life, the universe, and donna

So I’m a student again.

Every time I go back to school, I feel a little older. This makes sense, since I keep aging, and the average age of students remains the same. The bouncy blonde ponytail in front of me is making me feel positively ancient.

So I managed to find my class without any trouble. Transit to BCIT isn’t as good as UBC or SFU, but it was reasonable enough to pop onto the skytrain from work, and then get a single bus down to the Burnaby campus. Getting home will be a little more interesting when I have to either backtrack considerably or walk for half an hour… at 11pm. I’m going to be one tired girl on Friday mornings for the next 12weeks, methinks.

This morning, I looked up the BCIT interactive map and became terribly, terribly scared. Sweet jesus, this campus is huge. (And yeah, I know, compared to a big school, it’s not really, but still. Last time I went to BCIT, it was at the downtown campus. One building. Easy peasy.) There are 40-odd building, separated up into 4 quadrants… and no nice little easy to navigate streets or blocks, there are nooks and crannies and little hidden buildings all over the place. Luckily, this building wasn’t terribly difficult to find. I did, however, completely forget to write down my classroom number. Luckily, there are only two lecture halls in this building. Mine was, of course, the second one.

I got here with plenty of time, so I had time to wander about the campus a little, get oriented, etc. I’ve discovered something terrible: This is a pepsi campus.

Let me repeat this for the slow people: THIS IS A PEPSI CAMPUS.

I admit to being a bit of a prima donna (well, I’m normally just a regular Donna, but in this case I’ll make an exception) about my choices of carbonated beverages. in fact, just this morning I was writing on Jen’s blog about how it was my mother’s preference for diet coke that created mine – this is what we had when I was growing up: Gobs and gobs of diet coke. I’m an addict, I know, but still. It’s what I like, and it’s to the point now where unfortunately Pepsi, diet pepsi, regular coke, and the ever dreaded Coke Zero taste like disgustingly thick syrup to me, and not in a good way.

This. Is. A. Pepsi. Campus.

How am I to survive? 12 weeks, even once a week, of PEPSI? Isn’t this against some sort of treaty? I am horrified.

Good news: I did discover a Tim Hortons, and figured out where it is in reference to my class. Bad news: they still don’t sell diet coke, but at least I can get a half assed cup of coffee.

Anyway, now that the important stuff is out of the way, The Class.

So I’m taking an introductory biology class. It’s meant to basically satisfy the biology 12 pre-req for health science classes, so it’s reasonably basic. It’s focused specifically on the body, so skips all those dull photosynthesis things that plants do.

So far, it’s pretty interesting.

I’m happy to say that my medic background is helpful — yes, I know that my wrist is distal to my elbow, and I’m very familiar with what side of my body is posterior. I know which quadrant of my abdominal cavity contains my liver, and I don’t giggle (anymore) when referring to the cervical spine. (Hint: It’s not in the hoohaw.)

So half of todays class was pretty easy.

The second bit is a bit trickier. We’re back to basics, and I mean right back to the basics of what makes a body a body: Cells. Aaah. Microscopic anatomy! I vaguely remember learning about this stuff from high school, and I vaguely recall being absolutely stumped by it, and not even knowing what to ask about HOW I was absolutely stumped.

Well, on the upside, the 15-odd years since I last had to learn anything about microbiology has helped a little, and it’s making more sense to me now. The word “nucleus” doesn’t make me run in fear, and I think I have a pretty good idea of what a ribosome is, too. (Don’t ask me to define it just yet. Um. They make proteins inside a cell. There. Call it defined.

Ok, can we go back to the function of the liver now? Pretty please?