Things that Blow My Mind

I've been taking a lot of core science classes lately (one of the reasons I have barely any free time). I've always thought science was interesting. It was cool to see how things work, how you can fix it when it's wrong, and just to see the design and beauty behind everything. Just looking at a little seed and realizing it has the potential to become a gigantic oak is awesome. As I continued to read and study over this past year, I began to make a list of all the amazing things that I was learning about with an inherent design, beauty, and complexity that clearly point to a creator. Here are just a few.

• Golgi tendon organs - these are really cool little 'safety switches', if you will, we have in our muscles right near where the tendon ties the muscle to the bone. GTOs measure the tension in each of your muscles. If the tension ever gets too great, such as when you're about to cause damage to your muscle, the GTOs send out a signal that causes the muscle at risk to relax, and the antagonist muscle (the muscle that controls the reverse movement)  to contract, thereby protecting you from injury. 
• The healing process - the number of different things that happen when you accidentally cut your hand is crazy. All kinds of different chemical messengers are released when the body senses there is an injury, that causes to body to respond immediately. One of the coolest things to me involves your thrombocytes (platelets). These are the little guys that cause your blood to clot. What's crazy is how these guys don't start to clot until they are activated by the chemicals released by tissue damage. If they did just randomly clot, we'd end up with random blood clots and die.
• Elements - that's a link to the periodic table, every element known to man. These elements are the building blocks of our world. Our world is made of these elements. Thinking about how there is life, intelligence, humor, art, etc. in our world, while simultaneously thinking about how everything is made of these elements blows my mind. 
• Cellular machinery - there's so many examples I could give here. Bacterial flagellum, DNA transcription, viruses, the list goes on. One of my favorites (and to be honest, I don't know a ton) is kinesin. Kinesin is a little protein that's involved in a couple of different processes, including cellular transport. Take a look at this, and judge for yourself if this should make the list or not. That little thing is cool!
• Water - this stuff is crazy. Not only is it essential for pretty much all life on our planet, but compared to other liquids, it's pretty unique. Typically, liquids shrink when they freeze. Not so with water. When water freezes it expands. This makes ice less dense, causing ice to float on top of water. Because ice floats, it covers the top of the water when a lake, pond, river, etc. freezes. This insulates the water underneath. If ice were more dense than water, ice forming at the top would sink, and the lake would freeze solid, killing almost all aquatic life. 
• Reflexes - not only is it awesome how these crazy reactions actually protect us (think accidentally putting your hand on the stove), but we're designed so that are reflexes are as fast as possible. Reflexes are actually 'stored' in the spine, causing them to be much faster than if they were stored in the brain. 
• Snowflakes - each one is unique. Just look at that thing! How is every single snowflake in Antartica unique, how are they so artistic, and how did they get that way!?                                              
• The electrical conduction system of the heart - a little series of nerves goes through the heart, providing the source of electricity that it needs to keep beating day after day, year after year. The impulse begins up in the top right of the heart at an area known as the sinoatrial (SA) node. If for some reason the SA node gives out another node farther down in the system called the atrioventricular  (AV) node can take over and act as a temporary pacemaker for the heart. Isn't it awesome to see how our hearts have a temporary backup system should something go wrong?
• Valves - the veins in our bodies have valves in them that keep blood from backflowing. Why is this important? Well, just think about the veins in our legs. We spend a lot of time each day on our feet. What if we didn't have these veins? There'd be a lot of excess stress being put on the heart in order to maintain a pressure that could continually pump blood throughout the body. Varicose veins are one example of when these valves malfunction.
• Cells self-destruct mechanism - we only covered this briefly, so I don't understand a lot here, but this is what I understand. Cells have a self-destruct mechanism that they'll activate if they realize that their replication would be dangerous to the body. How this pertains to cancer I'm not really sure. I might need to do a little more studying on this one. 
• How chemical imbalances can actually change our thoughts - take a look at the chemical imbalances in people with schizophrenia, other mental illnesses, and certain types of parasites. It's weird. 
• Buffered blood - our blood has a pH of 7.35 to 7.45. Any deviation from this range can cause serious sickness or death. Fortunately, we have a series of buffering systems for our blood throughout our body, the major one being the carbonic acid-bicarbonate buffer system. If the blood gets too basic, it makes it more acidic, returning it to normal levels, and vice versa. 
• Physics - I'm not a huge fan of physics (I hate the classes, actually), but I have to admit, I can understand why some people are such huge fans of it. Seeing all of the different principles, laws, and equations that govern the world around us can be a little overwhelming, particularly around exam time, but are signs of beauty, thought, and order nonetheless.

I've been wanting to make this post for a while. The level of design, organization, and beauty in our world is astounding. I hope that this post causes you to think about how thorough God was with our world. He thought of everything when He made our universe, and seeing that makes me stand back in awe.

Refreshing

After way too long of a time of being away (Christmas break/mono), I was finally able to go back to juvee again tonight. Enough guys have been in lately to separate back into two pods on Wednesday nights like it used to be, with half of the guys going to the gym, and the other half going to the common area. A group of us went into the common area, and it was awesome. After only a few verses being read the questions started to come in. The guys asked question after question about everything from dreams to evolution to Jesus' coming back. The guys have a sincere interest in what we have to say to them and they demand answers to their questions. This was the first time I've seen the guys open up this much and ask this many questions within the past year. It was awesome, and extremely refreshing. I write this to ask ya'll to continue to pray for a few things:

1. That the guys will continue to come up with more questions, and think about these things over the course of this week, and that we will have sufficiently prepared ourselves to accurately answer their questions. These guys have a sincere interest in God. Pray that He gives them an insatiable curiosity about Him. 
2. That God will open these guys hearts to what we have to say, and that they may respond to Him. 
3. One of the guys (probably around 14 years old) asked us to pray for a safe delivery of his two little babies on the way. They're three months apart. 
4. These guys would also like everyone to pray for their families. Seeing your son in a detention center isn't the easiest thing out there to watch.
5. Pray for Marjun. He's speaking next week. 

Please continue to keep these guys in prayer. God's doing awesome things in there, as He's been doing all along, and pray that He continues to do even more.

Greatest Quotes Of Fall '12

*Sigh* Another semester has gone by, and though it certainly wasn't fast, and has been the craziest almost 5ish months in my life, I still managed to keep track of a few of the greatest quotes around campus, and at home (for break stuff), to give you an idea of how things have been going. Here are a few.

• W - "Did you know that if you try to iron a carpet because it looks wrinkly, this thin plastic stuff melts, and gets all over the iron?" Me - "Did you try it?" W - "Yeah, last semester."
• (little sister holding stethoscope) "I wonder what it sounds like if you fart in this thing?"
• (same sister, still holding stethoscope) "Wowww, that's cool! And it's not even electric!"
• W - "One time in high school we had a quiz on the periodic table of the elements. We had to name an element, and I couldn't think of any, so I put thunder. It wasn't one."
• L - "Maddy! Hurry up! You're taking forEVerrrr!" M - "I'm flossing my teeth!" L - "Are you flossing behind every single tooth?" M - "THAT'S THE CONCEPT OF IT!!"
• W - "How are you related to Uncle Bobby?" Me - "He's my uncle."
• (sitting at lunch) "What would you do if I pulled off my shirt, and all below my neck was muscles and skeletons?"

Pretty Much Every Chem Study Session

Favorite Textbook Quotes 2

In just three days, I finish with probably one of the toughest/class intensive semesters of my life. Things have been crazy lately, and the amount of reading that I had to do just to stay at remotely the same pace as the rest of the class was partly the reason. Anyways, like last semester, I've been paying a lot better attention to the things that I've been reading lately, and as a result, a lot of times I find quotes that tend to make me laugh/smirkbutsaythatIlaughed. Here are a few of my favorite from this past fall.

1. "Just arriving a foreign country, you will always make a fool of youslef." - Thank you Chinese book. And no, that wasn't a spelling mistake.

2.  "The more heat an object gains, the hotter it gets." - How the heck am I failing chemistry? My dad would kill me if he read this, and then saw my grades!

3. "10-80% of female athletes have mild iron deficiency." - Thanks for narrowing that down.

4. While not technically a quote, I found this picture in my physics book.

This pretty much sums up my childhood relationship with my little brother.

 5. "Active people tend to be less obese."- Huh. Who knew?

6. "Cardiac rehabilitation programs are safe....over 80% of patients who have been reported to suffer a cardiac arrest have been successfully resuscitated with prompt defibrillation." - "Well, gosh. With odds like that sign me up for the program, doc!"

7. "Hand grip strength tends to be higher in taller and heavier people." - You mean bigger people are stronger!?

8. "Pregnant women should avoid performing the Valsalva maneuver during exercise." - "The Valsalva maneuver is when you hold your breath and push. So unless you don't want your baby to shoot across the room and hit somebody in the head, I would recommend you breath while you're doing that exercise ma'am." This just brings to mind one question: how do pregnant women poop then?

9. "Stretching exercises are effective in increasing flexibility."- Millions of gymnasts across the world just exhaled after realizing that all that stretching wasn't for naught.

10. "The antipsychotic action of lithium ions was discovered by accident in the 1940s by Australian psychiatrist John Cade as he was researching the use of uric acid, a component of urine, to treat manic depressive illness." - "Hey, maybe if they drink their pee, they'll feel better!" Once again, more proof that God is a practical joker.

That's all I've got for the moment. Luckily, I've still got another whole semester in front of me, where I can discover more quotes like these. And with grad school staring me in the face, there should be many more posts like these in the future!

Things Learned at a Nursing Home

After about two years of off-and-on searching for a way/training in order to get my foot into the door of healthcare, I was finally able to get my certification as a nurse's assistant this past summer. It took a little while to find a job afterwards, but this past July I was actually able to land a job at an assisted living home downtown (yes, I know. That's different than a nursing home. But nobody knows what assisted living is, and for the sake of sparing myself from having to describe it for the 1,563th time I just say I work at a nursing home.). I've been there about 4 months though, which is certainly not very long, but it has been long enough to teach me some very important nursing home (ahem, assisted living residence) lessons. Here are but a few of the lessons that I've learned so far:

1. I used to think farts were funny - now they just scare me.

2. How to deal with non-compliant residents - where I work, many have short term memory loss. When this happens, change the subject, wait three minutes, and ask again.

3. Babies - these are the key to making friends here fast. Walking through a nursing home with a baby is like running through a dog show slathered in bacon grease.

4. How to call 911 - if your resident is unresponsive, he's not sleeping. Call 911.

5. How to say no - like when an old lady tries to kiss your lips.

6. Use your nose - if the first thing you smell when you walk into work is raw sewage, it's not going to be a good day.

7. If you see something brown on the floor, don't pick it up to see what it is - you would think this would be a no-brainer, but no, this actually happened. It went like this:
Me: "What's that brown stuff in Mr. Dude's chair?"
Ms. Ungloved: "I don't know. Let's see."
[she picks it up, as I suffer a mild heart attack]
Ms. Ungloved: "*sniff sniff* Looks like some type of old meat."

8. Old women have no filter - I'm not even going to explain this one. If you've been around them, you know what I mean.

9. DO NOT give ice cream to a lactose intolerant person - especially when they wear diapers. And when your job is to change those diapers.

10. NEVER put your face at butt level - this ties in closely with #9.

 I'm sure there will be many more lessons in the very near future, but to be honest, I don't know whether that should excite or scare me. It will probably be a mixture of things, which I'm ok with. Just as long as most of the things I'll learn in the future aren't like #10. (I still have nightmares about that.)

To a Friend

The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not cannot be hidden.     -1 Timothy 5:24-25

I love this verse (that may sound somewhat prideful in a minute). Just like you can't keep even your secret sins hidden, neither can you keep the secret the good things that you do either. No, I don't love this verse because it means that I'm going to be recognized for the good things I do (see? that's the part where you could have read into things), I love it because many times, we get the opportunity to see this verse in action in other peoples' lives all around us, giving us a better understanding of who that person really is, where there heart is, and causing us to thoroughly enjoy being with them the next time we see them because we feel like we've gotten away with knowing something about them that they really wish no one did (don't lie. You like that feeling too.)

I saw a perfect example of this just within this past week here at college, and as soon as I did, this verse immediately came to mind, and because of seeing it, I had to tell people just what this person did, and how grateful I am for them. My brother just started his freshman year here at the same school as me. Like just about every other college student on the planet, he doesn't have a lot of money. He and a couple of friends were hungry late one night, and decided to hit up a local fast food joint real quick for some cheap food. As he took his place in line, he stared at the menu and asked himself aloud, "Hmm, what can I get for $4?". Apparently, the guy standing right behind him heard what he said, introduced himself, and offered to pay for his meal. The guy didn't know anything about my brother, he just arrived, yet he was willing to pay for his food. What surprised me was when my brother told me the name of the guy: a friend of mine, and fellow student here at school, who likewise, probably doesn't have a ton of money hanging around just so he can pay for strangers' meals. (Does Jesus' reference to the poor widow giving to the temple come to mind?)

And so because of this, I thought this guy deserved a little recognition. This certainly isn't the first time I've seen him do something like this either, he's truly got a heart of gold. And so I say thank you Sean. You're an awesome guy, I'm praying for you, and I'm expecting you to do awesome things for God with your life. You're already doing some already.