Day 051: Tests, labs, and such

Hey everyone,

I know it's been awhile but this new schedule is pretty intense. I'm up at 6:15-6:30 every morning. I have class from 8am to roughly 1pm (depending how long lab runs). Then I study until ... oh, evening time ... 6? 7? 8? Then I come home, work out, watch some TV to destress and then sleep. And then I do that again. And again.

We got our test results back on Tuesday. I did fine...an A so I'm happy. It's been good to take his tests (which are quite fair) and also see how he grades (also fair -- when he takes off points, he tells you why). We have another test on Monday (happy birthday Mom! Happy Bastille Day!) which is going to be calculation-heavy -- enthalpy, entropy and Gibbs Free Energy, in case you were wondering -- and then more learning. Coming up, we have two tests the week after that and then the last week of class. Whew! This has been quite a sprint!

The labs are fine. They're a bit cumbersome at times (both the procedure/performing the lab and also the lab reports) but I like that this time around, everyone seems much more organized. Which is always, always welcome.

Anyway, I should probably get back to studying/doing my labs. Thought I'd (finally) drop a line!

Day 045: The first test of Chem II and a freak out

I had my first test yesterday.

It was an extremely fair test. If you understood the material, you were pretty much set. He also offers extra points on test (as a way of getting extra credit) and I think I nailed that so I know that I at least got five points out of a hundred. Yes! Anyway, I think I did okay. We'll have to see how he grades but I feel like I prepared properly (studying, practice problems, etc) so, yeah.

Labs have been going fine. I like that this instructor has her stuff together. She preps thoroughly during pre-lab so that most of the time we get a good sense of what we're getting ourselves into. Do we know why we're doing such and such lab or how it correlates or any of that? No. But that's okay, at least we're doing it with some instruction.

In other news, I had a minor freak out the other day when we were learning about hybridization (it has to do with how electrons of different atoms bond together) because I didn't get it right away and the professor zoomed past it like he was in a sports car on the 17-mile drive. I was freaking out.

How carbon and hydrogen electrons form methane (riveting, I know)

Thank goodness for the Fantastic Four. Chris helped me figure it out and Michael (bless his heart) was trying to help me but he has a way of teaching in a demeaning tone sometimes so I was pretty frank with him when he was "teaching" me. "Michael, I know you want to help but you like to tell me everything I don't need to know about things and right now, I just really need to understand what's going on with all this orbital hybridization, ok?"

After two hours, I finally had a grasp on it. Luckily, I had Tuesday and Wednesday to solidify the material before our test yesterday and I gotta say, I finally get it. It is always, always a gratifying experience to overcome a mental block on stuff so yay hybridization!

Day 042: Getting into the new groove

Chem II is a HUGE wake-up call from Chem I.

This professor is a lot more organized, a lot more structured and all together put together. It's good and bad. Good because I'm learning a lot and in an orderly fashion. Bad because this is a lot of difficult material and it's based on things we should have learned in Chem I so as you can imagine, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. Grateful for a decent professor but overwhelmed nonetheless.

8am is freaking early...just throwing it out there. Now I know what my dear teacher-friend must feel like getting her butt up at the crack of dawn to get to school on time. I woke up at 6:15 this morning. No joke. I wasn't sure the sun was awake. haha

The lab instructor(s) seem like hard-asses. Which is lame. And apparently there are quizzes in lab? What? We didn't have that with the Bobblehead. Anyway, tomorrow we're doing Beer's Law -- something about absorbance and food dye and stuff like that.

What? No real beer? Lame.

I should probably read the lab instead of just perusing it.

Day 037: The end of Chem I! (My one day off)

Today I hung out with the "post-bacc party" as Chris deems it. It was nice to relax and not worry about chemistry.

Ahh, lovely.

However, the fun is over so fast because Chem II starts bright and early tomorrow morning at 8am. Yes, A-M.

Anyway, this professor really has his stuff together. He's already put up everything I could possibly ask for on Blackboard -- syllabus, notes, practice problems, everything. Michael and I have decided he's going to be tough but it'll be a wonderful, organized, structured tough.

We are done with Shazam. I didn't like him, then I liked him and near the end I decided I don't really like him. Every day was an adventure in chemistry. Would we cover valence electrons? Would we make it through electron configurations? What exactly is happening for the final? Lots of questions that any good professor should have answers to. (He didn't.)

And of course, test and quiz days were always fun. The post-bacc party ultimately figured out how he tested. ...badly. He would mention something for literally four seconds and expect us to a) grasp the material and b) memorize it. Then he would put in on the test/quiz and make it worth an absurd amount of points. It doesn't matter that he spent 45 minutes on electron configurations. He wants you to remember nodes and degenerate orbitals and blah blah blah. Thank goodness the madness is over. And good riddance.

However, I made an A (unless he scales funny). In both Shazam's class and the Bobblehead's lab.

It's gratifying to know that all my hard work pays off (especially when presented with two really weird and not-that-great professors). It's also wonderful to go on to an MD on the right track.

Day 031: Test results, studying and the upcoming schedule

We got our tests back yesterday. The fantastic four (that's what Michael's wife calls us) did not do so good. The highest any of us got was a 90 ... this test kicked our ass. It was pretty much for stupid mistakes -- not converting units, not reading the problem all the way through, et cetera, et cetera.

The apathy's still around and I was a little affected by my grade on the test so I'm studying even more to make sure I ace these next two (big, fat) quizzes.

Today, Michael and I studied and got a better hang of electron orbitals and electron configuration.

Can you believe I actually know what this means?!

What that translates into is knowing how to read the periodic table and [warning: geeking out] let me tell you, the periodic table actually tells you a helluva lot. I won't bore you with details but it's pretty cool.

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Upcoming schedule:

Monday: quiz on quantum mechanics [note: how (fake) smart do I sound? haha]

Tuesday: Whatever we learn on Monday. (I know, so stupid and random and fairly useless.)

Wednesday: Day off ... where I'll probably read the chapters we need to catch up on.

Thursday: Chem II starts!

Day 029: The third test and more clarification

The test was fine. It felt a bit difficult -- I probably left one question blank on each page the first time around and that's pretty intense for me. I got through everything and, like I said, it was fine. This apathy is still hanging around but it didn't really hinder my studying or test-taking ability. I'm just "meh" about everything.

After the test, a group of us were talking and we decided this test was tricky and annoying and was a little taxing (basically, a very Shazam-like exam) but I think we all did well enough.

Uhh, B? No, I think it's C. ...eeny, meeny, miney, mo!

Nick joked that none of us got a hundred so he's quitting our study group. (Oh, I forgot to mention that Chris made a hundred on the last exam.) Nick also got the lowest score on the last exam out of our foursome -- a 97. Ouch. I know, pretty pitiful, right? That's why he's ready to quit ;)

So since we didn't get through enough of Chapter 7, we're not getting quizzed tomorrow. We're getting quizzed Monday and our 7, 8, 9, 10 exam on Tuesday is going to be a "whatever's leftover" quiz. However, Chris and I decided that there is no way he's going to get all the way to Chapter 10 by Monday (our last official day of class) so we're probably going to finish Chapter 8. Tops.

Uhh, it'll be tons of fun when Summer Session II starts and we start on Chapter 13. FUN, I say.

Day 028: Final clarification and the end of lab!

Professor Shazam clarified things today.

Since he is sprinting to the end (a chapter a day), on the day of the final, everyone will be taking a test.

Instead of giving us a quiz everyday (as he intended), people with a 90 or below are going to take the final (Chapters 1-10). People with a 90 or above will be taking a test on chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10.

So, I don't really have a choice of taking a test come final day. It's not really a problem but I'm in this weird state.

We're rushing to the end and I'm not feeling stressed out. I think I am, but I'm not feeling it. I'm rather apathetic about things. Not in a Jessica's-being-lazy way, more like Jessica's-getting-her-stuff-
done-but-doesn't-feel-like-anything-is-processing way.

Whatever.

Anyway, today was the last day of lab. The bobblehead instructor decided not to give us tomorrow's lab so we're done. We have labs to turn in on Thursday but there are no more new labs. Huzzah! The bobblehead is out of my life! All I have to do is finish these labs and then life will be good.

Oh yeah, and the test tomorrow (did I forget to mention that?) and then the quiz on Thursday and then the other test on Tuesday and then I'm done.

And then Summer Session II starts next Thursday.

...yeah.