What I learned in General Chemistry II Lab

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

This warranted its own post just because I felt like I took two different classes with lab and lecture (probably because I had a different professor for lab than for lecture). Looking back at it, this semester in lab was in some ways even more messed up than last semester although last semester I broke more things.

Gen Chem Lab Part II: Revenge of the Volumetric Flasks

—Apparently wearing a head scarf can be a safety hazard. Actually, I am the safety hazard.

—I believe when synthesizing alum crystals not to use steroids. I believe in 100% organic alum crystals!

(In this lab, my professor put extra crystals in people’s beakers to get the alum to crystallize, but I waited an hour for mine in an ice bath beaker because I believed in them!)

—My scarf and I learned something about each other—my sanity in lab is directly correlated with the state of my head scarf so I always have to fix it before lab.

An Ode to Carbon

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

This was written last fall between two classes on a white board at school. I never finished the poem because in the middle of writing it, I had to use the bathroom and when I came back, I lost my train of thought. =)

So here is my rough draft of my poem:

—

An Ode to Carbon

—

O carbon, o carbon, you are so very sweet.

Your intricate structures and shapes so neat.

What I learned in General Chemistry II

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

This post was coming for some time, but I had to wait for the semester to end before I can fully collect everything. This post is strictly about what I learned from lecture. Lab will have a separate post:

What I learned in General Chemistry II (lecture):

—“Kinetics is not something edible.”

—“Rate laws. There is more than one.”

—I need more than one banana or soy milk to get through general chemistry II.

Today’s Moment of “Tell ‘Em Like it is” III

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

Going crazy and I thought I’ll procrastinate by typing up more gen chem quoted moments:

(Learning about how you can create an ‘isolated’ system in water for thermodynamic chemical reactions)

Professor: “We eliminated the universe in one swoop!”

Professor: “99.99999 percent chance….”

Professor: You don’t want to bet your life insurance for more than two sig figs.

Today’s Moment of “Tell ‘Em Like it is” II

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

Another set of quotes I have recorded from class and random encounters. They may be slightly misquoted.
—
(Note: pH=-log[H+], pOH=-log[OH-], pKa=-logKa, etc.)

Professor: If you need the function of your kitty cat at home, you do negative log cat (-logcat) to get pCat, which sounds like an exam to get into pharmacy school.” (PCAT)
—
Professor: You are expected to know this. You know what an expectation means. It means you will see it down the road in a ‘written exercise’.
(About tests)
—
Professor: (repeatedly) If an equation is named after someone, then it is important.
—
(Someone’s phone goes off)
Professor: KILL IT!
—
Faith786: I know what you were doing the night before the chemistry exam.
Professor: Really? What was I doing?
Faith786: You were out on the city roof tops, fighting crime and evil with your super mad chemistry powers.
Professor: (smiles) Maybe subconsciously.
—
Faith786: Adam, ask (Professor) why Sulfuric acid is a strong acid but it has two hydrogens.
(Professor overheard)
Professor: I don’t know.
Faith786: But you have to know. You know everything about chemistry. You invented chemistry!
Professor: I am a 100 years old, not 400!
—
Professor: (on the board) So here water is an acid and here water is a base. What does this tell you about water?
(Pause)
It is schizophrenic, no?
—
More later….

Lies My Chemistry Teacher Told Me: Inert Gas and K

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

I always wanted to write that book as a joke, but my chemistry professors are mad geniuses and they know that they are teaching me lies. =)

(Well, I am in General Chemistry so I suppose whatever I am learning is super simplified. So maybe I should say incomplete concepts.)

Today’s Lie: Adding an inert gas (i.e. neon gas) to a container with a reaction in equilibrium will in no way affect which way the reaction will shift.

Are you seriously telling me that if I added 80 mols of Ne gas in a small closed container, nothing will happen?

Faith786’s pseudo supposition: If you add a CRAZY amount of inert gas, the reaction will shift to the side with less mols of gas or the side that takes up less space to accomodate the gas invasion.

*Chemistry Education* Lab Notes: Kids Say the Funniest Things

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

This post is a request for Noreen. (Happy now?) =)

Actually, I think Spiderman would appreciate this more for multiple reasons. =)

Faith786’s Note: I omitted names just to avoid problems. For more context, check out my other chem lab notes.

—

Funny Moments with the kids:

—
—

(First day)

Student: Who was the man with the crazy hair who entered the room with you?
Faith786: Oh, he is my chemistry professor and he plans on showing your class really cool science demonstrations that you can mess around with.
Student: Awesome! So why did he bring you here?
Faith786: That is honestly a good question, but I plan on doing what ever he tells me to do.
Student: So he is kind of like Dr. Frankenstein and your Igor?
Faith786: Exactly. =)

Today’s Moment of “Tell ‘Em Like It Is”

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

Although these moments did not happen today, I found some of them written in my notebook and some I remember happening in my chemistry class this semester:

—

Professor: Although olive oil and gasoline have a similar structure, you do NOT put gasoline on your salad.