Thank goodness for Thanksgiving!!

After a very long 11 or 12 weeks of school without any real breaks, I was ready for Thanksgiving break!!! So far, it's been great! Especially little things like not having to get my homework done RIGHT NOW, not having to wake up by an alarm clock, and seeing old friends who are back in the area.

Yesterday, I went to lunch with my best friend from high school who attends SIUE. It was great to catch up and hear about all our friends that are spread out in colleges all over the midwest. Then last night I was able to hang out with a bunch of my friends from elementary school/junior high. One of them is going to college in Texas, and this is her first time back since summer. So it's been really great to see old friends and get to spend time with them.

One of my sisters comes home tonight from college in Indiana, so I'm excited to see her. Tomorrow we're going to try to get a head start on some Christmas shopping. I can't wait for Christmas!! My other sister arrives home on Friday night with her husband. We're hoping to go see a movie & get some fondu desert on Friday night, which should be fun! And of course, I'm looking forward to heading to St. Louis to my grandma's on Thursday for lots of food (and hopefully some football too)!!! :)

Trouble in chem lab

So this was a few weeks ago now, but the story is still great! :)

I am in organic chem lab this semester with Dr. Mhaskar. Now, in the movies, there's always stuff blowing up and bubbling over and catching on fire...not so much in real life, until....

Anyway, so my reaction was not carrying through. My lab partner & I had no idea what we did wrong (I have figured out what we did by now though) and so we asked our professor. He kept trying different things and adding different chemicals to get our reaction to work. After adding quite a few different compounds (including bleach & dichloromethane, for more info please go to http://siri.org/msds/index.php). Then he had to shake them up, so he put on the lid & started shaking it. Well, he didn't quite have the lid on the vial tightly so some of it splashed in my face, but I thought nothing of it and wiped it off. When he saw that I had spilled chemicals on my face he kind of freaked out and told me to wash my face. So, being the amazing student I am I went to the sink and waited while another lab member washed out their test tubes. Then, my prof came back, told the other kid to move, and made me wash my face in the eye washers!! I have taken lots of labs in my years of school so far and NEVER had to see anyone actually use those! And, since then, I've told a couple people and everyone I talked to hasn't seen it either! So that I suppose is my claim to fame. Luckily, not a lot of our lab saw what was going on, otherwise I would have been mortified.

But no worries, there are no acid burns or anything on my face. My face was just kind of itchy and red for the remainder of the day. Later on, while doing my lab write-up, I realized that one of the chemicals that was in our vial is a possible carcinogen, which is great. So I'm getting ready to go to chem lab in a few minutes...hopefully today will not be that exciting!! :)

Oh, and I was reminded this weekend that I never blogged about my weekend in Indianapolis, so I promise I will get on that soon! :)

Trouble in chem lab

So this was a few weeks ago now, but the story is still great! :)

I am in organic chem lab this semester with Dr. Mhaskar. Now, in the movies, there's always stuff blowing up and bubbling over and catching on fire...not so much in real life, until....

Anyway, so my reaction was not carrying through. My lab partner & I had no idea what we did wrong (I have figured out what we did by now though) and so we asked our professor. He kept trying different things and adding different chemicals to get our reaction to work. After adding quite a few different compounds (including bleach & dichloromethane, for more info please go to http://siri.org/msds/index.php). Then he had to shake them up, so he put on the lid & started shaking it. Well, he didn't quite have the lid on the vial tightly so some of it splashed in my face, but I thought nothing of it and wiped it off. When he saw that I had spilled chemicals on my face he kind of freaked out and told me to wash my face. So, being the amazing student I am I went to the sink and waited while another lab member washed out their test tubes. Then, my prof came back, told the other kid to move, and made me wash my face in the eye washers!! I have taken lots of labs in my years of school so far and NEVER had to see anyone actually use those! And, since then, I've told a couple people and everyone I talked to hasn't seen it either! So that I suppose is my claim to fame. Luckily, not a lot of our lab saw what was going on, otherwise I would have been mortified.

But no worries, there are no acid burns or anything on my face. My face was just kind of itchy and red for the remainder of the day. Later on, while doing my lab write-up, I realized that one of the chemicals that was in our vial is a possible carcinogen, which is great. So I'm getting ready to go to chem lab in a few minutes...hopefully today will not be that exciting!! :)

Oh, and I was reminded this weekend that I never posted about my weekend trip to Indianapolis, so I'll have to do that sometime too! :) I promise...

Memories being made at UIS

First of all, WOW!! It's November already!! Compared to last year, this year is going by so fast! I am loving UIS and know it's a much better fit than the college I was at last year.

Last night, I was discussing the pros & cons of UIS with some kids in my physics lab (yes, I was in lab from 6-9 on halloween, and it's very sad). One was an R.A., the other a possible R.A. for next year, & me. We were just talking about living at UIS, which I don't do of course...but it was interesting being in on the conversation. Compared to a private, Christian college with tons of rules, UIS is great. At some schools, living on campus is very similar to living in jail...complete with curfews, signing out on the weekends and leaving a land-line phone number and address of where you would be staying and with whom you'd be staying, and a dress code in the all-girls dorm. After talking with an R.A. from here, it made me kind of miss the college-living and feel like I had missed out on 'real' college life. That is something that I will probably never experience at UIS but it's a great way to build friendships with other people. On the other hand, I have found it very simple to make friends (both commuters and residents) just from my classes.

So overall, I'd give UIS a great rating...classes are great & so are the people I have classes with! Now I've got to get working on some homework, but I will have to post sometime this weekend to share the story of what happened to me in chem lab! :)

Have a great weekend!!!