All Posts Tagged With: "lab"
The most common disease among university students
Warning: pulling an all-nighter may cause Social Moronitis
I had a little over two weeks to write the final lab report for my biochemistry course. It was the kind of assignment that seems relatively simple at first glance when you read over the outline. Meaning, the kind that’s tempting to leave on my desk for two weeks and finish at the last minute.
But the day before it was due, I realized the lab report had been hibernating in a cocoon on the corner of my desk and undergone a metamorphosis. Suddenly it included a bazillion graphs, charts, tables, figures, and in-depth analysis questions.
I stayed up the whole night and managed to finish the lab report on time, but there was a trade off: I had to spend every single last brain cell. For the next 24 hours, I was infected with Social Moronitis.
I spoke too loudly. I couldn’t hear so well. And I began to uncontrollably breathe through my mouth, exhaling too deeply. I lost the ability to make eye contact- instead, I had a weird, wandering soft focus.
As the day went on, I started to develop an annoying laugh. A couple hours later, I started giving people detailed descriptions of my dreams. I developed a sinus condition. And then I became convinced that people wanted to hear about it.
The road to recovery isn’t an easy path. I’m still re-mastering the whole “default-facial-expression-that-doesn’t-involve-my-jaw-hanging-wide-open” thing.
But I think I now understand why some people don’t have a sense of body space. They probably stayed up all night working on a lab report, and became infected with Social Moronitis. They can’t read facial cues from a normal distance, so they have to stand within three inches of someone’s face to tell if they’re happy, annoyed, or on the verge of beating the crap out of the person who’s now invading their body space.
What’s better than perfection?
Uhhhh… nothing.
The glossary of my biology textbook has the perfect definition of a cell:
“A cell is the structural, functional and biological unit of all organisms.”
My biology lab report requires a definition of ‘cell,’ but I’m not allowed to just repeat the textbook’s already precise and exact definition. It has to be “paraphrased using original language.”
The thing is, sometimes there’s only one perfect way to define a word. Yes, I can come up with other ways to try and explain the word “cell.” But they’re going to be lesser definitions. In other words, not as precise. Or perfect.
Short of performing an interpretive dance for my biology lab TA’s, there is no original way of defining “cell.” It’s been done already.
There’s only one solution: writing like Yoda.
“The structural, functional, and biological unit of all organisms, the cell is.”
-photo courtesy of Hljod.Huskona
Final marks: stalling my summer vacation
On my chem lab exam, did I say fumaric and maleic acid are alkenes?
All my exams are finished. My summer vacation should have officially started April 24.
But it didn’t.
Because right now, I can’t enjoy playing Halo 3 with my friends. I can’t relax and read a book. When I watched Righteous Kill last weekend, I suddenly remembered question 14 of my chemistry lab exam, and then spent the next hour and a half wondering, “Did I say fumaric and maleic acid are alkenes?”
My summer vacation can’t begin.
At least, not until I know what my chemistry lab mark is.
Buck naked in my chemistry class
The only thing worse than setting my hair on fire
Getting your hair set on fire isn’t the worse thing that can happen to you in my chemistry lab.
My chemistry class has a separate, optional lab component. It’s basically an excuse use to words like, “Titration analysis,” while wearing a cool white lab coat. But before the Chemistry Department entrusts students with chemicals, open flames and acid (sometimes all at once), the laboratory instructor has to go over safety procedures, which includes a discussion of accidents from previous years. Getting your hair set on fire is bad enough. Your lab partner setting your hair on fire, with neither of you noticing for a few minutes, is even worse. Either way, I think the person’s ponytail was morphed into a goat tail by the time anyone noticed.
The laboratory instructor then outlined the emergency protocols if someone spills potentially dangerous chemicals on his or herself.
If you spill something on yourself, you have to — get this — strip completely naked and stand under the emergency shower. After all, what could be worse than getting third degree acid burns all over your body from concentrated hydrochloric acid, right?
I spent a couple of minutes trying to locate the shower stall until it finally dawned on me: there isn’t one. The “emergency shower” is a little shower head. Without any walls. In the middle of the laboratory.
