If Tomorrow Never Comes…

If Tomorrow Never Comes…

As much as I wish for it not to come, it dead sure will.

Tomorrow is one day I’m not exactly looking forward to because it’s the day I’m going to have my chemistry board practical. Doesn’t sound like much of a deal does it? Wait then, let me just do some font formatting to give you a better idea. Here goes – Tomorrow, I have my Chemistry BOARD Practical. Get it now? Eh?

I’m really bad at sticking to the things I say. Just in the last post I said I was going to go into hibernation mode and here I am, making another post. And I’ve not even ventured close to hibernation mode. In fact I’ve actually become more active on Facebook than I’ve ever been. Not a really good sign is it? As if I care anyway. So yeah, tomorrow is the chemistry board practical in which I will have to do a volumetric analysis in which basically you have to let some liquid drop from one tube into a beaker and wait for the colour of the shit in the beaker to change. Then you note down the amount of liquid dropped from the tube and perform a couple of useless calculations. The other [and much more dreaded] thing I’ll be made to do is salt analysis. Basically I’ll be given a compound and I’ll have to put whatever I can find into it to get some weird colour or gas that will burn my nose hair. Eternal bliss, I tell you. I’m not particularly fond of this because I’m terrible at it. I’m impatient and whenever I don’t get any positive tests on my first attempt, I panic and give up. And considering that I have a 100% failure record in it, I’m not feeling very confident. Also, my chemistry teacher is such a character. I had to give a retest because I did badly in my original chemistry exam. I passed in the retest [to my absolute horror cause I thought I was gonna fail royally] but still I’ll be made to give a re-retest. So I went to the teacher to ask him why I was being made to give a retest when I’d already passed in this. He said, “Well, this test was very easy and still you’re just barely passing, so you have to give it again.” I was pretty much on the verge of saying that, “Dude, I’ve not got even 20% marks in your subject in the last year or so..and here I am, getting over 40%(33% is passing) but still I’m being called a failure. What is the deal with you? Why can’t you let me be confident about myself for once?” But I knew it’d be useless so I didn’t elaborate any further.

Also, amongst other things, I came to know that a daughter of one of my mother’s cousins met with a bad accident. Now, I’ve never seen that girl, don’t know her name but still I feel very bad for her. I can’t understand why exactly. But maybe it’s just because when her mother was talking to my mother, she was more concerned about the girl missing her class 11th exams and ruining her chance of getting into a good entrance examination. And I was like..what the hell? How can anybody be concerned about studies right now..the girl just escaped death almost. A tractor was just about to go over her face but it scraped some side of her face and it got damaged and all that. And still people were concerned about studies? I may be interpreting this in an entirely wrong fashion but it was weird to me. I’m sure her mother cares about her and all..maybe it’s just that I’m too touchy with people who have kids doing the same subjects that I am and running from one coaching centre to another to achieve success in the IIT-JEE and the AIEEE. It reminds me of how I’ve literally wasted the last two years of my life. Agreed there’s competition everywhere but this system is just not correct. Whatever anyone might try to explain, it’s not justified. Anyhow, I’m not gonna get into all that because this is just not the time to crib about the system. So, I hope you get well soon, my anonymous cousin and may you achieve success in whatever you wish to do. In other words, I hope you have the Time of Your Life.

Okay, time to go back to my dear Mr. Sulphuric Acid, Mrs. Hydrochloric Acid and their kids, Masters Oxalic Acid and Phosphoric Acid. I genuinely hope I don’t end up throwing one of you on the external examiner’s face. Peace.

Update - 4/2/2008

So, the practical is done and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I managed to do the written part neatly and also managed to do the titration and the salt analysis. They had told us which salt we were gonna get so it wasn’t a big deal. But hey, at least I didn’t have to ask anybody to tell me the confirmatory tests, I had learned those this time around.

The external didn’t look like a happy woman to me. She was a total disaster. She was looking like this mean looking woman with a hunter, leather clothes and high heels who would kill you if you didn’t answer the questions. Well of course, she wasn’t having a hunter and wasn’t wearing leather, but she was wearing heels and was looking mean and khadoos. And my not knowing anything didn’t really help. I thought my Viva was really funny. Here’s how it went:-

Teacher - Formula of Fehlings solution A and B?
Me- I don’t know.

Teacher - Formula of Benedict’s reagent?
Me - I don’t know.

Teacher - What is the structure of the functional group anhydride?
Me - Anhydride functional group? Isn’t it when you remove water from something?
Teacher - Huh.

Teacher - How do we prepare Hydrogen Sulphide by Kipps process?
Me - I don’t know.

Teacher - Didn’t you pass Hydrogen Sulphide during your salt analysis?
Me - Nope.

Teacher - What salt are you having?
Me - Aluminum Nitrate (haha, thanks teachers!)

Teacher - How come you came to know that without passing H2S?
Me - Uhh..I guessed?

Teacher - What is the formula of Aluminum Nitrate?
Me - Al(NO3)3 (Lol, if my teacher hadn’t written that on the board today, I was gonna give another “I don’t know”).

Teacher - Okay go.
Me(to myself) - LOL, what a disaster! :))