New mpg files for download

Update - 11/25/07: Files Removed. Don't hate on me, blame GoDaddy.

I've added some new files to the server in the past few days - here's a list, to help Googlers who are looking for them. Sorry for the dry post! P.S. - I have two exams on Monday (Pathology & Patient Care) and two on Tuesday (Psychopathology & Immunology) so I'll be scarce for a few days. Don't miss me too much. :-) We have:

House MD, Season 3, episode 2 - Cane and Able (aired on September 12, 2006)
House and the team treat a young boy who claims there is a tracking device in his neck and believes he has been the subject of alien experimentation. Cameron is outraged when she learns Cuddy and Wilson have been lying to House about the diagnosis on his last case (episode summary from TV.com).

House M.D., Season 3, episode 3 - Informed Consent (aired on September 19, 2006)
House puts a well-known medical researcher through a battery of tests to determine why he collapsed in his lab. When the team is unable to diagnose the problem, the doctor asks the team to help him end his life. House is forced to use his cane again after the ketamine has worn off as he deals with a clinic patient's teenaged daughter who has a crush on him (episode summary from TV.com).

House MD, Season 3, episode 4 - Lines in the Sand (aired on September 26, 2006)
When doctors are unable to diagnose why a severely autistic boy screams loudly for no apparent reason, House takes the case. As the boy's condition worsens, it becomes obvious that House relates to the boy because he has no social niceties (episode summary from TV.com).

Saturday Night Live - Ellen Degeneres and No Doubt (aired December 15, 2001)

Family Guy, Season 6, episode 1 - Mother Tucker (aired on September 17, 2006)
Peter's mom gets a divorce. Peter feels abandoned until he sees a father figure in his mom's new boyfriend, Tom Tucker. Meanwhile, Brian gets his own NPR style show on the radio(episode summary from TV.com).

Ben Savage is not dead. I repeat, Ben Savage is NOT DEAD. How rude of you to kill him.

Now, why did people feel the need to fake-kill Ben Savage? Poor Ben. When I read the news of his "death" on MySpace, I decided to check it out on Snopes, to find out that it wasn't true. Unlike the time that they (whoever "they" is) fake-killed Zack Morris, when I cried for six three one day. I mean, an hour. A half-hour. Half of a half-hour. Five minutes. Ahem.

In other news, I hate that those evil and stupid email chain letters have oozed their way into the MySpace bulletins. Urgh. "If you're really my friend, send this to everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Grief.

You know, I wish Clay Aiken would just come out (pardon the pun) and answer the gay question already. Just a yes or no. Not that it matters to me - I still love his voice, I just won't love his morals if the answer is yes. But doesn't he get that by refusing to answer the question, most people assume the answer is "yes"?

Surely he gets that. He's a smart cookie. (But what was with the short-lived stubble which made its debut on Leno? Has Clay been watching too much House MD?)

Also, calling Diane Sawyer "rude" on Good Morning America*? Boo. I like Diane Sawyer. She's supposed to ask intrusive questions, that's her job.

In other Clay news, if you buy the album from iTunes, you get a bonus track called Lover All Alone that is just so pretty. I would have preferred to have a whole album of songs like that, personally.

I love those bunch of nerds

I called Scott at the lab this afternoon, just past noon, to tell him something. One of his buddies at the lab answered the phone ...

Scott's lab buddy: Hello, ****** Lab.
Me: Hi ****, this is Kim - has Scott already gone to lunch?
Lab buddy: He's eating lunch.
Me: Well, is he nearby?
Lab buddy: He is within a one meter radius. Hold on.

Bwah.

Fundamental Christianity does not equal Fundamental Islam. No, no, no.

I know because I'm a fundamental Christian, in a very traditional Baptist Church, the Bible-Beltest of the Bible-Belty. And I don't want to kill people because they aren't Christians. I'm in freaking medical school to HELP people, for goodness sakes.

In the words of SarahK, "Wake up."

I am so tired of our stupid, "let's not offend anyone" government (except our President, who actually knows what he's dealing with and is dealing with it as best he can, given the idiots in Congress) wringing their hands and worrying that we're mistreating these Islamofascist terrorists, while said terrorists go around and PLAN and MURDER INNOCENT PEOPLE, based on a quote that some very, very dead guy said about a billion years ago. Good GRIEF! In a related story, Rosie O'Donnell has said something very untrue on one of her first days on The View, which is an idiotic career move and is just idiotic in general. (Also? I love Elisabeth Hasselbeck.)

And then there's this "documentary" that I read about yesterday, when sounded interesting from the title, but I should have known ... Jesus Camp. In particular, this quote:

Cut to the flickering images of children writhing in a spiritual trance on a chapel floor while being hectored about the glory of dying for Christ, and one knows exactly where the first Christian suicide bombers will come from.

No. No. No. NO. This thing that is being crudely described? Is CHURCH CAMP. I went to church camp, and am I a suicide bomber? Noooooo. Do I want to kill people who don't share my faith? NO! Christ teaches us to love people, and if they don't know Him as Savior, we are to share the Gospel with them - not KILL them and send them to Hell! Lord, help us. And there IS glory in dying for Christ - but that's referring to martyrs that are killed by evil people (i.e., the Islamofascist terrorists) because they won't denounce Christ, not people who fly planes into buildings and kill thousands of innocent people. That's not "martyrdom" as far as Christianity is concerned. I've heard muliple sermons that mentioned the glory of dying for Christ, and not ONE of them mentioned guns, bombs, or blowing up one's shoe.

In other news, my subacromial bursa is inflamed, and I'm on prednisone which is totally going to keep me up all night. Bleargh.

Memory Aid for Structures Derived from Branchial Arch Derivatives and Pouches

Here's another memory device that helped me on the anatomy test for head and neck (credit goes to Walid and Amirah, again.) This one is for structures derived from the branchial (pharnygeal) arches and pouches. And it's also kind of corny, but if you remember this story, you'll be able to fill in the branchial arch derivatives chart (which I recommend writing on the back of your exam as soon as you get it.)

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Geminal. She had a wonderful boyfriend that she loved dearly – but unfortunately, he moved to Ohio to pursue his education. Well, Geminal was a mess. She cried, "Ohhhhh! My love is in Ohio!" (mylohyoid) She was so depressed that she ate, and ate, and ate, using her muscles of mastication, of course, and her sphenomandibular ligament. She gained so much weight that, well, you could say she became TRIgeminal. So she started talking to her boyfriend on the phone more often, because she didn’t want him to see her - to see how much weight she’d gained. She used her malleus (with its anterior ligament), her incus, her auditory tube, her tympanic cavity, and her external auditory meatus to hear about his college adventures and how much he missed her. And then she decided to lose her extra weight – she picked up exercising. She did her tensor palatis, her tensor tympanis, and got rid of the anterior belly of her digastric.

So that’s Geminal.

Geminal’s boyfriend, on the other hand, was very popular on campus due to his beautiful face (muscles of facial expression, facial nerve), his impeccable style [as a matter of fact, he was known as the style of Ohio (stylohyoid.)] He had, of course, a posterior belly of the digastric; and no scars, as would be seen if he had his palatine tonsils (and their lining) removed. With all of these going for him, as you can imagine, he spent a lot of time "stapeding" around campus. (I realize that’s not a real word. Work with me here.)

The Style of Ohio, Facial Boy, had a good-for-nothing brother. His brother wasn’t doing anything with his life – just kind of riding on his brother’s coattails, and relying on his dad’s help for everything else. On a laziness scale of 1 to 10, the brother would rate a 9 (cranial nerve IX). Before Facial Boy went to college, he and his good-for-nothing brother were working on rebuilding an old car together – they called it "The Hyoid". When it was finally finished, the brother, although he had done the lower half of the body work on the Hyoid, he blew a greater horn and let everyone believe that he had done it all. His brother, being humble as well as hot, didn’t say anything – although he'd done the upper half of the body work on the Hyoid, he blew a lesser horn. And even though the lazy brother was the oldest, he acted like he was about ten years old – the geeky family joked that he still had a thymus. And keeping with the inferior theme, he brings to mind the inferior parathyroid glands. Because he just does. And the only muscle that this guy EVER works is his stylopharyngeus.

The father of Facial Boy and his lazy brother did basically everything else. All of the cartilages of the larynx, all of the muscles of the larynx, all muscles of the pharynx, and all muscles of the soft palate (except tensor palati, which is done by Geminal, remember.) Since the lazy brother didn’t finish the parathyroid glands, Daddy picked up the superior parathyroid glands. Daddy also does the C-cells of the thyroid. You’re just going to have to remember that, because it doesn’t fit anywhere.

And the XI cranial nerve does the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles. You probably already know that anyway.

Things that are funny at 2 A.M.

So I'm finishing up tomorrow morning's Sunday School bulletin (nothing like last minute, eh?) and I cannot stop giggling at the joke that I'm using in the "Holy Humor" section, so I thought I'd share it. Of course, it may be funnier in these wee morning hours, so if you don't find it funny at noon, don't blame me.

A children’s Sunday School class was presenting their end of the year program for the congregation - telling about the life of Jesus.

When it came to the part about Jesus' miracles, one little boy said, "Yes, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead!" The teacher urged him to tell more. He said, "Well, Jesus told them to open the tomb, and then He said, 'Lazarus, come out!' And it's a good thing He didn't just say 'Come out!' because there would have been a giant stampede of dead guys."

In other news, Scott and I (and Michael and Kristen) saw Gridiron Gang tonight, and I have concluded that I need The Rock to show up prior to each of my exams, and give me a motivational speech. I wonder how much that would cost me?

Oh, and after the movie? I got all tangled up in an unruly mess of short people.

Full songs from Clay Aiken's A Thousand Different Ways

Update 11/25/2007 - Files Removed. Don't hate on me - blame GoDaddy.

Clear Channel had a "sneak peek" of Clay Aiken's upcoming album, A Thousand Different Ways (to be released on Tuesday, September 19th - eeee.) Please right-click and "save as" on the mp3 links below. And if you want to pre-order the album from Amazon, it'd be swell if you'd use my referral link at the end of this post! Thanks. :-) You know, this sounds like a pretty good album. I think I've worked up a little bit of excitement here. Although he still hasn't covered Hands to Heaven. Boo.

1. Right Here Waiting
2. Lonely No More
3. Without You (this one is on Clay's MySpace)
4. Every Time You Go Away
5. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
6. When I See You Smile
7. A Thousand Days
8. Everything I Do (I Do It For You)
9. Because You Loved Me
10. I Want To Know What Love Is (with Suzie McNeil)
11. These Open Arms
12. Here You Come Again
13. Everything I Have
14. Broken Wings

Cranial Nerve Component Memory Device

I can't take credit for this - credit goes to Walid from my class and Amirah from the class ahead of me, but Walid gave me permission last year to share it, and I'll be following this post up with another memory device for the branchial (a.k.a. pharyngeal) arches. Because of these silly things, I still remember those two parts of head and neck anatomy. Enjoy, and I hope this helps some frazzled anatomy student!

Cranial nerve components

Like most mneumonics/memory devices, this one starts out kind of corny. So just bear with me. First, make a list of the different types of cranial nerves by using this little sing-song: "Great Virginia, Sweet Virginia, G Veg Save! SSA does two and eight." The "G Veg Save" part confused me at first – obviously it helps you remember to list GVE, but then you continue onto the next line so you can finish spelling "Veg", giving you a lonely G. So you finish that line with a "SA", then put "SVE" on the line after that, so that you (sort of) spell "SAVE" in two different directions. Does that make sense? So now you have this:

GVA –
SVA –
GVE –
GSA –
SVE –
SSA – II & VIII

Now, which cranial nerves have a whole bunch of components in them? VII, IX, and X, right? So fill in the list like this, leaving spaces as indicated – the GVA list is complete and doesn’t need a space:

GVA – VII, IX, X
SVA – ___, VII, IX, X
GVE – ___, VII, IX, X
GSA – ___, VII, IX, X
SVE – ___, VII, IX, X
SSA – II & VIII

Now, start counting in odd numbers to fill in the spaces (you’ll use V twice, otherwise you’d be listing VII twice for SVE. So your list looks like this now:

GVA – VII, IX, X
SVA – _I_, VII, IX, X
GVE – _III_, VII, IX, X
GSA – _V_, VII, IX, X
SVE – _V_, VII, IX, X
SSA – II & VIII

Add XI to the SVE list, just because, well, it belongs there.

GVA – VII, IX, X
SVA – _I_, VII, IX, X
GVE – _III_, VII, IX, X
GSA – _V_, VII, IX, X
SVE – _V_, VII, IX, X, XI
SSA – II & VIII

So what’s missing? GSE? Of COURSE it’s GSE! And for GSE, list the cranial nerves that don’t show up anywhere else in the lists, plus III.

GVA – VII, IX, X
SVA – _I_, VII, IX, X
GVE – _III_, VII, IX, X
GSA – _V_, VII, IX, X
SVE – _V_, VII, IX, X, XI
SSA – II & VIII
GSE – III, IV, VI, XII

And there you go. When I got my head & neck anatomy exam, I flipped it over and wrote this, plus the eye movements diagram, plus the branchial arches chart (memory device to come later, stay tuned) on the back, and then I was able to refer to it to correctly answer all questions that dealt with any of those things. Good luck!

I'm working on our list of "learning objectives" for the heart and blood vessels for our physical diagnosis/clinical medicine class (I just typed "hart" instead of "heart" - I think that should get me kicked out of medical school) and as I was typing the list of questions (to be answered at a time to be determined later) I was actually LOOKING FORWARD TO LEARNING THE ANSWERS. This is a new development, y'all. Maybe I'm really supposed to be a doctor after all.

Also regarding these questions, I was talking to a friend in my class sometime during our whirlwind of exams, and I told her that I was planning on looking these questions up in our physical examination textbook this weekend, since we've just spilled all of our knowledge and don't really have anything to study. I told her that I'd share them when I get them finished (it's not an assignment we have to turn in or anything, it's just things we're supposed to know.) She said, "I'm thinking ethics." I was like, "What, you think it's wrong for me to do that?" It turns out that she meant she was going to work on her ethics paper. Duh.

In other news, my head still hurts. And my pancreas, feeling left out, now appears to be trying to escape from my peritoneal cavity. Unlike Patrick "Pain Don't Hurt" Swayze, I hate pain.

We Are Marshall trailer

The theatrical trailer is up on Yahoo Movies for We Are Marshall, a movie about the true story of a plane crash that killed 75 Marshall University players and coaching staff on November 14, 1970, and the rebuilding that followed.

I just watched it and it made me get all teary and ridiculous. Go here and watch it, and then go see the movie when it comes out in December (don't worry, I'll remind you again.) :-) It's my school, my hometown - and I really want the movie to do well. Also, the Apple featurette is here, if you're interested - interviews with Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, David Strathairn, director McG, Jack Lengyl, and Red Dawson. I got all teary and ridiculous for that, too.

By the way, the song in the beginning of the trailer is Carry On by Crosby Stills Nash and Young, if you were wondering (as I was.) Here's a link to the song at the iTunes Music Store: Carry On, from We Are Marshall trailer

Interestingly (or maybe not, whatever) the song is also on the Patch Adams soundtrack, a movie which has ties to West Virginia too (the Gesundheit! Institute is in Hillsboro, West Virginia.) So there you go.

Suri Cruise may be Asian

That's pretty much all I have to say about that - I guess it took awhile to make her debut because the wee baby toupee was backordered, and that delayed the whole shipment - baby and all.

On a more postive note, she is pretty cute. Maybe I should check out www.suspiciouslyasianbabies.com for myself when I'm ready for that whole mom thing. (Which will be after I finish the medical school thing, when I'm one of those doctor things.) I wonder if they throw in the camera-ready hair for free?

Too bad Tom is going to raise her as a crazy scientologist.

HT: The Superficial

Speaking of crazy scientologists - John Travolta, what are you DOING? Why are you wearing a dress, makeup, a female wig, and an unfortunate couch cover? I mean, really, why? Did they run out of female actresses in Hollywood or something?

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Except that there is. I think I'm going to have nightmares.

HT for Johnetta: I Watch Stuff

First round of blocks

So I (with the Lord, obviously) got through my first round of blocks. For some reason, in the 2nd year of medical school, they throw all of our exams at us at once - on Tuesday morning we had Pathology and then a break (15 whole minutes) and then Immunology. On Wednesday was Microbiology (which I had as a graduate student and don't have to retake, thank goodness) and Thursday was Patient Care (Clinical Medicine & Physical Diagnosis crashed together) and then Psychopathology.

I had a raging, laughs-at-Tylenol headache (tension, I guess) but nevertheless, ended up with two As and a B (we don't have Patient Care back yet.) Woohoo. That's much, much better than my first round of tests last year!

The good thing about block exams is that now, I have three weeks to procrastinate, barely study, worry about proscrastinating and barely studying, and then get another neverending headache or explosion of the pancreas. Good times.

In other news, I don't like to be around people who make me a nervous wreck. That is all.

Aww, this makes me sad.

I got such a kick out of this guy. RIP.
Stingray kills 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin

On mirrors that shouldn't be offensive

Flipping through The Herald Dispatch this morning while eating my Cheerios (prior to a day of suck-tacular studying) I ran across this story, which I just had to write about because there is a line in it that is so ridiculous.

Mirror with religious message replaces Jesus painting at school

There's been a debate for months over a painting of Jesus that hangs in a high school in Bridgeport, West Virginia, and the painting was recently stolen. So students at the school replaced the painting with a mirror, which bears the inscription: "... to know the will of God is the highest of all wisdoms, the love of Jesus Christ lives within all of us." Of course, "civil liberties" groups are wigging out. This is the ridiculous quote, which isn't in the linked article but is in the newspaper, from Barry Lynn, executive directory for Americans United for Separation for Church and State:

"When you look in the mirror and are told that the love of Jesus Christ is within you, it really is a slap in the face to those with alternative religious beliefs."

First of all, Jesus Christ is not within you unless you have accepted Him as Savior, but that's beside the point. How on earth is "the love of Jesus Christ is within you" an offensive statement - much less a "slap in the face"? If you are not a Christian, and your religion recognizes Jesus Christ as a prophet or teacher or another human figure, then what harm is it to be told that His love is in you? And if your religion doesn't recognize Christ at all, then to read that His love is in you - can't you just dismiss that as an untrue statement? If I had to walk past something every day that said that the love of Allah was in me, I'd just think, "Okay, except that my God is not Allah" and go about my business. I can't imagine calling up a band of lawyers to demand that the words be removed so that I wouldn't have to see them anymore.

I just don't understand people who choose to be annoyed and offended by absolutely everything. And I hope that mirror hangs in Bridgeport for a hundred years, and that it may pique the curiosity of just one student, who may then ask a Christian classmate about Christ, and hear the Gospel message and be saved. Amen.

And as a side note, every mirror I look into offends me - I'm like, "Make that thing go away!" and then I realize it's me that I see. :-)