Survival Arts

It's these little moments that help move things along

It's 4 weeks into my fourth quarter of general chemistry, and I'm deep into a weeks-long laboratory assignment involving identification of unknown cations in mystery solutions... a forensics exercise involving minute amounts of reagent, fiddly and frustrating, but necessary. It'a also a transition to the full-blown organic chemistry sequence, which I'm eagerly anticipating.

In the midst of my frustration, my chemistry professor, whose labtime desk sits next to my workbench, handed me my previous quarter's graded final exam, the taking of which marked the completion of the most difficult course in the general chemistry sequence.

I made a perfect score on that exam.

I feel really, really good right now. Really good. I've been given permission to copy that exam before I return it to my professor... and it's going right into the folder of recommendations and other papers I can show to schools and employers in the near future. Woohoo!