November 8, 2008 12:42pm
It’s been a little over a month since I started this site. So, I guess it might be time to write a little about myself. I will leave out my religious and sexual perceptive. This post will be about how I got myself into chemistry.
Believe it or not it started in 6th grade (1981). I was in public school in Williamson County, TN. It was an odd year to say the least. I learned for the 1st time that I was not like everyone else. To begin with, in the “current event” part of social studies I was way too progressive. I was totally for computers becoming a household object. I also believed in evolution (in good old Tennessee)! But worst of all, I believed in woman’s rights…I saw nothing wrong with abortion (under most circumstances). I was the odd man out, to say the least. All that didn’t matter as soon as I got my first taste of chemistry.
In science class we had those presentations from universities about different topics. The experiments were neat, but not life changing. This is an example of how much of a true bookworm I was in middle school. The woman who came into our class had a simple sentence on the blackboard:
“Two molecules of hydrogen plus one molecule of oxygen makes 2 molecules of water.”
Kinda boring right? As soon as she started to talk she made a new line and on that line she wrote:
“2 H2 + O2 → 2 H2O”
This was the life changing moment. I instantly realized that I would not have to ever spell again! It was like a secret language. Using symbols instead of words, I was in love! There turns out a reason why I was instantaneously in love with this concept.
This was also the year that I learned, from state testing that I was “gifted” in math and science. That “gift” came with a heavy price…in both language and social studies I was at least one grade behind normal. So here was the reason that I loved this secret language, it bypassed my learning difficulties. In seventh grade I had the most horrible realization…I had to learn how to spell all those long elemental names before I could use the symbols. But it was already too late, I was hooked. Since that day in 6th grade, I have known what I was going to be when I grew-up.
October 6, 2008 5:12pm
Every once in a while I will post about who I am.
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