How ImPractical

The Chemistry practical prelim exam today, was in two words, not good. Wait. Make that three words - VERY not good.

I was actually managing to build up my confidence level quite successfully, and even when we were standing outside the labs, I was still telling myself that yes, I could do it, and that everything would be just fine.

Then it happened.

The lab door flew open, and the first thing that I saw was, strangely enough, Mrs Lee's back. For some reason, that in itself scared me. Nothing to do with her being a mean invigilator or anything, because Mrs Lee is really just about one of the best invigilators anyone could have (she kept smiling whenever I looked up!). The next thing I noticed was ALL the apparatus lined up on the benches. I could swear I've never seen so many retort stands and beakers and reagents and test tubes and what nots in my entire life. I think that's what did it, mostly. Coupled with the fact that the next thing, or rather person, I saw standing in the doorway was Mrs Choo. As much as I like Mrs Choo (I really, honestly, sincerely, wholeheartedly do), but seeing your Chemistry teacher just before a Chemistry practical, especially knowing that she knows all the answers to the questions that you're going to foul up in the next one and a half hours, is not very comforting.

Feeling kind of demoralised, I walked over to where I was to be seated, and we began checking through the list of apparatus with the stuff on our bench (I didn't have test tubes in my test tube rack. Haha, I guess the person before me already expected that I'd do badly for QA, so she just decided that she might as well not even allow me to do it. I must find out who she is and thank her), then we checked through the paper, washed our apparatus and sat down.

By then, I had realised that despite doing about ten VAs and only three physical chemistry practicals (only two in my case, since I was absent for one) prior to today, the prelim paper was on physical chemistry and QA. VA was nowhere to be seen. I was looking forward to using a pipette and sucking up chemicals, but sadly, it was not to be. Instead, a styrofoam cup and a thermometer was in its place.

Well, soon enough, the exam started. Things got off to an okay start, but it didn't take long for me to tell that I was one of the slowest workers in the lab, because when everyone was drawing their graph, I was STILL measuring the temperature of X and Y. Oh, and when I finally did start on my graph, I was perspiring so profusely, that I think I left at least three nice drops of perspiration on the graph paper. Mrs Choo's going to think I got so freaked out that I started crying (which could well have been the case, actually).

Now the bad part came with QA. That has always been my downfall (not forgetting that I scored a ten out of twenty for that section in the practical test), and I wasn't let off today either. So far I know that I've got wrong answers for two out of the five experiments, and it wasn't even because I went around asking. You find that in a girls' school, somehow after every exam, it doesn't take more than ten seconds for you to find out all the answers to the questions. Haha, oh well. At least now I'll have LOW expectations when it comes to getting back my results. Which is always a good thing, I find - to have low expectations - because then if you do badly, you won't feel so sad, and if you do well, then you'll be over the moon. It works most of the time, except when you know you're going to do well, and yet you try to convince yourself to expect to fail. Now that's pretty tough. But I've never been so sure that I'll do well for an exam or test for it not to work for me, unfortunately.

Okay, my middle name should be digress-a-lot.

Back to QA. The worst bit was adding hydrochloric acid and testing for a gas. First of all, my bunsen burner flatly refused to light up. I tried four times - FOUR MATCHES - and all four times it failed. So I started talking to it. I was just mumbling some stuff under my breath, actually, like pleading with the bunsen burner to please light up so that I could warm my test tube, but somehow, I think Mrs Lee noticed me, because she gave me a rather strange look when I next looked up at her. Anyway, it finally did light up on my fifth try (I think the talking thing actually helped), but things didn't get any better, because guess what? All my results contradicted each other. My colour/smell test proved something different from my litmus test, and me being the intelligent person that I am, I forgot all about specific tests (yes. All my wooden splinters, the filter paper, EVERYTHING was left just as it was when I entered the lab). Or perhaps I was just in denial; giving up, to put it in a less nice way, since it was the last of the QA tests that I was doing. Whatever the case, I didn't get the correct gas. In other words, I faked some observations and concluded a gas that was never evolved. I can just see that disapproving look on Mrs Choo's face already.

I guess on the whole it was alright. I didn't catch fire, cause an explosion or burn down the lab, and I'm still alive, so I suppose today's exam could be considered to have gone well. Oh, but on my way out of the lab, I heard Mrs Lee say to Mrs Choo, "I think a lot of them don't know how to do".

I think she's right.

And there's still Biology practical on Thursday. Please don't be a flower. I think I'll really cry.