So, party last night was pretty good. Or I guess, it'd be better be called a "get together." I still struggle to differentiate between the two terms. But they seem relatively similar, except in volume of people (though I'm not sure the cut-off between the two, except for that a party would be "larger").
On a strange note, I ended up matching the hostess of the event on three different color levels- robins egg blue, black and khaki. This was completely unintentional, though funny in retrospect. There were games of beer pong 'a plenty and eventually (as in 12:30am) a bonfire. To be honest, I've always liked watching fire, though out of the traditional elements (fire, water, air and earth...no, not "heart" Captain Planet!), I find myself less bound to it than the rest. The same couldn't be said of one of my friends coughKatjaGeistcough. Ahem. Amateur pyro like her- she'll go places.
Unfortunately, I had to leave early (read 1ish) but fortunately the reason was legit- I was seeing the Bodies exhibit- my aunt's treat. She works for hospital in coding and figured (correctly) that I'd really be interested in going. So, she was amazing and decided to take me to it.
Now, in case you are unfamiliar with the exhibit (don't know what cities it has been to), the basic premise is that of an Anatomy lab. Basically people have donated their bodies to science to be used as models. I have to say, I was very impressed. The bodies were amazingly dissected (I'm still getting over how well whomever dissected the cardiovascular model did the mesenteric arteries), though admittedly, I'm a bit of an amateur at the dissecting thing. However, I can appreciate work well done.
Against my dad's fears (see an earlier post, probably Saturday or so) that the whole thing was morbid, I honestly found it to be amazing. It did remind me of opening up my anatomy atlas (yay Anatomy and Histology, BIOL 124!) and seeing everything up close and personal. The weird thing, is that as the skin was completely removed from the models, I did not even think "Oh, I'm about a foot away from a dead man/woman who has his/her chest cavity completely open" but rather "Whoa...it looks exactly like it does in the lab manual. Cool." Maybe that's a personal thing.
An odd thing that I have to point out is that the eyebrows and eyelashes of the models were still intact. They were not as noticeable as it would be on a living human being, but when I was closer to a model and examining his biceps brachii, I noticed it. As a result, every model thereafter, I had to check- did it have eyelashes and brows? Strangely enough, yes. I'm curious as to why this was- whether the roots of the respective hairs are that deep or was this some effort to further humanize the models? Either way it was just a tiny oddity that I wish I would've asked to have explained.
Other cool bits included a horseshoe kidney (both kidneys fuse into one horseshoe looking kidney), a section of the brain after a stroke and a human body that was completely cut on the transverse plane. The transverse plane (for those of you who weren't forced to take anatomy) is one of the three planes of the body that divides the body into superior and inferior parts (read: if you cut some one's head off by swinging a sword parallel to the ground, you've dissected them on the transverse plane). So, it was a cool effect, which instantly I associated with an MRI, which, lo and behold, the video screen above the body was showing a video CAT scans and MRI. Win.
So, it was a really cool experience. If you think that such a display is disrespectful to human life, I assure you, the subject was handled maturely and the bodies looked to be treated with dignity- no obscene poses, just the occasional sports pose to demonstrate which muscles would be working. I highly recommend the exhibit if you have the stomach and interest (or vice versa).
In other news, I'm expecting a call tomorrow morning from a recruiter from a hospital system and hoping that I can really set some internship up for August (after Korea) or (even better) next summer. Wish me luck!
-Reven
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