Grad School Update

Wow, it's been quite some time. I have neglected my posting for "higher education" and "more important" endeavors. Not sure I agree with all those terms. I really miss racing right now and writing about the great times I had. Since I originally said this blog would be about my racing and my schooling, I guess I need to include some posts about graduate school.

Far too many things have occurred since my last post and the beginning of semester to attempt to summarize the trip it has been, but I can say it has been busy and very informative. Just this afternoon I had my hands in a man's chest and cut out both of his lungs. Yes, we are doing cadaver dissections in my gross anatomy class. That class is where 78% of my attention and studying has been going over the semester. I have done exceptionally well so far. Well, except for the most recent test. Not a great showing for me, but it will do. My dissection group is great. Thankfully, it consists of three amiable girls that let me do all of the fun, nasty parts of dissection. It also means that we have great gossip around the tank and get to discuss who looked super cute that day in class. We started on Bobley and then moved to Betty Sue. Betty Sue is textbook perfect and was a great time. Tina was not as easy to handle, but we ended up with a very easy dissection for her. Now wrapping the semester up I got to use the bone saw last Friday to cut through ribs, sternum, and the clavicle to reflect the thoracic cage. Lab has been an amazing tool to help me understand the body and get a very firm grasp on muscles, nerves, vessels, fiber orientation, fascia, and of course subcutaneous fat. My mental visualization of muscles in people and the workings of their skeletal system is at such a higher level now.

Occasionally, we have to leave lab and learn other subjects. We've learned how to walk with crutches, do wheelies in wheelchairs, and how to do posture assessments. I learned how to do a back tuck for professional communication and I mastered how to make a powerpoint for evidence based practice. In kinesiology, I've learned that TR (a.k.a. Trent Richardson) can squat 600 and bench 450. My teacher still wants to be him when he grows up.

I've taken the things I've learned in the classroom to my everyday life too. Trying to be more like TR to ensure an A in Kinese, I started uping my weights when I do squats. I've been trying to hit the gym every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I've been making some progress now that I'm really trying. Last week I did 20 reps of 315, 15 reps of 405, 14 reps of 455, 20 reps of 315, and then 25 reps of 315. Then I went upstairs and busted out 100 lunges with 25 pound dumbbells. Watch out TR; I'm coming.

I applied the anatomy of the hand in my most recent set of injuries. I've come up with the diagnosis of a torn posterior joint capsule of the first MCP. I finally got into the doctor so I can get a referral to the hand surgeon and see what he says. Radiographs from this visit pretty much confirmed my suspicion and also showed a subluxation of the first CMC joint and a possible dislocation of the capitate bone. Should be a really fun office visit next week.

I did manage to have a little fun the past two weekends. I went fly fishing with the school (we saw a whooping 0 fish the entire trip) and went camping with some classmates. This has been the extent of my outdoor excursions since I have not been biking in such a long time. It's hard to go when I'm so tired once I finally get home from school everyday and the weekends have just been occupied with other things. It's an insult to my bikes to be neglecting them like this. I must do better.

Quite a few of us have also picked up rock climbing. We've spent several afternoons taking study breaks at the bouldering wall in the student rec center. It's a fun sport that is pretty challenging. It's always good to be humbled by a 110 lb girl that scales the wall you've been working on for 20 minutes.

All in all life is passing. The sun rises and the sun sets. I'm trying to make the most of it and include as much as I can in every day. I don't always succeed, but that's what tomorrow is for. Like I said, too much has happened to include it all, but that's what I got so far.

Just another "Day Off"

Tuesdays are the one day of the week I don't have school or work. Work that I get paid for at least. On today's day off I managed to track down my Mavic shoe order, track down my Sram order, track down my Niner order to the point of it's in port and waiting to go through customs (so I probably won't get it in time to race on it next weekend), cut the grass, weed-eat around the garden, water my seedlings, replace a board in the fence, and mountain bike 30 miles. Great rest from school and work.

The mountain bike ride was a little different. It is definitely Spring time now here in West Tennessee. The trails are starting to get overgrown and reach out and grab you. My arms were all cut up and itching 4 miles into the ride. The mosquitoes are out and so are the snakes. I saw three snakes today on the trail. I took a picture of all three. The first one was stretched out across the trail and I rode past it. Of course I stopped and turned around to go mess with it. Its head was off the trail and in the undergrowth. When I grabbed his tail he shook his tail at me like he was a rattle snake. After hissing a bit, I decided to leave him alone and get moving again so the mosquitoes would stop biting. The second time I saw a snake, they came in a pair. I rode past a blob that looked like a snake that had gotten hit and was curled up nursing his wound. As I walked up to it I could see two different colors of scales. I figured maybe his tail was just another color. However, when I started poking him with a stick he uncoiled and revealed another smaller brown snake inside. The larger black snake quickly left the trail while the smaller one started to come at me with his mouth open. He snapped at the stick a few times. I want to say he was a cottonmouth, but my friend Brandon isn't sure. I almost rode over a big one in Arkansas a few years back while we were on a biking/camping trip together. After I skidded to a stop and somehow avoided being bitten out in the middle of nowhere Mountain View Arkansas, we began messing with it and ended up picking it up. We are very bright children.

After I finished my ride and cleaned up so I would stop itching so much, I headed out to do some yard work. Taking notes from a wise friend of mine named Burt Colbert, I decided to walk around barefoot and rejuvenate my energy. I ended up cutting the grass barefoot. I know, Mom, that we were always told we have to wear shoes when we use the mower, but how much protection is that mesh and synthetic leather upper really going to give me when those blades are spinning so fast it mulches pine cones and sticks? You weren't home and I did it. The fresh cut grass under my bare feet felt great.

I'm growing up. My days off are full of all the chores and "to do" lists. Welcome to the world I guess. Now I need to write a final paper and get ready for another hard day of training tomorrow.