Ickiness i.e. worms

New pictures uploaded! Tower of London! Spitalfields Market! Amsterdam and Bruges!

Other pictures of my room and stuff:

Ikea glass and bottle

Polka-dotty bowl

Above my desk 1

Above my desk 2

Please don't hate me for buying these boots. I realize that they are sort of bootimals, but I like them. I've been wanting boots since I got here (everyone has boots), and I bought them on ebay for $21.

They're PINK!!! Actually, the ebay thing was pretty funny. I've never used it before. I ended up bidding on these ones, and another pair that had four days of the auction left. When I won these ones, I was still the highest bidder on the other pair, which were actually this same pair of boots, but in tan. haha! I checked when the tan pair was down to four hours, and I was still the highest bidder. I was getting very antsy, but then someone finally outbid me in the last hours of the auction. Phew!

This afternoon was, by far, my least favorite lecture yet. Some lectures are bad because of the lecturer, or the slides, but others are bad because of the topic. Today's was the latter.

Remember that picture I showed of the classification of poop? That was nothing. In the sexually transmitted infections lectures that we had a few weeks ago, the lecturer showed pictures of oozing penises and cervixes. A walk in the park compared to today.

WARNING: Graphic descriptions follow. If you have a weak stomach, seriously consider not reading any further. Seriously. That means you, Becky.

Today's lecture was about helminthes. "Helminthe" is Greek for "worm." Becky, remember when Mathilda coughed up a worm? We had a three-hour lecture all about that, but in humans, of course. It was going along fine until we got to the nematodes, and the lecturer showed us a picture of a child's anus with worms coming out of it. Apparently, at night, the worms crawl out of the anus to lay eggs, and can potentially crawl into the vagina. BUT THEN we got to the common roundworm, Ascaris lumbricoides, and a picture of a child's butt and legs, with a large amount of what looked like very thick spaghetti coming out of its anus. There was also a picture a child with what looked like spaghetti coming out of its nostrils.

The lecturer also passed around a long tube full of nematodes. When it got to the girl next to me, I had to close my eyes, turn my head 180 degrees away, and move my body as far away from it as possible as she passed the tube to the girl on the other side of me.

I had the urge to swallow copious amounts of pure alcohol to sterilize my innards from any potential worms, but I sort of doubt that would work. It's funny, because I was actually thinking the other day that maybe I could go to medical school after all. WRONG. Or as Dwight Schrute would say, FALSE. I was right to stick with microbes.

Must think about other things...like dinner. Oh no, bad idea. No food for me. Happy thoughts. Rainbows. Twinkly stars. The Daily Show. Yes, I could do with some Jon Stewart right about now. That reminds me of our lunch lecture, which was about antimicrobial resistance. The lecturer said his boss was Conan O'Brien's dad, but he said that he personally preferred Jon Stewart. I agree, though Conan is awesome.