Category: Educate Me

Done so far today:
– Submission of scholarship form and the “Why I want to be a Pharmacist when I grow up” essay. (Cheese. Pure cheese.)

– Paper that I forgot about on the seminar I attended about saving the Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle. Doing my part to help bring them back to the Galveston beaches. (If you see one down there, or you spot turtle tracks, call 866-Turtle5 right away.)

– Paper on the Solarization technique, aka the Sabatier Effect, for photography. One of my favorite things to do in the photography darkroom when I took the course back in high school, the effects this technique produces are really cool.

Still to do tonight:
– Powerpoint Presentation to go with the outline created for our X-Ray Crystallography presentation on Friday. Mike, the resident Powerpoint guru, has promised his assistance on this project. (I wrote the outline, all we are doing now is transferring pieces to slides.) UPDATE: Initial draft done; will need more editing tomorrow.

Still to do, but probably not tonight:
– Paper on a famous photographer. Considering Man Ray, as I just read a lot about him because he helped make the solarization technique famous. Willing to consider others (but not Ansel Adams) if you have suggestions. My teacher can only read so many papers on Ansel Adams in one semester.

– Beginning of research on the reproductive systems of vertebrates for Biology presentation due next Tuesday.

Today was also officially our last lecture day in Chemistry II. We will do labs on Wednesday, a test next Monday, and that is it before the final. No more classes as we have a Wednesday off. Wow. I think the Photography darkroom closes this week also. But in Biology II, I think we are having lectures up to the last possible second, and then a practical, a test, and the final.

I’m beginning to feel a bit drained of creativity, losing all of my knowledge power, and finals are coming up fast and furious. Somebody hold me.

I need to write two papers for photography (one on a photographer and one on a technique we are not doing this semester), a speech & slides for Honors Day this Friday about my X-Ray Crystallography project, a comparision of the various reproductive systems of the vertebrates due in just over a week, and last but not least the essay on what I want to be when I grow up for my scholarship form.

What did I do this weekend? Figured out afterthought heels (well, the first part of them at least), finished a sock except for the afterthought heel, cleaned out a dresser, sorted out part of a closet, cleaned out other stuff from the piles that the pile fairies seem to bring and dump in my house, and read about several different photography techniques.

Ok, the last one counts as being related to my paper, but I didn’t need to spend so much time reading all of them.

I am nothing if not predictable. Doing everything I can to avoid doing the homework that I must get done this week. Smart, huh?

Oh well, at least I was really motivated to get some housework done.

I’m completing an application for a scholarship from the community college I am attending. It is for the Pre-Professional Medical & Health Sciences group; basically, anyone that wants to go into the medical field in one way or another. They would pay for my tuition next year if I am awarded a scholarship.

The only roadblock? I have to write an essay, maximum length 1 page, about why I want to be ___________. So for me, it is why I want to be a pharmacist.

There are a few problems with this essay. First of all, I am such a cliche Libra. I can never make up my mind. I realize that they won’t hold me to the major or degree that I write on my essay, but at the same time I worry. What if I don’t want to be a pharmacist? What if I get through a good portion of my degree and change my mind? I hate to commit to being a pharmacist if I am not sure that is what I want. Ugh! Second, why do I want to be a pharmacist? Is it just because aptitude tests say that it would be a good fit for me? Is it because my dad is a pharmacist, albeit not one on a daily basis? Is it because the starting salary for a pharmacist is so attractive, especially after being overworked and underpaid for some time in the legal field?

I realize that their point with this question is to make me think about it, but I also realize that it wouldn’t look good if I just wrote, “I want to be a pharmacist because the pay is good and I want to save lots of money up so I can travel Europe in the not too distant future. Right after I put my son through college.” See? That isn’t going to fly. Plus it isn’t anywhere close to being a page long.

Somedays I just want to toss it all aside and be a professional photographer. Now wouldn’t that be fun?!?

Which reminds me – my photography teacher informed me today that he was told that all entries into the art show were accepted, and are all up for consideration for the various scholarship prizes! The exhibit opening is tomorrow; it is going to be interesting to see my own photographs hanging up in the Fine Arts Gallery on campus. (Yes, I will take pictures and share.) I need to find out if it is too late to put prices on the prints; I learned when I turned them in that that was an option. How much should I put? I was considering $20, but that sounds high. Watch me find out that some prints were sold for $200 or something like that. I wish I knew what to do. See? Decisions? I suck at them.

Today, I did something far from brilliant in my photography class.

I rewound the film I finished shooting this morning. I took the film out of my camera. I went into the loading room, which is completely black because film is sensitive to all light, and loaded it onto a spool and put it into a developing tank. I went back out into the classroom, and I got the first chemical ready to process the film.

Considering the process is called “developing,” a normal person would use developer to develop their film.

Today, I used the stop bath.

The stop bath is a chemical that stops the developer from developing. It is not what you should use for the first step. Doh!

Fortunately, stop bath doesn’t do much of anything if it doesn’t have developer to work on. I was greatly relieved to learn that rinsing my film several times and starting over with the developer would probably work out just fine – and everything was ok in the end. I figure that there is some sort of statistic that would show that for every “x” numbers of rolls of film you develop, you are bound to do something really stupid. I’ve developed a lot of film over the years, and this is the first time for me on doing something so foolish. I guess it was bound to happen.