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Monday, August 13, 2007
Chemistry & bridges
I engineered chemical reactions in the biology lab today that produced lots of effervescence. I had my very first chance to add sodium hydroxide in excess to copper (II) sulphate to get a nice dark blue colour. Come to think of it, I am doing this in the biology lab and not the chemistry lab!!! Everyone was engrossed in heating up reducing sugar with Benedict's Solution and I was bored. I could predict the outcome, yeah...brick red precipitate...capital boring. So, I poured some Benedict's Solution into a test tube, added some hydrochloric acid to it and it looked like that weird blue drink that McDonald once sold, McFizz or something like that? It wasn't like I just randomly tossed chemicals into the test tube. I got copper (II) chloride out of that after all. Then, I added water into the aqueous solution and *laughs to self* pungent smelling gas filled a small corner of the room...chlorine gas. Yah but I didn't kill anyone, I did my mess near the window...
I decolourised the blue-black reaction of iodine and starch as well with hydrochloric acid and it became a sickly urine-colored solution. Which, I accidentally flung onto my tie when I was washing a mixture of copper (II) sulphate and hydrochloric acid in the sink. Just my luck! Adding sodium hydrogen carbonate to a mixture of hot copper (II) sulphate and hydrochloric acid would produce a lot of effervescence. After all, it is a release of carbon dioxide anyway. We did that and...the whole mixture literally exploded out of the test tube and a couple of droplets landed on the Biology practical book. How come we never get to do any of this in Chemistry class???
Halfway while I was attempting to decolourise the blue black reaction from iodine and starch, I heard a yell for my name. Something about hurry and something about needing good First Aiders. Being rather blur, I just dashed out of the class and ran after the rest of the First Aiders who were already ahead of me. I had no idea what was going on. But yeah well, I was called so I was just doing as told. I heard something like, "she fell off the bridge!". And there it was, I saw a girl on a stretcher. From what I heard was this...
"She was with her friends and she fell through the bridge. There's this part of the bridge where the planks are already coming off and hanging downwards. If you step on it, it's kind of unstable. She fell through and the nail caught into her knee. Her friends pulled her out and the nail tore through her flesh and hooked a large chunk of it off." ---fellow First Aiders.
"Her wound looks like the crack on the char sio pau" ---my add maths teacher.
What a pleasant way of describing a wound... Nice going teacher...
What's this? Neligence of DBKU for not fixing up the bridge when it has been in that falling-appart state for months? Or fault of the student for blindly walking on that very spot? Obviously its neligence of DBKU. The council ought to have fixed the bridge immediately or as soon as possible. A rough estimation of 200 students cross the bridge daily. There is a probability of 1 out of 200 of those students injured due to neligence of the council for not fixing the bridge. What is the purpose of a council if they are not taking care of bridges that we students cross back and forth daily??? The hanging wooden splinters from under the bridge could have fell off any moment and pierced right through some innocent student, far worse than the incident this morning right? Or what if someone fell directly through the loose planks and down into busy traffic below??? Who's to blame??? The student or the council?? Neligence!
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