I invigilated two back-to-back chemistry practicals today and I am absolutely knackered, mostly due to five hours of the following:- Students not using the wash basin to dispose of various corrosive chemicals but simply emptying them out onto the floor because they aren't thinking rationally, thereby turning the lab into a chemical spill. Can you say: "Clean-up at aisle number four."
- Students almost setting themselves alight because they are daydreaming while holding a boiling test tube over an open flame with a wooden test tube holder which, subsequently, sets alight while you continually scream: "Blow it out, blow it out!" and they think you're referring to the bunsen burner. Now while this does give the entire classroom the aroma of a roaring fire in an African boma, it's a little bit unnerving when you're not actually trying to braai meat.
- Students forgetting to take out the cork stopper from the boiling test tube they are heating directly over an open flame, leading to random explosions of cork across the lab, narrowly missing many heads and sets of eyes with no promise of champagne at the end of it.
I love my job.
...Now put a cork in it.
Posts
