The Dynamic Duo

“No more classes, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks..............”
Yep, Kids, UltraMom took her last final tonight and will be classroom free until the third week of January or so. I actually feel kind of guilty and at loose ends. What am I supposed to be doing, if not reading Anatomy and Physiology? Now that I no longer have to play my recorded Cell Biology lectures in the car, so I indulged by listening to my new ‘in the ears-read”, John Steinbeck’s ‘Travels with Charlie.” It’s about his travels around America in the 1960s with his standard poodle, Charlie, and up to Tape 2, Side 1, is showing great promise. Nephew Billie saw the tape case in my car and gave the book high reviews. And hopefully, it will have a happier ending than his novels do!
So, now I suppose you want a report on how I’m doing in all my classes, right? I thought as much. Well, in Human Growth and Development Through the Lifespan, my grade is complete. I took the last test late on Sunday night. That class in entirely online and I really like the instant feedback. As soon as I ‘submitted’ my completed test, back shot my score: 90%. Checking all my grades, I saw that gave me a 95.6% in the class, so I didn’t need to use my valuable time correcting missed answers for additional half points. I had planned on getting a lot more studying done that weekend, but allowed myself to be talked into various other activities, such as attending a performance of The Nutcracker in Elko with sis in law Pat on Sunday afternoon. That was great fun; the ‘professional’ dancers were from Reno, but a lot of locals were used as well; Pat knew one of the little ‘Peppermint Twists’, so it was fun to watch for her.  Afterwards I suggested we stop by Starbucks. I was in a daring mood; it was to be my very first Starbucks experience. I had only recently started drinking the occasional cappuccino, so that was what I ordered. Pat got a caramel latte, which turned out to be the better choice. My drink was half foam, and was not very hot or very good. Quite disappointing on the whole! 
Monday I had my last yoga class. I think the teacher in there may be glad to see me go. I am so inflexible, she is always trying to get me to stretch just a little more, and my body just won’t do it without lots of help! Last week, she told us we were going to ‘stand on our heads’. We practiced supporting ourselves on our forearms and getting into the right position against the wall. When it came time to kick up, I couldn’t do it. “Do you want me to help you?” she asked. When I said yes, she came over and picked my legs up, at which point I promptly forgot all about supporting myself on my forearms and not scrunching me neck. In fact, she had to let me down quickly and asked me every 5 minutes for the rest of class if my neck was okay. At one time in my life, this would have been very embarrassing to me, but now it is more humorous, and only slightly embarrassing.
We’ll skip lightly over the next couple of days. Test in A & P on Tuesday night on functions of parts of the brain and the nervous system. I think I did okay, but this Prof is kinda out of it, and likes to give essay tests and grade them inconsistently, so you never know. Test in Cell Bio over 7 chapters Wednesday morning. It was hard, like all of them have been, but I don’t feel like I did horribly, which in a weird sort of way worries me. The first 3 tests I was sure I bombed and ended up doing pretty well. This one I feel kind of good about, so not sure that is a good sign. Too much psychoanalyzing for sure! After that test, I had a Chiropractor appointment.  I have a history of knotted shoulder muscles, so I asked him after he worked on me if they were tight.  “Tight would a major understatement,” he told me, and then let me know it was probably from hunching over textbooks too much.
Tonight I took my A & P Lab final over the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord. There was a crazy conglomeration of real brains, brain and nerve models, and diagrams with pins and numbers. The diagrams weren’t too bad; I had studied those in my books, but the real brain was horrible. I don’t know why real brains can’t be colored like they are in my lab manual. Why shouldn’t the pons be bright green, the Wernicke Center blue and the medulla oblongata a pleasing orange?  My classmate Kathleen and I were the last ones done, and as we turned out tests in, I asked Prof Ports if he could tell me correct answer on some I was unsure of. “Does it make any difference now?” he asked. “Yes it does. I want to learn this, and by the time my test gets returned, I won’t remember how it was set up,” I answered.  This seemed to satisfy him, and he left his grading and showed me what I should have written down instead of what I did, in many cases. Oh well, at least I didn’t miss them all!
Okay, it’s very late, but at least I didn’t stay up late studyingJ I’ll let you all know as soon as I have final grades posted.
Now I can focus on Christmas and upcoming trip to Japan!

UltraMom