Chemistry

Early this semester I bombed my first chemistry exam. The exact score was 67.8%; that’s a D and that was my grade after the curve. Since then, I’ve worked incredibly hard to makeup for that low but, important grade. I’m finishing the semester with an A-. Actually, I’m 1% away from the A. This will cost me about 0.3 gpa points. And while I could write to my professor and lab instructor to give me the extra 1% for the A, I know I am responsible for my grade. I made a lot of little mistakes, each costing me a point here and there and well, the points eventually add up. I’ve done a lot of learning, maybe more than most of my peers in chemistry. I know this because I’ve never made the same mistake twice. I think part of doing well in chemistry at my school is being absolutely perfect and exact the first time. I’m not there yet and I don’t think I’m that kind of learner or person. The material, in hindsight, is difficult but understandable.

I don’t think my grade actually reflects how hard I’ve worked in this course, but because I’ve done so much work and I’ve really tried to understand chemistry at the submicroscopic, macroscopic, and symbolic level, I feel very confident in helping someone struggling with general chemistry through their first semester. The anxiety, frustration, and self-doubt is all too familiar.

I don’t mind drunk people, or alcoholics, or even addicts. I spent two years of my life getting educated and training to be a drug counselor. I’m totally prepared on how to handling substance abuse treatment, but when you live with one—that’s another thing. I think I should move. I’m tired of locking myself inside my room because it feels safer in here than out there. This is not how I want to live.

This Will be a Summer of Reading*

(image source: http://www.immoweb.be)

*This is an ongoing list of things I plan on doing this Summer.

I have a huge stack of books beside my bed (and on my tablet). It’s mostly neuroscience-related, some fiction, and a bit of science fiction. The more I look at my list, the more I’m worried I won’t finish it. The Summer I finished over a dozen books, I was unemployed and not taking Summer classes. I’m not sure how I’m going to get through intermediate statistics and evolutionary biology with a looming list like this. I imagine a good chunk of these books will join my Winter 2013 reading list.
——The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
——Phantoms in the Brain: Probing Mysteries in the Mind by V.S. Ramachandran
——You Are Not Your Brain: The Four-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life by Jeffery M Schwartz
——Honolulu by Alan Brennert
——How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
——The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddartha Mukherjee
——The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
——The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
——Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
——Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
——Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
——In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson