So we learned how to flip each other's eyelids inside out...

Another week come and gone. And just another week until we get our second Christmas break. I'm already ready for it, haha.

My exam on Tuesday for basic sciences went fairly well, especially considering how hard it was. We had to know all of the muscles of the hand, the forearm, the upper arm, and the back including 4 different things about each muscle: the origin, the insertion, what nerve it is innervated by, and its action. So for example:

The Deltoid Muscle
It originates (where it starts) on the spine of the scapula (shoulder blade), the acromion (a part of the shoulder blade), and the lateral third of the clavicle (collar bone). It inserts into the deltoid tuberosity of the humerus. It is innervated by the axillary nerve. And it's action is to extend, flex, or abduct (move outward) the arm.

That's for one of the muscles. Did I mention there was a total of 47 of them we had to know for this test? Oh, and that only accounted for a little over 1/3 of our test. We were lectured on other material besides this that we were also accountable for. I think it's safe to say the majority of us would have rather been shot in the foot than study and take and pass this exam. It was rough. But hey! I passed and did okay, so I'm not complaining. We just have to retain that material for the next exam as well...Ugh

And I know, I'm in optometry school, right? So why do have to learn so much extraneous information that has nothing to do with the eye? We've all been asking ourselves the same thing. While one part of our boards are based on basic sciences, they will not be testing us to this detail. So...right now we're all kind of having to endure it and stick it out. If anything, we stay sane by venting to each other about it :)

On a more optometry related portion of optometry school...

Our optics class is really starting to pick up. Because we only have 3 hours of lecture a week, we are kind of forced to move really fast through the material to ensure we cover it all. Unfortunately, this means going over concepts I'm not quite able to grasp in class because of how fast we're going. I find myself having to figure stuff out later at home, when I'm going at my own pace. We already have our first midterm on Thursday morning at 7 AM for that class. So lots of studying for me in the next week between our two exams.

Methods was slightly terrifying today (see: title of this post), but still somewhat fun. We were still working on the slit lamp, but learning how to examine all the parts of the eyes including the eyelids, eyelashes, sclera (white part of the eye), and the conjunctiva (stuff that lines the inside of the lids and part of the sclera). But in order to examine all, we have to look underneath the eyelids as well. Not such a big deal for the bottom lid...you just kind of pull it down and push up. But for the upper eyelid...it requires you to flip the lids inside out to really be able to see that part of the conjunctiva. Here - have a picture.

Sorry to those of you that are squeamish about eye stuff. It honestly doesn't hurt...it just feels really strange. I think I was more scared to do it on someone though. I did manage to do it on 2 different people. It involves pulling their eyelashes out and using a cotton swab to kind of push the lid down to flip back up and over.

Apparently my eyes are extremely easy to do this on because of 2 reasons: 1) I have really big eyes and 2) I have really long eyelashes (good for grasping). So hey, whatever works.

We also learned how to measure the palpebral aperture of the eye, which is just the widest portion of the eye going up and down. Apparently I got pretty big readings (surprise, surprise). Because we're so used to classifying tests being normal or abnormal, one of my partners asked "...so are your eyes not normal if they're way bigger than what they're supposed to be?" I laughed.

Anyways, that was about it for school stuff. The dean of the optometry college had a big Christmas party over at his house last Saturday, which was super fun. Every inch of their huge house was decorated in Christmas decorations and they had tons of good food (and deserts). Here's some pictures from that.

Our Dean dressed as Santa :)

This ferris wheel was moving on their coffee table. Their house was beautiful.

And we took a class picture this morning while we were all in our scrubs. I liked it so much, I set it as our cover photo on facebook, but here's the full thing :)

And that's about it. Until next week! I'm excited for our break...