homecoming day

today at school was time #2 in the cadaver lab. it's actually a pretty amazing place, full of strange and amazing parts. i wasn't really sure how it would be or how i would react before going in there for the first time. before now, i've only ever dissected animals. or animal parts. frogs, sheep eyeballs, goat brains... i mean, these are people; they aren't animals, they aren't models--they're someone's mom, or brother, or husband. but now that i've been there a couple of times, i realize that it's really not that big of a deal. it's almost like they're not even real; it sort of FEELS like they're fake models, only they're a lot more realistic.
i realize how dumb that last sentence sounds, but that is pretty much the best way i could possibly describe it.
some of the people have been cut into bits so that only the part we're studying can be seen. some are whole people that you can just look into and move stuff around to see how it all fits together. all of them have their faces covered as well as the parts that we're not studying directly.
today was the abdominal cavity and reproductive systems. have any of you ever seen an actual uterus? or the inside of a kidney? or the way that your vertebrae all fit together so nicely? i got to see where the spinal nerves come out of the vertebrae and where they attach and what people feel because of them and how different diseases can affect this; i got to see all the different layers of muscle that we have on the stomach and sides; i got to see how the esophagus leads to the stomach and how the stomach connects to the small intestine and how that connects to the large intestine and how both stay attached inside the abdomen.
we all come in these nice, clean, contained little packages--but it's really not like that at all. it makes me think of the book "the little prince" and how he wants to draw an elephant but can't because it's too complicated, so he draws a picture of a really fat snake that ate the elephant instead. we're like that. we're too hard to draw, so we just get this smooth, tidy outside to keep all the complicated stuff in.


in other news...

today on the bus i saw:
-a man eat a banana like an ear of corn, typewriter style;
-a girl in forest green denim stretch pants, with possible stirrups;
-a boy with an mp3 player, excitedly bobbing his head to the tunes, trying to get other people to dance with him even though they could not hear the music;
-a girl pull her cell phone out of her pocket and lick it, from bottom to top. twice.

there's a homecoming extravaganza here tonight, and i hear they give out free chipotle. i'm keeping my fingers crossed. after this long day i'm pretty famished.