I Think It's Time to Up the Weight

Personal trainer: "Alright, I want you to do 20 reps on this one."

Client: "Ok."

[trainer begins to help somebody else adjust a machine real quick while current client lifts away.]

Personal trainer: "Alright, I'm back. How many did you do?"

Client: "50."

How to Skip a Couple Heartbeats

Fake emergencies are nothing new to where I work. Honestly, some days I wonder if the members of my gym are taking bets to see how long it'll take before they put some of the staff in the hospital with some of the things they try to pull.

Attempting to tie your shoe while on a treadmill that's moving? Let me just tell you ahead of time. That's a bad idea.

Faking a heart attack as a joke while doing push-ups? Also a bad idea.

And then there's today.

I'm running around helping gym members with the new software program when a man in a sling begins to yell "HELP! HELP!", while frantically pointing across the gym.

I quickly run over and ask, "What's wrong?! What is it?!"

Gym member: "Can you get me a new piece of paper?"

That man owes me a new pair of pants.

Like Having No Filter?!

[Older man, in his 80's is sitting on the chest press machine when I walk over after just finishing with a personal training client]

Old guy: "Boy, aren't you put together funny!"

Me: "Huh?"

Old guy: "You're built like a worm! I guess God made each of us with our faults..."

What If We Were Bugs?

Here's an interesting what-if scenario for ya.

If you take a close look throughout the animal kingdom, taking time to look at mammals, birds, amphibians, fish, and reptiles, you'll find that all of them have a softer skin surrounding their body, and a hard skeleton on the inside.

Humans have this hard skeletal system too.

Other than serving as a base of support for us, bones also protect vital organs (think of the rib cage), and provide an attachment point for muscles. Sooo...they're pretty important.

Now look at bugs. Unlike virtually every other moving, breathing thing on this planet (minus jellyfish, worms, oysters, and a few other things), bugs have their skeleton on the outside of their body. It's called an exoskeleton.

Now why would God create just about every moving, breathing creature on earth with the same basic fundamental skeletal system with the exception of bugs? Why are bugs really the only creatures on earth with exoskeletons?

My theory is this: bugs are little. Imagine being in a world surrounded by giants everywhere. Big, mean giants that stomp, flick, swat, and hit you. If you were in a world like this, wouldn't it be nice to have some type of armor surrounding your body to protect you? Without it, if all of your soft tissues were on the outside of your body, like ours, imagine the damage that being flicked would cause to you. You'd be obliterated!

Yet how many times have you flicked an ant off of your picnic basket, only to watch it quickly skitter away from you once it lands on the other side of the blanket?

That little exoskeleton protects those little bugs. And without it, there'd be no little bugs, and as a result, there'd be no pollination of plants, no little bugs to eat decomposing material, no food for thousands of animals, and consequentially, no us.

So, that little exoskeleton plays a purpose. God thought of that, and I think that's pretty cool.

9 Minutes to Kill

I've been working on a powerpoint presentation for overweight high school kids attempting to build muscle today (well, kinda. I spent most of the day avoiding it by going swimming and meandering through the local hiking store), and currently have exactly 9 minutes before I have to leave for my last session of the day.

So, the powerpoint pretty much just got thrown out of the window. (I'll just do it later! Yeah, right. And I'll trim the poison ivy off the back porch again, too.)

And so, I sit here typing and reading Action Potential, my favorite medicine-y blog, with the knowledge that I have 6 more papers/projects to write within the next 2.5 weeks before my diabetes class starts up.

Tonight. It's getting done tonight.

What Can You Do With an MPH?

"Oh, you're getting your MPH? What exactly can you do with that?"

I suppose that's a fair question, but since I'm literally asked that question at least twice a day, my answer has become so memorized that I begin to sound like a auctioneer at a hospital spouting out random medicine-y sounding terms. 

I've got a lot of friends considering getting their Masters in Public Health at the moment, and for anybody else that's considering life after undergrad, here's some of the potential opportunities for an MPH student:

• Biostatistician - If you're good with numbers, and medicine interests you as well as statistics and probablility, this may be for you. The pay is awesome, not too many people do this (read: no competition), and you could end up being the researcher that discovers the cure to Alzheimer's using what you know.
• Epidemiologist - Have you seen World War Z, or Contagion? If you want to be the government/hospital employee who is the first to get the vaccine during the next apocalypse, this is the job for you. You'll also be spending your time analyzing the spread of disease in order to find out just where and why outbreaks occur, as well as how to stop them. Pros: awesome pay, super interesting, an extremely broad field, and job security so good you'll be living in a vault. Cons: potentially being in contact with the world's deadliest diseases.
• Health Policy Creator/Politician - A more political route, but a vital one, nonetheless. You'll be responsible for the development of policies that effect populations. Your specialization will probably effect what type of policy/legislation you would help create. For example, if your cognate is nutrition, you'd be the guy who mandates that all high schools in the area have to teach one nutrition class before graduation.
• Humanitarian Aide Guy- If this is what you're into organizations such as the Red Cross, Samaritan's Purse, and the Peace Corps like to snatch up people like you. You'll be traveling overseas and overlooking the distribution of medical supplies and food. You might want to work on learning a second language as well if this is your goal. 
• Public Health Education Person - Your goal here is to educate the population on certain topics pertaining to public health. This is great if you're really passionate and know a lot about a certain subject, and want to tell as many people as possible. 
• Healthcare Management - Though you'll probably never end up managing a large hospital solely with an MPH and no business experience, an MPH is an awesome way to help be certified if you want to own a series of nursing homes, clinics, etc. Really. Take some business classes first.
• Research Assistant - You'll be involved in discovering the risk factors and cures to today's problems. A very noble profession, be be warned, this is often a lot of writing, reading, statistics, and other field/lab work.
• Environmental Health Manager - One of the things that fascinated me about my environmental health class was just how interesting waste management is. Yeah, I know, it sounds stupid. But it's not! I promise! If you want to own a water plant, waste removal business, or something similar, this can help.

Other potential job opportunities lay within the Center for Disease Control (what they blow up in season 1 or 2 of the Walking Dead), the World Health Organization, the United Nations. 

Overall, an MPH prepares you for a rather diverse job field. Whereas with a DPT (nothing against physical therapists), with an MPH you're not pegged to one job for the rest of your life. If you get tired of being an epidemiologist, you can go into research. And once you tire of that you can teach at a university. Then you can write a book. You get the point. So, if you're interested, check it out!

$120

Today was just another day.

Until I clocked in at work this evening just to realize that my client's session was 7 AM, not pm.

And that he woke up early, and stood around for half an hour waiting for me, while I sat on my couch reading 'Divergent', waiting till I was supposed to clock in at other work.

And that I passed on extra hours at rehab, because it was going to interfere with my "evening session"

And now I'm giving two free sessions in an attempt to appease my guilt.

A $120 decision. Crud.

At least 'Divergent' was good, though.