so I'll mention the high points of the days since then.
I beat Splinter Cell on Wednesday. Yay! I was proud. Matt and I also continued to work on Halo. I had my first physiology lab on Thursday. It went pretty well. My lab group is four girls: me, Elise, and two Jennifers. I'd met Elise on Tuesday and we'd chatted some because we sat next to each other on the first day of class; she seems nice. I think my group will be just fine, and everyone seems interested in being quick and efficient. In lab we used a duel-range force sensor to measure an unknown weight, test the results of negative feedback, and look and linear and non-linear relationships. It took less than an hour. One girl was the worst at following directions, though, which might become a problem.
On Friday, Matt and I beat Halo. It was a lot of fun. And Jeff came to visit Emily, which added to the weekend's fun. That night A&M played Lamar in the NCAA Baseball regional in Houston. We watched the first four innings on the computer but it got suspended until the next morning because of rain and lightning. (We won when the game resumed yesterday morning). Right now we're playing Rice to try and win the regional (we're losing 3-1 at the end of the 7th).
Yesterday I helped Matt load up his car with the rest of his stuff and he headed off to Dallas. :( It's okay, though, because we're already planning for Matt to come back or me drive up there soon. :) I watched my first health lecture online. It went pretty well, but I had to try really hard to pay attention - sitting at the computer and being able to play games and look on the internet while trying to absorb minority health issues just doesn't work. But I think the class will work out okay if I don't get too far behind (I don't have a test until July...eek). Yesterday evening I mostly bummed around, but Emily, Jeff, and I did have a rousing four hour session of Mario Kart playing at night (9:30-1:30). We were all a bit drowsy this morning, as well as having the game music stuck in our heads (we kept bursting into song). A while ago, Jeff rolled out of town and Emily joined my missing-the-boyfriend club.
But for now I'm occupied with physiology studying and trying to make myself watch my lectures for my online health class. What fun. I think I'll play Zelda instead.
One quick question: does anyone out there have an opinion on ECC vs non-ECC RAM?

So much has happened since my last post...one of the reasons it has been almost a week since that last post...anyway, let's get started. I went shopping and ate dinner at Bubbas with Matt on Thursday. Then I met up with Graham (our first time to get together since spring break), and we went to Cafe Brazil for coffee and catching up. We had enacted a "assume no news is good news" policy for the second half of the semester because we were both going to be really busy and didn't want to live with the guilt that we weren't keeping in touch. And nothing much changed since we'd last talked - Graham is still planning on graduating from USC in December and heading to Europe for the spring (although no longer with a school program). And he wants me to come too. Now I can't take off for the whole spring, but heading across the pond for a few weeks is mighty tempting. So yes, it was great seeing Graham, although also sad since I might not see him again until Christmas unless I trek out to LA sometime this fall (which I may just have to do!).
On Friday, Matt and I headed to the mini-ranch after lunch. His family rolled in sometime in the afternoon (parents, Emily, Luke, and Jeff). The weekend consisted of riding in the party barge, bonfire, sea-do-ing, grilling out, floating in the lake, horseshoes, darts, ping pong, hammocks, Splinter Cell and Mario Kart, Mom's spaghetti, applying sunscreen, a country breakfast, pictures, Murphy cuddling, tractoring, riding in Mo, watching Babe, poker, trying to keep Em from scratching her million bug bites, feeding the cows, shooting the pellet gun, homemade banana ice cream...but the best part had to be the softball. Dad and Jerry Washam mowed a softball field in one of the pastures just outside the yard fence, and it was amazing. Everybody played, including Lathram and Carmen Pou. The final, major game was won by my team (!) (John and Susie Roberts, Matt, me, and Lathram). It was a lot of fun.
On Sunday everyone parted ways, with Matt and me heading back to College Station. Summer school started today for me, and Matt has to finish up with his duplex property manager responsibilities before handing the title over to Emily (such as getting his side of the duplex ready for new people to move into by cleaning and painting, clearing the rest of his stuff out, switching accounts into Em's name, etc). And Matt's here to hang out with me! We played two Halo missions yesterday, as well as watching some of the Law & Order marathon. We must beat Halo before he returns to Dallas.
I had my first physiology class today. I think it is going to be very interesting and very hard. They recommend reading the book over and over, learning all the pictures, going to the computer lab and looking at physiology interactive CD-ROMS, and going to SI. Hearing all that got me pretty intimidated, but then I remembered how intimidated I was about anatomy and it all worked out when I only did half of what they recommended. Of course, it would've been easier if I'd studied more from the beginning. So since I have a pretty light school schedule this summer, I'm resolving to stay on top of things more. (we'll see how long that lasts...I've never been to SI before) The professors (it is team-taught) seem really nice and helpful and the material will be interesting, so I'm looking forward to the class.
Okay, I'm tired of typing now. I think I'll go rummage in the kitchen.