Ugh Finals

Ain't nothing better than going into finals feeling sorely unprepared because your instructor is a lazy-ass motherfuck who apparently likes the whole "making money" thing but doesn't like "doing the actual work" in return.

If nothing else, I can at least come out of all this saying that, this weekend, I had an "erection" on my roof, and I had to rescue a baby inch-worm with it, and for a while, I left the "erection" on my roof, but later in the day I noticed it had fallen off and was sitting in our garden.

True story.

GO ERECTIONS!

Things I Learned Last Week About the Circulatory System, According to Our Extremely Typo-Laden Coursepack

• Cephalic vein: courses in the deltopectoral groove before passing deep to terminate in the axill?:Zjy vein.



• Azy2Os system of veins acts as an alternate blood route.



• Ulnar artery: Supplies most flexors of the Mist and hand.



• Superficial and deep palmar arches: These arches, in rum, yield metacarpal and digital branches.



• Brachiocephalic trunk: From the aortic arch, blood flow to the right ann.

Yesterday

Yesterday, Instructor from Craptown spent 10 minutes talking about a patient who had her labia grafted onto her face to replace her missing lips that were damaged in a terrible car accident. We are learning about the digestive system. Thus, this was the utmost in relevance.

Yesterday, 1/3 of the class didn't show up. About 10 minutes into a class that started 40 minutes late (yet again), half the remaining class got up and left out of disgust to go study in the cafeteria instead.

Yesterday, I realized I have a bit of a girl-crush on a girl in my class. I get girl-crushes very very rarely (it's about as regular as eclipses), and right now I'm still trying to decide if I dig her because I want to *be* her or if I dig her because she is badass and I wanna get wit that.

Yesterday, Instructor from Craptown left once in the middle of class because he hadn't brought an old phys test with him that we needed to get back to study for the upcoming midterm. Then he left again because he'd not realized we had an Anatomy test scheduled for yesterday and needed to go look for the tests. And then he left to run our bubble-tests through the machine that scores them. And then he realized that it had scored them all incorrectly because he had told us to fill in the bubble for Form B when we should've filled it in for Form A. Then we went over the test to try to figure out the correct answers. And then he handed the tests back to us to grade manually and we went over the test AGAIN to grade them (because apparently it didn't make sense to combine these two events so as to not waste more time). And then we went over the test one last time for reasons unknown. And then he left again because he hadn't brough an old anatomy test with him that we needed to get back to study for the upcoming midterm. Time spent reviewing for the anatomy midterm next week: 0.

Yesterday, as everyone was flipping out in class and going off about Instructor from Craptown, I got asked how I stay so completely zen in the face of all the irritating madness. "Drugs," I said. "Lots and lots of drugs."

I haven't been blogging much about school this semester. It's partially because I've been on break the past two weeks. And it's also partially because I am becoming increasingly disgruntled and disgusted with both my school and my A&P IV class, and I'd rather just avoid thinking about either/or whenever possible.

I mean, when your instructor takes a call in the middle of class on his cell phone, *telling everyone afterwards, "I don't even know who the hell that was,"* when his basic means of teaching is to say "You'll need to know this for the test" without ever EXPLAINING the ideas behind that which we need to know (which, I dunno maybe it's just crazy talk but, seems to me to be the JOB of the f-ing instructor), when your instructor typically starts class 30 to 45 minutes late and then let's the class go 30-45 minutes early, and when your instructor approaches the learning of the muscles of the face by saying "Yeah, I dunno. It seems kind of pointless for me to go over all these since it's basically just rote memorization that you could do on your own" and then proceeds instead to talk about how best to beat the stock market for 15 minutes, it's a bit difficult not to feel yourself filling up with a ridiculously insatiable rage.

And you know it's particularly bad when you're in a conversation with an instructor at your school (in this case, Chiroman) in which you're both just totally going off on the school and (in your case) on your new instructor, and he actually says to you, "Damn. If I was in your situation, I'd just clock in and go sit in the student lounge for the 4 hours of class and learn it on my own," and you realize he's probably right. And this coming from an *INSTRUCTOR*.

It has been *WAY* too long since I've posted last. I've been busy like I've not been busy for years. Especially at work. Hence the lack of posting.

Oh, but that doesn't mean that nothing's going on. Oh no.

Here's some fragments from the Land of Massage Therapy:

1. I massaged a minor a few weeks ago--a 17-year old lacrosse player. Made me feel a bit old--he was so little, and I wanted to be like, "You're so young, you baby you." He was cute and delightful and chatty and blissfully and obliviously 17-years old, which was symbolized by him actually not giving thought to the fact that *perhaps* you shouldn't ask the person massaging you: "So, like, the guy massage therapists who go to this school, like, um, are any of them straight?" Oh, little boy, you are lucky the door was ajar and you caught me off-guard, otherwise you might've received a mouthful.


2. Our new instructor, the one of maggot-infamy, is turning out to be not quite so good, and I'm not sure whether I should be directing my anger and disgust at *him* or at *the school* for not cluing him in as to what's going on. Despite being a wicked-smart fellow, he's not big into explaining things. Actually, that's not quite right: he's big into explaining the same few things over and over again, while glossing over the rest. Instead, he'll just pass it on by with a warning that "you should probably know this, so make sure to look at it." Is it just me, or isn't it the job of the instructor to EXPLAIN the stuff that we "should probably know" so that we might be able to understand it? Yesterday, after class started 45 minutes late due to his lack of organizational skills and planning, and after we went an hour and a half without a break, despite him NEVER EXPLAINING ANYTHING TO US IN A WAY THAT OFFERS US CLARITY, I got disgusted and left during break. If I'm gonna get stuck teaching this shit to myself, why should I waste four hours sitting in a classroom, eyes glazed over, not learning a goddamn thing, when I could be at work and getting out at 3pm instead of 8?


3. I am shocked and amazed that after this semester, I will only technically have three classes (and one seminar) left. It is such a strange (and delightful) feeling.


4. In business class, our final project this semester is gonna be a business plan we have to create for our own business. I am actually a bit excited about this project since it's an idea I've toyed around with anyways--I would like to own my own place eventually, and after reading The Massage Therapy Journal and realizing that the #1 complaint among most MTs is that they didn't receive any business-training at their school, I feel a bit appreciative that we will be learning at least a LITTLE bit about what would be involved in starting our own business.


5. In the aforementioned business class last week, I thought for a second that I had coined my own witty phrase and was gonna have to write a whole goddamn business book, just to show it off in all its glory. Alas, I googled the phrase the next morning, and someone else had already thought of it: "If you've got a niche, scratch it." *sigh*


6. My back and right leg are all fucked up and have been for the past few weeks. I am a bit afraid that this is because I've started clinic again and am massaging people 3 hours a week... It frightens me that there is a possibility that, despite my attempts at using good body-mechanics while massaging, that giving massages may result in me being in pain. I am hope hope hoping that perhaps the problem is a pre-existing hip-problem that I have, and that once Chiro-man fixes me, I'll be perfectly fine after 3 hours of massage. Otherwise I'm fucked.


7. I think my crush on Chiro-man has finally been snuffed out. And apparently all it took was a conversation in which he talked about grilling ribs and playing baseball.

The Worms Go In, The Worms Go Out, The Worms Play Pinochle on Your Snout.

So we've had floater-instructors the last two weeks of my A&P class because apparently the individual they hired to *be* our instructor decided very last minute that he no longer had any desire to teach the class. C'est la vie.

But finally today we got our new instructor, and I was all grins when he introduced himself by telling us how the very first patient he ever had was a guy who came in with a maggot infestation. Apparently the patient was nonplussed by thate fact since it was his *third* maggot-infestation and the prior time the maggots were *way* bigger, so they weren't bothering him quite so much this time. And apparently maggots are actually very perfect little creatures--they only eat dead tissue, so they squirm back in and out of the wound, cleaning out all the rot on your behalf. They don't touch any of the healthy stuff. Which means they leave (and I quote) a "beautiful" wound (as my instructor so cutely put it, with a bit of awe in his voice)--perfectly cleaned out, perfectly perfect in most every way. And apparently all it takes to get rid of the maggots is to spray some sort of icy-cold spray-medicine on them--they hate the cold. Now, if you ever get infested with maggots, you'll think of me and know precisely what to do.

But seriously, it's always a bit refreshing when your instructor introduces himself with a maggot-story, because at least you know that the class will be anything but dull.