While I would love to be working in photography all day, I am not that way. My main love is teaching. I seriously get my kicks out of helping people understand things.

When I was in grad school, I needed one more hour to keep my assistantship one semester. One hour! One of the nice things about being a grad student at the university where you received your undergraduate degree is that sometimes they count your undergrad hours when assigning times that you can register. Yeah, I could register day one. In fact during the first few hours. I had the whole catalog at my disposal. Hmmm.

Although I was going to school in the mountains of North Carolina, I had grown up at the beach and thus have always had a love for water. They offered a PE class which allowed you to gain your certification in SCUBA diving. Holy crap! I could learn how to SCUBA dive in the mountains. I was all over that and signed up.

So where is Keith going with this story? Let me tell you. Our instructor had about three assistants who had taken the class in the past. After a few sessions, we were ready to use a tank and a regulator. Yep, we were going to stick our heads under water and take in a breath of air. The instructor said this would take a while. We all looked at each other wondering why. Then he explained.

He said that he wanted to be in front of each and every one of us as we went under water and took in our first breath of air while our heads were under water. The look in our eyes was amazing he said and he cherished that look. When I teach physics, I see that look almost every day. Yeah, physics is all about math and solving problems, but it also explains the world we live in. We all have our preconcieved ideas about how things work, but when students go through my class, they often figure out things they did not really understand before. I think they have the same look on their face that I had the day I went under water and breathed air for the first time.

Teaching is great and these are from my campus.