Monday, July 13, 2009

more test

today was our second test of the term. it went well, maybe could have gotten a few more points on it but i don't think it will be a problem. i knew the material pretty well, so i'm not worried.

last friday our class gave presentations on aquatic invasive species. mine was the Asian carp, which i knew very little about until i did my research. apparently a big problem in a lot of places, and probably moving into the great lakes during the next decade. army corps of engineers spent about $10 million on an electric "fence" in the illinois river to keep them out, but it's far from guaranteed to work. if the carp make it into the lakes, we'll probably lose more than one species of fish.


outside of projects and tests, we've been spending a lot of time on aquatic chemistry, which is fine by me. i get along just fine with chemistry. carbon and oxygen and nitrogen and phosphorus and iron and sulfur... mostly we've been discussing it in lecture, but we've done some lab work as well. mostly titrating... adding tiny little drops of acid to a colored mixture until we just reach the point when the color turns clear, and then using the volume of acid added to calculate how much oxygen was originally in the water. it's not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

and only ten days left until the term's over. in that time, we have a paper to write, some labs to finish, and a final and a lab final to take. probably going to be a little bit busy.



beyond class, work has been keeping me busy-- although my scheduling supervisor cut me some breaks at the end of this past week, and thank god for it. i was starting to feel overwhelmed for a while, working so much and having to get my presentation together... it was tough to find time to breath. but i ended up getting an hour or so off on thursday and only worked a half day on saturday, so i was able to relax a little bit and get some studying done. this-coming week i get to go in a little later then i'm used to, so that will be nice too.

in other news, we had a big storm come through over the weekend, which had the added effect of knocking out the internet for a few days. always a bummer.

haven't had any field trips lately, but i think we might have one coming up on friday. we'll probably find out more about that soon.

and, as always, the food here is amazing. some folks are critical and overly-picky, but it's their loss. i think it's great.


but mostly, i'm looking forward to going home and seeing my cat.

1 comment:

  1. Gary, your blog is so informative. It's nice to get the perspective of a student who also has a job at Stone Lab. I know you've been exhausted, but I really appreciate the time you've taken to write!

    Also: I, too, am an Otterbein alum. Creative writing and all that.

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