Theory of Mind or Luck and Magic?

You'd think that doing medicine would be about learning HARD FACTS and FIGURES and the likes, so you could regurgitate them and pass exams and save people and whatnot. It kind of has been like that up until semester three- heres a heart, this is what it does, heres how it does it, answer questions about it and come across it next in a hospital, thank you very much.
Surprisingly, this semester we are encountering 'this mechanism is not fully understood', which is almost disgruntling if youre trying to bash out your case for the week. WE.WANT.THE.TRUTH.
But then, have you ever thought about the brain? Like, properly? I have only just really started to, and seriously, its MIND BLOWING. excuse the pun.
Your skull is like a helmet protecting you, but not just 'you', actually 'you'. Everything you are as a person, apart from what you look like, is in your brain. We started off with the basics and i got that, spinal cord and impulses from your periphery and how they get to the brain, and which direction they take out of the brain back to the periphery (out of the Foramen Magnum, first turning on the left...), we did a bit of embryology, so how you go from looking like a tiny, ugly dinosaur to being born and having a giant head in comparison to your body, and a squidgy bit in your skull where you can poke your brain (DONT do this please)..and then we did some of the bits they know about, that you can see on a dissected brain, like the cerebellum which is the bit at the back that looks like a leaf when cut in half. thats alright, its easy to remember what it does cos if it goes wrong you act kinda drunk and everyone knows what thats like.
Last week we started on the Limbic System, and seriously i cant even start to explain that its just mental....It almost makes me want to cry its so complicated (even thats bloody controlled by the limbic system, so in two senses it makes me want to cry...AARGHHH!!!)
It controls reward and punishment, and anger and pleasure through some feedback mechanism that im not going to attempt to understand at this moment in time, it makes you comfort eat when youre sad, or cold.. HOW DOES THAT WORK???
One of my homegirls is having a pretty rough time at the moment and ive been chatting to her loads, its nice to have someone validate your sadness, i remember that, but it seems crazy to go from seeing chronic emotional pain, to a textbook that will put it down to X or Y neural pathway, via the activation of Z ganglion, through the ABC nucleus. I mean, really?
Are all my neurotic tics explainable by this sort of jargon? i dont really want them to be, i want my personality to be separate i guess. I eat pudding only from a teaspoon...what pathways that then Titus? hey? ( Titus is the author of what is the equivalent of 'Neuro for Dummies') I can watch scary films as long as i cant hear them, i was literally sat in the cinema watching Harry Potter (ashamedly) with my fingers in my ears as he duelled with a giant snake...that surely cant be explainable by the level of activation of some gyrus somewhere.

I was bitching with my friend El about the brain and this was the conclusion i made:

Basically everything is impossible and the human body is run mainly on magic and luck.

I quite like it. They should put that instead of 'this is an Unknown Mechanism'....basically means the same anyway, how can a mushy grey and pink thing decide what i fancy for tea? OBVIOUSLY MY STOMACH DOES THAT.

Cynical, but NOT a cynic.

Today has been a b.a.d. day. just one of those 'wrong side of the bed' ones, yknow, gets worse as it progresses until every non-withered living thing has curled up and died at your icy stare.
Manchester is colddd at the moment, and i have to say that i am starting to not mind the cold sooo much. i mean i live in the NORTH now...but today i was not pleased it was cold so i could wear my nice Tailored in Vietnam jacket, or pleased it was brisk so i could look forward to a warm pub and a nice lunch post-invigorating walk. Its not like i can wrap up and whack on my skiis or anything, it was just 8am trying-not-to-take-a-dive-before-getting-on-the-bus cold.
So that wasnt a great start and i have managed to have such a nice weekend that i didnt do any work- which is fine. honestly. maybe. no, it is. but its just an anticlimax to have to go back to academia, which is, i promise you mostly impossible. And to add to this we have the head of medicine taking our casegroup this week as our normal tutor has jetted off to San Diego for a conference. Seriously he best be bringing us back some exceptional presents to make up for this.
Its no biggie, like, he cant throw us off the course or anything, but he called us lazy and to be honest i think thats one thing we actually aren't. In context he said we werent working out our 'intended learning outcomes' out properly, we were merely guessing them, but really i thought thats what we were meant to be doing...i thought that quite a lot of the stuff were going to be doing for the next 2 years at least was executive guesswork?!
Take anatomy, par example, Anil, our demonstrator will say something like 'Lucy, tell me which lymph nodes drain the scalp' and i will go 'errrrrrr, the scalp nodes?' ( i wouldnt, cos they dont exist, but along those lines..you get me) and theres actually normally a good chance youre right, and if youre not, youve answered in a way which means youve asked him, so then he has to answer. Clever hey? they dont let just anyone into med school.......maybe.
ANyway, this week were doing about Parkinson's and i think its reasonable to say that there isnt a generalised public knowledge about this disease, except that Mohammed Ali had it....so for us to be able to theorise rather than guess about what were meant to learn about is almost not realistic....
Anyway so i havent done much work so i have to do it all now which hasnt helped my day.
And my weekend was spent pissing around with my homegirl and we went to a ball and drank cava like we used to and went to a really good gig and then i get woken up at some early a.m o'clock by my drunk housemate and his girlfriend crashing around coming in from a night out. its FINE FOR HIM. he finished lectures at the end of oct and doesnt have to be in uni until post-january exams. WORK THAT ONE OUT. Hence wrong side of bed several hours later.... but i think the thing that PISSED me off the most was the fact it dawned on me that i have gone from being know as 'cynical' to being a 'cynic' which is apparently either
a)

a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view.
or
b)

a person who shows or expresses a bitterly or sneeringly cynical attitude.
(dictionary.com)

EXCELLENT. just what i want to be seen as. SOmeone told me today that i was a cynic and i would agree that i am DUBIOUS about a lot of things, but to be written off as being bitter or a non-believer in selfless acts is just not true.
Firstly, i actually have a lot of faith in (select) people and generally i would rather be disappointed again and again than ever write off anyone that i ever considered a friend.
I would happily put myself on the line for something i believed in, however i do also think that its a protection mechanism, if you think the worst about something it only leaves you pleasantly surprised, or right, and its sometimes better to be right and a bit cynical than it is to be sat fat, dumb and happy and surprised that your were ever wrong.
Also, sometimes we cant help but being cynical, if we have even just 2 brain cells to rub together. Things dont just happen for the greater good- generally. In society if something brilliant happens the chances are theres some massive financial gain there for someone, its just obvious. If youre clever enough to get into medical school you should realise that we dont live in a world where the economy runs on hugs and kisses, most people have motives for doing things- they dont have to be ulterior motives, for self gain, but equally i dont just share my milk with my house mates because im nice. I do it because when i run out, ill use theirs.
Im not bitter about the world, i have NOTHING to be bitter about, there is no chip on my shoulder, and ask me most of the time i am incredibly happy (i can see how this looks, considering how this piece started...)
I just think its important to think about why things are happening, and not wander blindly through life without questioning anything, making the assumption that everything is fine.

Right. I'm done here. Whatever.