Bitter Much?

I'm TAing Nuclear Engineering this semester. I was kind of worried about it because I don't actually know all that much about nuclear physics or engineering. Well, it turns out that the undergrads know basically nothing about it, so I didn't have anything to worry about.

Right now we're in the section on dosing. I was reading through a textbook almost as old as me. My supervisor loaned it to me, noting that the name scrawled on the inside front cover is his supervisor's name.

The author felt it would be useful, in discussing the deleterious effects of ionizing radiation on the human body, to do a quick rundown of cellular biology. I came across this passage which I found quite comical:

The germ cells, which are also called gametes, function only in reproduction. It is the union of the gametes from different sexes that is the starting point of a new individual. The gametes also carry the hereditary material of the species that makes children look more like their parents than their neighbors[sic], and ensure that the evils of mankind pass with little change from generation to generation.

How's that for unbiased scientific writing? That passage was in a textbook! Well, John R. Lamarsh, I shall see that history remembers you as a great nuclear engineer and misanthrope.

And hey, maybe I just found a new role model.

The Worst Thing That Happens To You All Day

So I borrowed some glassware.

I borrowed some glassware because I am involved in the Human Powered Vehicle†* project. Some people on another HPV team suggested that we use butyl acetate for fusing sheets of styrofoam together. Unfortunately, buying butyl acetate is difficult. So the professor for whom I TAed this semester suggested I synthesize it. For this purpose, he loaned me some glassware.

Earlier this week, I was looking at glassware online, for myself, as I might like to do some distilling at home at some point in the future. I stumbled across the very kit I had been loaned. The price tag: CAD $788.

I didn't end up having to do the reaction — ethyl acetate seems to work well enough and is cheaply and readily available at the chemical store at the university. As soon as I realized that I wouldn't need to actually use the glassware, I decided to return it.

I tried several times each day this week but the lab tech who is in charge of the glassware was not in her office.

In the meantime, the kit lived in my lab on top of a hutch on the vacant desk next to mine. Safe, right?

My roommate and labmate, K, came home today and informed me that she had a rather crazy story to tell me. It turns out that one of the postdocs in the lab happened to lean against the aforementioned hutch at which point it collapsed. And down came cradle, glassware and all. Apparently there was almost nothing left.

So, best case, I look like an irresponsible tool and nobody ever trusts me with lab equipment again. Worst case, I have to pay for the equipment and nobody ever trusts me to TA again. I am invigilating an exam for that professor tomorrow, so I will find out my fate then.

I remember my dad once telling me, "eat a dead frog in the morning and it's the worst thing that will happen to you all day."

I also remember, even at a tender young age, responding, "Yeah, well, eat a live frog in the morning and it's the worst thing that'll happen to the frog for the rest of the day."




* Frankly, it should be called the Human Powered Bicycle competetion, but given that bicycles are human powered by nature, it sounds a bit stupid.
† We are well aware that HPV has other definitions which have... less than savoury connotations. We sort of revel in it.

6 Month Lag

Today, I had to tell my students that they will be getting a new TA next semester, that I will no longer be assisting them in CHE204. That was kinda sad for me and some of them even seemed genuinely sad to see me go. Even though I probably marked harder than any of the other TAs, I think that, at least for some of them, they will remember me as one of the TAs they actually liked.

Later, L and I got talking about how, within a few hundred years no one will remember me or her. Unless we become really famous. I then pointed out that people have very short attention spans these days, and people would need to be reminded.
She said, "That's why I'm going to permanently carve a huge sculpture of my face in—"
"The moon?" I interjected.
"I was going to say the Earth," she clarified.
"Yeah, well," I pointed out, "it would take at least 6 months for google maps to pick that up, whereas everyone has to see the moon almost every day."