Category Archives: College Chronicles

I had only published one blog post this semester. Despite the Christmas vacation and the numerous free times that I’d had, I could not bring myself to write something new because I was totally absorbed in what I do. To date, this is the most stressful semester that I’ve encountered in my life. And why not, it’s when unappreciated passion, unrewarded efforts, and unreciprocated perseverance reached their abundance. It’s when being optimistic, even a little, could be fatal to your expectations.

I always remind myself that I could no longer go back in time to correct my mistakes and exert more effort, except if I could obtain a license to disobey the laws of physics. But then again, it is impossible to forget all the unreasonable happenings that seem to reverberate forever in your head. Accepting the stark reality that you’ve failed takes more than just courage.

Returning from the desk, I am.

The Physics in Chemistry

Chemistry is mind twisting, Physics is nerve wracking, and Calculus is brain boggling. Add them together to form one subject and poof! You have Physical Chemistry, my newest best friend this semester. God help me survive.

Just like a one-way chemical reaction, the first semester of my junior year is over. This particular four-month period is probably more memorable than the others. Don’t get me wrong, though: my inability to forget this semester does not entail propitious happenings. In fact, every second of it is rife with misery and misfortune resulting to severe anxiety and depression.

Contrary to popular belief, I’m not a hardworking student. But if you identify being on Twitter 24/7, visiting Facebook virtually every hour, and answering Formspring questions very promptly as potential sources of diligence, then I can boldly say that I am an assiduous student – thank you very much.

What I mean is that I failed to display strikingly awesome study habits, exert massive amounts of effort, and abstain from social networking. Mea culpa. And now, I’m about to pay the ultimate price for all these, in the form of my class cards.

I’m not really expecting to get the topmost, leftmost grade in Organic Chemistry I (Lecture). After all, I have the following reasons:

• I failed to draw the resonance forms of diazomethane in Quiz 1.
• I forgot the reaction mechanism and the expected product of halohydrin formation in Quiz 2.
• I answered that benzene is not planar in the midterm examination.
• I messed up with Huckel’s 4n + 2 Rule in the last quiz.
• Also, I drew the wrong structure of m-nitrobenzophenone in the same quiz.
• I incorrectly labeled the configuration of one molecule as S instead of R in the final examination.

While evaluating these matters along with a few what-if’s, I can’t help but wonder what the world might be like if only I made the sound choice, if I trudged the right path. Of course, wonder is most appropriate. After all, the product of what I’ve done is irrevocable.

As I gather strength to face this great ordeal, my only solace is my faith in Him. Sound too generic, right? But it’s true. Being able to cope with academic-related problems is not my best trait. But I feel 100x more effective every time I incorporate prayers in my situation.

I say thank you to everyone who has tried to uplift my spirits – you know who you are. For now, I’ll try to cheer myself up.

The Green Flame of Boron

For a day, we joyfully kept our periodic tables, calculators and scratch  papers away. We turned the perils of chemistry into a distant, almost nonexistent memory. We swore to promote chemistry to everyone (of course, I mean chemistry minus the difficulty) by performing pseudo-magic tricks we found scattered around the WWW. One of the interesting and most-applauded trick is shown above. That’s a strange mixture of boric acid and methanol, which is then reacted with oxygen. The flicker of their eyes when they first saw this colored flame spelled “Wow” with pure amazement. And it was, for us, priceless.