Quick notes:

-We dissected the back muscles in our cadaver today and ours had a TUMOR underneath the scapula (shoulder blade)!! Crazy!! We called our prof to come over and help us, and he saw this vein running up the back side of the neck and said "That's weird, that's not supposed to be there." Sure enough, it was leading to this big lump of tissue we had found. I'm glad we called him over because we hadn't thought anything of it (who has a tumor in the muscles under the scapula?). We are cutting into it tomorrow when we present to B group so everyone can see what it looks like.

-I got my physiology grade back annddd........I'm not happy. I passed but I'm not happy about the whole situation. A) our prof wasn't there to proctor the exam, another person was, B) you're not allowed to ask questions during the test (unless it's a typo), which means that if there is a poorly worded question, you're on your own, and C), we're not going to be allowed to challenge exam questions until we get into the fall semester or something like that. We got an email from our class liason (not our prof but somehow they are associated with the class? I'm still confused about that) saying there is a review for the exam next week but we're not allowed to discuss why something was marked wrong. There is also a rule that if a prof says something in lecture that conflicts with something that is said in the book, the book always rules. Meaning, if the prof says something in class that is wrong and you end up using that as a basis for answering a question on the exam and you get the answer wrong, you can't challenge it. I understand why all these rules are in place and don't agree with grade grubbing at all, but I believe that all of the above reasons of why I wasn't happy with the situation was why I got a grade 10 points lower than I expected. 10 points is a big deal, especially when you need a 3.0 to progress in the program and we only have four grades in Phys.

For example, we had a question that asked us to name the segment on a graph that represents after-hyperpolarization. I remember thinking to myself "What is after-hypolarization? I've always been taught that this segment is hyperpolarization. The prof always said hyperpolarization. Is he referring to the time period AFTER hyperpolarization or is this another way of saying hyperpolarization?" You're not allowed to ask clarifying questions like that, I couldn't have anyway because the prof wasn't even there, and it turned out that one of our books in a caption on the side referred to that area once as after-hyperpolarization (so since the book said it ONCE in a tiny side note on a graph, we have to go with that, although 90% of the time its called hyperpolarization).

We will see if there are any changes made after we do the review. I hope so.

-Our library has a cart outside of the door with free books, and it is my new favorite thing in life right now! I have gotten $100+ of free medical books the past couple of days. I got a free dissector manual, a free nutrition guide for physicians, lots of books to help out when I'm doing clinicals, some anatomy books, some medical novels...I'm so excited

-My loans haven't come through yet. I went yesterday to see why, and they said it was because I hadn't done my loan counseling yet. I did do my counseling back in March, and actually had my laptop there to show them where on my account it said I had done it, but because of the switch to the Direct Loan program I guess it got lost in the shuffle. So they told me to go home last night and do it over, which I did, and when I went in at 1pm today they(meaning both the school and the federal government) STILL said I hadn't completed it, although once again I was able to show them the confirmation page saying I did. We're waiting until tomorrow and then I don't know what is going to happen. In the meantime, I'm living off of savings (thank goodness I had the foresight to make sure I had enough to get me through the summer), and I haven't paid any tuition for the summer, so we'll see what happens...