Tutoring

On Monday I saw a flier at the entrance to the part of the library where I worked. It said something like:

TUTOR WANTED: Must be proficient with AP Biology, Pre-calculus, English Literature, and US Government. Being fluent in German is a plus. $$$ Call me at (555) 123-4567

I looked at that for a while and then I realized that I was pretty proficient in all those areas. Maybe not so much with US Government, but, hey, I've watched a lot of West Wing, so how hard can it be?

I contacted the guy and he told me that he has a German foreign exchange student who is struggling with all her classes. So tonight was my first night being a tutor. It was pretty easy. I just had to explain the different organelles in a cell and what y=mx+b meant. And it was cool to be able to speak a little German again. And it was cool to be able to make some sweet moolah doing it, too. It wasn't as awkward as I was expecting it to be. So that's a plus.

Rubber Subs

I heard from one of my professors that submarines aren't detected my radar because they have a coating of rubber around them. Not sure if it's true, but it makes kind of sense.

First Breath and Heart Holes

When babies take their first breath, a hole in their heart slams shut. I learned about this in my anatomy class, and I thought it was one of the most interesting things I had ever heard.

An unborn baby's circulation isn't like ours. The oxygen rich blood comes in through the umbilical cord and bypasses the lungs to supply their body with oxygen, and then the de-oxygenated blood leaves their body through the umbilical cord. Since they aren't using their lungs, they don't need all of the different chambers in the heart. There is a hole that connects the right and left atria called the foramen ovale.

You can see that the walls are overlapping, leaving a little space for the blood to pass through. The blood passes through that hole until the baby is born and something cold--usually air--hits the baby's face. Once that happens, the two flaps slam together, thereby creating a seal and directing the blood flow to the lungs. If a baby is born in warm water, the infant can stay under water for 10 or 15 minutes with the little hole still open. Once they're brought up, the hole closes and the baby uses their lungs oxygenate their blood. Crazy!

This is also what people refer to when they say they have a "hole in their heart." What that means is that the foramen ovale didn't seal completely. There is still a little gap and the blood can pass back and forth between those two chambers, mixing the oxygen rich and oxygen poor blood, making the whole circulatory system less efficient. It can be fixed with a simple surgery, so no worries there.

Death Ray Hotel

I heard about this in the news today. The Vdara Hotel, owned my MGM in Las Vegas, is equipped with a Death Ray. No no, not like the Death Star. This hotel uses sunlight to scorch its victims.

You see the concave surface of the hotel? There is a pool in front of the hotel and if someone sits just right, the sunlight gets focused and lights their hair on fire--no joke. In addition to burning hair, the Vdara Death Ray has been known to melt plastic cups and plastic bags. It makes me want to see it. I think I would try to put things in front of it to see if it would melt or not. Perhaps I would take part in a contest to see how long one could stand in the path of the Death Ray.

Honky-tonk?

Katie sometimes enjoys listening to country music. I enjoy it less. One phrase that has continued to intrigue me is "honky-tonk." Is it a noun? A flavor? A derogatory remark? A color? I had no idea.

I looked it up on the almighty Wikipedia, and I found out that it is a bar.

How anti-climatic.

Rocks on roof

Have you ever wondered why rocks are placed on a large flat roof? I learned this earlier this week in my Structures class. I thought they were there to help drain water or something. Their purpose is actually to keep the tar paper from blowing off. With the wind blowing over the roof, the wind movement creates a negative pressure, making the entire roof want to rise. The tar paper isn't hooked as well to the structure as the huge roof, so a simple, cheap, and effective solution is to add rocks to act as ballast.

And I think the simple, cheap, and effective solutions are always the best.

Stamps as legal tender

 I heard a while ago that you can use stamps as legal tender to purchase things at the store. This kind of made sense to me--they are government issued pieces of paper with a value printed on them, after all. I did some research, and I think that it's totally bogus now. I found sources that said you could use them, but only if the other guy was OK with it. And you can do that with pretty much anything. I could give you my school notebook in exchange for groceries, and if both parties are happy, then everything's OK.

And what about "forever" stamps. Those could be considered a type of investment, with their value increasing every year.