Lectures are held in Rozanski Hall (I don't have a picture of it yet because I'm usually in too much of a hurry =S but trust me when I say that its beautiful - S was kindly deciphering the code names and pointing out to me all my lecture venues on a campus map on the Sunday before lessons began proper when she saw ROZH and went OH you've got Rozanski Hall, you're lucky!) and labs are held in the Ontario Veterinary College building, which is home to the oldest veterinary college in North America and probably the most sought-after veterinary programme in Canada.
And todayyyyy, was the study of the reproductive tracts... of several farm animals. But the bovines were the most striking. And there were samples that you could cut open and finger around with it!!
Oh, and we watched a video on Embryo Transfer, which was sick (in both the gross and cool sense). The person doing the egg collection just stuck his entire arm down the vagina of the cow (after it was given an epidural block). Its cool, but I don't want to do it. Strangely enough, my childhood ambition was to be a obstetrician/gynaecologist. As long as it doesn't involve my arm all the way up to the elbows, its cool.
Pictures ahead!! Heehee.
The reproductive tract of the bull. (I labeled them to the best of my memory, and I think if you click on the picture you should be able to see them) A bull... has a very long penis. And it has a foreskin too. And huge testicles. Its like carrying a giant sized egg - its half my palm size, which means that if I wrap my fingers around it, my fingertips barely touch my thumb tip.
The reproductive tract of the cowwwwwwwww. Loads of fat everywhere. A very long vagina (see the area with many foldings?), and it has 2 horns, one of which is cut open here, which is where an embryo will embed itself. If you look closely, you can see the developing follicles on the surface of the ovary, and if this cow had ever had calfs, there would be caruncles in the lumen surface of the horn. So since there weren't any in this tract, it must have came from a heifer.
This entire thinggum is huge, okay? The bladder is about my palm size.Close up of 2 bull testicles, one of which is cut (and I had a hand in it muahaha). Its very slippery, and it bears a resemblance to uh, chicken drumsticks. Without the bone. I think I'm gonna have problems cooking my chicken in the next few days...
Close up of several cow ovaries. If you examine them closely, you can see the corpus luteums (no wait, you don't have to examine them too closely, its terribly obvious.) The rightmost one is so obvious, but it doesn't look that yellow because of the blood I think. The yellow spot on the bottommost one is very clear.
Oh, and we got to try "embryo transfer" on some cow reproductive tracts. I say try because obviously there are no embryos nor appropriate mediums available, we don't have to stick our arms up to the elbow up a cow's vagina, and there are no cows available. Tis for the vet students =P But yes, we had the basic tools, and so some of us interested parties took turns trying to stick a metal rod sheathed with a rubber tubing up a cow's vagina, horn and fallopian tube.
It sounds easier than it is. Its crazy!! I think if the entire thing was still attached to a living, breathing cow, we would have been kicked multiple times. =P
And they have some really interesting animal specimens, like this preserved specimen of a baby sheep, with placenta in the background.
The other stuff were histology slides, a cat's gravid uterus, fresh porcine tracts (which was really boring in comparison to the huge bovine ones...). In all it was an amazing experience! I'm so glad I got the course...
Ah yes, overheard in lab:
Girl A: I thought only human males have foreskins!
Guy: Nope, bulls too. Then again, I don't.
Girl B: Really?
Guy: yea. -nudges girl A- You should know.
Girl A: Oh, yea.......
Girl B: Okay.
Me: -adverts eyes, trying not to LOL-
Later,
Me: -gesturing at microscope with testis histology- Are you done with this slide, or are you going to look at it now?
Guy (the same one as above): Oh yea, you can go wild with the testis.
Me: -adverts eyes, trying not to LOL-
Later,
Me: -gesturing at microscope with testis histology- Are you done with this slide, or are you going to look at it now?
Guy (the same one as above): Oh yea, you can go wild with the testis.
-_-"
Oh, and the lecturer tries very hard to remember all the names of the students taking this course, probably to facilitate her asking questions in lectures =| She remembers me! I probably answered my first ever question posed directly to me by a professor during a lecture. LOL I'm not a statistic or a number!
And I came back home, vacuumed the entire house and as I type I have a pot of red bean soup boiling merrily in the kitchen downstairs. I added a little too much rock sugar so its a wee bit sweet, but other than that its fine! Yay!
