Summer school was a whirlwind of memorization. Anatomy and Physiology requires lots of flashcards and cramming ridiculously long words into a brainspace that seems too small for the task. My brain was so full of "sternocleidomastoid" that it actually stopped remembering how to do normal, everyday tasks. One day, I poured myself a glass of soymilk, only to discover that it was unusually yellow and clear. Upon further inspection, I realized I had poured myself a nice glass of chicken broth. I was very inarticulately trying to explain this to my sister when she informed me of the theory of cognitive load. Apparently, it's normal for that to happen when your brain is overloaded. A brain can only hold so much information before it starts kicking out information you had previously stored, such as the difference between the soymilk carton and the chicken broth carton. This summer, my brain made space for the steps of an action potential firing in the muscles leading to activation, but incidentally some other information was lost. I am currently re-learning to tie my shoes and speak in full sentences. Fortunately, my 2 year old nephew, Max, has an excellent vocabulary for me to mimic. Yesterday he picked up "dammit," which was quickly corrected into "dagnabbit." Max also teaches me useful things, like how to "pat" his new baby brother Oliver. The day after Oliver was born, Max greeted me with "Baby Oliver is here now. You can pat him." There is something so adorable about a 2 year old petting his new baby brother. Oliver is a ginormous baby, weighing 10 pounds even at birth. He chose to come out and visit the world for the first time on the evening of Thursday, September 4, 2008. Coincidentally, I had my last set of finals the following morning. Needless to say, I didn’t get much studying done for those finals, but I still managed to pull off a 4.0 in Anatomy and Physiology. Now onto the next set of challenges: getting a job and getting accepted to nursing school.
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