The Key.

I had it in my hand.

Literally. Or so I thought.

There I was, standing at question 15, casually minding my own business answering one of seventy bagillion questions on our anatomy lab exam, when my gaze fell upon some papers sitting on the windowsill. Papers with red writing. Papers that looked remarkably like my test form. Red writing that looked remarkably like my professor's.

The page was obscured by a sheet above it that documented what specimens should be laid out for the exam. Our exam. The one we were taking.

I might not be able to summon up the names of the muscles innervated by the Left Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve (duh, totally answered that after the exam with no problem) or the proper term used to describe that auditory cavity thingie in the half head specimen (seriously?)....but I can put 2 and 2 together and folks, this time they equal Exam Key. Sitting on the windowsill. Plain as day.

What's a girl to do?

I will admit, I probably spent at least one minute of my precious 120 minutes allotted for the exam (which in reality should be more like 500 minutes, but whatev) debating my next move. Do I gently shove the top sheet over and make sure that I get at least some of the questions on this exam correct? Do I leave it there and move on like I saw nothing? Do I turn it in to the profs, wasting another minute or two of my precious time?

Kinda climactic, isn't it? Sort of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book (God I loved those).

In the end, I turned to page 52 and turned in the sheets. Without even a tiny peek. What can I say? I want to earn my own grades, even if they aren't fantastic. Or even passing.

Course, this story would have been a lot better if I hadn't been told by Dr. Moffatt later that it ended up not being the key but actually just a list of specimens to be laid out for Dr. Berg's section (he hand wrote them vs. typing like the rest of the profs). Maybe I should just keep that little tidbit to myself. Course, she reads my blog so all of the points I might have won for being honest with what I thought was the key will be lost with lying.... ;)

Random Large Pink Bull's Penis.

Catchy title, huh?

Tonight was a madhouse in the anat lab. They have us put out all of the specimens that will be used on the exam the evening before so we can work off of them (and also help arrange things, manual labor I believe it is called). And what do our wandering eyes behold?

A random large pink bull's penis lying on one of the exam tables. With a matching pair of pink testicles.

Did I say pink? As in MAGENTA? Yes.

Apperantly someone in a previous semester wrapped one of the reproduction speciments with a burgundy towel.

Unwashed burgundy towel + tupperware with formalin = all specimens within dyed MAGENTA.

I would have promptly taken pictures for all of you to enjoy, however I'm pretty sure that would get me kicked out of school, or at the very least slapped on the hand pretty hard. So you'll just have to live with the terrible version I made for you in...yup, you guessed it: Microsoft Paint.

Okay...so this is actually a pic of a fossilized walrus penis that I painted pink. But you get the drift.

This is about as exact I can get you without actually photographing the Real Deal. Mind you, it would have been a whole lot funnier if I had actually been able to get a shot with Cristin holding it...she was quite befuddled by the entire experience.

Good night my friends, I am back to the Land of Dead Carcasses until 8AM tomorrow during which I will hopefully (fingers and toes crossed) be taking my very last anatomy lab exam ever. And after that....blissful naptime. Cannot wait.

Double Rainbow.

Okay. So first our new mouse. And then a Double Rainbow. Spanning over the entire freaking island. The first thing I saw after leaving my first exam of the semester. This is turning out to be an interesting Final Exam Week.

All I can really say about the rainbow is that the colors were more vivid than anything I've ever seen in nature (perhaps a slight exaggeration, but where would we be in life without a few exaggerations?) and the sheer size of it was amazing - truly like nothing I've ever seen before. Sometimes I've been lucky enough to catch the start and end of one. But nothing like this.

And then to top it off - a Double Rainbow? Do those even exist in the Real World?

Those are rain drops on my lens...

You can just make out the second rainbow just to the left of the bright one. No, it's not a double exposure. It was really there. I swear.

And no, I was not drinking.

The building this is spanning over is the Ross Library. Conveniently the location of our exam. Coincidence?

That last one is my Ghetto version of a panoramic shot, courtesy of crappy Windows Paint (since I never found my copy of Photoshop that somehow mysteriously disappeared).

And I Shall Name Him George.

I promised myself I wouldn't allow my mind to migrate back to the internet for the rest of the evening, as the quality of my posts dramatically decreases in proportion to how bored I have become with whatever subject I am studying.

BUT.

I came home tonight, about a half hour ago, and thought...let's make a little evening snack of healthy pasta. And I'm standing there at the stove, minding my own business watching the water boil (as an alternative to parasit that is a treat!) when out of the corner of my eye what flies by? A cute, adorable, pestilence-filled MOUSE.

Now, I've never lived anywhere with mice. Well, correction. I've never lived anywhere with mice that make themselves known. This little guy came flying out of the living room and scurried under the fridge as if he owned the place. I really have no problem with the little guy, even started chatting with him (named him George if you must know). Wouldn't you know as my water starts to boil he bee-lines it right under the stove? So of course, I admonish him for being so brutally stupid as to run under a gas stove that is in use when he starts squeaking back at me! And by squeaking I mean the cutest damn noises you have ever heard! I didn't even have to squeeze him first. I'd say it rivaled listening to a litter of newborn kittens screaming for mom.

Back to George. I am going on the assumption that since those squeaks were obviously ones of delight and happiness at meeting me (and not burning hot torture), our new friend Little George is going to hang out in our place for a little while. I seriously debated leaving the little tyke a snicky snack, but thought better of it since snacks have a tendency to attract other creatures of a not-so-beloved kind.

Good night, I am off to study more parasites. And listen out for my new buddy.

He must be Speedy's Caribbean cousin....

The Times, They Are A Changin'...

NOTE: This was written Monday evening, but being without internet until today means no posting on time....

“Hurricane Days” have turned into “Power Outage Days”

When I was in high school and undergrad, the best days were when large storms conspired against higher education and caused cancellation of classes. We Floridians were like a secluded little club in the states, complete with our own language (ya’ll) and handshake. Someone should have scheduled a soccer game against those “Snow Days” Northerners.

Anywho, the new and improved method of befuddling our educators here on The Rock seems to be power outages. They attacked often and without prejudice; they are random and unplanned; they are a pain-in-the-ass and a blessing all rolled up into one. It seems the frequent island blackouts in the last few months have done severe damage to our electrical system on campus, which has been scheduled to be repaired according to Island Time (meaning the electricians shrug their shoulders and say Whatev). Today around noon this culminated in an explosion (which sad-to-say I did not witness or even see the carnage) that left ¾ of the campus without power and all of us without server access. It is unknown how long this will be a problem, but as of now (around 8 hours later) there is still not power in most of the buildings and no internet available.

The Silver Lining, you may ask? Our first final of the semester, Parasitology Lab, was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. After much (inane) debate in a dark and ever-growing-hot classroom, it was decided that our future exam would remain up in the air until further notice. Which we just received via The Grapevine about thirty minutes ago: our exam is cancelled until further notice and will not occur before Wednesday. How was this information given, you might ask? Um, yeah, that would be via The Grapevine Text-Tree. And Facebook. See? All of that time spent checking Facebook every ten minutes finally paid out. Course, it would help if there was internet access to allow the students to access Facebook in the first place. Details.

And thus begins what I can only imagine will be an interesting and supremely challenging Second Semester Final Exam Week(s). Let's all hope I don't OD on caffeine.
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Addendum: Following is an email from the school. Another email talked of a lightning strike. One of my professors today jokingly apologized for not watching where he was urinating. Ah, Island Life.

Oh, and the power went out again today around noon for an hour or so. Just in case you thought the problem was "fixed".
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Hello,
At approximately 12:00 pm yesterday, one of the large electrical breakers on campus failed. The failure resulted in the destruction of several key components. Replacement components were scavenged from two other breakers on campus and power was restored. However, a significant amount of electricity is now coursing through a single breaker. The situation is stable, but it will behoove all of us to lower our consumption of electricity for the next few days. Please avoid energy use (office lights?) when possible.
Replacement parts have been ordered and should be arriving soon. I have spoken with some of the electricians, who are aware of the temporal proximity to final examinations. When the time comes, they will replace the necessary parts as quickly, but safely, as they can.
In regard to IT issues, we lost one server during the power outage. A replacement server is being shipped to the island as quickly as possible. When our overall system rebooted, some memory pertaining to recent software upgrades were temporarily lost. The system was booted a second time and the applications are returning. At the present time, the system is stable and functioning normally.
For faculty with impending examinations, having contingency plans in place, as best they can be arranged, would probably be wise. We anticipate that the electrical grid will be completely restored by the beginning of finals week. I am sorry for the inconveniences all of us have borne. Our people are working hard to keep us functioning normally.

Thank you,
RossU
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