Yesterday I received some tragic news about a dear friend of mine who I believe at 8 months pregnant, lost her baby. I was crushed to learn about this terrible news. This woman is one of the sweetest people I know. She is kind, and would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. It sucks when lousy things happen to good people. No one is immune to tragedies but this feels extremely unfair. The worst part of it all is there's nothing anyone can really do. No one can erase the parent's pain or devastation they must be feeling. No one can bring back their baby boy. It broke my heart when she wrote "he had his mommy button nose and wavy black hair and his Daddy's big feet and hands. He was perfect." Even as I re-read it, it brings tears to my eyes. I think this will haunt me just like my nephew's best friend suicide from 2 years ago, I still think about Nigel and how if he had just waited a few more years things would've improved for him. I know, I've been there. Anyone from a small town who has been bullied and tormented for years never thinks there's an end in sight but there is.
In other news, I think I did pretty okay with tonight's quiz on the body tissues. What I did to help me identify the various tissue types was to include what they l
ooked like to me. For example I found the simple cuboidal epithelium to look like tomatoes when they are cut in halves. For Areolar 
CT (Connective Tissue) I felt it look like a modern painting from the 60s & 70s. For Transitional tissue (such as your urinary bladder that allows for expansion and recoils after stretching) I thought it looked like pomegranate sliced in halves.
And I also identified the Hayline Cartilage as either foot prints or 2 peas in a pod.Perhaps you can see why I came up with these marking labels but maybe they are like clouds in the sky where it looks like one thing to one person and another to a different person? Anyways I had to find a way to identify them. I found that by doing so I was then able to memorize at least 1 function and 1 location per 13 tissue we had to learn (there are more Tissue types than that but for tonight's quiz that's how many we had to study). Tissues are divided into 4 categories. Epithelium, Connective, Muscle and Neural. In order to prepare for the quiz, I posted pictures of the tissues on my bedroom wall and spent a lot of time just re-writing the tissue names, functions and locations. I hope it pays off.
I was glad to see that the quiz I took last week on identifying the cell structures, organelles and Mitosis, I did much better than I thought I had. Plus it helps that the professor always gives us a few extra credit questions which turned my A- to an A+. Funny as an adjunct professor myself I don't believe in extra credit (at least not in regards to ASL because honestly if you show up and practice outside of class, you'll pass with flying colors). But for this class with all the material we cover every week, I appreciate the little extra credit on the quizzes.
After the quiz we dove into osseous tissue (bones). This week I must study the axial skeleton regions (Cranium, Thoracic & Vertebrate Column). Not only must I be able to identify the bones in these areas but the surface features as well as cranial sutures (interlocked/joined bones which makes up the skull).
And I must memorize all the facial bones as well. My medical vernacular is growing in leaps and bounds! The professor was kind enough to bring additional resources to our lab tonight, including a workbook that involves coloring pages and different worksheets which I was able to xerox as I need all the help I can get.
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