The network has timed out... (or, thoughtful observations on being a chemistry student)

Or so my online chemistry assignment just told me, so I'm going to blog until the twenty minutes are up and I can go back and finish it. God save me, I was two problems away from being finished, too...

I rather like being a science student again, if for no other reason than you look really smart when you study (picture the cappucino, the periodic table of the elements with notes scrawled all over it, the open textbook and endless notes and practice problems on loose leaf paper all over the table, etc). The nice thing is that when I get it, I really get it, and when I don't get it, I really don't get it. So at least I know what I'm capable of and what needs work. Although this class requires CONSTANT attention (got the lab notes? answered the prelab questions? got the lecture notes? done the online assignments?). Every single week we have go through that cycle, and God save you if you forget something. I really don't know how my science major friends do it-- they do this all the time. I suppose it would just become a lifestyle. Being an English major spoils me-- almost all of it is independant thought, which can stretch over any period of time (anything from a month before it's due until the night before). Chem students absolutely cannot fall behind. Maybe that's a good thing. It keeps us on our toes.

I must say, though, that the chem lectures are sort of useless, at least in terms of what we learn from them that applies to graded material. Instead of learning about nomenclature and balancing equations today (and we have a test in one week-- most of us were pretty keen on asking some questions), our professor talked for 45 minutes about how poisonous cyanide is and the various ways we can die of cyanide poisoning, including: how cyanide bonds to what oxygen would bond to in order to kill you by your second breath; various lakes in Colorado that are probably poisoned with cyanide; how the cyanide got to Colorado (gold miners would use it to extract gold from the soil because it bonds well with gold); and various, twenty-year-old ongoing lawsuits against a Canadian company that polluted much of the southwest with cyanide and then left the country. Just in case you don't think I was paying attention in the damn lecture. But none of it will be on the exam or pertains at ALL to the major homework that I'm desperately trying to finish. Although it's not due until tomorrow at 11pm, but I'd still like to get it over with. That class's lectures are totally useless, which is disappointing because I feel like I'm learning a lot. It would be nice if the prof would help solidify it in class.

So, I hope it's been twenty minutes because I'm going to go finish my assignment... ¡viva la química!