The Pee-Pee and the Poo-Poo!

ANAL TRIANGLE!

PENIS SHAFT!

LEVATOR ANI!

VAGINA!

ANAL SPHINCTER!

That is what we learned about yesterday in anatomy.

Yesterday's extremely random exchange in the school hallway with some guy I've never spoken to before as I rush to hurriedly clock-in:

GUY (shouting over his shoulder at me as I barrel down the hallway)--Hey, are you a tattoo artist?
ME (confusedly looking down at myself just in case something in my appearance might unlock the reason behind this question)--Um. No. I do have tattoos though.
GUY--Oh.

THE END

And So the Philosopher and the Scientist Meet and Shake Hands

There is just something magnificent and yet unsettling about watching a living being peel back the layers of muscles in a cadaver, exposing the winding paths of veins and arteries, demonstrating how a muscle works by tugging on its point of origin and making the appropriate body part shift accordingly (uncontrolled by its owner), poking fingers pulsing with their lifeblood into the caverns and nooks of the body of what used to be a person. When my mind begins to wander as I watch this take place or as I learn more and more about how the body works, in all its amazing and mind-boggling intricacies, I find the philosopher in me sneaking its way into my musings and speculating about the mind-body relationship.

It's strange and spooky, seeing a human being reduced down to exposed muscles, arteries, flesh peeled back, nothing more than a shell. Where does, where did, the person reside in there? There's been so much debate as to where the "person" (the "soul") exist within the body--is it in the heart? Is it in the brain (as Peter Singer points out in some of his discussions, perhaps the medical community believes that this must be the case as the medical definition of death has come to include "brain death")? The bowels? Where are we amidst the mix of flesh and bone? Where in this weird-shaped mass of organic and inorganic materials that I tote around everyday, where in that is my "self" located?

And the more I think about how thought/action are produced in the body, so much of it able to be pinned down to synaptic firings or nerve impulses shuttling this way and that, it leaves me also wondering--are we truly in control of our daily functionings as we drag ourselves through life? Or are we deluding ourselves into thinking that we are autonomic beings? (Strange the word choice here even: "autonomic" alternatively means "self-directed, self-regulated, independent" while also referring to "the autonomic nervous system, which controls bodily functions that are not under conscious control (eg, heartbeat, breathing, sweating)"--do we have autonomy, or are even the things we believe to be under our control (thought, for example) in their own way, just a mechanism of the body's functioning physical and chemical properties--just a byproduct of the body functioning the way it is "programmed" to function? (Dreams always weird me out in this regard as well--we are not consciously directing ourselves to be thinking/remembering/etc., and yet we are *BECAUSE OF SYNAPSES FIRING AWAY IN OUR LITTLE BRAINS*. Where is the autonomy in dreaming?) Who's more in charge of what--the body bossing around what you will think/say/do, or the "self" in you bossing around the body and the brain? Is there some sort of "mind" involved in our daily functioning or does the *illusion* of the mind stand-in for what is nothing more than a physical body functioning the way it is programmed to do so? Where is the mind in the body? Where is the person in the body? Where is "the soul" in the body?

*Mind aswirl with wonderings*

Strange because the more you think about these things, the more you are met with the paradox that despite the fact that science has come so far--that thoughts/sensations/movements can be traced to their very basic scientific processes--there are so many ephemeral wonderings that can't be pinpointed and probably never will--like the question of the "soul," or where the person is located in the body, or why the body has developed in certain ways (sometimes answerable, sometimes not).

The body is wondrous.

But when I get too caught up on that fact and it sends me barreling into all this weird philosophical mamma jamma, all I need to do to shuttle myself back to the more immediate is think of my A&P instructor telling us this week about how having to adjust a person's coccyx often causes them to shit all over the place, "like popping the cork on a bottle of champagne."

Then my wonderment sure as shit dissipates, and all's I wanna do is shed my defecating sack of human-parts as quickly as possible and run far far away from this philosophical dilemma that is human existence.

In 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... *KABOOM*

Get out your notebooks, your tape-recorders, your videocameras, because ye ol' cranky-ass atheist (aka. me) may very well never say this again, so it's probably worth documenting:

The more I learn about the human body in all its beautiful and amazing and dumbfounding intricacies, the more I can sorta-kinda-yes begin to understand the folks who earnestly say, with their eyes wide in awe, "How can you not believe in a God when something as amazing as this can come to exist?"

*This post will now self-destruct*

One Must Learn to Correctly Spell the Pee-Pee

Yesterday night, we got to watch a cadaver video that illustrated all the muscles affecting the upper extremities and scapula and their accompanying actions. It was really kinda cool (and yet creepy) watching an alive man pull on a dead (wo)man's flexor digitorum profundis and see her fingers flex in direct response, especially when there is no skin covering them so it's all just muscle muscle muscle. The only thing that really creeped me out quite a bit were the shots where the forearm and wrist muscles were exposed but the flesh was still remaining on the hand itself. It was strange and leathery and looked like some sort of creepy flesh-glove. I also found myself a bit surprised and weirded out by how large an artery actually is. I must say though, if I hadn't been veg*n prior to watching that, I think I most definitely would've been afterwards.

In other news, our A&P instructor apparently does not know how to spell the word "VAGINA." (On his powerpoint Monday night, it was spelled "VIGINA.") This mispelling is presumably either due to a) lack of use (double-entendre intended), b) complete lack of spelling abilities, or c) a typo. Fortunately for him, I suspect that the second option is the case and not so much the first.

Nonetheless: good god, man!

I just decided that I'd probably like muscles way more (and remember them way better) if I turned them into verbs for whatever it is they do (not always feasible, but for some of them yes).

I just risoriuted at someone and that's what made me think of it.

Did you know that...

• If you've ever broken your tailbone in a major sort of way, you are more likely to develop MS?



• Many of us probably have mild cases of spina bifida without even realizing it?



• If you massage someone with really bad rheumatoid arthritis, you could conceivably pop their head off?



• If you were to pick between either only brushing your teeth or only flossing for the rest of your life, you'd be MUCH better off if you flossed without ever brushing your teeth again (rather than vice versa)?



• You should never pour peroxide into your ear?



• That farting is a form of diffusion?

Well, now you do.

Here is a picture of a skull:

Dem bones dem bones dem... humerus bones!

Things I Need to Know for Monday:*Singing* The hamate bone's connected to the... trapezoid bone! The trapezoid bone's connected to the... metacarpal #2! The metacarpal #2's connected to the... proximal phalanx of the finger! Dem bones dem bones! *End singing*











Some Lovers Try Positions That They Can't Handle! Hand bones hand bones dem... hand bones!

Lucy! I'm Home!

According to our anatomy instructor, they've found that with elderly folks who've been dancers most of their adult lives, that just playing a song to which they once performed over and over and over again will actually *cause* their motor neurons to begin firing in the *exact* pattern of movements the dance once entailed, causing their muscles to begin contracting in rhythm to their old routines...

This is weird and beautiful and worthy of being written into a poem.

Also according to our anatomy instructor: Desi Arnaz is apparently Mexican and preparing to celebrate Cinco De Mayo.

Um, yeah.

Things I Learned in Week 2 (Part II)

My ethics instructor likes to cuddle with her best friend on the couch--they're really into cuddling. Cuddling cuddling cuddling. Cuddling!

The reason that you toss and turn throughout the night is because your body is keeping you from having pressure develop on the spots pressing against the bed, which is essentially keeping you from developing big gaping bed-sores.

Med students kill an *awful* lot of their patients and do so nonchalantly.

My ethics instructor and her family are really close--they end up in each others' beds throughout the night. Cuddling cuddling cuddling!

All ethical issues are a dilemma. *Except* for the following, which has a right answer: "What would you do if you found out your spouse had a terminal illness and would die within the month BUT there was a drug that existed out there which would cure him/her and which was worth $1,000; *however*, the only place that was selling the drug was charging 5 million dollars for it? Keep in mind that you are to strip any legal routes and any fundraising routes from your answer (i.e. you are not able to raise the money or take the pharmacy to court)." The right answer: you do whatever it takes to get that pill and save your spouse! Life is more important than other things! Oh, and cuddling cuddling cuddling!

My anatomy instructor does a really really poor imitation of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There are so many bones in the body that it makes me wanna wet my pants and cry and slobber some.

You should not fuck your clients.