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Nov. 12th, 2007 07:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aprilstarchildOkay, so I'm studying for my exam tomorrow. I got a 78% on my last one and my current average is a few points lower, so I really want to do better this time.
But ARRRRGH. So she gave us a study guide, but she's asking us to define terms that aren't in the textbook. That's what I get for missing one three-hour lecture. Ha, some of the terms are supposedly from lectures I did attend and take notes on, and I still don't know what she's talking about.
Oh, and the lecture I missed was that one where she covered glycolysis and cellular respiration. Which I just do NOT understand. I think I'm just having a really hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that I'm seriously supposed to memorized this long long long process that seriously just looks like a bunch of numbers and letters and more numbers and letters. What doesn't help is that I don't really understand the over-arching gist of what's going on, not as much as I'd like, and so all those numbers and letters seem completely meaningless, and I have a really hard time understanding information without any context for it.
Not all of this stuff is that impenetrable. I understand, as much as is required, how DNA replicates (oooh, helicases) and I have a fairly good grasp of transcription (how RNA is made from DNA) and translation (how proteins are synthesized from RNA). Translation is just about as complicated as all that energy cycle stuff, but goddamnit, it makes a hell of a lot more sense.
For instance, tRNAs. AKA, transfer RNAs. They're kinda neato. They carry an amino acid to a ribosome during protein synthesis. And they have three nucleotides on the other end that are the complementary nucleotides to a bit of mRNA, and that three nucleotide set in the mRNA is called a codon and codes for that specific amino acid.
Or, to put it another way, tRNAs are the "go-fers" for specific amino acids that mRNA use to make proteins.
Yes, I'm just showing off.
There's so much more I could post about. Like my various birthday celebrations, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
underthethrow's birthday stuff. But for now? Biology class. Yup.
But ARRRRGH. So she gave us a study guide, but she's asking us to define terms that aren't in the textbook. That's what I get for missing one three-hour lecture. Ha, some of the terms are supposedly from lectures I did attend and take notes on, and I still don't know what she's talking about.
Oh, and the lecture I missed was that one where she covered glycolysis and cellular respiration. Which I just do NOT understand. I think I'm just having a really hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that I'm seriously supposed to memorized this long long long process that seriously just looks like a bunch of numbers and letters and more numbers and letters. What doesn't help is that I don't really understand the over-arching gist of what's going on, not as much as I'd like, and so all those numbers and letters seem completely meaningless, and I have a really hard time understanding information without any context for it.
Not all of this stuff is that impenetrable. I understand, as much as is required, how DNA replicates (oooh, helicases) and I have a fairly good grasp of transcription (how RNA is made from DNA) and translation (how proteins are synthesized from RNA). Translation is just about as complicated as all that energy cycle stuff, but goddamnit, it makes a hell of a lot more sense.
For instance, tRNAs. AKA, transfer RNAs. They're kinda neato. They carry an amino acid to a ribosome during protein synthesis. And they have three nucleotides on the other end that are the complementary nucleotides to a bit of mRNA, and that three nucleotide set in the mRNA is called a codon and codes for that specific amino acid.
Or, to put it another way, tRNAs are the "go-fers" for specific amino acids that mRNA use to make proteins.
Yes, I'm just showing off.
There's so much more I could post about. Like my various birthday celebrations, and
underthethrow's birthday stuff. But for now? Biology class. Yup.
