Week 1!

So at this point I've been to all of the classes that I'll be taking this quarter except Tui Na (Chinese Therapeutic Massage) and Medical Chinese I, which only meet on Friday. My favorites so far have been Meridians and Points and, surprisingly, Living Anatomy.

My fondness for Living Anatomy is due in large part to the dedication and enthusiasm of the instructor, Dr. Love. On the first day of class she arrived in a skeleton outfit complete with a full skull mask. She has an interesting academic background, which included stints as student of Veterinary Medicine and, if I recall correctly, Nursing.

The main theme that has been stressed in both Living Anatomy and Meridians and Points is the necessity of developing strong palpation skills so that we can accurately locate anatomical structures and, therefore, the associated accupuncture points. Apparently when it comes to placing Accupuncture needles, "Somewhere around here" doesn't cut it. I'm trying to come up with ways to improve the tactile sensitivity in my fingertips. One suggestion the anatomy book gave was to put a hair under a single page of a phonebook and work on being able to locate the hair by touch, then trying to find it through two pages, three pages, etc. Practitioners of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) have to develop their sense of touch to a particularly high degree. One story that Benjamin Apichaiw, my Chi Gong instructor, shared with the class was that in ancient China it was considered improper for doctors to touch female patients, which obviously made taking the pulse a bit problematic. So the doctors would tie a string around the female patient's wrist, pull the cord taut and then feel the pulse on the string--a sort of tactile version of the famous tin-can-telephone arrangement.

So classes are going very well, though I still haven't gotten my first Grad PLUS loan dispursement and so have not yet been able to buy my books. Fortunately, all of the course textbooks are on hold in the library, and can be checked out for two hour periods. Thanks to that arrangement I've been able to keep up with the assigned reading for my classes. I am looking forward, of course, to being able to study whenever and wherever I want.

Loyal Websterians will see in all this, of course, certain inescapable similarities to points and observations made in my earlier essay "Sign . . . Sign . . . Symbol!: An Exploration of the Interplay Between Children's Games and Literary Analysis in England and the United States (1897 - 1922)". But, naturally enough, I don't have time to rehash all that here. I hope to do another post this weekend, but the manifold vissicitudes of fate being what they are that may or may not come to fruition.