Phew

Final exam is DONE. I have had some REST. I have had some BEER. Not in that order. I think I did well; it remains to be seen whether it was well enough to get an A in the course. Sigh. I did check a bunch of things right afterwards that I'd been a little unsure about, and most of them, I got right. I was incorrect on whether it's a Ia sensory afferent or a Ib sensory afferent in the myotatic reflex (it's Ia, dammit); I have no idea what the hell the particular mechanical mapping strategies are in the ear for different sound frequencies, though I do know what for a 15000 Hz signal it would NOT be; and I mixed up the functions of the pontine and medullary reticular formations. At least I think I did (that one was a mental coin toss). So that's six points off at least, out of around 110. I maight have lost one or two on the full diagram of the ventral auditory pathway, because I forgot to specify the auditory nerve (duh) and which lemniscus (though I did put "lemniscus here" in the correct place).

Anyway, the stuff wrong looms rather large in my mind at the moment, but I'm also extremely pleased that on almost all the questions where I took an uncertain stab, I was right (proprioceptors! dopamine and norepinephrine! deep cerebellar nuclei! Yeah!). ALSO very pleased that this time, no deviously sneaky questions like on the midterm--much more straightforward.

Our final lecture last week went over emotional systems (among other things, like, oh, the entire autonomic nervous system - hard core, this has been). Anyway, the professor talked about the effects of drugs - the prescription kind and the illegal kind. Considering how calm he usually is, what he had to say about cocaine was profoundly angry; he approaches everything from a personal perspective in lecture - that's one of the wonderful things about the course - but this was different. He wasn't specific, but he clearly watched someone wreck themselves.

Cocaine was one the things about the 80's that truly sucked. It was all over the place. Brilliant, talented people destroyed their lives with it. Moronic assholes did, too, and did so under the mistaken impression that the cocaine made them brilliant and talented. It got old. I once had a bizarre argument in a restaurant with an actor friend, who was high at the time, in which I insisted that yes, cocaine does damage, and he insisted oh no it doesn't ("Cocaine had nothing to do with Len Bias' death!"); he concluded loudly and bitterly that I must have some psychological problem with people doing cocaine, and that must be why I was saying what I was saying.

Thank god all that shit is over with; I suppose we now have heroin instead. At least this time around, the mainstream media don't seem to be gushing over how cool it all is, which is something.

Off soapbox now. Hey, I have time to knit again!

I'll see everyone who's there at Javaroom Wednesday!