Long-Awaited Update

Hello everybody!

I am still alive!  I have been largely absent from my blog recently, mostly because I have taken up a couple of extra jobs.  Life has been pretty crazy this and last semester.  Here's an update:

I now work for Altius Test Prep as a private tutor.  I have 8 students that I am personally responsible for, and I also proctor two group sessions per week.  I am still working on memorizing everybody's names, and I think I've just about got them all down.  It's a lot of fun, and keeps me on my toes.  I do so much studying on my own that it's a blessing to have a job in which I am interacting with other people.

In school, I am taking quite a few classes, the big ones being Orthopedic Impairments & Therapeutic Exercises (that mouthful is just one class), and Functional Anatomy.  Both of these classes have been lots of fun.  It's easy to do well when I love the classes so much.  It looks like I'm on track to finish my last semester with a 4.0!

In addition to paid work and school, I'm also volunteering with Dr. Kooyman in his research on osteoarthiritis, on the histology and sectioning team.  Mostly I operate a machine called a Microtome which slices joint segments of mice (6 nanometers at a time), which I then transfer to glass slides.  After we make a bunch of those we find the best ones, dye them with special indicators, and look for signs of osteoarthiritis.  I know it sounds pretty boring, but we actually have a lot of fun.

Though usually I've been volunteering Sunday afternoons at Primary Children's Hospital, I've decided to switch over to Saturdays, which I have been really happy about.  My Saturdays are a little more fun because I can spend them in either Salt Lake City or Provo, and my Sundays are more relaxed.  Playing with the children at the hospital is one of the highlights of my week!

This weekend I'll be returning to full activity after having an umbilical hernia correction some weeks ago.  I'm going to celebrate by going climbing, I think.

And that's it!  I hope to buy a camera soon to better document my fun times - without photos to supplement the text I feel the blog becomes dry and boring.  Happy February everybody!