A Most Rigid Search for Anal Sphincter

Despite the fact that I had grown accustomed to entering a room with 40 cadavers on a regular basis, I was still dreading the lab entitled "Anal Triangle." When I got my anatomy schedule back in October, I noticed the lab right away and the date was burned in my memory. My winter break was scattered with sad comments like, "I have to dissect a butthole in 2 weeks."

Well, the day finally arrived, and I was ready to just get through with it. I prepared and read the lab so we could move quickly through the dissection. We removed lots of subcutaneous tissue but managed to carefully avoid the area commonly known as "butt crack." Even with all the subcutaneous tissue gone, it was a little confusing. We saw a bumpy area and a cavernous area. The bumpy area seemed to be mostly skin, so we identified the very edge of the cavernous area as the external anal sphincter. One of the wandering professors came by our table and with a few pokes in places I don't like to think about, the professor informed us that the bumpy area was the anal sphincter and we were in the vestibule (you can look that up if you really want, I don't feel like explaining).

I still find it hard to believe that four medical students couldn't point out the anus on a cadaver without help. So here's some advice for future generations: if you are going to be a future anatomist or medical student, be prepared to poke where the sun don't shine.

-- By Farrah, who is 100% sure that she will not be a proctologist

What I learned today at school

In school, we are learning about really awkward things about the pelvic regions. The first day of lecture when we learned about the technical location of the "g spot," it was super awkward. I lowered by gaze as every Muslim ought to. By Day 5 of Pelvic Viscera: The Continuing Saga, however, I have gotten used to learning this region to an obsessive degree. Now, I tell people (mainly Sarah) that they are pioneers or the Vasco de Gama of the anal canal. This is what life has degenerated into.

By Mariam, who hopes a visit to the Red Lobster is in the near future.

Drawings to Tide you over until we have time to be funny

Here is a lame emo drawing from last year. We don't have any time to be funny on the blog right now because we're learning about the pelvis and perineum (bladder, anus, genitals), so you can imagine that we are very busy being funny in class. The rate of dirty jokes told has grown exponentially in the new year. It's slightly overwhelming, so we'll be back when things calm down.

-- By Farrah, whose cell phone STILL rings in class = DISRESPECTFUL

Deep Thought

When I was studying for my anatomy test last year, the library became a very upsetting place for me emotionally. As I frantically tried to learn the innervation, arterial blood supply, action etc. of every muscle in the upper extremities, I found the strange people (who were not medical students, and therefore non-existent to me) in the library to be very disconcerting. Here are some reasons why:

1. One day, on a particularly stressful day, I saw a girl wearing flannel pants with Christmas trees on them. All I could think (instead of concentrating with the diligence required) was that this girl had ventured out into the greater public with Christmas tree pajamas! I had 500 pages to memorize, and yet I don't even leave the house wearing my footsy pajamas with little goats on them.

2. These plebeian masses were not studying the same things as me, and therefore, the things they had to learn were probably a) easier and useless and b) not useful for me to compare my own progress to.

3. They would take up lots of room in the middle part of the library and bring distracting, elaborate Tupperware containers filled with Cheetos. Cheetos!!

4. I saw one girl studying undergraduate subjects like organic chemistry, which made me nostalgic for a time when all I had to remember was electron flow.

The only solution to this problem is to only allow people I know into the library during exam week so that I do not get upset and can achieve my full potential.

--By Mariam, who has returned to the world of blogging after a brief hiatus.

An Emo Story: Gertrude and Sheldon - An Inflammable Love that Died

Sheldon was in the middle of a quarter-life crisis. Most men have these crises around fifty and promptly solve it with a fancy new car and hair plugs. Sheldon couldn’t really handle it the same way – he didn’t have enough money for a new car, and he wasn’t bald. He still tried to solve it with the same basic feeling by deciding to trade in his Fiat for an Ice Cream truck, and letting his hair grow long and shaggy. However, this hairier, ice cream peddling version of him wasn’t any happier. Things just hadn’t been the same since Gertrude, his college sweetheart, dumped him.

Gertrude was in his sociology class, and he noticed her the first day. Her bright green eyes brilliantly sparkled under her long and wavy dark hair. He could tell that everything in her wardrobe was carefully chosen, but she never bothered coordinating them. She looked like a bohemian mess, and he loved that. By a stroke of luck, he got to meet this intriguing young beauty when they were assigned to do a project together on social norms. The project basically entailed annoying people on the street and then writing a paper on it. They had a magical weekend with a whoopee cushion feigning flagrant flatulence all around town. Sheldon asked her out the very next weekend. He wasn’t usually so bold, but their chemistry was instant and explosive. They eventually shared a pretentious sort of love, they would sit on the cozy couch at the coffee house down the street reading books by Dostoevsky and Nietzsche to each other. If the coffee house got too crowded to read aloud, they listened to indie songs sharing the ear buds of her iPod. People would look in their direction and think, “Man, those guys look like real pompous assholes.”

After a year, they moved into a studio apartment next to a book store. Gertrude was out shopping at the local Savers for some vintage concert t-shirts. Sheldon was trying to fix the wireless Internet at the apartment. He finally got it going, and saw the MSN home page pop up. At that very moment, Gertrude walked through the door and was shocked to see scandalous pictures of Lindsay Lohan as the featured article all over the computer screen. She was furious, and started throwing everything she could grab at Sheldon and the offensive screen.

She screamed, “HOW DARE YOU? Lindsay Lohan is just another anorexic brunette who was in Herbie. Herbie, Sheldon, Herbie!!!! Do you acknowledge me as an intellectual? It’s over Sheldon!” She ran to the bedroom, and curiously pulled out an already packed bag.

Sheldon had no idea why she blew up like that because they had watched Mean Girls together the week before. He thought she was probably experiencing her ladies days, and ran out after her to explain that he had not even noticed the page, and was just trying to fix the computer. But as he walked out the door, Sheldon saw him. He was putting her bag into an already running car. His name was Reginald – he worked at the Apple store and wore, ugh… skinny jeans. They bought their matching iBooks from him about 3 months before… suddenly it all dawned on Sheldon – Gertrude’s pottery classes every night, all sorts of Apple gadgets showing up at the apartment…

She looked back at him and sighed, “Sheldon… come on, don’t follow me. Go back inside. It’s better for you to think I’m a psycho bitch that hates Lindsay Lohan more than she loves you than for you to know the truth… I’m sorry…”

That was the story of their love with the quirky beginning to the terrible end. Sheldon thought that he might get over it one day, but manatees would probably fly before that happened. (I know the cliché is pigs, but Sheldon likes manatees more, and he doesn’t have much to like these days).

-- By Farrah, who seems incapable of putting her cell phone on silent.

My Medical School Interview!

My medical school interview at the Medical College of Ohio had finally arrived! I was nervous, but super excited because I had heard in medical school interviews, I would get to talk about my favorite subject - me!

Anyways, it was January, and I was going to fly out of Raleigh, NC and spend a chillaxing night at the Hilton. However, shortly after my American Novel class, it started to flurry in North Carolina. A whole 1 cm of snow stuck to the ground. A panic ensued; all the worried parents got on Highway 40 (the only road to the airport) to save their children from the grave danger of flurries, people left their jobs early, and moms rushed to the grocery store to buy milk, bread and batteries to battle the impending apocalypse with an extra vigor.

I was worried - I had to get to Ohio! My parents and I set out to go to the airport, but Highway 40 was backed up for miles. We moved 2 miles in 6 hours because of the fear the flurries had caused. Nevertheless, I decided to be late for my interview and took the first flight out the next morning.

I got to the Toledo airport at 10 AM. I was super tired because I had spent all night practicing answers to questions like, "Who invented PCR?" and "What kind of vegetable would you be?" When I I inquired about a taxi service, the man started to laugh at me and said, "We don't have taxis in Toledo" (I look back on that and want to shoot myself in the eye for my naivete). He pointed me in the direction of a ten-seat, black stretch limo (the type seniors take to the prom and pack themselves in, drinking wine they stole from their parents in) parked on the curb.

I was so desperate, I got on the limo and went to MCO. I prayed no one would see me pull up to my interview in a prom-style limo complete with porn style lights. I did not know that the whole Mulford building was made of glass, however. And so, I pulled up to my medical school interview big pimping, P. Diddy style.

--By Mariam Q., who wants to give a shout out to my homie Naadia who pays for people's dinners even when ain't EVER met them.

Deep Thoughts for 2007

If you are wondering what would be a good name for your son, I would tell you to consider the name "Odenum." It sounds both distinguished and unusual, and reminds me of a more masculine version of "Odette" from Swan Lake. Anyway, when your son gets to high school biology and studies the intestines, all the children will be able to laugh and scream, "DUODENUM!" It will be a glorious time full of knowledge, joy, and happiness! Unless, of course, you pronounce it do-whah-de-num. It wouldn't be funny anymore, and babies might die.

-- By Farrah, an MS1 whose new years resolution was to call the cops on her punk neighbors (done and done)