Of Science Practical Assessment Skills/Teacher in Charge

Many a time immemorial have passed since I've posted anything, and since I don't feel like doing any work anytime soon, I have decided to bestow upon y'all the wisdom of.. something, so wise, that it's wisdom has practically become so great it reached positive infinity, wrapped around to negative infinity, then it sorta stopped being so great and currently resides somewhere close there. Yup.

As always; Disclaimer: The author rejects and returns all attempts to sue, hate, or generally harm his person via collect calls. By reading on you agree and accept that you completely and utterly believe the total plausibility of such phenomenon. All situations are entirely hypothetical, any resemblance to real life events are mere figments of your imagination. Any further contemplation will likely cause spontaneous combustion of your brain. It is strongly advised to shut down any cognitive functions before continuing to protect your neurons from corruption.

How to do SPA Skill A.

SPA skill A is meant to assess a student's capability of adapting to new situations and devising ingenious plans to solve real life problems.

A highly likely scenario is that a researcher forgets to label his 5 bottles and conveniently mixes up 5 organic compounds. Happens all the time. Of course, it's just one of many other equally possible scenarios. This is when SPA SKILL A comes in handy, for fret not, he can solve this problem using what he learnt!

Firstly, one must not use the NMR machine. No doubt it will work. But. It just isn't done. There might be electricity wasted.

Then, one must write out on a paper what one plans to do, in case one forgets.
It is essential to write out exactly what one is planning. Like so, Aim: To identify 5 unknown organic compounds. This is important, in case one forgets what one was doing.

Then, draw out all the unknown compounds. Along with their scientific name. And functional groups. With a neat table. Drawings must be in pencil. Failure to do all this might result in inability to identify the compounds.

Next, a flowchart is necessary to visualise the process of identification. All steps must be written out, even though they're fairly standard. Abbreviations cannot be used, 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine must be spelled out completely, lest it confuses you on what exactly is being added. Conditions need to be written too, because it's highly possible for someone to accidentally carry out the test at 200 atm instead of room pressure, especially since they're standard tests. Also, one should not eliminate choices. After identifying 4 out of 5 compounds, it's essential to have a positive test for the last compound. This is due to murphy's law, which tells us that somehow a 6th unknown chemical might have ended up among the other 5.

Subsequently, it is important to write out exactly what is happening in each step. After all, it's not enough that one knows that a test is going to work. One must know WHY it works. The lack of this knowledge might result in failure to identify the compounds. Not only must one know the general reaction, one must know what the reaction is called, why it will react, and what the product looks like.

Now, write out exactly what to do. And what one will see. AND problems with your experiment. If you don't have any problems, it's a bad experiment. After all, scientific breakthroughs are made through errors. So be sure to include horrible mess ups in your procedure, which you must then talk about.

Finally, write some gentle reminders to yourself about how dangerous the compounds are, and that one should not spill it onto oneself, pour it down the sink, or other things which are standard lab procedures. One might forget, afterall.

~nik

Ew, i think my crapping skills have deteoriated. Shall not write about skill D =x

27.3% Class Outing

We got mass pangseh-ed, but Rujun has kindly reminded us about the chalet/bbq. Retribution, as Adrian would say.

After the guitarists had lunch at Hougang Mall's food court, we went on to my house, and proceeded to obsess over the keyboard, because there were no dogs or little kids available (Piano pieces sound very nice with the 'Synthetic Voice').

And then, there was mahjong (thanks, Nik!). After observing for just 2 rounds, I, someone with absolutely no previous mahjong experience, lured Alvin away with a guitar so that he could have his duet with Jane, took over, and proceeded to win 3 or 4 games eventually! Unfortunately, Alvin managed to reinsert himself into the game, and dominated much of it with his imba 自摸 skills. The excitement of mahjong managed to keep people staying for dinner at 6:30, after which Adrian had to rush back to the hostel with Aaron accompanying him on the same bus trip home.

During the intermission, Alvin and Jane went back to playing the keyboard (sense any recurring themes?), before the lure of bridge became too strong. Naturally, Jane Wu Ying Ying/珍吴莹莹盈盈 lived up to her name and 真的无赢赢, save for 1 miraculous win with Alvin. The last 3 people left at 9, and 2 of them are probably still on the way home even as I type this.

Quote of the Day
Nik to Alvin: "Don't 自摸 my thing!"

Finalised CNY Outing on Tuesday

Date: 20/02/2007
Venue: Koo's house, which is in Hougang
Meeting Place/Time: Hougang MRT Station, 1pm
Things to bring: Whatever you think can help entertain you
Activity: Random entertainment with whatever is available, whatever you brought, and whoever is there.

Since most people should have finished their rounds visiting/welcoming relatives by today, a class CNY outing has been proposed to take place tomorrow, Tuesday (20/02/07), in the afternoon (to accommodate the guitarists who have practice in the morning, as well as lazy people who like to sleep late).

Unfortunately, so far only 8 people have expressed any form of interest in this activity. So kindly declare your intentions towards this outing, via replies to this post, SMS, or any credible form of communication, preferably by today, Monday (19/02/07). (Will be in Malaysia for the rest of today, so kindly pardon the lack of replies)

Suggestions of what to do thus far stands at a grand total of TWO, so please feel free to continue with your generous contributions.

1. Watch Norbit (VETOED) and then crash Rudy Lee's house (approval yet to be sought) Rudy Lee rents a room in an apartment and cannot invite us.
2. Bring some games (e.g. taboo, mahjong) and visit somebody's house. (I know of one that is within walking distance of a shopping mall, MRT station, bus interchange, swimming complex, polyclinic and playground with swings in addition to containing 1 TV (since the other one died), a few bikes, 4 functional comps + 2 laptops, and is available for use.)

Despite the general lack of response with regard to this, juniors are most probably welcome if they feel inclined to join (especially if they can offer places to visit), and IF we actually manage to decide on something.

breathe life into the blog!

Ok. Whee! Taboo is fun!! I have the game set at home (my mum bought it) but have never played it before. It seriously tests your ability to describe words on the spot =D And we had fun! We as in some seniors and some juniors.

And playing bridge with mahjong tiles! The tiles were labelled with poker card symbols and numbers (i.e. AKQJ10-2, CDHS) and shuffling was slacky!! Whoo!

Plus plus...talk about good and bad karma/ luck =D








-----Seriously important updates to keep the blog alive!-----
Update about class blog: I was curious about the new blogger and everything and shifted the class blog to a new updated google account. But unfortunately I used my gmail as the login email. So unless I give my password to everyone it is impossible to post entries on the class blog via the 06s7d account. So apologies everyone...I will try to figure out how to move it to another google account (the hc06s7d@gmail.com one). Meanwhile, everyone just use your own account to post can? (:
And one thing...apparently theres some stupid problem with 'team blogs' in the new version. And that is every member has to switch to the new version (i.e. have a google account) before (s)he can post =S

Finalised STJ!

Event: STJ
Date/Time: Sunday, 11/02/2007, 7:00 pm (+0800 GMT)

Place: Breek's Cafe, Ang Mo Kio New Town/ New Crown Building
Meeting Place/Time: Ang Mo Kio MRT Station, 6:15pm
Things to bring: Yourself, money, a sense of fun
Things to do (now): Please confirm attendance - 40 seats have been reserved. IMPORTANT: Submit one-time direct taxation of $20 per person to the Ministry of Finance (The Treasury) on Friday (09/02/2007), especially if you are not attending the STJ. If you are going, please bring an extra $20 for yourself on Sunday (11/02/2007). We are facing an imminent budget deficit, so please pay up promptly and/or bring extra cash on Sunday.

See you there!

Important-but-just-slightly-less-important-announcement-than-the-one-below Announcement

Event: STJ
Time: Sunday, 11/02/2007, 6:00 pm (+0800 GMT)

Well. Ignore the fine print below since some people disagree for now. So juniors don't get your hopes up while we reconfirm =b

Place: Seoul Garden, Ngee Ann City
Things to bring: Yourself, money, a sense of fun
Things to do (now): Confirm if you're going or not so someone can reserve. Submit one-time direct taxation of $20 per person to the Ministry of Finance (The Treasury) on Thursday (08/02/2007) or Friday (09/02/2007). If you are going, bring additional funds to pay for your own meal on Sunday.

Event: Shopping
Time: Saturday, 10/02/2007, Afternoon (to be confirmed?) Or Sunday, before STJ?
Place: To be confirmed
Things to bring: Yourself, money, ideas
Things to do (now): Decide if you want to go shopping

0 level results will be released this friday, 9 Feb.
there may be a chance our juniors are devastated.
so lets do our part as seniors and make them happy!
(and also to set benchmark for JTS)

basically, WE ARE HAVING STJ THIS SUNDAY, 11 FEB.

please suggest venue by replying to this post by FRIDAY, 9 FEB as we have to make reservations.

Keep in mind our budget is $10-$15 per person. Any place with buffet will be good...though not necessary

RAWR!!! VERY (un)IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

kind pple pls ignore bottom post :D

as in you know, the bottom post.

or maybe its the top post.

i forgot!

ahh just support the campaign below! xD

Disclaimer: the author may or may not have been in a right state of mind when this was written. But either way, this post has or has not been edited by several other persons whom the author has not authorised. In any case, please use your own discretion and ignore whichever post you prefer!

Important Announcement

ATTENTION!

Alvin Voon has said that he will run cross-country with a rose in his mouth if we buy one for him. Thus, I propose a collection of $0.10 from everyone in the class to fund the effort. At least 1 hour of satisfaction guaranteed! Come support the campaign!

see something nice!
















haha i think everyone can thereby conclude that im a very free person with too much time on my hands and nothing better to do, but oh well. =)

clockwise (starting from stem of durian): chernwei, chiaming, jinrong, kaiherng, jaime, katrina and me!

ok. the durian has 7 spikes. just reminded me of the flag thingee we did last year during class orientation days.. =) was unintended as the picture was taken (on kh's new phone which he is overly fascinated by -.-" lol)

uh.. abit sad.. only 10 more months or so as a class.. ahhh.. *sniff* let's make the most out of it anw =)

~7d all the way~

-yawns-tmr is a long sleepy day- >.<