1,4-dimethylcyclohexane - Really!

I have made the official policy at our house, "If You Are Sick, You Can Watch Television All Day," and that seems to be working well. So, I am doing my chemistry homework on the computer. I just drew this lovely molecule. I don't know how they taught chemistry when the instructors actually had to LOOK at your homework - now it's all online. Lots of fun.

Deep sigh of relief and a cold beer

Finished my last final of the term today, and will be resuming life shortly. So, all those things I've been meaning to blog about should be coming soon. Wow.

Extreme Chemistry Training

At one of our recent symphony outings, Jay and I were perusing the program and there was an interview with the new young concertmaster, Jun Iwasaki. In the interview, he was asked how many hours a week he practices. He said that it was an impossible question to answer, but that his goal was to learn the pieces he would be performing well enough so that if someone woke him up in the middle of the night, he would be able to get up in his pj's and play the piece from memory at concert quality. Here is a link to another interview with the concertmaster - can't find the one I'm talking about online...

Right now, I am doing practice problems for my chemistry test tomorrow. Ellie is SCREAMING because she and Maggie are arguing over ownership of a particular "baby doll." It is Maggie's doll, and I have tried to sell the idea that Ellie is simply babysitting, but that only works for a minute or two. Someone just fell down in the back of the house. The dog is whining. I have little hands clutched around my left thigh. My shirt is being tugged, and yet: I have just successfully identified how many moles of calcium carbonate are needed to produce 1.21 of carbon dioxide under STP conditions.

Top Ten List - #1: Back to School

Yeah, I'm not going to work backwards here. My blog, my rules - The Top Ten List starts with #1. So here's the scoop - the number 1 thing that's been occupying my time in the last few weeks and keeping me so busy that I am thinking of writing down the kids' names so I don't forget is the fact that I'm officially back in school. No more Radclyffe-Schmadclyffe stuff. I am a contact center consultant no more. I am "in training" to get into a program to become a dietician - someday on the distant horizon. (It's a FAR more intense process than you might imagine, but I guess that's good.)

So, I found this program through Kansas State University (Go Wildcats!) that I can do through distance learning. Once I complete that, I have to do an internship, go for licensing, etc... but first things first. In order to get into that program, I need to meet a number of pre-requisites (that involve such things as chemistry and anatomy and physiology and - needless to say - not the type of classes one is likely to find on the transcript of a history/art history major). So, I am now enrolled at just about every community college in the Pacific Northwest and am deep in the process of getting up to speed.

But it's the chemistry at Clark College (Go Penguins!) that's taken over my life. I do have vague memories of high school chemistry - and they are not pleasant. I think (well, I know) at that point, I approached chemistry with: absolutely no interest at all, a bit of a vague belief that girls weren't supposed to be good at science, and a burning dislike for my teacher. So, needless to say, I don't remember much. But now I am 40 years old, have a specific reason for taking the class, and possess a strong determination do better than the slouched-over teenagers in my class. So, all is well. Yes, my instructor is younger than I am. Yes, I will have to don goggles and trust that said slouchy teenagers will not play games with acid near me in the lab. Yes, I am trying to learn the oxidation states of various polyatomic ions today. But I can do it. Right?

I actually carry my college transcripts around with me when I go to chemistry in case I need to remind myself that - say it with me - "I am good enough. I am smart enough. And, gosh darnit, people like me!"

And, in my ever-growing list of role modeling behaviors for the kids - I have taken to saying often - "Sorry, I can't play with you until I finish my homework."