I've been in school a week and a half, and I have a test on Wednesday, and today is the second day in a row that I've eaten chili for lunch. Just chili. Just poppin' open the can and nuking it and chowing down on it. And sprinkling cheddar on it to make myself feel like I might have some small thread of decency holding me together. Like one of those threads that come off the pizza when you pull off a slice from the rest of it. Or one that hangs on and tries to hold on to both slices of your grilled cheese. Or the one connected to your spoon when you pull it out of your chili.
My sanity is being held together by shredded cheese.
As you can see, I've decided not to study. Also, my life is in shambles, but that's a story for...never.
Actually, it's a lie.
And this chili is delicious.
My test is in Organic Chemistry, which is the class you can bring up at any kind of social event (not ANY kind; please be discretionary*) and have someone roll their eyes and say, "Oh, yeah, I got a 27 in that class," or "My third cousin took that class and changed their major because of it," or "Ohh...OChem...the only class I ever got a C in...[expletive]." (the latter is most likely to only be heard during Nobel Week in Stockholm) But so far, it hasn't reared all of its ugly heads. Just like twelve of them. My professor informed us that the first test was going to be a review of General Chemistry. We've all already taken Gen Chem, which covers pretty much the entire general spectrum of all chemistry, and still is not as hard as OChem. So this first test, he said, would be pretty easy, and we'd all do well on it, because we all knew most of it already.
I have never seen any of this crap before.
Here's the deal.
Think of yourself.
1. Yourself.
You are made up of a lot of things. I know, personality, talents, interests, right? No. Guts. You are made of guts. Remember that.
2. Guts.
And each of those guts is made of squish. Scientists call this squish tissue.
3. Tissue.
And tissue is made up of cells, which apparently is a misnomer related to cork, but that's really all science is, in the long run, just names and mistakes and yelling at people who disagree with you. What?
4. Cells.
Cells look like this.
See inside of the cell? What are those? Good, they're blobs.
5. Blobs.
Each of those blobs are made of these things called proteins that are really flippin' complicated and I don't want to explain them. But they're there.
6. Proteins.
Each of those proteins are made up of amino acids, but that's a hard name to remember, so for our purposes,
7. Protein babies.
Protein babies are made up of molecules. No...they are molecules. I hope to goodness you know what a molecule is.
8. Molecules.
Molecules are just nifty little things that make up other things. Couches, chili, your mother, Australia - all of them are made of molecules. There are so many molecules, we probably couldn't count them with our cell phone calculators. If you split something in half a million times, a molecule would be the smallest piece of that something you could reach, unless it was something that was mixed up with a lot of other somethings, and in that case, who cares? But even molecules can be split into something even smaller, in which case we have...
9. Atoms.
Atoms are really best described as way too dang small. They are the ninth step down on the stairway of life, as demonstrated, unless you consider organ systems (scientific name: Gut wads) a step on the ladder, which in that case would make them tenth. There is nothing below atoms. NOTHING. Except about a million subatomic particles, but you don't need some ghetto description of what a quark is. This is a nice way of saying atoms should be completely insignificant, so it makes sense that I would be wasting two years of my life and a perfectly good GPA on them. AND A BLOG POST. YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME. You don't need this. You don't need atoms. Close your laptop. Close that browser window. Close it RIGHT NOW. CLOSE IT GOOD.
There are plenty of different varieties of atoms. Some of them don't exist in the natural world; they only exist because scientists were bored on Friday night and pissed that they couldn't get dates, so instead they made an atom. Some of them haven't actually been made yet, but they're still on the periodic table...whatever. Those atoms are a lot like your wedding. You're not engaged, heck you aren't even dating anyone, and yet you still have a Pinterest board with what kind of favors you're probably not going to get out to the guests you haven't invited yet.
Science.
Atoms are made of protons and neutrons in the middle, and electrons float and spin around outside of it. These electrons like to kick it with each other, and that makes a bond between atoms, which is what makes a molecule.
I don't know why it took a whole semester to explain.
The important atoms are Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Fluorine, Hydrogen, Bromine, Chlorine, and Sulfur. I don't know who decided these were the important ones, but they're in pretty much everything.
Carbon is the cheerleader of the atom world. It's super popular and bonds with everyone and everyone always talks about it. Carbon is what makes compounds organic, as in ORGANIC chemistry; obnoxious popular girls are what symbolize high school. Also, they can stand in rows and do cartwheels or make pyramids or something. And of course, after a year around them, you usually hate them.
Oxygen usually only forms two bonds and two lone pairs; it likes to keep to itself. It also likes to double bond to Carbon, making it that friend that needs a lot from you but never really branches out. Oxygen bonds with itself to become the substance we need to live, just like your hope that someday your friend can branch off with someone just like them so that you can finally breathe again.
Nitrogen is hard to explain, but it makes carbon groups functional and different. Like a cheer coach.
Fluorine usually just sits by itself and eats chili while hanging off of an organic compound, like someone you kind of used to know a long time ago but never talk to and only ever hear from them when they're posting statuses on Facebook about how much they hate society. Both are super negative and hard to understand.
Hydrogen is kind of just there. It doesn't really do anything besides hang off of Carbon. Hydrogen is the hot guy from the other school who's dating the cheerleader so he's always around but doesn't know anyone else.
I don't know what Bromine and Chlorine do exactly. Pretty much the same thing as Fluorine.
Sulfur...why did I include Sulfur in this list? Sorry. I don't need Sulfur.
There's also Boron. Boron's not really very widely used in basic carbon compound structure. I just put it in because it can bond to three hydrogens and not need extra electrons. That's kind of a big deal. All atoms need eight electrons hanging around. Not Boron. Boron is happy and at peace with itself. Boron doesn't need anyone. And Boron is better and cooler than you without even trying.
Boron is my roommate. Help.
Basically OChem is a long novel about Carbon and her adventures. Carbon has this many friends. Now Carbon has this many friends. Now she's hanging out with Oxygen. Now she's at practice with Nitrogen. Now she broke up with Hydrogen because she needed space. You know?
I hope no one ever publishes this story because it sucks.
That's pretty much all I know about OChem. There's something about acids and bases, but I hate acids and bases and would never impose them on anyone. Literally. They'd melt your skin off.
There's one other concept I should probably touch on briefly, since it's pretty much fundamental to everything I'll ever learn. Carbons don't just line up; they can also connect into rings or circles (friend circles! The metaphor still applies!) called cyclowhatevershapetheyare. Six carbons in a circle are called a cyclohexane, and for some reason, organic chemists have an unhealthy obsession with it. It looks like this:
For those of you who feel like being snarky, no. That is not a double bond. I just suck at drawing straight lines.
Once you start drawing structures in OChem, you stop drawing the Carbons and just symbolize them with a bent line. This runs alongside the idea that a group of girls all jumping up and down yelling excitedly end up looking indistinguishably stupid. Or maybe it's the mob mentality.
Somehow, people realized there's a way to make cyclohexane more stable (I'm not getting into why, I promise you don't care). It looks differently in real life, because organic compounds are three dimensional, but in every textbook in the world, it looks like this:
This is called the chair formation. It is fundamental to pretty much everything you learn and if you don't understand how to attach things to it or move it or flip it...you die. You know the chair formation. You love the chair formation. You worship the chair formation. So, in light of that, I ask you this.
Does this look like a chair to you?
No.
fin.
*did you know discretionary was a word? I was just going to make it up and just use it, because it's my blog and I wanted to and you can't make me adhere to anything that defies my freedom of speech and Critical Reading was my lowest score on the SAT, but apparently it's real...who knew. It even means exactly what I wanted it to. Apparently it can also mean "denoting or relating to investment funds placed with a broker or manager who has discretion to invest them on the client's behalf." That's not the sense I was using it in. You probably knew that.
You can go back to whatever you're doing. I realize I've wasted the time you were obviously using so discretionarily**. Thanks for reading this footnote though. Sorry it was supes long and in this ridiculous baby font.
**that's not a word. English can die***.
***this is a footnote of a footnote of a footnote. A footfootfootnote. I need sleep.
