Learning 1 semester's work in 1 week

Important skill, or forbidden art?

Toys

I must say I've just completed the most enjoyable semester so far. We actually had the chance to make and design stuff, instead of following pre-written recipes! It's also hard to complain when your first programming project is to write a game (albeit a very simplistic one). *grin*

Yes, I'm a kid who's been given heaps of toys. Unfortunately, I seem to have developed the urge to constantly write programs now. Hmm.

One of my plans was to smuggle the following software into our Digital Systems lab; that way, I can make our automated car play music while it does its laps around the track. I didn't manage to finish the program in time though, so that plan got scrapped.

Doo bee doo bee, dat, doo ba dee, doo ba da...

xkcd.com

Oh yeah, I just remembered... I'm a student!

The first day of uni has come (again. We sure go through many "first days" in our lifetime). Heading off in 15 minutes.

I'm doing a unit on C programming this semester, but my laptop has begun to show signs that it will pass away soon. Might make my homework a tad bit hard to finish.

Oh dear.

A slight inconvenience

It's two weeks till exam time.

My zeal to study (which had been with me since the beginning of the semester) has gone M.I.A. as of last week.

Dam.

The Universitian Life Returns

1. Get really pumped.
2. Work hard.
3. Gradually lose motivation.
4. Start slacking off.
5. Take things easy.
6. Very easy.
7. Stress out the week before exams.
8. Scrape through exams.
9. Have a 3-month holiday.
10. Repeat #1 - #10.

For some reason, many students have similar semester outines which can be modelled as above (granted, not all academic institutions make #9 possible). Unfortunately, I allowed myself to fall into the same trap last year, so my results weren't as good as they could've been. Let's see if I can avoid it this year.

Nowadays, they like to tell you that there's more to uni than just learning, which is true. If only you could have been at O-Day (the final day of orientation week) and seen the few hundred stalls, with people trying to con encourage first-years to join their clubs! I think I'll take Cantonese lessons with the Chinese Society if they don't clash with my classes like they did last year.

Yep, this should be an awesome year. If only we didn't have to start classes on a public holiday, of all days. (It's supposed to be Labour Day tomorrow) Ah well. Time for bed!

Whoever says that chemistry labs are boring should be shot

29/3/07
I broke a beaker that morning. It was annoying, really; I had hoped to commence work swiftly, but had ended up delaying myself. Never mind, I a quick visit to Kim's office got me a replacement beaker to work with.

Merrily, I began brewing my concoction. The object of the day was to transform diphenyl ketone into an alcohol, using sodium borohydride.

Top: Diphenyl ketone, a constituent of synthetic perfume
Bottom: Sodium borohydride, a product of the USA's nuclear bomb endeavours

10 minutes was the prescribed time for heating. My concoction sat on a gauze mat, which sat on a tripod, which straddled the Bunsen burner. Kinda like the setup on the left (image from www.raystorey lighting.com), except that my flask had a condenser attached, and was sitting in a beaker of water.

Being a perfectionist, I noticed (while the mixture was happily bubbling away) that the said beaker was off-centre! And being a perfectionist, I thought it best to shift the beaker to the middle of the tripod platform. Don't want to risk having the whole thing topple over, y'know? Safety first!

Of course, I realized that the beaker of water -- having been heated for 5 minutes -- would be rather hot. It would be rather silly to move it with my hand, as I would get burnt! No, no, that would be a dumb thing to do. So how should I proceed...? Ah, I know. The friction between the beaker base and the gauze mat should be useful!

Why would I need friction, you ask? Well, it's quite simple. My plan was to move my beaker via indirect means. First, think of a dinner table: If you pull the tablecloth towards yourself, friction will bring all the other items on the table (plates, cutlery, et cetera) along as well. So, applying the same concept to my scenario, what would happen when I move the gauze mat?

Answer: Cooked flesh.

The criss-crosses were white at first -- the same shade as minced chicken meat which has been heated in the wok long enough

No matter, such incidents are of no major setback! Undeterred, I proceeded to isolate and purify my alcohol.

The satisfying part of these lab sessions is watching my crystals form. Elegant, white crystals!

The dissatisfying part, however, is losing some of these crystals due to the difficulty of transferring them from the filter into the sample container. After much scraping, tapping, and wiping the filter paper, my sample tube was filled. Some alcohol crystals were left the spatula, and others had gotten onto the bench and my fingers. No matter. Almost done! All I need to do now was to weigh it, calculate the yield, and answer some lab book questions. Nothing to it.

It was around this time when my right eye started itching.

itcheh
http://brokenboulevard.deviantart.com/

Now, you might be thinking that the itch was due to chemicals that got into my eye. I assure you, this wasn't the case. I know this, because I was following safety procedures and had safety goggles on! The goggles did nothing to help my itch though. Instead, they blocking access to my eye... grr... Must! Relieve! ITCH!

I lifted the goggles to get to the accursed itch. *Rub rub rub*... Ahh, that feels better...

Wikipedia: "Diphenylmethanol is an irritant to the eyes"

...IT BURNS!!!

Where's the eyewash? Wherestheeyewash wherestheeyewash wherestheeyewash?!! In the corner of the room! Ahhh!

Sorry! Coming through! *weaves through people*

There it is! Quick, place my eyes over the faucet... TURN TAP!

(Powerful jets of water shoot out)

OWWWW!

...Have you ever wondered what it's like to have your eyeballs punched by miniature fists? No? Well if you ever do, all you need to do is use an eyewash on full blast. (oh yeah, eyewash image from www.uwm.edu, by the way)

Well, at least that's over. Having flushed my eyes as well as I could, I finished my final bits of writeup, handed in my notebook, removed my multi-coloured lab coat and stepped outside the doorway.

Time for lunch.

End note
Sze Howe is fine now. The grieving for the broken beaker has been completed, his fingers have regrown new skin, and his eyes have fully recovered from all chemical and physical injuries.

He has done well in chemistry this year, and is looking forward to completing his pharmacology major despite the prospect of future misadventures in chem labs.

Why we should never miss a lecture

If we miss a lecture, we might miss an announcement that informs us that there are no lectures next week. If that happens, we will find ourselves sitting in a relatively-empty lecture hall, and the only other people around will be those who also missed the last lecture like we did.

Oh wow... we've finished all chemistry lectures this semester... @_@ Exams in 2 weeks, eek!

40 minutes till biology lecture starts.

Uni Orientation - Part IV

My uni path is sealed. After talking to Prof. Sandford yesterday, the remnants of reservations I had about doing biomedical engineering are gone. Onward with the program! ^_^ (probably should've researched more thoroughly before enrolling, hehehe -- but everything's fine and dandy)

Now, if only the online handbooks were more user-friendly. Pages like this one and everything it's linked to make it a tad tedious to figure out required units across 5.5 years.

YESSS!!!

I'm typing this from the computer lab at the University of Western Australia. On 11.22pm, 17/1/07, I saw with my own eyes the evidence that I have been accepted into the Science/Engineering course at this uni.

Thanks for letting me use your account to check the offers, Moses! Now let's get back to St Catherine's, the girls' college...

P.S. Yes, I deserve a smack to the back of my head for this, but I don't care.

The Fourth Dimension

Time is a fickle thing. The changes it brings can be utterly unexpected and unpredictable... within as little as a year, I've seen both dramatic and subtle changes in people and relationships. I'm know that this phenomenon isn't all that uncommon, but it's still interesting (and sometimes disturbing) to watch. Don't you just wish you knew what makes people tick? I sure do.

Anyway, it's that time of the half-year again when people breathe a sigh of relief to mark the end of exams. Well, that was last week. This week, some are breathing sighs of relief knowing that their academic lives are not doomed, while some others are less... delighted. I'm just grateful to be able to place myself in the former category.

Strangely enough, my physics paper fared better than either of my maths papers (gasp! =P) English on the other hand, is a totally different story. To think that I had made a firm resolution to NOT take up the subject upon coming to Australia... Thank you, Mr Young, for sending me into Panic Mode during our interview. If you hadn't suggested that I do History, I would never had abandoned my well-constructed plan and taken your next offer (which was Physics). Hmm, I'm even considering the possibility of doing something engineering-related in university. Yet another example of changes in time... (Too bad I had to abandon my childhood plans of becoming a private eye too! ;-D)

Speaking of which, I have only 3 months left before having to fill out a uni application form. And I still have no idea on what specific course to do. Help! ...I suppose we can always resort to good old coin-flipping... =P

Gee, university. That's a scary thought: I'll be ejected from high school for good in less than half a year. I sure will miss these days...

...but the fourth dimension only flows in one direction. Or does it...?