Sunny Springtime Day In Ithaca, New Camera Photos

I think this canal downtown is very picturesque. Simon was happy to have a few sunny days in a row. He could be found predictably in the first spot to get sun in the mornings in the far bedroom.

It's so nice to be able to take photos without smudges. Thanks, Dad for the new camera!

Round Three/Neuroanatomy: I Advance!!!

I got my grade for neuroanatomy this afternoon and was very pleased. I had worried quite a bit about the possibility of failing the course, but I was far from failing.

I also got my grade for ruminant anatomy, which I considered miraculous. I had been certain that I flunked the course coming out of the final exam, but I did just fine.

Distributions were the hardest semester of vet school so far. I felt discombobulated, overwhelmed and it didn't help that I live someplace fairly isolated and also that there was a lot of snow which made driving difficult.

I'm hoping that things won't be quite so hard this spring. So far block IIIa, function and dysfunction, aka physiology, doesn't seem any easier than last term, but I'm told it is a fairly manageable workload overall.

Things To Look Forward To

1. The Ithaca farmer's market re-opens Saturday morning. I know it might sound silly, but I have been looking forward to this all week. The farmer's market has been part of my weekend routine for years now and not going feels strange, almost sacrilegious.
2. Getting back my neuroanatomy exam. I'm one week into block 3a and I still don't know for sure if I passed my required neuroanatomy course. I don't know when we will get our exams back but it will be nice to know how I did instead of being left to wonder...
   
3. Summer vacation. Less than two months away. I'm going to get out of Ithaca for part of it and head back to California. I might also make stops in a few other states depending on what my friends and family are up to.
   
4. The Campbell farmer's market in California. One thing Ithaca does not have is fresh fish. Every Sunday I would buy sand dabs and squid. Delicious. I can't wait for that.
   

The Word Of The Day Is Tachyphylaxis

From Rang and Dale's _Pharmacology_ Chapter 2:

Often, the effect of a drug gradually diminishes when it is given continuously or repeatedly. Desensitization and tachyphylaxis are synonymous terms used to describe this phenomenon, which often develops in the course of a few minutes. The term tolerance is conventionally used to describe a more gradual decrease in responsiveness of the drug, taking days or weeks to develop, but the distinction is not a sharp one.

I also found this interesting, having experienced it myself:

It is a common experience that many side effects of drugs, such as nausea or sleepiness, tend to subside even though drug administration is continued. We may assume that some kind of physiological adaptation is occurring, presumably associated with altered gene expression resulting in changes in the levels of various regulatory molecules, but little is known about the mechanisms involved.

It's amazing to me that such commonplace occurrences in pharmacology are so poorly understand! So much of medicine is still a mystery.

And finally, this one sentence made me incredibly nostalgic for my days as a synthetic chemist and for biochemistry: "It is no exaggeration to say that the ability of proteins to interact in a highly selective way with other molecules-- including other proteins-- is the basis of living machines."

Springtime In Ithaca

Spring is here. Which apparently means rain and fog. I tried to capture the view down the street but I still have an annoying smudge that shows up on all my photos despite trying to clean the lens. My father is getting me a new Nikon point and shoot as a present and I am going to enjoy having photos that don't have a smudge in them! Thanks, Dad.

I finished my last final this morning. I asked for an extension on my very last exam and got one. I've never asked for an extension before in my life. It was a rough semester. You know something is wrong when I don't blog for two (three?) weeks at the end of the semester...

Now it's time to attend to all the things I didn't do while I was studying, like cleaning my room. And reading for fun. I'm also hoping to get in a short trip to Boston over the weekend.

HP-- Sadly I don't know of a Christy Freeze. I only have one friend in Nashville, and she's in research.

Ember-- Open invitation to come visit me anytime during your road tour. I'll put you up (which may not be much but you'd have a place to stay) and do my best to point you in the right direction of the music community in Ithaca (which I know a modicum about). And happy belated birthday. 22!!!

Hard At Work

I've been hard at work this week. We have less than two weeks until finals start and so there is lots to do!

One of the things I find helpful for learning anatomy is drawing stuff out on my white board (of course, I STILL remember that there is NO stuff in anatomy:) Above is my effort at a depiction of the four compartments of the ruminant stomach. If this looks complicated, it's not. I had yet to add in the blood vessels running in the grooves on this depiction!

I'm getting excited about my trip to Nevada now that the end of the semester is in sight. I'm still nervous about passing my classes, as always, but either way this semester will soon be behind me and that can't come soon enough!

Back By Popular Demand: Pileated Woodpecker Photos