Mr. Bloom!

Mr. Bloom

Someone else knows the famous Mr. Bloom!! What an awesome guy, I wish he would come back! (link above)

Gum Addiction

So anyone that knows me here on campus probably knows that I began an odd gum addiction this year. It began during finals week of first semester and, to date, I cannot count the number of pieces of the same kind of gum I have chewed but you can believe me when I say it is in the mid-upper hundreds. This does not mean that I have an unhealthy affinity for Trident Orange/Watermelon gum. It simply means that grocery stores should stop selling said gum in such large packs and that these packs should stop jumping into my cart.

Oh, but out of all of these hundreds of packs of gum, I just swallowed my first piece. So we're good, my appendix thanks me for keeping the gum-swallowing business under wraps. I mean, 1 piece ain't bad. Except now I have to get another and that one hadn't lost its flavor yet.

Dang! What a waste.

Club Ehaus!!!

Tonight in Club Ehaus, which was, uh.... otherwise vacant, I learned how to:

MERENGUE!!!

SALSA!!!

and BACHATA!!!!

All thanks to my amazingly talented teacher, G-regulator "They took my license photo right after I crossed the border and it doubled as my mug shot" Carrrrrrrerrrrrro.

What an awesome fun time :) And you KNOW I will be practicing in my room so I don't forget them this time!

Pulitzer Prize? Okay!

So, in the Health Sciences Library today... I was collecting chairs for our group to meet around a big table and asked a kindly little old man if I could use one across from him. He said that was fine (in a funny old man way) and then grabbed my arm and said: "Are you a student here?"

Of course I say yes, and so began a 10 minute or so conversation with who turned out to be William Herman Bloom, a poet, novelist, 6-time coronary survivor, retired neurologist and brain surgeon, and (most recently) a Pulitzer Prize Nominee for his new book, "Wit, Wisdom, and Whimsy".

So I basically am in love with this tiny man who, as it turns out, is basically me trapped in a much more well-traveled, experienced, 80-year-old male body. English is his first love and he went into science as a default because he couldn't make money, back then, as a writer (ME). His daughter is an epidemiologist at the CDC in Atlanta (um, ME PLEASE!!!!) and he was just the coolest ever (well... me, you know....)

Anyway- my teacher finally asked a girl in our group to come over and get me so I could be included in this graded meeting, so I had to pull myself away from Mr. Bloom. But he didn't leave before quoting me as many inspirational sayings as humanly possible in about 30 seconds. But before he got up and left a few minutes later, he leaned to me, smiled like a 10-year-old boy and said:

"If you shoot for the stars, but land on the moon, you'd be happy right? Well I landed on the moon. And I think I'm doing okay."

I hope I meet him again!!

Only you, North Carolina

Two really interesting things happened to Rob and I during our adventure at the drive-in movie theater.

Number 1, this really cool guy was just chillin, ridin his motorcycle. I dunno, 40/45 mph? It's dark outside, we're on the highway approaching a light, lots of cars around.

But oh yeah, he's only got one hand on the handlebar thingies (you can tell I'm a biker) and he is STANDING on ONE FOOT on the SEAT of the motorcycle. The other leg is extended in the air.

We were looking around to see if he had buddies honking from a car or something, wanting desperately to know who was cool enough to have someone show off like that for them. But no, there was no one. He was just doin his thing. (We all know he was showing off for me, wink.)

Number 2, we are AT the drive-in and Rob goes into the already fairly sketchy looking concession stand and when he comes back, he enlightens me with the knowledge that they are selling GUNS in the concession stand.

Culture shock set in slower than one would think, out of utter disbelief that such a thing could actually be true.

But no. We went back together and yes, indeed, hand guns-a-plenty were for sale under glass. Oh no, of course no one was actually standing behind the gun counter because that might reflect an ounce of responsibility. But hey, at least if someone wanted to steal a gun and go on a rampage, there was plenty of ammunition for sale as well. And, surprisingly enough, the also had handcuffs for sale...... for all those turn-yourself-in types....?

Right.

At this point, do I even need to say that we were in Durham?

Another day at the lab

So... let's have a chat about organic lab. When you get into the upper level labs in, well say... COLLEGE, they (being the vague and yet ever-superior wizards of Chemistry Oz that make decisions about science-y things) begin to trust poor helpless chemistry students with things that they should not be trusted with.

Case in point.

Somewhere between 9th grade biology lab and 2nd semester organic chemistry one learns that-- why yes! indeed! water, despite its conventional uses and ubiquitous presence in everyday life, is ACTUALLY a chemical compound! like all the others!

and it reacts with stuff! like all the others!

I think you might see where this is going, but just in case you don't, I will kindly continue with the sad saga that is my kindasortalikealittle/ABSOLUTE LOATHING relationship with chem lab at UNC.

So let's say you have a sink at your lab bench. Out of this sink tap flows water. This water flows into a basin that is constantly wet from water. Are we clear? Now let's say some silly lab instructor decides that he/she/it/its mother wants the poor helpless students to convert a carboxylic acid to an amide which (OF COURSE) requires our one and only homeboy favorite reagent--- THIONYL CHLORIDE.

Well I, playing the part of the unsuspecting (and really quite dumb and consistently unprepared) lab student, got a beaker full of said Thionyl Chloride. Then I realized we only needed 1 mL. I have two choices.

1. Use a pipet to get 1 mL of the solution out of the full beaker, use it in the reaction, and offer my thionyl chloride-a-plenty to other students in the class--- delightfully logical!!
or...
2. Defying all human mental capacity for sound and responsible behavior, decide it is easier to start over and go back and get 1 mL of the solution- and in the meantime THROW ON THE SINK WATER JET AND TOSS THE ENTIRE BEAKER OF THIONYL CHLORIDE INTO A WET AND MIST-FILLED BASIN OF SWEET SWEET WATERY GOODNESS.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that you know which one I chose.

And I am not even going to begin to tell you how difficult it is to conceal gushing spouts of white smoke and obnoxiously loud poofing/hissing noises from your TA, all while spazzing out into a grotesquely embarassing "what-the-hell-happened" dance- which involved a lot of limb flailing and gasping for clean air as one of the strongest and foulest odors I have ever smelled literally BURNED into every uncovered pore of my body.

In every sense of the word irony, I spent the next 5 minutes or so of my life rinsing my throat, nose, and hands with every ounce of sweet, sweet water I could find. And then...

TA: Did something just happen at your lab bench?
Me: Oh yeah, some leftover stuff in the sink musta reacted
TA: Oh, okay.

Anticlimactic- but hey, I kept allllllll of my precious lab performance points :)