There's An Order

Anatomy has been a class I have actually enjoyed studying for.  My other classes I've taken just to fill a requirement, or because it's mandatory for my major.  Studying has been different for all of them.  Honestly, unless the final was comprehensive, I would just study what I had to, take the test, and completely forget it. Anatomy has been different. What I learned in lab, helped me in lectures.  Some of the things I was tested on for the second lecture midterm went back to things that I had to learn for the first midterm.  Anatomy has helped me realize that learning should be more than just studying what you need to for a test and then make room for new information. That's not how life works.
As a baby, you first have to learn to crawl before you can learn to walk.  You have to go to elementary school before you can graduate high school. Life in general is about learning

“Line upon Line, Precept upon Precept” (2Nephi 28:30). 

One of the only things we take into the next life is our knowledge. What good is it to learn something for a mortal test and then throw it away? One day, I'm going to have to know how to create bodies.  I'm going to need to remember my Physics to create worlds. This is why we have our mortal lives. It's to learn. We can't learn everything at once. It's tough to remember that sometimes in college, but if we take it little by little, we remember much more.  I'm grateful for this Anatomy class. I'm thankful that even though the semester is ending, I still remember a LOT from the beginning. 

Self-Mastery

The church was organized in 1830, and as time progressed, the prophet, Joseph Smith, along with other prophets who would follow him, received revelations that other programs within the church were needed as the church continued to progress and grow. Each of these organizations allowed for more production within the church, and certainly more growth as each committee reached out to others and helped them enter the waters of baptism.

It is interesting to think of how many programs and organizations the church has today (especially in young single adult wards, where bishops try to cram in nearly "made up" callings to be sure that everyone has one). For example, I have been called to serve on the ward's "wellness committee". My first question was, "Is that even an actual calling?" and my second question was, "what do you want me to do with this?" As I have been able to find ways to magnify my calling, I've seen that every organization in the church serves a purpose and is beneficial.

Going through the course of anatomy, I have learned an extremely important life lesson on time-management. As I got into the rhythm of the school year, I came to find that each of the reviews I had scheduled for me, free lab time, didactic lab, Q&A's, study group time, as well as doing all these same things for my classes really could fit into my schedule. I learned how to organize and put my time into different sections and know what I should study and when I should study it. I came to find that I couldn't possibly learn everything I was expected to learn on my own, but that all the programs in anatomy were helping me to be able to manage. Just as the gospel is set up and organized, it's extremely important that we as students organize our time and use the different programs we are given in order to succeed in school, and later in life.

The Body Revealed

One of the strongest ironies of life is that we have our bodies, we live in them, they are us, yet most of us know very little about them. I know I didn't before I took anatomy. Before anatomy, I knew the shin bone was connected to the knee bone and the knee bones is connected the thigh bone, but that was nearly the extent of my knowledge of the skeletal structure of the human body. The function, location and connections of many of the body parts and organs was unknown to me. 

What I have really enjoyed about anatomy is how it has revealed the beauty of the human body to me. It has showed me how incredible its structure and function truly are. That is something that I will appreciate for the rest of my life. I believe that everyone should take at least a basic human anatomy course in order to understand how their body works so they can make better decisions regarding it.

I am glad they placed the Bodies of Light exhibit back up in the Life Science Building (pictured above). It was inspiring to see the scriptures that talked about the body paired with anatomical pictures of the body. It made me consider how wonderful it is that we can learn about the bodies the Lord has given us. It also made me ponder the complexities of these bodies.

In summation, our bodies are a wonderful gift that we should learn about in order to truly appreciate what we have.

My Body IS a Temple

It was probably after the third time I hit the snooze button this morning, that I was finally conscious enough to start thinking of what was going to be going on today. As I lay still in bed, I realized I could hear my heart beating. As I continued to concentrate on my heart beat, I started thinking more specifically as to what was happening to make it beat. I thought about how it beats on it's own. I thought of the valves opening and closing. I thought of the blood flowing from atria to ventricles. I then started tracing the blood throughout my body. I thought of the oxygen I was breathing in and how it was being carried throughout all my body. I realized that I was also blinking. I started thinking about how electrical signals were being sent to my brain to move my eye muscles to blink. This led me to thinking about how my brain was even allowing me to think all of these things! That's when an overwhelming feeling of love just filled my body.  It was a very spiritual moment for me, and it was only 6:45 am.

Nothing special happened during all of this. Honestly I could just say I was thinking about anatomy, but another true fact was that as I was thinking about anatomy, my testimony of Heavenly Father as a perfect Creator was strengthened.

They always taught me in church that my body was a temple. I always thought of this in the "so-keep-the-law-of-chastity-kind-of-way" but through anatomy, I've been able to apply the thought even more deeply in my life. God created my body. There are things happening in my body that I don't even have to worry about. They just happen! But because my body is a temple, I've realized more about the importance of taking care of it. What I put in my body can affect the way it works. Exercising, healthy diet, and getting enough sleep are only a few ways on how I have control of what will happen inside. If something feels wrong, I know to go get help! If a light is burnt out in the temple, they aren't just going to leave it and wonder if it will just randomly turn on. They aren't just going to ignore it either. They'll fix the problem. The temple is a sacred and beautiful place where the spirit resides strongly. My body is also a sacred and beautiful place where the spirit can reside. It's where my own spirit resides 24/7! Anatomy has made me realize the reality of my body being a temple. 

"Life is one great object lesson"

Here I would like to mix a couple of Gospel principles. We have been placed on Earth to gain intelligence and to grow. Doctrine and Covenants 130:18-19 states

18 Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.19 And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.

Now President Maeser teaches us that everything in life is an object lesson. Therefore the different parts of our body and their functions are symbolic of eternal principles that we are to learn. Quite frequently the scriptures use parts of the body to represent spiritual aspects. Phrases like "broken heart", "arm of salvation", "ears to hear and eyes to see", are all examples of spiritual principles that God uses parts of our body to help us understand. With what we have learned in anatomy, and the functions of the body, I hope we all can appreciate and understand just how miraculous the body is, and also learn the gospel principles that we are supposed to learn from those metaphors. Everything we learn now, we be that much better for us in the future.

Learning is sacred

Something that we have come to learn in this class is that our bodies are truly temples, and thus they are consequently sacred. In not many universities can one feel the spirit or gain in spiritual understanding as they sit in class participating in secular learning. But with BYU and the freedom to talk about spiritual things, we can have spiritual experiences learning.

With learning being spiritual, we can talk about sacred things with openness, creating a temple-like atmosphere. We talked about the reproductive systems today, and it brought some perspective on how our bodies work and reminding us of our purpose on here on earth. We are here to gain understanding, and eventually have families and return to live with our Heavenly Father. I'm grateful for the blessing I have to be able to go to a university that allows us to talk openly about the gospel, and relate our secular learning with eternal principles.

I Know What You'll Be Doing

It's so good to be myself again after a week of being bed ridden and drugged up.  While most people were looking forward to the yummy fat turkey and pies, I was nervously looking forward to getting my first surgery ever! I've always been a mouth breather. I also grew up with this little bony bump on my nose. Attractive right? For the longest time I just didn't know why that was. It was a few months ago that my mother decided it was time to get my nose checked. One look into my nose and the ENT diagnosed me with a deviated septum. The bump on my nose was just a little bony protrusion that had nothing to do with my breathing.  After spraying some yucky spray in my nose, he was also able to tell me that my turbinates were just a little inflated. So what did all this mean? It meant that if I wanted to breathe better, I would need rhinoplasty, turbinoplasty, and septoplasty surgery...... English please?  

If it hadn't been for Anatomy, I would have just nodded my head, pretended like I knew what was wrong with my nose and what they were going to do and just gone along with whatever had to be done.  Anatomy is so cool though! It's been so wonderful learning more about the body and what we're made out of. I was not naive this time. I knew that a deviated septum meant that my perpendicular plate, vomer bone, and cartilage in my nose dividing my nasal airways was not straight, making air in one nostril almost impossible to enter. (It was really deviated...). Fixing this is what is called septoplastly. Although the little bump on my nose didn't affect my breathing, I decided since they'd be working on my nose they might as well just shave that little extra nasal bone off.  This would be rhinoplasty surgery.  Thanks to anatomy, I also knew that turbinates was just another name for my nasal conchae.  The process of shrinking the tissue on them is what is called turbinoplasty. 

It was good to just feel informed. I felt more comfortable as I waited for the nurses to take me back for surgery.  Although I knew I would be knocked out during the surgery, it felt nice to sit there and not have that panicking thought of "what are they going to do to me?". I calmly waited, and as they took me back, the only thought that came to me was "I know what you'll be doing."

... I do have to admit the recovery process was rough....