TICKLE PAIN (the worst kind)

Hello blog and fellow bloggers.  I am okay.  The picture you see above is a head injury caused in Sam's club.  I didn't sue.  I didn't even show them what happened.  A matter of fact, I didn't want to show anyone but heads were turning and eyes were watching, my head, bleeding head.  I LOVE the smell of coffee!  I was disappointed that I couldn't smell it as I walk by, so I turned around and got a little closer....too close.  "Serves you right", shouts Felicia as I run past her down the isle. It wasn't so much in my head, but my toes, my bellybutton, behind my knees (popliteal fossa), and my bum cheeks clinched to dull the tickle behind them, that tickle pain.  That's because, as you can see, it wasn't a blunt hit but a sharp one.  

Tell me of your tickle pain experiences.   

Do you have a Palmaris Longus mucle?

While teaching my anatomy lab I like to through in a few interesting facts to keep the class listening.  An interesting fact I brought up while teaching about the flexors in the antibrachium (forearm) is that the Palmaris Longus muscle is absent in about 16% of Caucasians, usually females, and 4% of males are missing it in their left arm.  I found out that I am one of the 4%.  I wondered about the rest of my family so I want you to test yourself and take the poll.  You'll need a needle (a sewing needle works just fine), some alcohol (for disinfection), ice (to numb) and someone you trust to assist.  Just before you start take a deep breath and hold, touch the palms of  your thumb and you pinky finger together and flex your wrist slightly.  You will see the tendon of the palmaris longus stick up on your wrist very visibly, if you have one.  Now check you other hand.  It wont be hard to tell if you have one or not.  Let me know!  

"Stand a Little Taller"

I think that we aspire to the standard we hold ourselves to. If you don't expect much from your efforts, you probably won't get much in return. Example: Felicia is always right on when it comes to what she'll score on a test. This last weekend she didn't study as much as she had planned [I hold her back with my impatients toward studying when I think we could do it later and just relax now (refer to blog below) ]. She's taken enough tests that she now knows how prepared she really is. There isn't any question in her own mind. She figured that she'd studied enough to do decent but not ace the test. She got an 86%. Granted it was pathophysiology and she did better than 90% of the class, she's never satisfied with anything less than an "A". Thats her standard. (bragging time: She has 16 A's and two B's on her transcript and she's finished chemistry and math up to Calculis) When it comes to the things in life that we've done time and time again, just like Felicia and tests, I believe we know what to expect and how we'll do, even if we don't want to admit to it. With a different kind of test, I've got this idea that I can sleep in just a few more minutes past the alarm and be just fine. I've done this for as long as I can remember. IT NEVER WORKS OUT and I know that! Thats a standard for me. That standard will never raise until I convince myself that my standard is too low. I know we all have standards in our life big or small that could be raised. If we are not perfecting ourselves now, when will we? "Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little."

Smell The Roses

Has your life been so busy that by the end of the week you're just burnt out and really not that happy with your week?  Have you planned out your days carefully and followed through but still not satisfied with the result?  Try planning some down time!  Felicia and I have been so busy this week with our normal schedules plus it being a test week that we both actually said to each other today "I've missed you this week", and we go to the same school!  What we haven't had is time to relax and unwind.  We normally eat dinner and watch an episode of Seinfeld or something funny.  We usually get home around 10 and are dead tired by 10:30 or 11 but that 30 mins. or so makes a big difference for the following day.  For those of you who've seen our TV let me tell you that it was as much an investment as a good mattress.  I need that down time with my wife to laugh and think about nothing!  I just work better that way.  "I'm in a hurry to get things done... oh I... rush and rush until life's no fun.  All I really gotta do is live and die and I'm in a hurry and don't know why."  -lyrics to a country song        

How often do you feel like you've been the best you?  Do you think that when you're at your best during a particularly difficult trial in your life that you are better in other, not as important to your growth, situations.  If my question seems confusing let me give you an example.  My MTC mission president once told me that if you start your day off with a prayer and making your bed that you are more so on your way to having a successful and productive day.  Or my health teacher said that depending on what you first eat each day, whether it be fruit or a piece of candy,  will be a determinant in what the rest of your food for the day will be like. Like it puts you in a rhythm.  I ask this because I feel like I was put up against the wall in a very intense situation the other day and because I had already decided what kind of day I was going to have I felt I handled myself very well, things were settled without getting ugly and even ended on a positive note.  Pondering on that situation and others like it that I have had I came to realize, better now than before, that I am in charge of MY life and I have been put here on earth to succeed.  We were never set up for failure in the Great Plan.  That isn't to say that we wont have trials and ups and downs, but that we are deciders of our own outcome.  We cannot control what others say and do to us but we can decide how it is going to effect us.  Will we walk away hurt...or will we walk away stronger.

Thinking about that gave me a boost of self confidence that set the momentum for the rest of the day and even the week.  It may sound like I just had a good day but things haven't been better in my somewhat new life.  I will have to give my AWSOME wife the majority of the credit because she is the one that pointed that out to me and inspires me to do my best at what ever it is I do.  Emily has always been an example of that but she never expected me to do the same.  Mom and Dad have always tried to explain that to us but coming to the realization of that yourself is very powerful.  

         

I am now blogging to anyone that wants to read a blog.  Also because it seems like the new way to communicate with my family.  If you read my profile you would see that I am a student and that that is pretty much my life anymore.  I'm sure you other full time students out there know what I'm talking about.  There is more to my life than just that but it seems to fit in the cracks of the student part.  

Example:

Mon. Jan. 29 (yesterday)

8:30 Gym w/ Felicia and Aarron

10:00 Shower at gym

10:30 Math (cursed, cursed math)

11:30 Surprise request for cadaver dissection presentation for Advanced Anatomy 

11:45 Talk to dissecting partner about how we should do a presentation

12:00 Anatomy open lab (I'm an instructor so I have to do an open lab once a week)

2:00 Advanced Anatomy class

3:00 Cadaver presentation (put together while tutoring in open lab) in front of all other lab aids, Dr. Chung and Dr. Meyers

4:00 Anatomy Instructor meeting

4:15 Start cramming some more for Physiology Exam

8:00 Take Physiology Exam 

8:58 dry off arm pits (testing center closes at 9:00)

9:00 Start Homework thats due in 12 hrs.  

12:45 Finish howework, and go to bed!!!!