Turnabout is fair play

When I started my degree, I thought that grad school would be the most terrifying thing ever. I just wanted to be done with tests and assignments and all that junk and get out in the real world where (supposedly) my hard work and merit would be recognized. Grad school was for smart people, real smart people, who could do the hardest things in the whole world and THEN write a book about it while beating off angry professors with meter sticks. Or something.

Now I'm feeling reassured (and excited!) that I'm in grad school, I can totally handle this, and I'm not going to have to "get a real job" and go work yet. Haaa.

Studying

Ugh, I need to buy more junk food, after running out of ice cream and Coke I'm cramming my face with rice crackers while I study. Stale artificial cheese flavoured rice crackers. Gross.

Great Moments of Science

Me: "Could you suggest some keywords that would help me find more relevant information on this subject?"
Instructor: "Yes, just do a quick Google search for penetration."
Me: !
Instructor: "OH. DO NOT GOOGLE PENETRATION."

And then your parents found a strawberry seed and poured your DNA on it!

Today was great, I pulled off the best science demo that I've done to date at a local Catholic school. The kids got to learn about DNA, chromosomes, and genes, and even got to test themselves for certain genes! Then we extracted DNA from a strawberry, which is fun and gooey, and it's also a good opportunity to learn about solubility.

The best part, though, was definitely the Q&A session afterwards. They were so curious, and the whole class was really attentive to the questions being asked so it grew into a great (and really long) discussion that blossomed out in many different directions. Some of the topics included:

-enzymes

-digestion

-solubility

-DNA testing

-gel electrophoresis

-goats that make spider silk

-polyploidy

-genetic mutation

According to the teacher, the kids were so interested in the discussion that they insisted on spending all of their computer time this afternoon researching DNA and genetics! Wait, kids voluntarily and excitedly learning things? Win! They also asked me to send them the instructions for the demo so that they could try extracting DNA from their food at home. I predict an increase in fruit mortality.

The funny part of all this was, the kids hadn't even studied reproduction yet! It was obvious that some of them knew that things have sex and the babies get their traits, and other kids were totally out there. Did I mention I was at a Catholic school? This resulted in some interesting discussions.

Kid: "So... if I want to make a strawberry at home... do I just plant DNA?"

Me: "Well, seeds have DNA inside of them. Remember how we talked about how DNA is like a recipe? The seed reads the DNA, which gives it the instructions it needs to build the plant."

Kid: "So if I pour DNA on the seed, it will grow?"

Me: "The seed already contains all of the DNA the strawberry will need!"

Kid: "Do humans come from seeds?"

Me: "Yes, a different kid of seed."

Kid: "So, my parents poured my DNA on a seed and planted me?"

Teacher: "I think it's time for the next question..."

Other kid: "No, your parents both injected their DNA into you before you were born!"

Another kid, incredulously: "So... wait... this is why... if you have two different kinds of dog, and they have a baby, it doesn't look exactly like either parent, but it has traits from each? It gets some genes from each parent?"

Me: "Spot on!"

Incredulous kid: "THAT MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE!"

I'm curious as to -

A: How that one particular eleven/twelve year old has absolutely no concept of sex, or that humans don't grow in dirt.

B: What heredity makes so much more sense than.

Other interesting questions:

"If you get an organ from someone and you have their DNA in you, does that mean you're related?"

"If you get a blood transfusion, do you turn into someone else? Does their DNA show up at a crime scene, or does yours?" (for some reason, regardless of what demo I'm doing at a school, one kid ALWAYS asks me something about either committing a crime, or evading the police, hahaha)

"Could Jurassic park really happen?"

"If I put spider DNA in me, can I be Spiderman?" (VERY enthusiastically)

"Do you have to trade kidneys when you get a kidney transplant?"

"Do diseases show up in DNA? Why did the doctor want to test my blood so many times? "

The last one was actually the scariest question I had, she phrased it in such a way that I didn't see where it was leading, so I talked about a whole bunch of diseases that you can screen for and how. I hope I didn't scare the crap out of her and that she doesn't think that she's about to die or anything. Every time I go do these demos I get a bit better, but I always end up saying something regrettable, too. Hopefully the good parts stick around longer :)

(image: MyScienceBox)

Losing the little pieces

I haven't even made it to a quarter of a century and I'm already losing it. And by it, I mean, basically anything. I guess I'm more stressed out than I think because I seem to be losing track of small details. In the past few weeks, I have:

- lost my gloves (twice)

- lost, and subsequently found my wallet in a snowbank (that snowbank has great deposit security!)

-lost my mouse

And, the kicker:

-found a hairbrush I lost about 3 weeks ago in one of the lesser-used women's washrooms in my building. Next to my concealer. And my watch. The worst part is that I think I've only been missing the watch for a week! So I must have left it next to my other missing possessions WITHOUT EVEN NOTICING.

... it's time for me to retire, I think :D

Fuzzy Morning Midterms

I had the nicest thought the other morning, around 8:13 AM or so. The thought was, "Awesome, this stoichiometry problem has all of the co-efficients equal to one! I guess they must have wanted to take it easy on us."

Haaa. Seriously, brain... Ethane != C8H2.

It's funny how even the simplest things (relatively speaking, I've known how to solve these types of problems for, oh, 7 years?) turn into rocket surgery early enough in the day.

I did it!

I got my grad pics taken wearing a pirate hat! Ahahaha. Now all I have to do is sneak them past whoever approves the final framed thing with all the pictures of my graduating class in it and I'll be a legend.

We have a winner.

I've received a lot of strange/creepy/awkward/unwanted pick-up lines, and thought I was at the point where they don't faze me. I was wrong.

"Sex is like war. Nobody loses, but nobody really wins either. But, it can still be fun!"

Dear Sir:

KEEP YOUR JUNK VERY FAR AWAY FROM ME.

Dinosaur troubles

Following my usual tradition, I drew a dinosaur on the midterm I wrote today. This time it was even almost relevant, because the test had a very open-ended "bonus question" and I figured dinosaur content would be appropriate. Apparently, I neglected to pay attention to the clock and the professor neglected to mention that the exam was over. I must have been writing into the start of the next class, because their professor came over to ask me if I was done (aka shoo me the hell out of there) and saw me drawing dinosaurs playing frisbee. Look, it was important, ok?

This is an interdisciplinary class and I'm not telling anyone that I'm a graduating engineer.

Back to School Countdown

First full week of classes. Reflection!
Number of-

Popsicles it took to get me through the first 3 days of class: 10
Final Exams until graduation: 9 (shit!)
Free hot dogs+hamburgers+pancakes+shampoo = 8 (shampoo?)
Dollars spent on Diet Coke this week: 7 (shit!)
Courses this semester: 6
Ridiculously hard to find 0.9mm pencils obtained: 5 (thanks, internet!)
Textbooks purchased off Ebay: 4 (thanks again, internet!)
"Oh shit I'm graduating this year" identity crises: 3 (...shit!)
Weeks it took for new roomie to walk in on me in the bathroom: 2 (shit again! literally...)
People in my smallest course: 1 (shit! no skipping)
Times fallen asleep in class: 0! (boooooo-yeah!)
Bicycles: -1 :( (shit! bastards...)

I must draw time.

At some point during my first two years of university, I lost the ability to cram. Part of it may be related to this story.

For some odd reason, despite my inability (at the time) to visualize anything or work with spatial stuff in my head, and struggling with three-dimensional physics, I decided it would be a great idea to go into mechanical engineering. Subsequently, I was faced with the course that would cleave my brain in two and change the very nature of thought as I knew it. Everyone with any kind of ability to visualize things, or any mechanical aptitude loves that course. I thought it was kind of fun to draw all the 3D pictures that looked nice and to use the computer to make objects. At the same time, I was kind of upset because everyone else seemed to be waltzing through the material and I would spend days on the assignments, only to end up with 20, or 30% at best. The midterm didn't go any better.

Despite my best efforts, the fail continued. I guess you can't just make yourself think a different way all of a sudden, you just have to practice and practice until it happens. It wasn't working for me. I didn't want to fail the whole course after such a huge effort. At my weakest moment of desperation, I asked a senior student what she thought I should do. She mentioned that she, also, had struggled with the course and in fact failed it the first time. The only reason she passed the course the second time, she said, was because she had solved every single problem in the textbook. I swear there were thousands of them.

I abandoned everything and everyone and hunched over that book, sketching and sketching until I had to switch hands it hurt so badly. Many days and several dead trees later, it was the night before the exam, and there were (finally!) only a few problems left to solve. My sleep-deprived brain insisted on grabbing a few hours of sleep without notifying me.

This is when I began to be convinced that I was in the final exam. The exam question required that we draw time, and time, as everyone knows, is a rolling stone. I was very proud of myself for figuring out that it was a trick question, and that we weren't supposed to draw any moss because a rolling stone gathers no moss. It was a really tricky imaginary exam, because you couldn't stop drawing time or time would stop, and as you can imagine, that was very stressful.

At some point in real life, I noticed that I had dozed through my alarm and promptly grabbed everything in my immediate vicinity that could possibly be useful in an exam situation and bolted to the test. After being chained with the responsibility of drawing time for an evening, the final was comparatively easy.

When I got back to my dorm room, I noticed that the room was absolutely COVERED in drawings of a circle rolling down a hill, written on every available piece of material I owned, then taped or stapled to the walls, floors, and furniture.

I. made. time.

When the marks were posted for the course, I knew truly that I had commanded time and space, for I ended up with a fairly respectable mark. And most likely lasting mental damage.

Denial

Walked through some first-year orientation tours the other day by accident.
Remember so clearly first year. Meeting new friends, going new places, learning new things.

Can't believe I'm going to graduate this year!
Now entering state of denial.

I am the queen of multiple choice!

Around exam seasons, tutors and tutoring companies like to put up posters around all the academic buildings, from elementary schools to universities, featuing headlines like, "SECRETS OF TEST WRITING", or "HOW TO SCORE WELL ON A MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAM". I always figured that they were scams, or they were review sessions that would teach you the course material so you could score well on the exam. Having nothing better to do one afternoon, I stopped by a free session hosted by my high school. I was astounded to find that the instructors were handing out papers with gems like, "If you don't know the right answer to a multiple choice question, cross out the ones you know are wrong and use the process of elimination to find the most likely answer." In my mind, letting anyone pay you to tell them that amounts to highway robbery.

Then again, I guess I was never the typical student. I remember my mom coaching me with similar tips to the "secret strategies" before I wrote my provincial exams in the third grade. I've had many many years to improve on those strategies since then.

Against what I would consider to be better judgement on the part of the instructor/course administrator, the marks for one of my classes this term are entirely based off of several multiple choice tests. Hell yes, I am going to get my first A+ in university.

Update: Hell yes, I got my A+.

Oh, delightful

Apparently we have Wagner's operas to thank for the fact that one of our midterms was shorter (ie could actually be completed in 2 hours) than expected. The professor mentioned that he had been out at the opera the night before giving the exam, and had come home complaining about how Wagner just liked to torture people with extraordinarily long, painful operas. His friend told him that according to ratemyprof.com, the tests he gives are ridiculously long and designed to torture people, and he shouldn't complain about Wagner if he was going to torture his students that way. So, he took a question off the test in order to continue complaining about Wagner to his friend without being a hypocrite. He also mentioned that he doesn't typically read reviews of his teaching on-line because he figures that the only students that will post there are the ones that are really pissed off at him (mostly true).

Sadly, there are no more performances of any of Wagner's material for the rest of the season. I hope the final exam for this course doesn't end up being like the Ring trilogy to make up for it.

Morning Routine

My classmates are jealous because I can still wake up 15 minutes before class and make it to a lecture roughly on time (if I jog just a little). Not like I make a habit of it, but you know... stuff happens. I recommend letting yourself go.
I attribute these factors to my overwhelming success:

1. Low-maintenance haircut
There's a reason why girls spend so much on haircuts, cause when you do it properly, all it take is a quick finger comb. Also: hats.

2. Forgo matching clothes
Some day I will have to grow out of jeans and T-shirts. But not yet.

3. Quick Breakfast
I recommend acquiring a taste for instant oatmeal. When I was little, I used to pretend I was on safari in the backyard, and had packed only dried food, to save space. I would then tear open a tiny corner of the instant oatmeal packet, fill it with water, shake, and eat it while I was on my safari. When your standards are that low it's hard not to find food in the house that can be consumed in seconds.

4. Leave everything in the same place
Routine! I like to put everything in my backpack (or at least near it) the night before, and I usually leave my lunch in the same place in the fridge. Then I just have to push autopilot when I wake up, zombie drag myself through a pattern in the house, and by the time I wake up, I'm already in class taking notes.

My personal record was waking up at 7:57 AM and making it to an 8 AM class before the instructor started lecturing (he started a few minutes late).

You know it's exam time when...

You play beyblades on a plastic caf plate and exclaim that this is the most fun you've had in ages.

then you realize you're playing beyblades on a plastic caf plate.

Get back to work!

If you give a mouse a cookie...

It's going to want a glass of milk. Then, it's going to need a straw to drink that glass of milk with, so you'll have to go to the store to get a straw. Once you come back, you'll find out that the mouse isn't tall enough to drink the milk from the straw, so you'll have to get it a chair...

This pretty much describes the group project I'm working on right now. The more I think about something, the more I realize that I could go more in-depth on the subject. As I dig my head farther in, I realize that I should go refine my original assumptions about the problem. Then, I figure out that I need to change something. As soon as I change something, it changes all the other properties of whatever structure I'm working on, then I have to start thinking about everything again.... Every so often, I get e-mails from the rest of the team, who have been thinking about their respective parts of the problem, sending off a huge list of numbers and something like "Oh, the mouse no longer wants a cookie, it wants a carrot." "No, the mouse obviously doesn't want a carrot. Didn't we decide that the mouse wants cheese?" "Well, if you guys think back to the last meeting we had with the project co-ordinator, you'll remember that he clearly pointed to a picture of a mouse that wanted oregano."

Hooray for iterative processes! These projects are good for reinforcing that there is no perfect solution, or no best solution. You can't analyze everything, at some point you kind of just have to arbitrarily pick something, go with it, and see if things work out. I want to let go of my desire to analyze everything, but I can see the eight pages on my floor multiplying to twenty, thirty... must stop!

You CAN get full off of ice cream

This about sums up my semesters:

Week before classes: Make a plan of all the things I'm going to do this semester, like volunteer, eat healthy, and exercise. Start exercise. Buy lots of vegetables. Learn a new recipe.

First day of class: Go to new club meetings and investigate various volunteering options on campus.

First week of class: Realize I don't have any paper. Or binders. Or duotangs. Or pencils. Or erasers. Or textbooks.
Buy pencils and paper.

Second week of class: Search frantically for used textbooks to avoid getting pwned. Find some binders somewhere.

First month of class: Exercise occasionally, eat well.

Second month of class: Begin stressing out about upcoming midterms.
Stress out about upcoming midterms.
Experience first-hand the terrors of midterms.
Work self to death.
Eat candy.
Forget about volunteering.

Third month of class: Why am I still writing midterms? When was the last time I cleaned my room? When was the last time I did laundry (first month of class). Eat grilled cheese sandwiches all month. Finish midterms, then spend 2 days recovering and doing laundry.

Fourth month of class: Still recovering from 3rd month of class. Have no idea what has happened since third month of class. Panic about finals. Live off of PBJs because they're easier than grilled cheese. Eat random food found in the fridge. Eat the random food in the freezer. (today I ate the rest of my ice cream, because I was out of... food) Eat that 3 year old spaghetti in the cupboard. Forget to shower. No clean clothes. No motivation. Can't remember the last time I touched a vegetable besides a potato chip.
Write finals, collapse.

So welcome to the dark abyss of my mind during exam season. Hopefully anyone reading will get to catch glimpses of my happy and funny side, if it hasn't been rolled over by a steamrolller. No promises.