Thursday, November 12, 2009

Chemistry & Me

I am the dumbest living person on earth in the field of Physics and Mathematics whereas in Chemistry I am (dumbest)2. huh...then what else is Left? Please do not forget our very own Biology :-) I am surely good at it, atleast I survive under this sway :-)

During my school, I was one of the favorite students of my Chemistry teacher, but obviously, in negative sense :-). In complete 9th and 10th standard I was an outstanding student......means I always used to stand out in all the chemistry classes with few of my other classmates who shared dumbness with me for the subject. We always used to fail in the mid term exam and the unit tests. But you see, we were definitely witty enough to survive in our finals :-). How? Umm...with a joint effort....a more of cheating+ a bit of self-studies+ a tint of luck...was the formula....

Guess, Strategy to escape at the concluding turn was well known to us :-)

My Chem teacher was in a habit of asking questions daily, before starting up his lectures. And for definite, I was the set and freeze target. He daily used to ask me a question and daily I used to fail answering it. And again daily he used to punish me and ask me to remain standing at the back of the class. So, this way my whole semester passed on.

Thankfully, he left school when I was promoted to 11th standard. And our very new Chem teacher was innocent enough to throw questions to poor students. Hence, my 11th and 12th standard got cleared in peace, without performing knee breaking exercises :-)

After my school, somehow I again managed to clear the chemistry section in my engineering entrance exam. To make a point, I am still struggling hard to find the answer of “how this somehow happened?”

Oh leave it! It happened and I cleared the paper also.

So finally I got admitted to Bioinformatics course.

In my Engineering, I suppose it was my 5th semester when this incident occurred. Our final practicals were running at that time. I was in the computer laboratory, busy in giving my Computational Biology practical exam.

All of a sudden, the moment arrived which was eagerly awaited. Hurray!! Our invigilator left the class for few minutes for certain personal urgent reason and on his behalf he asked a chap to invigilate. Chap?? Yes we all found him a chap only as he was not seen in faculty before. So we assumed that he was a visitor.

Definitely, this was the chance on which we all wanted to dance. And we danced also. Cheating pulses of our nerves got high. The flow rate of cheating was almost 5 queries/min. Everyone was busy in looking at other’s sheet as we had only 5-10minutes in hand. I too made a jump on the cheating mania dance floor to fish out the answers of my doubts. But the only difference between the cheating skills of others and mine was that I just became too loud. I stood on my seat and shouted “Shruti, what’s the answer of 3rd question’s fifth option?” Shruti was sitting in next bay. And above it, I asked her same question thrice because she was continuously ignoring me :-).To tell you Shruti and I were cheating mates. She never ditched me. But this time she ignored me because of my loudness and the concern of being caught red handed.

No worries! But Chap made a good note of my sincere cheating effort :-)

Thank God! By some way practical exams got over. And soon we ended up writing final exams and thus ended up with our semester.

Then our new semester started. We were happy to see ourselves in 6th semester. But happiness doesn’t stay for long term. This is the rule of Nature. Sorrow was knocking at the doorstep and I was allotted to welcome it.

Now Guess what? Atleast I never guessed it. That chap was our newly appointed teacher and that too for newly introduced subject in the course curriculum. And…….and the subject was “Chemoinformatics”. Wouuuuu. Band baje to aise baje ki bas banda naachta hee reh jaaye

Nothing worst has happened with me in my complete academic life than this.

I simply prayed if he had memory loss disorder. But I am not always granted with my wishes. He was a real sharp guy. I should better not use words like guy, chap for my teacher. But I am forced to use it as he was in his mid 20’s. For sure, he was good looking also. I still remember how females of our college were crazy for him.
Well, it was my first day in Chemoinformatics class and so was his. He smartly introduced himself to the class. Surely, that’s a different case that we all already knew him. Umm but for the first time we came to know his designation and mind you that it was a shock to our heart.

Further, he started up with his very first lecture. All of a sudden in the middle of his teachings his eyes rays fall on me and sarcastically pointed “O…. you are also in this class….hmm…..ok…” and carried on with his lecture.
Before proceeding further I would like to ask you “why only chemistry teachers are in the habit of asking questions daily?” Poor me! This chap also came out to be a true Chem teacher.

Aaah, What hell!……actually way to hell was about to start……it was just a trailer.

Daily, before starting up his lecture he used to revise the previous class lessons by making us draw the already taught structures in our notebooks.

Since I was a grown up child so was a bit sincere in comparison to school :-)

Therefore, at times I also used to draw structure and take my notebook for correction. But his reaction to my sincere effort was different. Every time while checking my notebook he used to pass a comment “What is there to check in it, it must be a copied one”. So this way he tortured me for almost the whole semester. Sometime with his comments and many a times by giving facial expressions.

Hmm! seriously it was his rubbish attitude. Leave it. Let me tell you more about his tortures

In his subject, we were supposed to submit the project report. It was my turn to submit it. Looking at me he said it again “It must have been copied”. Uff, this time my patience was over. That day I literally howled “Yes it is copied and since it is copied so I am not going to submit it. You can easily put zero.”

I turned my back and walked away.

After some time he called me back and ordered me to submit the project. I submitted it silently and left the faculty room.

Soon after this mishap with my Chem teacher, our final exams got started. We all wrote it and passed it!!

After exams, one day he called me up. For the first time I witnessed smile on his face while talking to me. He said “Shweta, I personally wanted to congratulate you. I am so very happy to see your score. You topped my subject with 48/50. I am proud of you and congrats once again.”

Please do not ask my reaction over it, in details. Sometimes I really wonder why I am so much full of attitude. I said nothing to him in response and walked away.

So, this was my last encounter with Chemistry.And to tell you, Chemoinformatics was not an easy subject. Out of strength of 35 students 13 got a back in it.

I literally pray that I should not encounter Chemistry in my professional career. Amen!!

1 comment:

  1. even after 48/50 no interest.. thts rediculous.....If i would have got it then i would have studied the same paper through out life

    ReplyDelete