I want a verse like this one

I am sure many of you wonder everyday: what is the worth of a person? How do we remember someone? When does one know one has "made it"? Very difficult questions, I think.

But sometimes it is very easy to know when you have made it big in life. Take Sir James Dewar, for instance. Dewar was a Scottish chemist who did a lot of research into liquefying gases i.e. turning gases into liquids. If you've ever used a propane tank, you are using the liquid form of Propane gas. He was the first person to liquefy Oxygen and Nitrogen. Pretty big deal. So big of a deal, in fact, that folks at his college (Cambridge) composed this nifty little verse when he was still alive:

Sir James Dewar

He is a better man than you are

None of you asses

Can liquefy gases

I mean the dude is clearly important because he has a sir attached to his name. But having a verse composed about your efforts? That's unbeatable. 

Bow down, Babylon:

Sayonara, goodbye and so long

What has two thumbs and just got out of the last o-chem final of its life? This guy! The last organic chemistry class/lab/instructional yada yada of my life. Done. No more. Clearly, a very poignant moment. So poignant, in fact, that I am going to take a break (no literally, I will make a line break here) to symbolize this sublime moment.


Although I like organic chemistry (a lot), I think O-chem labs are a complete waste of time, effort and talent. They are very shoddy, shabby and hilariously dumbed down. Dichloromethane? Oh no no no undergrads you can't use that! DMSO? Too expensive to let klutzy undergrads handle it!

As a result, we don't end up learning anything useful (as opposed to just the o-chem class where there is some good theory to learn). It becomes a chore to do lab reports and I can't even describe how absurd it is to "reference"  your professor's own course reader when writing up a post-lab. We are obviously writing Nature caliber reports here, right?

Our professor was actually a very nice guy (which made the class oh-so slightly tolerable) and was pretty generous in holding office hours, review sessions, and so on. But that's not enough to overcome the mind-numbing drudgery of decoding noisy IR spectra and hustling in line to get to the reactant first. A freakin' rat race in lab every week!

It's not like this is a sour-grapes type post because I am actually pretty good at o-chem and really enjoyed my normal o-chem classes. I am merely allergic to mindless labor that is not going to lead anywhere anytime soon, and writing endless pre-lab reports comes under this category. If this wasn't a requirement for medical school, I would never have taken an o-chem lab. Would I have taken an o-chem class? Yes. It is a lot like calculus and I love me some calculus on a fine day...