I am officially the luckiest little bastard in the world, or at least at 9:26 AM today. So 42 miles into my trip to work this morning, 30 of which was on one-lane road, I decide to gun it after merging in from a ramp onto a short segment of highway.  I got up to 93 MPH while quickly getting over to the left lane, and that is the last thing I saw in my police-virgin experience before my heart exploded as I saw a police cruiser right behind me, lights on.

Now normally, I pride myself on being able to detect cops in the distance, having a 6th sense for these things, and relied on some damn good LUCK which has allowed me to escape soooo many tickets before.  But since this guy was behind me, I just had not noticed and dropped the ball.  Anyway, as my internal organs are slowly failing inside and prepare for my end, he asks me the usual: "ANY REASON YOU WERE GOING 93 IN A 55??" (As he started the sentence, I was praying for the speed limit to be 65 on that road, because OMG 38 over is not going to be good).  However, I respect police a lot, and just acted as cool as I could.  He took my license and registration, then *only* one agonizing minute later, he came out (i'm like wtf so soon), and said "This is your lucky day.  I got something I got to get to now.  I got your information, this speeding is unacceptable, don't ever do it again... blahblah" (my relief blocked out a lot of what he said).

As my coronary slowly died off and I was regaining life again, I realized just how fucking lucky I got, once again.  OMG I WILL NEVER SPEED (there) AGAIN OMG WTF

Just another day today: lunch with a friend, boring Econ and Astro, getting a parking ticket, some research (my first botch ), looking at and touching a dead human body, Panera dinner yum, and hanging out with cathy.

OMFG!!!!!!!!!
The Panera meal I ordered was so unbelievably good!!!! Bacon and chicken mmmmm.  But haha seriously.....

the meal was very good.

So today, I came aboutttttt as close to a dead person as I have ever been in my life.  The friend who I had lunch with has a brother who goes to Medical School here who invited us to tour his anatomy class, aka examine his dead cadaver.  Patient X, 59 year old female, cardiac arrest.  By the time we saw her, her body had been sufficiently, shall i say "picked apart."  It was truly a unique and humbing experience getting up close to everything we always read about but never really see for ourselves.  I was surprised at my lack of disgust, as I tried to see and touch everything... I guess I'd make a great autopist? ewwwww, cohen.

If you've made it this far, I'll try to limit the detail about everything, for your sake.  Feel free to skip this part, although I think it'd be kinda interesting to read about.  When I first saw the body, I was very surprised that the general color of everything... it's not what you think.  Everything is drab, brownish, nothing exciting like red blood all over the place (all that had been drained, all the fat cut out, etc.)  I wasn't too disgusted... until Animesh (my friend's brother) revealed what was left of her head.  The brain had been taken out, so only the front part of the head remained intact, including her face.  What I had seen of her body just minutes earlier was just so unhumanlike that I hadn't been too disgusted.  But seeing a familiar object like her face... it was one of the weirest experiences I've had!  The only parts of the body that maintained any semblence intactness were parts of the hands and feet.  I could see all the tendons and stuff that each appendage has, as well as the skin layers and fat.  It was soooo creepy.  At one point, I was moving her finger to see what else moved and I touched the fingernail a little too hard.... I immediately jumped and was like "AHHH!" a little too loud.  It was more of a surprise/shock than disgust, but still.  Feet were really hard/firm, I guess due to the chemicals and the length of time since she died.

When we examined her brain, which was lying in a tub of reddish formaldehyde preservative, my crazy friend said probably the last thing in the world I was thinking of (jokingly of course...), "CAN I LICK IT??" HAhahahahhahahha.  More constructive and respectful comments, "She must've been a dumb bitch! her brain's so small!!" "What are all these purplish ugly thingies going all around it??" But in all seriousness, the brain is smaller than you'd think it is - about the size of a medium grapefruit, I'd say.  It was pink-ish/white in color, with dark purple blood vessels running around it.  Kinda heavy, like 2 grapefruits worth.  What amazes me most sometimes is the fact that EVERYTHING we sense, our thinking, our awareness of our own existance, feeling of CONSCIOUSNESS is all powered by this 4 pound slab of tissue that looks like a big slab of pork meat.  I just don't get it.

Then we had Panera afterwards... good times.  I walked around smelling of dead people stink for a few hours afterwards.  Thanks to Paresh and his brother Animesh for giving me this opportunity to see this stuff.  Looks like I'll have a grand time in med school (hopefully)...