Records of a Mad Scientist: Top 10 things that piss off your Chem 112 TA

Friday, October 1, 2010

Top 10 things that piss off your Chem 112 TA

Blow a pipette. Any pipette. With your mouth. Okay... do I really have to tell you that its stupid to put your mouth on something that dispenses chemicals? Apparently... because children will blow pipettes with their mouths.
***The worst part is that it was a volumetric pipette. You NEVER blow volumetric pipettes. It makes them inaccurate. You might blow a serological pipette. But, you NEVER blow a volumetric one.
Volumetric pipette: DON'T USE YOUR MOUTH , DON'T BLOW

Serological pipette: DON'T USE YOUR MOUTH, OKAY TO BLOW WITH A BULB ***
Climb on the lab furnature. Do I really even need to say this? You don't horse around at the ppol. You don't horse around in the lab. Its just not a good idea to be a monkey.
Forget to turn in your lab on the internet. I can't grade your lab report unless you turn in a copy on the internet. Its not my rule, its Dr.R's. And, I can't hand it back until you hand in the report. So... not turning in your report pisses me off.
Forget to turn in your hardcopy of the lab report late. I have to get the lab reports graded and returned in 2 days. Students turn in their reports on Friday, and I have to get them back on Monday, or they turn it in on Monday and I have to get it back Wednesday. The later you turn in your report, the less time I have to grade it. And, I'm the one who looses time from my research or my homework to grade your report late.
Forget to turn in your lab report at all. I spend my weekend... or at least some part of my weekend ... wondering where your report is and worrying about you. Yeah, I'm that TA.
Fail to read directions for you lab. You could reduce your time in the lab... my time in the lab... and all of our productivity if you WOULD JUST READ THE DAMN LAB BEFORE YOU CAME!!!
Forget to delete stuff from you lab computer or clean up your session. I have to clean up when you're done and check back in. If things aren't right, I'm the one who gets in trouble, not you. You might loose points. I could loose my job... and my ability to attend graduate school. My ability to pay is dependant on my ability to keep my teaching assistantship. Its really difficult for me to do that if the lab is left a mess when you're done. I will clean up the hood, but I don't want to have to clean up all the equipment after you as well.
Ask her a million times how you do stuff that she's already explained to you. Seriously, I explain things once. That should be enough. THINK ABOUT IT or ask a question the first time. This goes back to reading.
Agree to meet with her, and then not show up. I have a life. I have my own work to do. My ability to stop teaching is also a function of whether or not I do well in my research. I would like to stop teaching and focus on my research. You guys are screwing that up for me.
Stop me in the resource room, to ask me "just one question". I work from 12 - 2 on Mondays. I have 4 extra hours of office hours for my students. I have to pick up my reports regularly, so I go in on Monday morning to get them. This doesn't mean that I want to answer 50 million questions. I just want to get in, get out, and then go back to my lab to do what ever I was doing before ((although if we're honest, it probably wasn't terribly important anyway. I'm just not that productive at 9 am.))

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Cast of Characters

AC -- AD's roommate. Famous for his frustration with his own epic procrastination and ability to curse the latin word on the tip of his tongue.
AD -- my boyfriend. Its new... and exciting... and hard from this distance. An aerospace engineer. Still goes to the famous former football giant across the road from the castle where I went to undergrad.
BD -- one of my best friends from undergrad. Another ex-boyfriend and part of my incestious little circle of friends. Has rigid boundaries that serve him well. Math major and genius.
Dr.jR -- head of the chemistry and biochemistry department. Researches NOM (not eating, sadly, but natural organic material). Nice, but unpredicatble.
DrA -- my research boss. Somewhere in his thirties and totally chill. The first PI I've ever met who bakes cookies during lab meetings.
DrR -- my teaching boss. Crotchety old man who doesn't take shit. Slightly sexist. Smokes like a chimney. A teddy bear.
JL -- our post doc in lab. Chineese. Tells me not to work so hard.
JP -- an ex-boyfriend of mine and sort-of friend. Suitmate of AD. Sort of an asshole. VERY crude. We tend to play off eachother. Once dropped his pants in the middle of a crowded room. Also, halo teabagged someone in real life. More than once. Signature phrase is "Dicking Fuck." Exemplifies why Physics and Math double majors scare me.
Kara -- basically the person who told me to write this.
Michael Cera -- guy in my program. Actually younger than I am (I was suprised). Very nice. Lutheran boy scout. Might decide to teach chemistry. Analytical chemist.
MK -- The youngest member of the Quad (AC, AD, JP and MK). Computer science major. Bearded. Sometimes more mature than his fellow seniors who can drink. More or less uncorrupted. It was adorable when he had his first girlfriend.
N -- my fabulous Indian roommate. Seriously, she is great. And, she feeds me.
St. Pat -- One of the guys in my program. Older than the rest of us by a few years. A good analytical chemist. Smart. Familiar with the works of Joss Whedon.
T -- my former roommate. Gave me a cold for my brithday. LIke, a stuffed one.

A few definations...

Cell Biology -- a field of biology that is basically their answer to the fact that life is based in chemistry. As a graduate level course, it has involved a 2 day lecture on atomic bonding and the Krebs cycle. These were things covered in my freshman chemistry and biology courses.
Cubby's -- My prefered non smoking bar in graduate school
Macrophage -- Somestimes called Macs; a type of immune cell, and the target of my research. I've been told they're ugly, but I think they're pretty cute when I get to dye them pretty colors with florescent dye or proteins and look at them under the microscope. I get geeky abou them.
Microscope -- Dr.A's big, expensive microscope that looks at cells. It can see brightfield (normal cells) and florescent ones. We can also see if protiens are clumping together with it.
Students -- I teach freshman science majors, except for the ones who want to be chemists. I have a lot of engineers, a handful of premeds and biologists, and quite a few pre-pharmacy. Sometimes agravating, often exhausting, and a huge time suck. I want them to suceed, which, according to my defination, is learn something.

WARNING: Scientific Content

I realize that not all of my readers are scientists (I think maybe 1/3?), and even fewer are chemists. So, I propose a science warning system.

* Basic science. Things you should have learned in school if you had been paying attention. Or... if you don't know this, you need to talk to T because our science education system sucks.

** High School/Freshman college science and math. Stuff I would expect you to know after a calculus class and at least one class in physical and life science.

*** Some scientific knowledge. Let's assume you've had 1+ upper level science course in either biology or chemistry.

****Upper level science. You probably need 3 - 4 years of college chemistry/biology to get this part. Maybe not, though. I'll try to avoid this as much as possible. Sometimes, though, I can't help myself and I geek.