In which I stare into microscopes for hours and realize I'll never be a pathologist

Microscopes are pretty neat and all, but this past week of prepping for my histology final (tomorrow afternoon, yay) has somewhat tempered my appreciation.  There are 127 slides in the slideboxes we were all given at the beginning of the semester.   Our task tomorrow will be to identify 40 items on new slides that depict the same tissues but in different slices or stains (can't make it too easy on the visual learners), we'll rotate through microscopes and have 75 seconds at each, at which point a buzzer will sound and you must move on to the next.  It could be like a fun game I guess, but it's not.
 

 

Like this, but sadly much bigger.

 

When I started studying histo it was absolutely mystifying.  Everything looked exactly the same, just a bunch of purple and pink blobs.  The trick is in recognizing patterns, and key features.  For example, the small intestine has three distinct regions which you can tell apart histologically; the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum.  All of small intestine has simple columnar epithelium, which means the very outer layer of cells is sort of rectangular (best for absorption, makes sense right?), and all small intestine has big folds and dips (villi and crypts).  Now, to tell the regions apart:

 

 

 Duodenum: This one is the easiest, you see a bunch of Brunner's glands in the submucosa (the light purple little circles in the pink layer below all those folds) 

Ileum is next easiest to identify because of the large Peyer's patches (lymphoid tissue).  This is only tricky if you forget to search the entire length of the mucosa, because usually the patches are only on one side of the tissue. 

 

Finally, jejunum.  Actually I find this the trickiest, because of the Absence of any key identifying feature in the mucosa.  If you are sure you're in small intestine, you know it's jejunum by the absence of Peyer's patches or Brunner's glands.

 

 

This is stomach, to give you an idea of the similarities between tissue.

 

 

And here are some of my favorite histology slides.  They're quite pretty actually!   And perhaps more importantly, easy to tell apart - a key requisite for my love):

 

Peripheral nerve

Pineal gland.  Note the 'brand sand' (real term) on the lower left border.  I think it looks like a geode

Thymus