Day 1 Anatomy & Phyisology

First day of bridging course went smoothly, took me just over an hour to get to uni, 40 minutes of which was on the bus. The day started with two hours of lectures on:

• homeostasis
• chemical principles of physiology
• organisation of the body
• skeletal system
• muscle system

morning tea break with free tea, coffee, juice, biscuits, minties etc. then we started the prac session in an anatomy lab. we actually were just given a booklet with questions to answer which were based on the lectures and we were allowed to work with each other and also use books to help us find the answers. This also was a good opportunity to break the ice with some of the people I'll be studying with for the next two years. I ended up having lunch with two girls i'd been working with, one was from Indonesia, ha! There are quite a few international students in the course but the majority are local.

It was a lot of new knowledge for one day to take in so I'm really glad I did a bit of pre-reading. i'm definitely going to continue doing that this week because it really helped me get through today in terms of grasping the ideas. This week is going to be a massive cram of information! actually it won't even be a week because the exam is on friday, in just four days!

Time for bed now though, if I learn anything about physiology I know that I need to get sufficient quality sleep to function at my best when i'm awake.. Good night. ;-)

First Post

Fri 29 Jan

Went to the doctor and got Immunisations for Swine Flu and Tetanus, and blood test for Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Swine Flu, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Pertussis (whooping cough), and Varicella (Chickenpox).

Came home and started studying a (mini) illustrated human anatomy and physiology book to prepare myself for the Anatomy and Physiology Course I have to attend next week from 9am - 4:30pm every day and complete it successfully before I start my Nursing degree (which starts the week after).

After studying the relative sections of the book, I took some quizzes that I found online by just doing a Google search for 'anatomy quizzes'. I found some that are on a website at another university (I assume the US) but the course and topics are virtually the same. It took me 30 minutes to an hour to read each section of the books. Then when I'd had enough reading I did the quizzes. Here are the scores I got on the first three quizzes:

· Orientation of the body – 80%

· Skeletal System – 70%

· Muscular System – 40%

These three topics will be covered on Monday, the first day of the course.

Sat 30 Jan

Local Library – studied Potter and Perry's Fundamentals of Nursing. Have done two chapters of this 2000 page brick so far. More details later, but so far I like this book a lot.

Watched Picnic at Hanging Rock (which I borrowed from the library), such a stunning and haunting film, and I loved the Australian scenery. Makes me want to go to Hanging Rock to have a look. Might be a bit spooky though. I'd give this film – 4 stars

Sun 31 Jan

Studied more of the Human Body book and took quizzes on:

• Nervous System – 80%

• Senses – 40%
• Endocrine System – 50%

Hmmm...well I'm glad I did well on Nervous System because that was by the longest section and pretty new to me.

After lunch I went to Bikram yoga as I do every Sunday and after I came home I had to much to do to consider studying anymore..

Had dinner, prepared lunch for tomorrow (onigiri rice balls, home made fetta cheese pastry and some dried apricots, in case you're wondering), watched SYTYCD bed at 10:30. My biggest challenge tomorrow may be waking up to my alarm. I hope I jump out of bed when I hear it (which hasn't happened a lot lately ;-) so I have plenty of time to get ready and get to uni on time to start at 9:00am.

I didn't get a chance to look at Chemical Principles for Physiology which will be covered tomorrow, so I'm planning to read what I can on that on the bus tomorrow morning.

Good night.