Drugs! (Or "Actually, I'm feeling fine at the moment")

Actually, I'm on no drugs at the moment. I'm also in no pain. The surgery went particularly well last night, and I'm feeling fine. Aside from slight gum pain on the lower left side of my mouth, everything is going great. In fact, if you told me that I'd just had four wisdom teeth removed, I'd call you a lying bastard.

So all things went well. I'm not zonked on drugs, and I came right out of the general anaesthetic with no problems at all. Felt right as rain straight away.

Also got some of my medical information from the pre-op check. Currently:
Heart rate: 80 - 90 (trust me, thats normal for me)
Blood pressure: 140/70
Pulse oximetry: 99-100%

Well, see you later,
Charon

The melting minds (Or "I'm being given painkillers today")

In a couple of hours I'm going to get four wisdom teeth out. I imagine that it may hurt severely. Luckily, I'm having a general anaesthetic and will have lots of painkillers afterwards. I may or may not make a few posts when my mind is all mushy and high. It'll be interesting to see what I write.

The bugs are in my computer! (Or "writing an entomotoxicology report")

Today marked "Day 2" of writing my entomotoxicology research report. I'm pleased at the moment that I've gotten through far more than I expected. At this point in time, all that remains is finishing off two or three small sections (adding up to about 1000 words all together), adding some pictures and additional information in the forms of tables and the like, and then writing the bibliography.

The remainder of my day has been spent playing Flash games - so many games to play, so little time...

I also want to add that I had the strangest dream last night... I think. Details are sketchy at the moment, but I'm fairly certain it involved my high school, a nun with super powers, and a kangaroo. Make of it what you will.

The bugs are in my brain! (or "Entomology is fun")

Today began rather simply - lazing about for a few hours. Nothing like sitting in front of the computer and television, just relaxing for a bit.

However, I have now moved on to something just slightly more constructive. For one of my subjects at university (Biological Evidence) I have to write a report on a particular field or specialty that is related to biological evidence. If you haven't guessed from the title of this post, its entomology. Or to be more exact, forensic entomotoxicology. Its quite interesting really, and I won't bore the current non-existant readers of this blog with details. Nevertheless, I could spend a large amount of time just proing over the journal articles I have in front of me.

I should also recount a lovely entomology-based experience. A prac. I was in recently. To put it simply, fly eggs had been placed on pieces of meat, which in turn allowed the little maggots to feed on the meat and then turn into cutesy-wutesy big maggots. The lab involved counting out maggots, separating them into different species/sizes where applicable, preserving some and allowing others to mature. It was all nice and smelly. Imagine walking into a room the size of an average classroom, where there sits 14 different samples of rotting meat and maggots on different benches. Lovely thought, isn't it.

Now imagine having to sit with those pieces of rotting flesh, counting out crawling, wriggling little maggots with a pair of meat tweezers. Got your skin crawling yet?

All in all, the lab was rather fun, but too short. You get used to the smell really quickly, and only on a few occasions did I gag when the smell caught up with me. It was fun, however, watching various students and staff not associated with the prac walking into the room to get something they'd left behind - they would get about two or three steps in the room and then the smell hit them. The hand would go straight to the mouth, all the while looking shocked that the class is happily (most of us, at least) sitting at our benches picking out maggots from our rotting meat. Soon after they would exit the room, looking a little green around the gills.

Well, that was my most recent entomology experience, and I imagine its put some of you off your food, and filled the minds of others with horrible images. Enjoy!

Now on to the actual content (or "why is the uranium gone?")

Well, if nothing else, my midsemester exams are over. I can't really say that I'm too pleased with how everything has progressed in the past week or so. Even though the exams themselves weren't too difficult, I seem to still feel slightly uneasy about them.

Analytical Chemistry 1 - Why oh why did it take me so long to do the easy questions. I had the high-resolution MS read-out of the gas, so why did it take until the last 15 minutes of the exam to have the "Oh duh" moment and realise it was ethene? The remainder was moderately good - though I reaffirm my hatred of titration calculations. The tool of the non-existant titration devil they are!

Inorganic Chemistry 1 - Actually, this wasn't as bad as I expected. Name/draw a complex or two, a few multiple choice questions, etc. The crystal field splitting diagrams though sucked hard, despite having drawn such diagrams dozens of times previously...

Organic Chemistry 2 - Damn the synthesis of 1-naphthanaldehyde (or whatever it was called). Also damn the reasons why pyridine-n-peroxide is so good at allowing electrophilic aromatic substitutions at the C4 position - though I feel that I may have bullsh*tted my way through without too much trouble - as Ryan says, I'm the teacher's pet for this subject.


I was also particularly disappointed today - my good friend Ryan mentioned that information about an industrial traineeship had been posted on UTSOnline - a year of working at ANSTO, possibly with uranium ore/derivatives! I don't think I could have been more excited - alas, they only want students that have completed three years of a four year degree. Plus, for some strange reason most people I know have an aversion to even the mere thought of me being in proximity of uranium - in ore form or otherwise. Bastards.

Well, on to doing nothing for the next few hours. Hoorah!

First post

Hi there...

Well, for those that actually have stumbled across this journal, I'm Charon (my pseudonym of sorts). To put it simply, I'll probably post periodically in this journal random things that have been happening in my life. Random observations will abound - and for those lucky (or unlucky enough), my unique sense of humour will infest your minds and slowly drive you insane. Just ask the handful of people at UTS who respond to quacking or the yelling of "spider monkeys" at the top of one's lungs.