anyways, to celebrate this period of freedom, im going to commit some of the moments of pure jollidity down to text. memorable highlights from the past week include 2 marathon dota sessions with the guys and two excellent and *free* concerts at the yong siew toh conservatory. especially the one on saturday which played summertime for its encore piece. the violin was just so soulful! i was actually almost moved to tears by that particular rendition... gah! live music beats my old beat-up speakers any day...heh. anyway, the violinist was apparently some 4th year honours student who also played gershwins 3 preludes which contained an incredibly *gay* segment at the end of the 3rd prelude, after a blitzkrieg of crisp pizzicato rolls, he was double stopping in harmonics and playing octaves: jaw drop incredible technique!.... All things considered, im a big gershwin fan.. yes, *thats* how gershwin -should- be played! personally i think he did a better job than yoyo ma who also has a recording of those pieces. it was that good. mhm. its a real pity -you- weren't there to hear it.
as for today, i had a mini tutorial session with thomas, stephen, gerry and joyce. CVS 101. and im afraid i made two rather terrible mistakes. hmm. must clarify this.
firstly, the RAAS system. renin converts proangiotensinogen to angiotensin 1, not as i had orginally asserted as causing the release of ACE - which turns out to be consitutionally produced by the lungs. (in this respect, the notes are quite misleading)
secondly, the frank starling mechanism only increases the force of the contractions of the heart. it does not increase the rate of the contractions. the actual physiology of the FS mechanism is by two means:
increasing the cardiac muscle length by putting it under an increased tension results in the myofibrils being brought into a more optimal configuration - increasing the force of the contraction. secondly, the stretch itself also makes the cardiac muscle more sensitive to the actions of Ca2+ ions; which makes the tissue more excitable. neither of these actions increase the heart rate!
hope that resolves the issue. on the whole, i think the tutorial was pretty productive... at least i think i managed to cover most of the concepts involved in cardiovascular physio. what do you guys say?
after that 1.5 hour session, that i was sorely tempted to go listen to yet another concert (wind chamber) but my preservation instincts cut in and said that i should go study my lonesome orthopedic text. so after about 2 minutes of agonizing indecision, i spent another evening huddled in the library. a pretty smart choice too because i actually got quite a lot done.
ps. the physio mistakes are still bugging me. im forgetting a lot of stuff (it actually scares me). i think before i do any further tutorials.. i should go read up a little more first. i hate giving inaccurate advice. physios been a strong point for me, its time to get it straightened out again. :)
oh oh and oh! i bought 3 CDs from IMM on sunday; story of the yellow river, flowers and adolescent and lastly a fishing boat song at dusk! traditional chinese folk melodies so do it for me. i really love the sound of a chinese pianist, theres a very distinctive touch which i think sounds refreshingly raw compared to the slick (and might i say limpid) performances from western trained pianists.
theres a really lovely introductory piece on the flowers and adolescent album, a duet between the violin and harmonica - a very unusual combination...
No comments:
Post a Comment