Those who can't do, teach...wait a minute

I wasn't sure what to write about this week.  I could write about how I've been feeling like lately that I'm burning the candle at both ends pretty hard, but my commitments are set for the semester, so I just need to get over that feeling and deal with it.  So, in the spirit of positive thinking and not wanting to sound whiny, I thought I'd write about teaching.

I've never understood the phrase "Those who can't do, teach."  Makes no freaking sense.  To teach someone else something, you have to be able to understand your subject pretty darn well.  I think there are huge misconceptions about teachers at any level.  I can't really speak for K-12, but as a university professor, I very much feel like people think that we're a bunch of lazy, overpaid bastards who work 12 hours a week (12 hours is a full load in my department at ESU) and sit up nights thinking of ways to fail people.  Let me enlighten you - I'm not overpaid, I could make far more in industry than I do now.  If you broke down the actual workweek of most of my colleagues and figured out our average hourly wage, if would be ridiculous.  Like, ridiculously low.  So why do it?  Because there's nothing else like it.

This semester has been crazy busy, to say the least, but it hasn't gone unrewarded.  I've had some amazing moments.  I have a Monday night hour in my A&P course, and since it's at night, we can go longer than 50 minutes if people want to.  One night we were reviewing muscle contraction (which has a lot of steps) and I'd explained it about 4700 different ways trying to make them understand it (biology isn't just memorizing a bunch of crap, BTW, I really, really want people to understand what they're learning).  Finally, the students looked at me and several of them started saying, OMG, we get it!  And then started coming up to the board where I'd drawn things out and tried to explain it to me (and they were right).  Have you ever explained something to someone and seen the lightbulb go on in their head?  They're excited, you're excited.  Pretty damn cool feeling.

I have about 55-60 people in my class, but I'm trying to learn all their names and one of my goals every semester, every class is that I want people to feel comfortable.  I want them to freely ask questions, I don't want them to feel like they can't talk to me.  This week in particular, I had a first.  A student came to me asking about study tips, which happens a lot.  We were talking, and they said that they felt like they knew the material until they saw the test, and then their mind went blank.  So we talked about test anxiety and I gave them my best tips that I normally give everyone who asks.  Then they asked if there was anything else.  I NEVER bring up religion with my students, unless I've literally bumped into them at church and we comment on Father Rich's sermon or something.  For one, I'm private about it, and two, I teach in a public university and I teach science, not religion.  But I took a deep breath and told them that I didn't know what their religious beliefs were, but that in grad school I prayed before every exam I took.  Nothing long or drawn out, just a short, 2 second affair asking for guidance and peace.  Well, ok, and an A. :)  The student smiled at me and said that they'd never really thought about doing that, but that their dad was a minister and they were religious and would definitely try it.  I'm extremely open with my students about my medical history (I teach A&P after all!), but that was the first time I felt like I'd really shared something deep with a relative stranger.  But I felt like I'd helped, and that was pretty cool.

So, it's a total cliche' to say that you do something (it's a joke on med school applications) "because you want to help people", but that really is a big reason I enjoy teaching.  I love getting to know my students.  I love seeing the lightbulb go on.  And, let's face it, my multimillion dollar salary and my unbeatable, 12-hour workweeks don't hurt either. ;)

Meet Bob's new friend - Bobette.

This week, I've told two or three colleagues that if I'm not a chain-smoking alcoholic by Christmas, it'll be a miracle.  This fall is kicking my butt, but I keep telling myself, hard work, big rewards.  And candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.  You know, for as much as I joke about drinking, I don't actually drink much, but it makes me feel better to talk about starting.  You know, like some people say they're going to start a new diet?  Start exercising? Me, I'm going to start drinking.  Cheaper than a padded hospital cell.  I can't complain too much.  My schedule is nuts, but I'm not in the SAC office, having to be all touchy-feeling and pretending to be everyone's friendly neighborhood advisor.  Woot!

Anyway, Bob got a brain (Bobette) on Monday.  More specifically, I got a continuous glucose monitor.  It took a year and three appeals to BCBS, but I got one.  And let me tell you, it's fantastic.  Fan-freaking-tastic.  Seriously, life changing.  So, this little gizmo has wires that I put in with a needle the size of a harpoon (amazingly, using the harpoon-gun-inserter-thingy, it doesn't hurt to put it in).  These wires wet over the course of almost 24 hours with interstitial fluid and send signals to the transmitter plugged into it.  The transmitter beams me up scotty sends info to Bob, who displays a 3 hour graph and my current reading.  So, by calibrating it periodically with fingerstick readings, it's pretty accurate.  So far, it usually reads 2-20 points different from my meter, but that's nothing.  It has algorithms that predict lows and highs, and I have alarms set to let me know when I'm low or (here's the amazing part) 15 minutes before I'm going to be low.  The second night, I thought I had a fire alarm going off in my pajamas (it's LOUD) because Bob and Bobette decided that I was going to have an insulin reaction.  My bloodsugar was 120 at the time, but I had double arrows pointing down.  So I got up, ate a small snack and went back to bed.  I got up the next morning with a bloodsugar of 100.  People, do you know how amazing this is?  Do you know what it's like to stumble out of bed in the middle of a great dream with a bloodsugar of 45, eat like you'll never eat again because all you want to do is feel better, then wake up higher than the Empire State building the next morning, feeling like complete crap?  If Bob wants to scare the beejeezus out of me in the middle of the night to tell me to eat something now so I prevent all that later, I'm gonna listen.  When I was pregnant with Ian, I had a reaction in the middle of the night with a bloodsugar of 32.  I sweated so much there were drips on the kitchen floor.  Dave got up the next morning and asked if we were attacked by bears because, strewn over the kitchen counter, were candy wrappers, Little Debbie wrappers, a peanut butter jar, a bottle of honey, half a loaf of bread, and some cracker remnants.  Not kidding, even a little bit.  Don't feel sorry for me for a second, though.  I wake up.  Not everyone does and I've known several people who have seizures because they don't wake up, so I consider myself damn lucky.

Mom pointed out something that I thought the second wonderful day with Bobette.  "Your pregnancy would've been so much easier with one of those."  Oh hell yeah.  And the bloodsugar nazis recommended that I consider a pump.  But at the time, I had no idea CGM was a possibility, I had hated my last pump, and I was a hot hormonal mess.  I believe my reaction was to burst into tears and to ask Chris if that meant the nurses didn't think I was doing a good enough job on shots.  Geez.  I look back on my pregnancy with awe, wonder, and laughter.  It was the best, most precious experience of my life, but damn, could I have cried a little less?  For the record, I shut the door to my office one day and sobbed hysterically to Dave (who thought I was having a miscarriage or something) that "I had a freaking Ph.D. but I was hungry and didn't know if I could have a snack because my bloodsugar was high."  I also cried because I had to eat a bedtime snack every night and I had gastroparesis really bad and was still super full from dinner that wouldn't digest (I believe that I was holding a corndog and making it soggy with my crying at the time).  Everybody has their funny pregnancy stories. :)

But so far, this is seriously the most life-changing piece of technology that I own.  I thought I could love no device more than my iPhone, but Bobette has knocked the iPhone down one notch.  I feel so happy that BCBS decided to cover the cost because like all good medical technology, this ain't cheap.  I feel like writing them a personal letter thanking them for realizing that Jesus was not going to give me a new pancreas no matter how much I prayed, exercised, or promised to stop eating potato chips.  Just joking - I never actually promised anyone that I'd stop eating potato chips.  Anyway, on to achieving my semester goals, like becoming a chain-smoking alcoholic, with Bob and Bobette. :)

Motivation

I wasn't sure  what to write about this week.  Sometimes I think that I should use more pictures - they take up space and you can add a caption or two and be done with it, but I kinda like trying to be thought-y (that's probably not a word).  Which is why this is turning into a weekly, not daily blog.

This semester, the fall semester, is always my toughest one in terms of commitments.  I teach more than I do in spring, the lab coordinator gig is harder because I usually have a crop of new TAs starting to teach for the first time, and I'm usually tired from summer teaching.  This fall I'm also a faculty senator (it REALLY, REALLY beats the SAC office - I  wasn't bitter and angry after my first senate meeting; I was almost always angry after a session in SAC.  So, I'm trying to make myself a little more of a priority in all this.  Selfish?  Maybe.  But the ESU swimming pool is cheaper than therapy and more legal than killing everyone who frustrates me. (I sound like I have all this pent-up aggression - I really don't.  I really do love my job.)  In the past, 30 odd years, I can't say that exercise has been a priority.  But I kinda dig this swimming thing.  In fact, I might even be a little bit good at it.  And I feel accomplished and justified in eating out for lunch if I get in my 1500m in 40 minutes.  But, when things get busy I tend to drop stuff like this.  Swim for an hour (including getting in and out of the pool)? But I could be doing x, y, z.  Yeah, I could, and in the past, I did.  Now, I've figured out that even more than exercise I need 40 minutes to myself.

But swimming is tiring sometimes, especially when you're upping your distance like I am this week.  I have a waterproof iPod that I love a lot and I had a pretty good playlist, but it was feeling stale lately.  So I loaded some new stuff on there for this week and boy-howdy, let me tell you it worked.  40 minutes to myself AND swimming to the Top Gun soundtrack?  Yes, please.  Seriously, try it.  It doesn't matter what you're doing - you could be cleaning toilets, but if you do it to the Top Gun Anthem, you're suddenly wearing aviators and a flight suit and are a total badass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCTJmXrgsFg

I can backstroke to none other to this song.  I'm pretty sure if I keep playing it as loudly as I do, I will be deaf by the end of the semester.

My other new favorite motivating song is Say Hey (I love you).  This one is so catchy that I did my last 100m to it, got out of the pool, and started dancing while I was putting my gear away.  I'm sure there are now several football players who were wondering who the crazy pale girl on the sidelines trying to dance was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehu3wy4WkHs

Some people are intrinsically motivated to exercise - healthy, feel good, blah, blah, blah.  Me, I need stuff - the lure of a new swimsuit, new music, the ability to picture myself swimming with aviators on in a music video for the Top Gun Anthem. :)  Hey, you gotta go with what works, right?