Tutoring

Part of my responsibilities as a doctoral student is teaching. I am a TA (teaching assistant) for an Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) class . Here is the irony: I took A&P my sophomore year in undergrad (6 years ago) and I BEARLY passed. If it weren’t for a good man named Dakota Waldroop then I would most likely not be here today. He pulled me through that class. The good thing is that the rest of my undergrad and masters required me to know anatomy in order to understand what was going on. So even though I didn’t learn it very well (according to the standards that I was measured against), I have been able to learn along the way.

Besides grading papers and other secretarial work, I am tutoring students. Last Thursday a group of three students and I sat down for three straight hours of muscle anatomy and function. Man, I loved it. Muscle physiology is pretty cool stuff. I am so amazed and intrigued with how muscles are put together and how they work… its pretty incredible. I am really enjoying tutoring students. I am able to talk about how this material relates to life experiences and future study. I am also able to relate to those students who have trouble studying, I am constantly reminded how Dakota pulled me through those classes and how grateful I am for his intervention in my failing class work. I am hoping I can be that person for these students. I want them to see that the material can be exciting and applicable. I can relate to how they are having trouble integrating the lecture notes. It’s one thing to recognize a word on a page; it’s another to explain what that word means in the context of other complicated words.

Back to last Thurs (all of the students that I was helping were male). We were talking about motor units (a motor unit is composed of a single nerve fiber AND all the muscle fibers that it controls) and how the ratio between nerves and the muscle that it controls has a lot to do with the strength or precision of that aspect of the body. When the neuron “fires” ALL the muscle fibers that it controls will contract at the same time. Some motor units can consist of the one nerve fiber (more appropriately called a neuron) and thousands of muscle fibers. So if a motor unit consists of 1 neuron and 1000 muscle fibers (1/1000) then there will be much more power from that motor unit than a unit consisting of 1 neuron and 10 muscle fibers (1/10). However, the 1/10 ratio will have much more precision than the 1/1000. So I instantly thought of the precision of Carlos Hathcock III who was a sniper in Vietnam. Until 1998 he held the record for the longest kill with a single rifle shot (using a .50 M2 BMG): 2500yds… that’s 1.42 MILES. At that distance he had to use principles of external ballistics: the effect of wind, humidity, heat, pressure, and altitude changes as well as the magnus effect (lower pressure perpendicular to direction of air flow due to spin of the bullet creating downward lift) and the coriolis effect (the effect of the rotation of the earth on projectiles) talk about percision. I loved that example and obviously they did too. Oh, we talked about power lifters vs artists as well, but it sure was fun to talk about one of the greatest snipers to walk this earth.

The point of this blog is to say that I am really enjoying what I am doing. There are things that I don’t enjoy, but what job doesn’t have that?

Smooth? Maybe. Good? Yes.

I have only done a few cool things in my life (maybe I can tell those 2-3 stories some other time). This week I felt that I added to that small number.

I have not seen Heather in just shy of two months and its not a ton of fun. We have been able to talk and that’s been great, but it’s just tough not being around her. We are learning some good things and building character, blah, blah, blah.

I have been recently re-introduced to a computer program called Skype that allows you to talk to anyone who has Skype for free (it’s like using your phone, but over the internet… and its free). In addition to being able to talk to anyone anywhere in the world for free, you can also use webcams to see each other. Obviously you know where this is going, but I will continue to tell the story. Last week Whit Jordan informed me that he was going to be using Skype to talk with Nicole and I thought that was an amazing idea so I went out and bought a webcam then downloaded Skype onto my computer. I wanted to surprise Heather with this superb idea, so I recruited the help of a friend: Aaron Miller. He really came through in the clutch on this one… my idea was worthless without him. So he borrowed Heather’s laptop and downloaded program and installed a webcam. He then set up the system in her training room without her knowing what was really going on, she just knew that there was a “little surprise” for her from me. Heather and I always joke about seeing each other “before we know it”… think about that phrase for a second. How is it possible for that to happen… I am pretty sure we will see each other and know its happening so it then would be impossible for us to see each other before that. Anyway, Aaron finished setting up as I was waiting in front of my webcam (he did it in such a way for me to watch much of what was going on). Heather was in the middle of massaging one of her athletes and Aaron called her over to show her the surprise (which was a live audio/video feed of me!). She reluctantly left what she was working hard at and came over. Oddly enough, we were both very surprised to see each other! I wish I could describe what it was like to see her after a two month fast… words fail me. We were able to speak for only a few seconds before she had to get back to work, but it was some of the greatest few seconds that I have experienced in a long time. She said she it was a great surprise and that she actually did see me “before she knew it!” It was enjoyable. I had hoped that the timing was going to be better; the plan was for her to not have athletes for another 30 min, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. Today we were able to spend a good amount of time talking via Skype… seeing her again is beyond me. I just have to smile when I am looking at her, she is so beautiful. Whether this was smooth or not is debatable… but it was good! Thanks Aaron for making it happen!

Sorry if this story was too mushy for you… if that’s the case then I recommend not falling in love.