21-22

2 days of physiology =

Day 1 - the entire joint aerospace physiology text in one day aka death by powerpoint
Day 2 - Multi Spatial Disorientation Demo aka Spin and Puke
Low Pressure Chamber/Rapid Decompression

Basically we learned everything we needed to know to take a physiology test today, but it was information that's going to be applicable in the future, which was cool. We did scenarios today, for instance, if your jet takes off and suddenly you experience engine failure or something happens which causes you eject from your aircraft, its pitch black.. are you going to be able to save yourself? Did you preflight well enough to know where all your equipment is on your SV-2 life vest? What do you do first in order to try to save yourself?

Our class was divided into 2 groups; I was in the first group to go to MSDD. We were put into these little pods that resembled Disney's infamous teacups and we were forced to listen to Top Gun music while trying to figure ourt which way we were turning the whole time in a simulated nighttime situation. It basically got our bodies used to a constant turn which fooled us into thinking we had stopped turning, in which the one thing to take away from that was "trust your instruments!"

In the altitude chamber, it was "can you recognize your symptoms of hypoxia?" They stole us from our oxygen (by the way, that was the first time for me to be put in an oxygen mask... oxygen is SOOO good when it hits your lips) and I even have video of us doing the Pensacola pattycake, then getting fatigued, confused, and completely unaware of the surroundings. We had a couple of goofy faces worth laughing about. (In my case, my muscles either became tight, or I was just got really tired playing pattycake. When I was playing with the invisible man, it started to blur a bit, and the video shows me hitting my face instead of hitting the helmet like I was supposed to. So fatigue set in, and I put that mask right on.)

Good times... the gas in your body, though, expands in high altitudes (we went all the way to 35,000 ft before leveling off to 25,000) so I was burping and farting trying to expend the gas... and no I wasn't the only one... and doing Valsalva maneuvers the whole way down. It was pretty awesome stuff. Like an amusement park ride almost, haha...