Second Day of School: BIO 226 Anatomy & Physiology

 So far, so good! I was pretty happy last night after doing my pre-lab questions for 233 and getting 10/10. It wasn't rocket science (it's biological science, ha!) but it's nice to get off to a good start. I definitely had good grounding from last semester. It's terrible 

Right now, my 226 prof is going through the syllabus. Seems straightforward. Defining, identifying, and understanding interrelationships of various tissues, structures, and processes in the body. I actually looked at the book and one of the labs is to dissect a rat. I'm pretty disappointed that we won't be able to do that in person. 

Reality check: if I'm going to be a nurse, I'm going to have to grow accustomed to the insides of bodies. 

***

As we've been going through the course syllabus, Prof started talking about the books needed for the course. The students overwhelmingly either don't have the book yet or don't know how to deal with that.

It is one of those times when I have to summon a lot of patience: not all of my classmates had my school experience where it was expected that the book(s) should be purchased ahead of time and ready for the first day of class.

***

I'm getting antsy. We're 100 minutes into class and still going through the syllabus. I get it - course policies for tardiness, assignments, etc. Another self-reminder that my classmates are probably not already college graduates and still have to be reminded about this stuff. Still really annoying (sns). I'm ready to start the course. I know that I can't be late to class, that I have to be present for class every day, that I have to do all of my homework, that if I'm having problems that I shouldn't wait until the last day of class to talk to the prof. Seriously - if these people are planning on being nurses, how isn't this already natural?

I guess it's part of the education and training - the learn how to learn and how to be accountable for one's actions. 

***

Ugh . . but shouldn't reading the syllabus be up to the students? I'm going nuts.

She's talking about failure to communicate when things are going wrong. Life skills. I guess it's good to teach for those who simply haven't had these lessons growing up. 

***

We got into the class. Like most classes, the first day and first couple of weeks will be review. We talked about definitions of anatomy and physiology, about the hierarchy of the organization of life (chemical < cellular < tissue < organ < organ system < organismal; the less than sign is used to show that the list is actually bottom-up.) 

Then she talked about necessary life functions: boundaries, movement, responsiveness, digestions, metabolism, excretion, reproduction, growth.

Then she showed us a picture of what's called a "simplified body plan" which was a neat way to organize the systems that work together for life functions: air, water, food which circulate and then excrete air, water, and waste.

One thing that I'm fairly certain that I should learn as I get into these classes is how to draw anatomy. Not that I need to be Davinci or anything, but just to be able to make drawings of the parts and systems. During my CNA class, we had to learn all of the pulse sites on the body (temporal, carotid, apical, radial, brachial, femoral, popliteal, pedal.) I found that I was able to learn it much faster by making a stick figure diagram, then fill it in. If I can do that in a better way for more detailed body parts, then I think I'll not only memorize for assessment, but learn them so that I know them for professional application.

First Day of School! Microbio 233

 First day of school of my second semester. 

I can already tell that this is a more committed cohort than either of my BIO / CHEM 121 classes. In those classes, people didn't turn their cameras on nor were they particularly willing to engage. 

Today, people have their cameras on and are forthcoming with their experiences and goals. 

That makes me really happy. It was hard feeling like I was either the only person or one of just a couple of people who were engaging and taking things seriously.

***

Update

That didn't take long! Almost the entire class reverted back to turning off their cameras after the introductions. As soon as the lecture started, the cameras turned off.

Oh, well.

2021 Blog Goals

 Have you ever seen the movie, The Social Network? The beginning of the movie is perhaps my favorite part - when Jesse Eisenberg playing Mark Zuckerberg creates the FaceMash site that compares the pictures of girls around Harvard.

Putting aside the politics of the site, I love how he blogged simultaneously to his hacking and coding. 

In my first semester, I found myself often using the class discussion boards to think aloud about problems. Therefore, I'm going to use this blog as a way to think through my classes and anything else I want to ponder aloud. 

Feel free to contribute! 

Transitional Realities

 My kids, like most or all of your kids, have been learning "remotely" since March 2020. CPS (Chicago Public Schools) has a plan to return on February 1st 2021. We have all been looking forward to that for a very long time.

It's not exactly that we're sick of each other, but that it would simply be nice to spend some regularly scheduled time apart. 

However, there is definitely going to be a cost to everything going "back to normal." 

Today, I took a picture of my daughter working on her iPad with our dog asleep at her feet. That will be a thing of the past. Eating lunch together. Hearing what they're learning. Seeing the teachers on the screen along with the other students. It has been a rare peek into the school lives our my children.

So, if you're like me and the kids will be going back soon, make sure you take a few pictures - both with your camera and with your mind. We will not get this time back. It will be a time that we look back on fondly in many ways. We'll miss the time that we spent a year together.