Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and Grad School

I would really like to take a reformer class right now. Everyday. Not for exercise but for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). I'd really like to go train in Sanda, take that african dance class in the city, and walk my dog too.

The lack of NEAT in my life is slowly killing my soul.

I stole away for a few days to the happiest place on earth (which was a small NEAT relief and I have a season pass), returning just in time for my treatment center job.

I pride myself in having eternal patience, but on Friday used every ounce of my will power to not scream and stomp my feet. I was absolutely reeling because everyone suddenly was compliant when the supervisor walked in and started yelling, yet they called me a bitch when I was polite and reasonable.

I almost put in my resignation, but I didn't. The little NEAT I had a few days before let un-jaded Chloe reemerge. I was thrust back into the stress of working my job and had a hard time coping.

One of the proverbial lies patients love to tell is the reason they have to carry around loads of objects because it's their "coping skill," even though it's against the rules.  I started to think about what my coping skill would be...My phone. I usually wait until the patients are in bed before retrieving my phone, which sometimes can be 11 or 12 hours disconnected from the world. I decided to carry it around in my pocket. I felt so much better.

I do get 3 hours of NEAT a week teaching dance outside of school and the treatment center. The students are polar opposites of what I deal with normally. I find them agreeable, kind and lovely to work with.

Yesterday was very difficult to prep for teaching though. The lack of NEAT in my life has created a version of myself that I loathe. I have lost all movement efficiency, and motivation. To combat this I feel like running to the nearest Pilates studio begging them to hire me, so I can have free access to their equipment.

On top of all this lack of NEAT, I am in school and want to drop out every day because they make  us sit and learn things like Glomerular Filtration. Emphasis on the sitting part.

 I am applying to Grad school but don't particularly want to spend the next three years getting an advance degree because of the precious time that will be lost. My only hope is that the time will be recovered because I'll have a good salary with normal hours, and then I'll will finally be able to pursue things I really want to do. (like taking pilates, trying african dance, and walking my dog)

On a side note, I feel like applying to Grad school is a scam. I am not one of those students campaigning for free tuition or an easy path, but it's absolutely ridiculous.

I was happy to pay the 150$ application free, but then mildly upset when I was asked to pay additional 60$ for a supplemental application. It took me over 15+ hours of work to come up with that money. I looked up the salary of admission officers and it's around 38K a year. I would hope they put 210 dollars of their work hours into my application because that seems to be the most reasonable and fair thing to do.

Each school has their own prerequisites. What is frustrating that some schools require dim subjects like Basic Sociology. My job is 100% current social problems and I really don't want to spend a thousand dollars for 3 credits that says I read a two hundred dollar textbook. Persistent Bad Attitude...I am sorry.

Then some schools seem a perfect match but then require a random elective courses in subjects like public speaking, or painting, or Anthropology. Seriously? Let me come show you how articulate I can be, whilst I paint still life, and talk about ancient Mesopotamia.

Every school requires a different random course and judging which ones are worth the extra thousands of dollars in "required courses (costs)" is exhausting and disheartening.

But at least we have days at the Happiest Place on Earth to make it all a little better.

Month in Review

Yesterday we hooked someone up to electrodes and took an Electrocardiogram (ECG). I have a test tomorrow so I am going to type what is happening.

Basically-YOU can ignore this part.

P wave is the depolarization of the Atria, or Atrial Systole (contraction)

QRS complex firing of AV nodes to depolarize the ventricles or Ventricular Systole (contraction)

R Ventricular Contraction Peak

S repolarization of the Atria - With S-T segment plateau in Myocardium Action Potential which I believe has to do with a latent period in the Pacemaker Potential which we need so our heart doesn't stay in tetany (contraction)

There is other stuff but that's the gist of it.

START HERE

Then we had to take blood pressure readings. I know for nurses it is day one in nursing school but for someone who has never done it before it was a little stressful. Especially since they didn't show us how to perform it. I'm also not a nursing student and we had to read step by step instructions. I really have a hard time comprehending and concentrating lately.

And then, there are the nerves in the brain which make me question all my beliefs about life.

#BioCored #SomehowImissedsomething #magicandactionpotentials

I really hate physiology. I went to the lab to find help. We had been studying the effects of toxins on the heart rate and strength of contractions. I was filling out a report and was stuck identifying what the drugs were specifically inhibiting. 

"Uhm, the heart..."

The TA told me to think smaller...

"The cells?"

The TA told me to think like a doctor.  "Think in the sarcolemma, what would this unknown toxin be inhibiting?"

The ryanodine channels? They aren't opening, so calcium is not being released. So... there is no action potential?" 

In case you haven't figured it out yet. Life is Action Potentials.

Oh and my job. Let me just reiterate...

Month in Review

I'm taking a course in which I have no foundational knowledge.  I'm kind of ticked me off because I've been alive for almost a quarter century, and this is all new to me.

I wish someone would have at least mentioned something about the Soduim-Potassium Pumps. I'm tempted to not believe in them because...how do they know this is really going on?

Also if it is true, do I need to start eating bananas because I had no idea potassium is so important?

The pumps are keeping you alive.



This is what we learned on the first day. It's the critic acid cycle or Krebs cycle. They mentioned it once in Biology 5 years ago but I thought it was dumb so I didn't pay attention. Actually whenever someone mentions the Krebs cycle, I always think about Mr. Krabs.















We also go to the laboratory. There are only 3 people in my section. An old lady, me, and then a guy who's applying to dental school. Dental School guy is getting us through lab. Last week we had to do a stupid chemistry experiment. I didn't learn anything. But felt like this.






I'm repeating a course. I took it in 2010. To apply to the program I'm applying, it has to be in the last five years of your start date. It's horrible. We wear lab coats though.

It's a whole class of evil scientists. JK. Most people are really snobby and think they are gonna be the next surgeon general. But all I'm thinking is "you look kind of frumpy in your lab coat."

We study cadavers a good 6 to 8 hours a week.
We look like this, except we wear lab coats. Quote of the day, "This leg is really heavy." It was just a leg.

My group was struggling to locate the plantaris during open lab. Having taken the course before I knew exactly were it was. They didn't believe me when I showed it to them. But the TA validated it, and they said "Oh, you were right." It's a pretty easy muscle to find cause it looks like a plant.







I have become completely and utterly desensitized at my job. I'm not really surprised by anything anymore.







I joined this research group thinking I was going to be one of the cool kids, make lots of friends. It's basically slave labor. We are currently working on a project which includes my least favorite activity. Searching for articles and citing them. We were each given 100 articles to cite over midterms.

Took a secret picture lol

Last week, they were going on and on about some higher thought process topic...I was just a warm body in the room. They asked my opinion. I told them the truth. The professor is my cousin so I feel duty bound to press on. 

That was September.

Debunking the Ballet Hamstring Myth

I've become much more adept to studying than I was say... 5 years ago. I never studied until the day of the exam, but now I study everyday. I don't do anything except study and go to PCS (the children's treatment center.)

I spent the last several hours reviewing dimensional analysis, and molarity...taking 10 min breaks every 45 mins following perfect studying habits. I decided I deserved an hour break for lunch and came back to where I left off...well, I forgot everything in an hour. Apparently I don't understand it.

Since I'm facing 5 hours in the lab tonight, I'm taking a few hours off to enlighten everyone, especially the misinformed dance teachers and students everywhere. Hold on to your tights!!!!

I took a modern class this summer. Hated it. The icing on the cake was spending 20 minutes discussing how to execute développé and extensions without engaging your quads or hip flexors. "If you engage you hamstring on your working leg, you will increase your extensions because your quads won't get tired (since your working with your hamstring). And have a longer hold time in développé front and a la seconde"??????? um...that's not how it works mechanically.

I have no idea how this teacher believed she was actually extending without the use of her quads or hip flexors. And I've heard this "idea" many times throughout my life and it is impossible. Yes use you hamstrings to lift initially, but they aren't going hold your leg out there. (Like this teacher was trying to get everyone to do.)

EVERYBODY LISTEN. Because I know lots of stuff and no one ever takes advantage of my knowledge. And this piece of information blew the minds of some kids at a random dance studio I teach it  (yes I know I said I'd never teach again, but somehow it happened.)

Pelvic Floor. Martha Graham told dancers "to lift with their underparts." That's exactly it.

Thank You Margie Mack. I don't like to use Google Image Search.

I had everyone lay down, find the ASIS (Anterior Superior Illiac Spine (front hip bones)) and then move medial and posterior into their organs and then literally lift their underparts. Working to engage and feel those deep muscle groups. What do you know?

Kids stood up did their développés and were freaking out. "Do you have any idea how much easier it is?"  "OMGOSH! It's so easy now." "You taught us something new that actually works!"

I used to charge people 45$ dollars an hour to share my knowledge...not just this... I once fixed someone's pirouettes in like 3 minutes before an audition once. But only like 3 people cared so that's why I work at PCS (the children's treatment center now.) But really I can like...fix anything.

 Perfect Split? Give me an hour....well, if you are close haha. If not then a few weeks.

Tear your achilles tendon? I'll get that calf to start firing...

Ok sorry everyone. This was not supposed to be how amazing BioCored and myself happen to be...I just get really excited with how BioCord principles work right away and I cleared up a lot of misinformation. Basically changed those dancers lives :)

KORRA OUT.





 

What a Week...

On Sunday it all started pretty terrible. A patient at my work began assaulting another patient. Who happened to be standing in close proximity? Me. I had to perform the "handle with care" (i.e. restraint) until the other staff came.

It's pretty upsetting to the other patients. The evening was downhill from there as the violence with the patient escalated. The more experience staff took over and I was left in charge of all the other patients, some who became verbally aggressive and defiant. I had to yell and shout to assert my dominance, which I have felt just awful about ever since it took place. Some of the patients said they hated me...

By the end of the shift I really couldn't handle (real life- as in protecting teens with severe  psychological, destructive tendencies) anymore. I used every ounce of will power to not beg another staff to take over my post and let me leave.

Great way to begin finals week.

Monday: I forced myself to wake up and drive to the State Hospital at 7 am. It was the last thing I wanted to do after the previous night. I put in 5 shadowing hours, thankfully with no incident and then locked my self in the library for the next 3 days.

You can imagine my anxiety was running quite high because if I didn't do well on the final exams the last 2 months would have been a waste. I will admit there were some tears Wednesday night but I resolved there was nothing more I could do. I had to take a comprehensive Statistics exam Thursday morning and had to get a 70 to keep my current grade. I had little room for margin of error.

Thursday. I really like learning, but I hate exams. Once I got so angry and frustrated during a test I wanted to burn the testing center down. I don't have pyromania disorder, I just really don't like tests. But in the 80 question Stats exam things were going pretty smoothly. I was filling out answers fairly confidently.

When I take exams I make a list of questions I don't know, questions I might miss, and ones that I think I got right, but there is a small chance they are wrong.  I always take the test twice to ensure everything is correct and double check all my answers. I started fatiguing at the 2.5 hour mark. I was checking and rechecking, when panic set in that perhaps everything was wrong and I began second guessing every answer. After 3 hours I gave up and turned it in.

And I got an 80%.

And then the whole week did a 180. I indulged in a trip to the pool, Pitch Perfect, and got paid for my protective duties ;) I have to work the next 3 days at the treatment center, but perhaps things have calmed down.

First and Last Post Ever About Religon

At my job, patients have the option of attending a church service. They have a Mormon service in the morning and a Non-Denominational Service in the evening, or they don't have to attended at all.

I have had very religious education. 4 years of mandatory religious seminary in high school (before school, started at 6am---I have lots of reserved feelings about those 4 years). Anyways, and then the unofficial little known fact of my religious studies minor that was required by my university. (14 credits worth, then all church they could squeeze into secular classes and on the weekends.)

I know A LOT of stuff going down...doctrine and historical.

You can imagine I've become a little burnt out. And honestly I only do the minimum to keep an ecclesiastical endorsement which is required to attend to school. So when they asked if I could work instead of sit through 3 hours of church and extra churhy' responsibilities that would go all night, I readily said yes ;)

When I arrived at work, they asked if I could accompany some patients to the non-denominational service. I was really excited because I'd never experienced anything outside of my own religion. Well the service actually turned out to be a vocal and well known Christian sect service (I'm not going to say which one to be diplomatic)

I tried to make eye contact with the other staff in the room because demographically everyone is the same religion here. Expect the patients and the preacher. No idea where they found the preacher.

Sunday's service was about not believing in fairy tales. To me that meant not believing in Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Dream, Harry Potter (though I would join if it was a church ;), or Disney (which probably could be considered a religion) haha.

He began that we should not believe in Allah...because he is a fairy tale.


Question #1 I'm definitely NOT Muslim. And perhaps it is my own paradigm or mis/understanding, but the Arabic-Engish translation of Allah is God. I assumed that Muslims believe in the same God as Christians, as Christians believe in same as the Jewish Elohim which translates to God. Did I miss that we all are not believing in the same God. And it made me a little sad to hear him say Allah is a fairy tale.

He continued to point out some very key points of the Religon of the staff. How our beliefs are all fairy tales. It made my stomach knot a little. You don't sit through four years of early morning seminary, and four years of university religious education, to have someone tell you your beliefs are fairy tales when we are all reading the same Bible.

Next he explained the Bible is perfect and we don't need to rely on anything other than the Bible.


Question #2 Fine, Fine, but then which one? There's like 50 different versions..King James, Gideon, Amplified Bible, Easy to Read Bible. And then all the copies that the Monk's were copying by hand until Gutenberg. Can we say... omg here is my statistics lingo...

Can we say with 100% confidence the monks and translators all had a small margin of error? There is no way to test our null hypothesis. Assuming we took all the earliest manuscripts and compared them to today's versions, (I doubt we would have a sample size larger than 30 for early manuscripts) (which is standard for conducting statistical research) even then we could not use a 100% confidence interval because our sample size would be so small.

I just don't think the Bible can be so perfect... But that's just me, not my actual Religous beliefs. And there are a lot of good books out there that teach just as many morals as the Bible.

Before the last question let me set the scene. The patients I work with have endured abuse so traumatic, their diagnoses are scattered throughout the DSM-5. Every adult in their life has failed them and I would even say that God has failed them. It is my understanding that we need to be positive and uplifting in every way.

What the preacher said next made my ears curl and I wanted to throw up. He quoted John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

He told all those children that being a child of God was indeed a fairy tale. Because here in the true and perfect Bible, Jesus says your father is the devil. How could you tell these poor kids...who are suicidal, having been subjected to every evil by their parents that they are indeed children of the devil. 

Question #3 This is not what I was taught, and this is not what my normal Christian friends believe. I woke up the next morning dead set on figuring out what was going on when Jesus said those things. Jesus was in fact, speaking to the Pharisees who denied Christ as a son of God. From my religious training, I remembered son's of perdition, people who deny Christ  are deemed as followers of Satan. Perhaps that's what Jesus meant.

So it is my understanding that by believing in Christ you can be a child of God. I don't think that has to be pre-requisite to be a child of God though... Unless you go out and are super anti Christ I think you'll be ok.

Anyways...Crazy. All the staff had a good laugh about all the anti-stuff he said about us.

Five Days of Clinical Abnormal Psych

Sorry no pictures this time. I didn't plan on writing this but found myself alone at the library on Saturday night so decided to blog.

Tuesday began my first day as a PT aide at the state hospital. They said it was OK if we didn't know anything, and I really had no idea when I went in there.

I learned about 5 exercises before the patients came in. I figured since I was new, they would keep teaching me but they sent me with a patient right away. Of course I was nervous, but being thrown in ended up working out just as well. After a few hours I noticed all the PT volunteers were working with patients, the PT Interns were loitering, and the DPT was typing away at his computer. That's got to fall under exploitation of volunteers or something.

The next day I went with the OT department for a life skills class, which happened to fall on cooking skills day. Now this works out great for me. I get volunteer hours for my class, shadowing hours for my application and a free homemade lunch. And I don't really have to do anything except act really interested and smile. They were making homemade mac in cheese, and pork and beans. It was great because I had not eaten in a while and I definitely took advantage of the free food. I ate until I was full...probably too full.

The next day I went with the OT department for a class on nutrition and portion control. Definitely brushed up on my topics of portion control, and admitted I probably went overboard on the mac n cheese the day previous. It made the other OT laugh.

Being at the state hospital is quite lugubrious...(best thesaurus word I could find other than sad). I asked the OT how long the patients stay. She told me all of them were civilly committed. Which from Abnormal Psych we know civil commitment requires:

1.) The patient is mentally ill or
2.) Dangerous to themselves or others or
3.) Gravely Disabled or
a combination of those....

Some of them never leave the state hospital.

Friday began my first day at my (finally) paid job at the behavioral treatment center. It's similar to the state hospital except they are trying to intervene before they end up at a state hospital or worse.

The people working at the center were tired. Probably because I gleefully bounced in Friday afternoon, and they had been there all week. I wasn't really working at first, but shadowing to get familiar with all the specific rules...since the 40 hours of horror story filled orientation didn't cover specifics. I tried to be my overly accommodating self and took over all the paperwork which must be updated every 15 minutes (You know just so they find me agreeable and as humanly helpful possible.)

I'm not going to write specifics on my blog except 2 major things that bothered me.

1.) For any infraction all NEAT was taken away from the patient for several hours to a few days. But not just NEAT. Everything.
AND
2.) And if you don't have NEAT, your brain, especially your vestibular brain, is not getting appropriate stimulation.

One patient who had multiple infractions that day, needed vestibular stim really bad. I knew this because after a day of no NEAT, once they had made up for their infractions---they almost impulsively were hanging upside down on the furniture, cartwheeling and somersaulting on the bed...which equates to more infractions. I know how to fix vestibular issues in about 5 minutes, but I dutifully told her stop, marked the infraction and continued filling out the paper work.

And that was 5 days in a row of clinical Abnormal Psych.