Brain in Skull: Sure...

Lately, I had been running around on my own while my brain remains snugly secured in my bed. That was mostly due to a cold that was trying to take over my body. To counteract that nasty little bug, I was hopped up on varying cold medicines most of the time; namely NyQuil and Day Relief PE Liquid Gels. Yeeha. That made going to classes and fulfilling my calling an interesting experience. I frequently caught myself starting to lose focus and try to remain vigilant only to lose a few minutes and hope that nothing important was said in that time. Upside to that: that cold didn't get the best of me. Boo-ya.
This next bit of information is brought to you by Anatomy and Physiology II on the cardiovascular system. So as a fetus, your heart starts out as simply two pumping veins that are bigger than you and are superior to(above) your head. You grow faster than your heart, so as you develop, you pass the heart in size and get to a point where the heart is chin level. Meanwhile, the heart is folding in on itself and developing into the four-chambered beauty we know and love. As you continue to grow, you start bending in on yourself and as you do that, your chin pushes your heart into your chest, where it remains for the rest of your life. Is that nuts or what? I love this class.
Anyway, Yellowstone was markedly colder than last time, but still a blast. This time we ventured south to visit Old Faithful and the other geysers. Pictures from our latest adventure are found on Facebook. This time, we drove through a herd of bison. We remained on the road and didn't hit any of them, but they were all around and within arms reach at points-it was a treat!
I am in the midst of homework such as reading reading reading, an analysis paper, and studying for tests; so nothing is really new there. The preparation for the Idaho Falls Christmas Brass Extravaganza of Awesomeness (named it that just now) is going well, though haltingly at the moment. There's not enough time in the day to do everything I want to do, but "c'est la vie," right? Right. That's why it's important to seize each moment you can to have fun, which is where I'm off to right now! Mmm...lunch...

Assisted Dating Yellowstone Blood Alarm

All right, so it's been a whole week since my last post. What is there to tell? Seems like there's a lot, actually.
This picture right here is from last week. The nice early-October, panic-inducing flurries. Rexburg does this every year. There's the harbinger snows and then it goes back to Fall for a little while. We are currently in the Fall phase; otherwise known as the calm before the storm. I'm just hoping for a few more days of good weather because tomorrow I'm planning on a date that involves outdoor activity. Keep your fingers crossed.
This last Sunday held some excitement. I finally got my two assistant executive secretaries set apart and they are ready for action! That brings a nice relief to me. They were a part of roughly twelve people to be set apart that Sunday. Right after Sunday School- as we were just exiting the classroom- the fire alarm went off. The entire Smith building (where our church is held) was evacuated, meaning about 3-4 wards dumped out onto the sidewalks and lawn areas. The alarm was the real deal, so the fire department, police department, even campus security showed up and we were all dismissed for the day. With that announcement, we lost about half the people who still needed to be set apart for their calling in the huge migration off of campus. The rest of us went to another building and borrowed some rooms. Everyone else had to come in on Tuesday to be set apart.
The cause of the alarm, you ask? Well, in the clerks' office, there's a little box right under a smoke detector. There was an arch between wires that sent off just enough smoke to set off the detector and the rest is history. Nothing too exciting; no flames, no billowing smoke, nothing of that nature. Thanks goodness, too. Turns out the Smith is an older building and has no sprinkler system set up in it. Therefore, if there really was a fire, there would be nothing to suppress it and it would crawl easily through the building. That brings to mind something that a lot of less-active members/non-members in the mission would say to my companion and I when we would invite them to church. They would say something to the effect that the building would burst into flames, explode, or demolish in a horrible fashion if they stepped one foot inside the door. Now, if a less-active or non-member had stepped into the Smith this last Sunday, I might have believed them about that kind of spiel.
This last Tuesday we had our weekly campus-wide devotional. This week the speaker was Elaine S. Dalton, the General Young Women's President of the Church. She had a very good talk that she presented. In that talk, she, like so many other general authorities, chastised the guys/tried to light a fire under us about needing to stop just "hanging out" with girls and asking them on dates. I find it interesting how the young women don't catch anything about dating, like how to stop messing with a guy's head/playing lots and lots of "games", making yourself available, etc. Anyway, a part of that let us fellas know that when a girl says "I'm busy", that we should try again and make it more personal. After all, persistence without being overbearing is key in many aspects of life. Overall, the address she gave was great, encouraging us to "Dare to do greatly".
In Anatomy and Physiology II, we've been learning about the blood, that life-giving, life-stealing connective tissue coursing through our veins. I'll try to keep it brief. Basically, I learned how Jaundice occurs and is eliminated, which is related to why human waste is the spectrum of colors that it is, and exactly why the blood type O- is the "universal donor". I also learned about hematocrit (red blood cell percentage) and lipid-profiles (cholesterols, fasting glucose levels, things of that nature) in lab today along with the blood typing. There was equipment for us to do our own blood tests if we wanted to. The only one I was really interested in was my lipid-profile, but you have to fast for 12 hours beforehand and I had failed at that. I already know my blood type and I knew that my hematocrit test would result in a higher-than-normal number. It's all fascinating stuff, per usual, but takes a lot of focus and brain power. Thank goodness I'm out of the days of this...somewhat.
As a closing note, this weekend has some real promise to it. One reason is that there's a bunch of us who are planning on a trip to Yellowstone National Park. That's two times in almost as many weeks. This time we head to the southern portion of the park for attractions like Old Faithful and the like. One of our friends has never been, which inspired this trip, and she's in for a real treat!

Mountain Rains

To start off, I just want to say that I love the rain. I really do. There are a lot of people out there who become upset at cloud cover and absolutely depressed once they detect heaven's blessing of rain; I am not one of them! In fact, cloud cover brightens my day, and rain makes it. While others are walking around gloomy-faced, my eyes are bright with enthusiasm. Warm rains are my absolute favorite.
Now, in Rexburg, Idaho, there is no such thing as "warm rain". If there is rain here, the temperature drops with the water, which is just fine. This whole week has been rainy. Yesterday, I was tempted to go run around in a brief downpour, but remembered that I still had a couple of classes left in the day. Rats. Today, I walked to my 7:45am Bio. 265 lab in a mild drizzle and walked back to my apartment at 9:45am in sheets of half snow, half rain. My mood, aided by the usual sleep-deprivation, has need for improvement. I'm really not that upset, I just don't want the snow here yet. It can wait until late November/early December and that will be just fine with me. Obviously the Snow Demons either have itchy trigger fingers, small bladders and too much "snow juice", or whatever you want to see it as.
Amid the atmospheric higgeldy-piggeldy, there is life marching on like battle-ready ants.
Anatomy and Physiology II is really digging into the endocrine system, and for good reason. It plays such a large role in making sure your body functions properly, that the slightest upset can have serious consequences. This morning, in my lab, we went through a case study that had us diagnose a lady with particular symptoms, like weight-loss, loss of lateral vision, throbbing headaches, warm and moist skin, etc. With two hours' worth of looking at blood test results and research, my group and I determined that she had tumors on her thyroid and pituitary glands. Needless to say, it wasn't easy. Eventually we're going to be busting two case studies in lab; that will be fun. Fortunately, we're going over hormones and the endocrine system in my Exercise Physiology class right now as well, so that will help get this stuff down.
With the Christmas season closing in slowly but steadily (faster than expected, if the weather had anything to say about it), there's a doin' a-transpirin' between yours truly and two musically-talented friends. We had decided last year to get together at the Christmas season, go down to Idaho Falls or somewhere, and play Christmas songs. Brianna and me on the trumpet and Kristilynn on the trombone. It didn't exactly happen last year, but this year, so far, is more promising. We have obtained some sheet music yesterday and tried it out. So far, so good. Maybe that's why there's snow falling right now: we appealed to the snow demons with our premature Christmas melodies. If that is the case, than I am truly sorry.


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