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| Good afternoon, campers! I don't have time for a full update at the moment, but may I'm currently thrilled that within the last hour I've seen two of my favorite former (though one is returning) Wheaties! Ben Holmes & Caleb Boyes are back! Hazoo! Have a nifty afternoon, & remember to look them up whilst they're here. | | |
| Good morning, campers! I come to you with a woe, it has happened again! Those vile regulators of thought have once again tried to alter the way we Americans process information. We've long known it was infiltrating our public school system, but to see it so subtly ingrained on our own campus - oh the injustice of it all! Today as I was practicing differential equations, I came across an example of the plague that is political correctness in my very own Calculus textbook! The culprit question was as follows...
"Sharia placed a 72 degree C can of soda pop in a refrigerator set to 44 degrees C. After a half hour, the can was 61 degrees C. How long will it take the can to cool to 50 degrees C?"
Read it again. Sharia placed what? A can of soda pop? Now, nevermind that this is blatantly disrespectful to Southern/Midwestern American culture, as everyone in these areas knows the so called 'soda pop' is actually called 'coke'. This aside, all in America know that for years the war over the nomenclature of carbonated beverages has raged on, with some dedicating it 'soda', & others declaring it 'pop'. This cowardly attempt at moderation should not stand! If you're going to be a multiculturalist, then there's no reason you shouldn't stand up for your heritage & shout to the heavens (I mean, the vast, empty vacuum) how you know in your heart of hearts (a statement which really makes no sense, by the way) that carbonated beverages are by nature 'coke', or whatever incorrect name you choose to fill in the blank with. Why the fear? Isn't there enough injustice in world already? I mean, for the love of God (if she or it is real), there are people sketching Mohammed into cartoons! While walking through a security checkpoint without her clearance badge, a black Congresswoman had to punch a racist security guard upon confronting her! (Fortunately, she may be compensated for this ordeal as she's suing the fellow.) Isn't there enough pain without this pathetic pandering to factions of the cola wars? Have a nifty morning, & remember to be considerate of others (unless you don't want to be...or does it not count in that case?) | | |
| Good afternoon, campers! Hazoo for the last Biochem Lab EVER! That's right, even I end up enrolling in Advanced Biochem, there are still NO LABS. In fact, if I do drop Cell & Developmental Biology to take Adv. BC, then I could be done w/ labs for the rest of my collegiate career. (This is where killing myself these past two years overloading w/ science begins to pay off) I think at this point I've had a/b 70 hours of science. I've only taken a/b 90 hours of classes. I've had 7 of the 8 Bio profs (plus Michelson & Ogilvee) & all 6 chem profs. Am I out of my mind? Absolutely.
It is because of this, however, that I can't decide whether I should hold to my guns one last time & take C&DB, or go live in Breyer for the 7th straight semester. I figure since Capstone only meets once a week, it doesn't really count as seeing everyone, & I doubt Neurobiology (considering what has now happened w/ Pharm Phys two semesters in a row) is going to get big numbers next spring, so this could be my last hurrah with the Bio majors. (I have 18 hours of Gen Eds to complete over the next two semesters...oops...) Whatever shall I do? Oh well, this reminds me. It's amazing that even though there are a/b six chemistry majors per class at Wheaton, they made an absolutely ridiculous amount of noise for Dr. Walhout's tenure & promotion today in chapel. To be fair, I'm sure I wasn't the only bio major assisting them. (Again, being fair, it still wasn't nearly as great as our cry for Dr. Page - who I didn't realize was getting tenure this year. I knew she was being reviewed, but I thought she wasn't receiving it until the upcoming academic season.) Oh well, maybe we're just an excitable bunch. We're like protons undergoing NMR spectroscopy. We're also massive dorks. Oh well, have a nifty afternoon, & remember to celebrate the last week of classes! | | |
| Good morning, campers! Today (or yesterday, rather) I had the wonderful oppertunity to make an appearance in the college's capital campaign video. My job was to play the role of a biochemistry student busy in lab, which I suppose depending on your perspective, was or wasn't acting. While I have to say it was fun, it was also slightly awkward. To begin with, we were not doing a real experiment. My lovely & talented partner, Laura Ordway, & I were 'running' a Sephadex column. This was all lovely & fine, as we were all doing fake experiment, until we learned that Dr. Bryson would be coming up to us to discuss with us our 'project'. Again, this would have been fine, but we were being taped, meaning that we had to come up with intelligent answers. Which again, might've been fine, until Laura decided that I would be answering all of the questions, & even that might've been okay, except that they rolled the cameras for 5-10 minutes filming this discussion. So I'm being filmed there, the undergrad playing with what for all practical purposes was food coloring while attempting to hold my own in a legitimate academic exchange of the biochemical principles behind the fake experiment we were conducting with Dr. Bryson. Now, while I'm sure they won't include my verbal gaffe a/b the order of 'elurtion', it embarasses me that there will be many potential donors, many of whom will be my colleagues, seeing me participating in this very strained conversation a/b the difference between the Sephadex separation & a cation exchange resin, moving into the absorbances of proteins & their related bacterial hosts. In all honestly, though, it really wasn't that I didn't understand what we were talking a/b, it was just that it isn't how we talk in lab. In biochem lab we have the radio playing relatively loudly (for a Chemistry department), compounded w/ me dancing & occasionally singing to it while Dr. Bryson randomly calls out "Grasswalker!" from across the room where she is scouting out any offenders from the second floor window. The sudden professionalism of, well, honestly anyone in that lab was absolutely mind blowing. I should stop here, & put it out there that in case any of those potential donors are reading this (as I'm sure they never miss an update) that of course isn't remotely true...yeah...Have a nifty morning, & remember to check out us sexy chemophiles should you have the chance to see the video. | | |
| Good afternoon, campers! It's finally over! The monster is slain! That demonic entity sucking the marrow out of my life known as the MCAT is gone...forever. Well, until the scores return, but at this point there's nothing I can do. Well, nothing I can do anymore. I always find it strange when profs & friends tell you that "you shouldn't worry b/c it's now out of your hands". That's only true in the physical sense. While the score is scaled, our score is still empirically dependent upon how we answered the questions. We already have a score, we just don't know what it is yet. Although it is true that they occasionally throw out questions, your score is basically set. It's gonna be a long wait til the returns come in...much like the actual test. I was at the test center from 7:15 in the morning til 6:15 in the afternoon. Now, I was aware when I signed up that this was an 8 hour test, but this is exacerbated by 5 or 6 proctors handing out each answer sheet individually, each booklet individually, reading through 5 to 10 minutes of instructions for how to fill out a page that is identical to not only every other standardized test form you've seen in your life - but is identical to every other form you have filled out in your 11 hour journey through this monster. When the 100 or 80 minute section (depending on which section one is currently in) is over, they then take up each answer sheet individually, each booklet individually, & then - I assume b/c they're being paid by the hour rather than a flat performance fee, the proctors will each inspect each booklet individually to ensure that no one is cheating or disadvantaged or whatever so that no one blames their lack of correct answers on an oppression of some manner. It is also didn't help that TWICE they handed out the wrong booklets in the wrong order. Oh well.
As for the test itself, I thought it actually went quite well. The most feared portion of the test (for most, anyway), the Physical Sciences Test, was actually more chemistry than physics, a welcome revelation for this chemophile. (A-Chem was so worth it) Even better, the physics that was on there involved little calculating...it was quite nice. Verbal sported relatively simple passages with some strange questions. More than once there was a question asking for a specific conclusion which featured very general answer choices. Biological Sciences was a/b what I expected, it was definitely a head scratcher, with one particularly nasty Orgo passage, but it was certainly doable. The worst part for me was actually the writing passage, b/c I accidentally tore the binding off of my answer notebook, & was worried they wouldn't replace it. We only have 30 minutes to write an essay, & it took a/b 15 to get a new book. If it hadn't been for Kaplan, I might've freaked out & truly had a strange essay, but I made it through. So for all of you that care, there you go. It was fun, it went well, & I never want to have to do it again. Now I'm going to head off & do a fake biochem lab for the science departments' capital campaign video. Hazoo! Have a nifty afternoon, & remember to hug a pre-medder this week. | | |
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