stubborn teacher assistant

had my first lab 4 days ago, and boy, it was a hard time. my group mates had no clue what the experiment was all about. i practically had to guide them through each step methodically. not forgetting the fact that one of them, an iranian girl, kept on complaining that the lab was terribly long, which didn't change her stand considering all she did were sit down and observe. lazy bummer!

and apparently the reactor wasn't working well too. the conductivity gland wasn't calibrated well. our results were peculiar enough that we had to retest 2-3 times. and the teacher assistant basically had slightly more clues than us. he was actually appalled that the reactor gave weird results!

it ended with compromise coz the professor noticed our problems and immediately told us that if the results were too erratic for a lab report, we would be given the accurate experimental data from the teacher assistant. thank goodness, our data was close enough to theoretical data, but 1 problem---negative conversion for a reaction is impossible and i got that. right from the beginning of the calculation!

went for teacher assistant's office hour. he looked at a sample of lab report. told me straight on my face that my calculation was definitely wrong and i should recheck again. but for goodness sake! i had checked it thrice, and negative conversion was still inevitable! i argued with him. showed him the logic of the entire equation. he, again, was appalled by the situation. while we were still bargaining for whose reasoning was right, a prof came in and intervened. and true enough, there unit written on the lab manual was wrong. it's off by a factor of 3! bah! how could the ta be unaware of that!!! and he always thinks he's right. let me do some generalization now (though it's not right) greek guys are extremely stubborn!

on a lighter note, i don't really have much things to do aside from the lab report. that's good! coz i was so afraid that i would have a ton of things to do while nug's here. and so far, i am still enjoying every single day to the max. went to kensington palace. watched les miserables. (the music and the singing were good, but the storyline was a facade coz they sang out their lines, which made it hard to comprehend) tried new restaurants. cooked some burnt fried rice, which didn't turn out that bad. and of course, had nice fruit cakes for birthday (grinning sheepishly. didn't realize that i could get the entire fruitcake coz i thought i wouldn't get any other cakes aside of nug's fruit cake. but ci lenny and friends gave me) visited the national gallery. i think we've combed through london deep enough. well, we'll see.

but all good things must come to an end too. he'll be leaving this sunday evening. on chinese new year! argh!!! i hate the feeling of loss. makes me feel lonely and want to turn back time. but, there will be good times soon. am so looking forward to returning to purdue. back to bullying my dear roommie and of course, walmart!