Wednesday, October 01, 2003
I got up bright and early this morning and went to class. When I got back, my roommate was still asleep. Now that's depressing.
Last night was my first chemistry exam of the year. We had had a number of quizzes, but this was the first test. I've no idea whatsoever how I did. I might have done OK, I might have bombed it. I forgot the formulas of permanganate and acetic acid, which is not good, but we shall see what we shall see.
As a side note, I don't think that I much like having night tests. It was just odd to be going to take a test when it was dark out. I felt like I should be going to muck about on the diag, not going to my chemistry-oriented doom.
I then spent the rest of the night working on my manifesto. It was supposed to be a big ol' DNA model made out of wooden dowels and clay. The dowels with their little pull-down sheets of information were done. I had the clay all ready to go. It was molded and I had it taped to the legs of my chair so that it would dry in the right shape. I got back from class around 6:15ish, bolted some dinner, studied a little, and went to my chemistry exam.
I get back from chemistry around 9:30 in the pm. I walk into my room and stand in horrified discovery. The clay is all cracked, smashed, and broken. Let's not even get into the theories of how and/or why. It's already too dry to reshape. The bookstores are closed so I can't get more. It is due the next day. I think I started hyperventilating.
Hell, I know I started hyperventilating.
To make a very long night short, I happened to have some metal mesh stuff in my room. The fact that it was there at all was the merest incidence of chance... I had picked it up the last time I was in the bookstore because I thought I might need it to reinforce the clay a little. Being my usual insane self, I had bought more of it than I thought I would need. Thank cats for my over-diligence. It's the only thing that saved me.
I made the frelling manifesto. I spent pretty much the entire night cutting up wire and, consequently, my hands. My fingers have tons of maddeningly little scratches all over them now. Ouchness. It looks like utter shite, and it will undoubtedly fall to bits as I try to get it to North Campus, but I got the damn thing done, even though all the fates were aligned against me and my completion of this particular project. Hercules himself could not have done more.
nope, it's not just the photos. it really does look that bad.
Oh, and just to add insult to injury, we have to dress up to present the damn things. I frelling hate getting dressed up.
Today in chemistry we learned that overfed babies emit hydrogen from their plump little posteriors. Our professor, whose research projects revolve around harnessing and utilizing hydrogen, thinks that we should use the babies to generate hydrogen for hydrogen-driven vehicles, since good hydrogen is otherwise hard to come by.
I was forcibly reminded of the Book o' Timers and the babies searching out pennies and blood with their magnificent senses of smell and taste. Oh, and the edible babies. Musn't forget them. The fact that my chemistry teacher occasionally has so much in common with that particular Swampscott (and Nahant, 'cause of Corey) crew both terrifies and delights me.
I still can't figure out where he's from, though. His accent is deucedly hard to place. He says things like 'petrol' and 'bloody' and 'you'll be very happy and jolly but then you'll keel over and you're DEAD' (discussing carbon monoxide), but he's definitely some vague sort of middle eastern. Random words get weird pronunciations... 'cumulative' is 'cue-mill-uh-tiv' and 'iron' is 'eye-run'. I dunno, I just wonders, I does. Full o' curiosity, me. It's the Feline Within.
Today the demonstration involved the always classic freezing-things-with-liquid-nitrogen experiments. The assistant, Ed, froze a raquetball and smashed it to bits on the floor. Professor Yaghi got terribly excited about this. There was another ball which Ed used to show us that, when unfrozen, it bounced normally. Our professor, after we had seen one shatter, eagerly said, "Oh I love that one. Can you do the other ball? But maybe throw it against the wall, yes?" He looked like a little kid. It was funny.
Ed also brought in a balloon full of hydrogen. Prof. Yaghi eyed it warily before asking, "Are you going to explode that?" Which amused the class. And yes, he did blow it up. We had already done it before, but apparently it seemed like a fun thing to do again.
Hum. Yup. Still dislike the subject of chemistry, but enjoy the class probably more than I should. If I had a bad or boring teacher I would be in the deepest pits of Hades.
Must go consume some comestibles. Until the next, cher reader, until the next.
10:55 AM
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