Last day of the week

Woke up at 10+ am this morning, for my IRHR 1001 tutorial session only starts at 11am. Had garlic bread and fruit juice for breakfast. I burnt the 3 slices of garlic bread on my maiden try of warming it up after taking them out from the fridge. The temperature was too high and the bread turned dark brown and gave off a pungent burnt smell. After setting the oven to medium low the 2nd time around, the garlic bread was done just nice :) Indeed,trial and error is an unavoidable process in food preparation.

The grading for participation in IRHR 100 tutorials will only start next week. Felt really relieved when Tony broke the news to us. Today, we basically went through a worksheet on recognizing plagiarism. I need not emphasize time and again how stringent UoN is over plagiarism policies. Just hope that I acknowledge the information I get from the academic journals and textbooks correctly when I write my essay.

CHEM 3210 lab session was less stressful than the previous one, thankfully. Because for today's part of the experiment, we did it in groups of 4. But I still made some mistakes, such as forgetting which product I synthesized last week, and as result, the calculation of the mass of the product to make up a solution was wrong. Secondly, I overshot the meniscus mark of the volumetric flask while diluting one of the solutions. I must not make anymore of such mistakes, because it might affect the result of the whole experiment. Overall, the experiment was relatively successful, as the UV-vis spectra for our organometallic compounds were quite close to literature. However, I nearly choked on the pungent ammonia that one of my group mates, Heath poured down the sink, instead of the waste bottle in the fume cupboard!

I got to know some interesting facts about 2 of my group mates today. Renee is a 32 year old woman of a 11 year old girl. That means that she was only 21 years old when she had her daughter, amazing! No wonder she demonstrates a high level of maturity and efficiency when she does her parts for the experiment. She is a part time student who is doing a double degree in Chemistry and Education. All along, I thought that Renee is only in her twenties. Paul looks like someone in his forties, though I am not sure of his age. I still remembered how he consoled me last week by patting on my shoulder. That gesture was really caring!

Stomach cramps came to visit me after lab session had ended. It had quite a bad effect on me due to a couple factors, which were the hot blazing afternoon sun and hunger. As a result, I felt faint in addition to my stomach hurting badly. But I am not completely luckless as well, because Weiming responded to my phonecalls and drove me back home without any complaints. Thanks a million, buddy! Hopefully I can repay your kindness one day!

Had not much appetite, so I just finished a packet of pizza biscuits which I had purchased on Monday. Spent some time reading my management notes before cooking dinner. The standard of my cooking seemed to have deproved this time around, the udon was too dry and the lemon sauce for the chicken was a little burnt. I guess my mood to cook was influenced by my less than tip top physical health condition today. Nevertheless, I hope I get better tomorrow after a good night's rest. No school tomorrow! Cheers!

Wilson helped me cut my watermelon today, that was indeed a very thoughtful act. I did not even ask for help, for he volunteered to assist me. Really lucky to have such nice and helpful people around me. :) They make the sun appear during a cloudy day ( not literally of course).