Today, interrupted....

I just got back from TAing A&P lab. It was my job today to teach and quiz people over the structure of the eye. I thought I would get sick of it fast but the students caught on with surprising adeptness. I say surprising not because they aren't smart but because it was like pulling teeth to get them to learn the bones of the skull.

Most of lab consited of me pointing and repeating over and over "superior rectus, sclera, retina, anterior chamber filled with aqueous humor..." and so on and so forth. Soon they started chanting along with me. I have to admit, it really did boost my self-esteem to have 7 people at a time standing around me, following my lead in such a loud manner, and actually learning something at the end of everything!

You know what is cool about being a TA? You get to learn a whole bunch of stuff all over again that you have totally forgotten . I was sitting in the lab chair when the head TA said announced to the class "Larissa will be teaching you all the structures of the eye and then quizing you over them. I haven't told her yet, (looks at me) but she will be back there with the eye model". I smiled "sure" and then desperately grabbed a nearby book to refresh my memory on eye parts. It was quite humbling to be back with the tumbling eye model with my first 2 pupils, looking through their book with them and pretending like I was just looking at it for some other reason than trying to figure out what that black squiggly shape was. But by the end of the evening, I could have named those structure blinfolded. I doubt I will ever forget them again! (knock on wood)

I need to go to sleep, I have been at the computer too long and my eyes hurt. I think my choroid must be kinked.

Pride & Prejudice

Tonight Jason's dad and step-mom took the family to see this movie. I was very excited to see it as I am in the middle of reading the book for the 3rd time now (it is my favorite). I was expecting it not to be very good for a four reasons. First, I couldn't imagine anyone but Colin Firth playing Mr. Darcy, second because I saw Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy kiss in the preview and was SURE that they were going to try to put sex in the movie even though it wasn't in the book, third because it is a feature length movie and I couldn't imagine that they could fit everything important in that amount of time (the BBC version is like 4 VHS tapes long), and fourth because Kiera Knightley seemed subdued in all the scenes in the previews and Elizabeth Bennet is supposed to be a feisty, fun, laughing girl.

Here are all the reasons I was wrong and then some.
1. Matthew MacFadyen (I am not a nerd, I had to look his name up)actually played quite a good Darcy. He had intense eyes (which is critical to the character) and good smile. Which the audience only gets to see twice for very brief moments. One thing that was good with this Mr. Darcy is that you could see earlier on that he actually has feelings. I think you have to wait longer in other films.
2. The kissing scene actually is realistic because it is after they get married. The book doesn't visit that part but it was a nice scene to finish up with I think.
3. Since I am reading the book right now, I noticed that all of the important dialogue is there. Pretty much verbatim. You never get the sense that a scene is missing even though I know some were missing. There were a couple minor scenes added which were there to make up for the scenes they took away but really, it was an excellent adaptation! I didn't feel like anything was missing.
4. I don't know why they only showed a subdued Lizzie in the previews. She was quite the opposite in the film. Kiera Knightley did a very good job. Very believable and I think I like her better than the Elizabeth in the BBC version. (although it is VERY close)

This movie was different than other period films becuase it felt far more real. In other films, everything is perfect and proper and clean and no hair is out of place. In this film, they live in a great house but you can actually tell that they are in a different class than Darcy. They have girl stuff spread around in the drawing room, the girls aren't always perfect and the hair was messy sometimes. I think people nowadays can identify with it more when it is like that.

I give this movie four stars! Go see it.
Happy Thanksgiving by the way!

Oprah's Favorite Things & America's Next Top Model

Well, I sat in front of the TV for a couple hours today. I watched two back to back episodes of Americas Next Top Model and then an episode of Oprah. Yes that is three hours of television, yes I feel silly admitting it.

All of the girls on Top Model are gorgeous. There is one girl though that I am absolutely surprised everytime I see her posing. In everyday life, she is an average girl with long wavy brown hair and freckles. When they do her up in make-up however, she is crazy beautiful supermodel! She doesn't even look like the same girl to me. This is her before make-up:
















and this is after!

















It is weird what watching this show does to an average, sane girl. I found myself making "magnum" faces while I was sitting on the couch watching. And I am sure that when I got up, I walked to a beat that only I could hear and swung my hips with extra gusto.

Then Oprah was on. She had a whole bunch of people who helped out with the Hurricane Katrina disaster come on the show as audience members. Then she gave them all each of her favorite things. Now these aren't just everyday favorite things like comfy socks, these were things like the new iPod, a watch with 50 diamonds on it, Ugg boots, cashmere seaters, burberry jackets, etc. Here is the link if you care to look at the full list along with the pictures of everything. http://www.oprah.com/presents/2005/holiday/gifts/gifts_oft.jhtml I don't know why you would want to look. But hey, I would. Maybe you guys aren't as big of dorks as I am. Well anyway, its up to you.

An Update

The main reason that I am updating my blog right now is because I am sick of my adsense displaying ads about microbiology. I am pretty excited because I know what a lot of the words in the ads mean. But I mean, I am already in school enough. Here, I am going to put some key words in this post so that adsense will put up some nice feel good ads. Feel good huh? hmmm. Flowers, babies, puppies, pictures, weddings, financial security, family, Bible, books, movies, friends, nature.... heh.
That's better huh?

Exciting 3-D Microbiology Experience!

I am sitting in microbiology right now and I thought I would give you a little peek into my life. I am going to type exactly what I hear the teacher saying. This probably won’t be too interesting….

“The FC portion of the molecule is really quite important because cells like the macrophage have FC receptors on its surface. What that means is that the immunoglobulin molecule can attach by it’s FC tail”…..”also on basophiles and mast cells which are responsible for the allergies that we face from time to time. Now what I would like to do next, and we have touched on this before, I would like for us to go over the various isotypes that we talked about before. Let’s talk about them, just in a little more detail. Remember these are five istotypes that are based on the constant region on the heavy chain. “

“So if you want to protect the person against diphtheria you would give that person anti serum, or diphtheria anti-serum for that antigen. So anti-serum always refers to serum that has antibodies. The other thing that I want to mention is this term titer. What does that mean? It refers to the concentration of immunoglobulin, of antibodies in the serum. Let me ask you this, is a higher titer a better situation than a low titer? Yes or no? The answer is yes.”

Here are two paragraphs I was able to type down. You guys should try that. It is harder to type exactly what a person says that I thought it would be. Then again, I don’t type the fastest.

New side bar thing

I just want to direct everyone's attention to my new section on the sidebar. It is my quote of the week section. This is actually the second week I have had it there but I wasn't sure if anyone noticed. So just to make sure...

I am turning really html savvy. I had to copy and paste and puzzle together alot of things to get that section to look so pretty.

Sorry if you guys don't hear from me in awhile. I have a really busy week ahead of me. I love to read your comments though!

Wedding Music

Ok, this post is for music lovers and non-music lovers alike. What are some of your favorite wedding songs you have heard? Either during the ceremony or at the reception? Or, if you don't know, what are some songs that you think would make good wedding songs?

A Leahy Concert for us!

Jason's dad called us from his cell phone during intermission and told us we had to get over to the concert hall because these people were amazing. So Jason and I, deciding to be spontaneous (more likely just avoiding homework), hopped in the car and went. Luckily his dad had extra tickets.

And they were amazing. They are from Canada but I thought at first they were from Ireland because of the type of music they play and because they almost sounded like they had an Irish accent.

They are a group of brothers and sisters. There are 8 of them! But those are only the ones who play in the group. They have 3 other siblings besides. Anyway, they all play the fiddle like you wouldn't believe and the curly haired girl played incredible piano! For their encore, they kept switching their different instruments back and forth and they could all play them a million miles per hour. THEN, they broke out into sycronized step-dancing while still playing their instruments! They all knew how to step dance like crazy and their music was perfect for it.

It was weird. I was sitting in the concert hall watching them and I "took a step back" and looked at myself sitting there. I was sitting in a plush chair, hands folded in my lap, a somber quasi frown on my face with no toe tapping or anything. But I realized that if I was in my own house listening to a CD of these people at that same moment, I would be dancing and jumping my head off! But really, their music does make one happy and I reccomend it to everyone! I think I will even have to buy their CD, and I don't ever do crazy stuff like that.