FA08

I have plenty of reasons for not posting that often anymore. The main reason is that I have less to write about. Well, I might have the same amount of things going on in my life as before, but I choose to write less often. When I look back on my old posts there are a lot that could be done without; a lot of ranting that was unnecessary, so why not just post that which I think is actually important. I usually have one or two blog ideas written in my planner in the course of a week, but selectivity counts most of those out. Okay, I'm done qualifying this post, on to the substance.

Another reason I don't blog that often is that this semester is a rough one. I'm only taking four classes [thirteen credits], but that doesn't paint the whole picture. Here's a class by class breakdown for you:

Fundamentals of Human Anatomy
Typically anatomy class. Three hours of lecture, three hours in the lab a week. We're currently on the skeletal system, moving towards muscles. We start dissection next week [cats, sorry mom], so that should be interesting. It's a lot of learning, memorizing and labeling very small parts of the human body. I know where your Sella Turcica is, and you probably don't.

Biomechanics
This class seems more like a physics class in which all the examples are given in the context of human movement. There's a lot of trig and a fair amount of stats, but the labs are really cool. The kinesiology department has an amazing system that uses eight cameras that capture movement using reflective markers, capturing one hundred and sixty frames per second. This allows us to study movement [such as jump height and jump velocity] very, very accurately. It's pretty cool, except for all the math.

Health Promotion in the Workplace
This class actually serves as the health promotion department for Iowa State. We're divided into eight groups, some working on setting up health screenings, some working on a pedometer/walking challenge, and so on. My group is the newsletter group, we're in charge of coming up with a monthly theme [October's theme is women's health], writing articles and getting it ready to go out to all of the faculty and staff. I offered myself to be the editor and I have mixed feelings towards that decision. I think that in my group I am probably the best choice for that position, but on the other hand, it sucks. Once the articles are written everything is pretty much up to me until it gets handed in to our group supervisor. I suppose that it's a good learning opportunity in leadership and whatnot, but it's not entirely my cup o' tea. So if you don't hear from me this week it's because I'm working* hard on the October copy of "Wellness Works" - and no, I didn't get to name it.

Management of Health and Fitness Facilities
I'm not entirely fond of this class, but it isn't awful. It's basically a business class framed in the fitness industry. And since I hope to be in more of a clinical setting [hospital rather than health club] it doesn't suit me that well. This past week we discussed sales, and I would do hard labor any day over sales. Anyway. The main project in this class is a business proposal, and I have already decided that my group is screwed. I choose to not take up the leader-role in this group, as I already have the editor mantle, and I'm really glad I made that choice. We just don't seem to have a good focus yet, and when we meet our discussion is all over the place and rarely gets settled. I'll be happy when that project is done and dead.

So there you have it. And then work. And then a couple of small groups. And dinner with the parents one night a week. And fitting football, The Office, 30 Rock and Heroes in there. And I'm mostly full. I'm wasting a lot of time too, and have decided to try to aim for a more constructive use of my free time, i.e. reading, origami, working out, doing the work for Bible study, writing blogs, etc. It could happen [insert Wayne Campbell quote here]. Also, I could make more time for sleep, like right now. you have my love.

* At first I misspelled "working" as "woring" and spell checker suggested "whoring", which I thought wasn't too far from the truth, but not entirely. Whatever, it's funny. Laugh.