Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes

Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes

Happy birthday to me! I'm 43.

First class meeting last night was spiffy! The professor is great--knows lots of things from many different angles, clinical as well as research (I think he said his Ph.D. was on calcium channels, and now he's working on AI among other things; cool!) which made for some fascinating answers to questions. I did not, as it turns out, need to know all of neuroanatomy in advance. Phew! It slowly dawned on me that there is a difference, probably, between expectations at undergrad level vs. grad level. Met two other women who are not teenagers. A good night out, on the whole.

I think I messed up my directions last post - I meant "bottom of brain", re the cranial nerves (of which there are 12!) (and the one sticking out from the top first in the sequence *after* the optic nerves I think controls mouth and tongue movement!) (but I could be wrong!), which is not ventral actually; that would be, um, caudal, I think. (blushes) At least I can accurately recall the difference between a sagittal section and a coronal section. Gack.

Anyway, one of the nice things is that almost every question asked in class was really interesting, as opposed to annoyingly stupid. Perhaps that's the self-selection inherent in the subject matter--probably not a lot of people interested in neurobiology are total fools. Maybe. I feel extremely capable of mastering this material and am shooting for astonishingly high exam scores.

So...I will probably go to class Wed. instead of knitting group, 'cause that's when we work through some Nernst calculations and I get to hear the full explanation of the equation, doubtless including the mysterious 2.303. And if not, I can ask.

Back to self-indulgent sloth, now. Happy birthday to me!