I have had my very first ever college labs. These labs, like the lecture classes, are integrated with undergrads. So all us grad students are mixed in with the kiddies. Lectures aren’t so bad cause people just sit there, but in lab I have to interact with Freshmen. And they do little freshmen things like laugh at how Rubber Pipette Bulbs look like sticky mini-condoms. (Ok, FINE, maybe that was me, but my adorable 19-yr old lab partner agreed with me, and he laughed).

There are actually 3 other post-bacc pre-med majors in my Chem lab, but I didn’t see them until it was too late, and seating is permanent from where you sit on the first day. You sit in that stool, and your destiny for the semester is set in stone.

So Chemistry lab started out with our teacher, Adam, telling us the safety procedures.  According to what was said in lecture, a major accident occurs every 10 years, and a minor (more like medium) accident occurs every 3 years.  They say it happens that often, so you can’t be negligent of safely procedures or you could end up hurting yourself or your lab partner.  Adam had had a minor accident during his second semester of lab instruction when a student was dropping acid from a squeeze bottle. The nozzle of the squeeze bottle was clogged, so the student squeezed harder. and harder. And the bottle of acid exploded and covered his face in acid. He immediately was rushed to the eye-wash station, a contraption that shoots water into your face, and was held there for enough time for them to be sure he would be ok.  He ended up being fine, but while everyone was paying attention to the guy who exploded the bottle, no one had noticed that his lab partner’s shirt was eaten through and that the skin on his back was starting to blister and burn. The lab partner was rushed to the shower, and was rinsed off (while embarrassed) in front of the whole class, but ended up being fine, with only minor burns.  -- This was a no-fault incident that was actually handled pretty well in retrospect.  The kid was also wearing his protective eye gear, or else he could have lost his eyes.  eek.

USC labs are also under a LOT of scrutiny because of one of those major incidents 3 years ago at UCLA when a grad student died after being roasted alive by her own sweater. She was using extremely flammable chemicals and was NOT wearing a rubber lab coat.   Because of incidents like this, USC won’t even let you enter the lab unless you are wearing a rubber lab coat and protective goggles.

So the Chem lab we did was just us inventorying our drawers to make sure we had all the requisite lab equipment that we will be responsible for till the end of the semester.   We had to pull beakers, and test tubes, and wire mesh out of our drawers and count it all. If we were missing stuff, we were sent down to the supply room to get stuff for our drawers.

While pulling items out of my drawer, something slid out of a flimsy tube and crashed to the floor.  I spun around and noticed a thermometer was shattered. And I thought to myself, “Shit.” And then I thought to myself, “Good thing they don’t use mercury thermometers anymore.” I raised my hand and Adam came over, smiled, and sighed. He went and grabbed a large beaker and some gloves and started collecting some of the larger shards of glass. Then he said to me , “We need to start looking for those balls of Mercury.” O.o

And in my head I was all, “OOOOHHH NOOOOOOOO, I’ve become a cliche on my very first day, my very first 10 minutes of LAB!!!!!!”

And we started looking around and we see all these silver balls rolling around everywhere. He poured powder all over the balls while telling me that I was actually helping his case out cause he’d had the following conversation the other day.

Adam: “I think we should use all the alcohol thermometers, since the mercury thermometers aren’t safe”

Adam’s Boss: “Well, we have mercury thermometers too, so that’s what we’ll use.”

Adam: “What if they break.”

Adam’s Boss: “Nobody is going to break a thermometer.”

So Adam told me that I was making his case for him. He also started telling me stories about mercury, how scientists used to take large buckets and dip their hands in it and just handle that stuff like it was no big deal, and like it didn’t cause itchy skin and loss of  hair, teeth, nails, and coordination.

I in turn told him that modern archeologists are able to track Louis and Clark across the Louisiana Territory by the mercury deposits they left behind in their campsite latrines.  A long-term bread crumb trail for historians.  Louis and Clark had started their journey with 600 of Dr. Rush’s Bilious Pills, mercury laxatives, meant to be used if they felt badly after consuming bad water or food. They did use them, and we love them for it.

Adam sent me to the supply room to get a mercury thermometer to replace the one I had broken. The supply room attendant handed me a thermometer and said, “Be careful not to drop this, there’s mercury in there.” I pretended to act surprised and said, “Woah Ok, I’ll be careful.”

Adam was a great sport about everything. Even with a bad start, I feel like Chem lab is going to go pretty well this semester. Just a feeling.

My bio lab was pretty boring comparatively, we just measured water in a bunch of different ways. And there are no other post-baccs in that lab, which makes me vewy, vewy sad.