"It's the human body"

This semester I had the wonderful opportunity to be a TA for the anatomy class at BYU. Just what does this entail you might ask? I teach a lab section of about 20 students once a week for two hours and spend four hours in the open lab helping students study throughout the week. The BYU anatomy program is awesome enough to have several cadavers as well as specimens (various limbs, organs, etc.) to use as study tools! A friend of mine nicknamed me "the cadaver lady" when he found out that all I do is teach off of those bad boys. Anyway, it's the coolest thing ever and I will hopefully be doing it for many more semesters to come!

At BYU, most of the lab portions of classes end earlier than the actual class, so our last lab section was last night. My students had to take their final, where they were quizzed on 946 terms that they had learned to identify on the body throughout the semester. Who knew that the femur itself has over 15 identifiable terms on it? Plus the forearm has about 20 different muscles, with long complicated names such as the "extensor carpi radialis longus." And these were just terms in beginning human anatomy. Basically, anatomy students are legit. So out of those 946 terms, the students were tested on 50 of them, which were pinned on the cadavers, specimens, and models. I'm pretty sure they all dominated it (since my teaching partner, Steven, and I are both such fabulous TAs...). And now I have 8 extra hours to play every week until the semester ends!

These are all the students in my anatomy lab section right before they went in to take the final. Aren't they so great? Anyway, I should maybe explain the title of this post. Basically in our apartment if we ever discuss any gross bodily functions (such as a colostomy bag), we end it by saying, "It's the human body, guys. Perfectly natural," or something of the sort.

Here is an update on our heater situation: It is still broken. I woke up to a 55 degree apartment this morning. No big deal. I just talked to the maintenance guy on the phone, and he said he will be here between 2 and 3pm today, so hopefully I will be able to feel my toes again in a few hours.