LAST LAB Session!!!

HURRAY!!! I have finally finished the LAST LAB session of the day, semester, year and... my entire life. Crossing my fingers tight: that is IF I don't find any chemistry lab-related job, which is most possibly the case, since I can never imagine myself soaking in the lab until my hair turns as white as my labcoat. Ok, then some ppl will start asking why I study chemistry in the first place. But that's not something that I wanna discussed here.

LAB: NOT REALLY FOR GIRLS...
From a 'beauty' aspect, I don't think any girl would like to handle labwork because

1. you'll stink of chemicals(i won't be surprised if ppl know that you're a chemist without asking)

2. your face will become extremely oily after the lab

3. your hair will be in a mess (cos half the time you're pulling your hair out of all the frustrations)4. sometimes your delicate hands will be stained with unknown compounds that take days to remove. and your hands are likely to be dry and rough after contact with all the chemicals
5. you're most possibly to be in your ugliest state on your practical day. I mean who'll actually put on their best clothing if there's chance of staining it with chemicals? Also, you can't wear contact lens. this is to prevent any chemicals from trapping in it... which means putting on your heavy glasses.

Plain clothing

Who is this alien?

Serene, the lab geek!

Closeup: I really look ugly with goggles =(

And I just realize several weeks ago that the mere action of opening the oven is a beauty hazard! (Ok, for those who have not entered the chem. lab before, we have several big ovens which we used to dry our apparatus clean) For gals who have done facial before, remember there is a procedure which they will blow hot air on your face to open up the pores. Yes, the same principle applies here... just that you are in a lab instead! Imagine all your pores exposed to a chemical-filled environment?! Ok, I shan't go into details wat are trapped in your pores when they closed. Luckily, today is the last day I put myself into such a beauty risk. Haha... a bit kua zhang but makes sense right? Well, perhaps the only advantage a gal can enjoy during practical is they can slim down quite a bit. Why? This is because most of us master the art of 'fasting' so that we can finish the lab sessions in the shortest possible time. Haha... but this method doesn't seem to work for me because I normally end up eating larger portions for dinner.

THE WORST NIGHTMARE
Lab sessions are not so bad or they can even be enjoyable if everything runs smoothly. I don't actually mind even if the experiments required us to do boring things like staring at the stopwatch for 2 hours while taking readings at intervals. But I cannot tolerate errors! However, more often than not, one or more of the following can potentially occur (based on personal experience):
1. You got the compound! But wait, the colour is obviously different from your friends. Damn! Wat went wrong?
2. You got the compound! But wait, your yield is too little and you do not have enough to carry on to the next step. Prepared to get mark down for poor lab technique...
3. Yeah, finally left the last few procedures before you finished the lab. But at this instance, you carelessly add a reagent in the wrong step! You become totally sianz...
4. Yes, you got everything! Results, data, product, yield and all. You happily let the professors or teaching assistants signed them. You start to do your lab report at home, only to realize that there are grave errors in your results 2 to 3 days before the report's deadline. You panicked! But what can you do? And you know it's time to put on your 'fake-o' skill...

These errors can really make you prone to heart attacks.

UNFORGETTABLE MEMORIES
Despite these, there are still some funny incidents that only we, the chem. students, truly shared. I remembered there was one time when I was very stressed. I had to continuously add a solvent into a chromatographic column using a glass dropper(that comes with the rubber cap) because I can't catch up with the speed at which the solvent is flowing off at the bottom(I had to do so because the teaching assistant keeps looking at me!). In a moment of franticness, the glass dropper came off and it fell right into my column filled with silica gel! And it just stood innocently upright in the gel. I was utterly shocked. My lab partners saw the funny sight and began laughing. I can only smile embarrassedly and walked off to pretend that I'm washing some apparatus. This was when I saw a girl who was worse off than me. Her whole dropper, together with the rubber cap, went into the gel column. I told her I suffered the same tragedy as her and we started to congratulate our own mishap.

We, the chem. students, are also smart students k? if we cannot get what we desire, we make it happen! Today, for instance, one of my friends can't get the synthesized compound after several attempts. Knowing that the compound is slightly shiny white, she decided to 'create' it from the available resources. I gave her some of my white solid compound to pound into fine powder. However, the result was not satisfying as the compound had no shine to it. Seeing that another compound of mine is shiny, she suggested mixing some to the pounded powder. And VOLA! She got the slightly shiny white compound! Hahah... and we have to do this underground thingy very discreetly cos our professor is very strict. But I must say the result was impressive!

To the professors, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN! hahha... no goggles and covered shoes!

Lastly, to sum up my thoughts... there is no doubt i'm happy that all the lab sessions are over. However, some part of me still can't believe that this is true. Or perhaps, i missed the days i really suffered, struggled, cried(yes, out of complete frustration) and cheered with joy due to satisfaction. Maybe, these are the things that made me stronger than who i already am. Ironically, I really wonder whether I'll get to wear my goggles and labcoat ever again or i should just buried them deep into my wardrobe...