Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Screw organic, I take the genetically modified please.

Many moons ago, when I was a wee 18 year old college student, living large on dorm cafeteria ice cream and cold cereal, I took two different engineering general chemistry courses. I got Bs in both of them and vaguely remember obtaining a 45% on one of the finals (average was a 40%) so I think it is safe to say that I struggled a bit. Several thousand beers later with no review any of it, I am back in chemistry but this time in the form of organic. Let's just say that it hasn't been all peaches and whipped cream.


On my first quiz of the class, I managed to get a 36% which I think is safely in the failing range. Gulp. I quickly starting revising my strategy from 'get an A' to 'need a C or higher for this class to count'. Second quiz, slightly better at a 68%. Third quiz, an 88%. So while I have been climbing up the bell curve with each attempt (with the class average being about a 60% right now), I have a long way to go. Adding to my woes is the fact that I am going to be missing two weeks of class due to trekking the Incan Trail and other fun activities in Peru/Ecuador in November and will be receiving zeros for the two quizzes taken during that time. Luckily they drop two quizzes anyway, but that means my 36% is going to a factor into my grade.

Another exciting development is that I recently realized that I fly back from my great South American adventures exactly 1.2 hours before my third and final ochem exam (worth about 1/4 of my grade). That is if none of my flights from Quito, Ecuador -> Panama City, Panama -> Houston, Texas -> Phoenix get delayed or canceled. If this happens I will miss my exam and win a ticket into the 'no way out of this hole challenge'.

This is exciting. It is the first time I might actually fail a class. Good news is, that this is my first class ever taken at this particular community college which would make this a "throwaway transcript". Never happened, don't know what you are talking about. Stayed tuned for the exciting new series "Will Me Fail Organic Chemistry" at it rolls out.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

are you still on ramen noodles?

The Chaser said...

anon...hmmm this confuses even me. on as in hooked on? maybe you are referring to college kids eating ramen to save $. i eat ramen...but only because i like it.

Anonymous said...

la, cdl & sibs for years thought ramen was grama's "homemade" noodles. only God knows when they found out