Al-boo!-min and a Cribriform Night

The two best holidays (more to come) rolled up in to a neat little package referencing terms only a select few might know...and not because those select few are cool or in some secret society, but because those select few are either (multiple choice-style format, choose from the following answers, only those answers marked on your scantron will count):

a) First Year Students in a College of Veterinary Medicine
b) Delirious from studying Phys II Renal Physiology for 5 hours
c) I don't understand the question
d) Both a and b are possible answers

Hint: the answer is really secret choice answer E! It turns out it doesn't matter what you think the answer is it's some obscure term/phrase/diagram/muscle/action/tissue you did not study. Wah wah.

Nevertheless, you may still continue reading this blogpost. I assure you it will cheer you up. It would cheer the world up if only they all could see it...or at least that's what I choose to believe. It happened late one night in Old Phys. We were studying Renal Physiology a la Dr. J.P. McCann...

Suddenly, Albumin appeared! Don't you know who Albumin is? Albumin haunts me in my dreams, greets me at the door when I come home, waves hello in the halls at school and is on the forefront of seemingly every conversation taking place in our little CVHS world. And yet, it very much feels like Albumin just IS. Albumin needs no introduction. Albumin comes with no instructions or cute little anecdote. Albumin takes no prisoners...a no holds barred kinda guy. Actually, technically, I guess Albumin would take prisoners but we shant go in to that at this time. Anyway, Albumin just IS. No one really talks of what or who Albumin is they just reference Albumin as if we should already know Albumin on a first name basis. Kinda like, "Oh yeah, Albumin, we go way back. Used to hang out after school, snack on a Fun Dip and a dirt cup, play some foursquare. No biggie. Albumin is legit."

Well, regardless of who this Albumin fellow might be, he has reached levels of notoreity I don't even think Dr. McCann could top. We've decided to be Albumin and related structures pertaining to the glomerular basement membrane, like the lamina densa and podocytes, for Halloween...next year. A group of us would get together and be Al-Boo!-min (I actually just came up with this like 20 minutes ago and decided I simply must blog before I forget it!) and dress up in sumo suits and then we'd have people wandering around with chicken wire acting as the lamina densa not allowing us in to a party or room or wherever because we're too big to pass through the filtration barrier and then we'd have other people like holding hands acting as the interdigitating podocytes with filtration slits and a filtration slit membrane! Omg how funny would that be?! Choose from the following (same format as before):

a) Not very
b) I just almost peed myself I'm laughing so hard
c) I don't understand the question
d) I'm still confused about the first question

Answer: (b), obviously. There is no secret answer choice E on this one because it is straight forward and asks you about stuff you actually studied. Score!

Now on to Christmas, which I really only reference because it's close to Christmas but really this word could be used year-round. The word is Cribriform. As in cribriform plate or area cribrosa. They both imply a holey surface...one is in the brain and is part of the olfactory system and the other has to do with the papilla of the kidney. Annnyyywayyy, if one were to replace the word "holey/holy/holier/holiest/hole" with cribriform one would find that laughter soon follows. For example, "Oh, Holy Night" becomes "Oh, Cribriform night." "I dug a hole in the ground" becomes "I dug a cribriform in the ground." "I have a hole in my pocket" becomes "I have a cribriform in my pocket." You get the idea, right?! Also HI-LAR-I-OUS!!! Fo' sho'!

One last anecdote...it's really fun to replace words in rap songs with terms we use too. For example, Fiddy's (50 cent) "P.I.M.P" song can easily be turned in to "c.A.M.P." You're welcome.