Today's blog, Or the Email I sent to a Friend, Or how to kill two birds with one stone

I started tutoring a sixth grader at a charter school a month or two ago. He lives in a impoverished neighborhood an goes to charter school because he was failing out of public school. I take a lot of things for granted. For example we talked about converting feet to inches and minutes to seconds today. I assumed it was common knowledge that 12 in = 1 ft and 60 seconds = 1 minute. What frustrates me most is that he just doesn't know basic multiplication, addition, subtraction and division facts. I think he's a visual learner and enjoys games better than problem solving. I need to figure out a fun way to help him learn how to multiply 9 and 8 or 7 and 12. Have any suggestions from that compendious knowledge of teaching? My hopes are low, I know you did mostly high school science education education. It makes me a little sad to think how fortunate I was that my teachers didn't have to dread a test at the end of the year, that my parents nurtured a love of learning, that I could take advanced classes, that I wasn't born into poverty. I would love to be a teacher if I could only have kids who pay attention 100% of the time, tried 100% of the time and still challenged me. I suppose you can destroy that misconception as well.


























My focus is changing at work for the next month. I will not be seeing patient or working in a clinical faculty. I will begin an entirely analytical enterprise. I am suppose to validate a method to measure a hedgehog pathway inhibitor. We are going to use a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer to measure plasma concentrations of the drug. Errors in the hedgehog pathway have been implicated in rhabdomyosarcoma, basal cell carcinoma, medulloblastoma and a couple other cancers. The primary signaling molecules (honestly) are Indian hedgehog, dessert hedgehog and sonic hedgehog. Up-regulated signaling can cause cell differentiation and proliferation. Hedgehog is also a patterning protein. A natural hedgehog inhibitor is cyclopamine, which causes cyclopia in developing fetuses and haloencephaly (= death). I presented on the pathway with an animated PowerPoint a month ago. If you ever need material for one of your classes in a pinch I can send you a PowerPoint. I will miss seeing the kids in my clinical work but at the same time I will be glad to take a break. Sometimes sick kids can be a little draining and it may be good to rebuild some emotional resources. I have thought about staying in the medical field instead of teaching. Maybe I'll be a epidemiologist. My dream is to solve major health problems like a detective and prescribe a cure like a magician. I just wish it didn't require so much math.

My folks drove to Memphis from IC last Wednesday. I spent Thursday and Friday showing them a little of the town. We strolled through the city zoo for almost five hours and then ate quality BBQ. My favorite course in the meal was the fresh bread. I think the cook coated the dough in bread and the crust came out crispy and sweet. I drove my mom to a quilting store on Friday. My dad came along and on the way out we drove through the Hispanic neighborhood. We saw one service station called "Doauds Tires and Rimes".