My chemical romance.

I had to attend my chemistry practical class this morning and my usual groggy routine of dumping chemicals around and mixing them was disturbed by my teacher announcing that we would be dealing with alcohols and suchlike.

Hell to the yeahh.

I immediately gravitated towards the aldehydes section of the lab work. Yes, the silver mirror test.

Explanation: When you mix an aldehyde with Tollens' reagent, an ammoniacal silver nitrate usually, the aldehyde is oxidized into carboxylate ions while the reagent is reduced to elemental silver and aqueous ammonia.

The silver precipitates on the surface of the vessel (or the test tube) and this causes a very distinctive "silver mirror". Production of the silver mirror seems to rely on luck and I was pleased when I managed to produce it on my first try.

Here it is, a "silver mirror" with aqueous ammonia removed:

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Seconds, in which beauty is discussed and analyzed.

Beauty (noun): qualities that give pleasure to the senses.

"Beauty is arbitrary," I keep telling my girl friends. "It's an individual decision, the opinion of one person. And as we all know, every damned person on this god given world has a different opinion."

I would like to say that we females are perfectly capable of lounging around without makeup once in a blue moon, but I'm acquainted with too many females to push said point. I do understand the pressure, however. (But if you do enjoy wearing makeup, please go ahead.)

As females, we grow up bombarded with images of what the perfect woman looks like. We develop unhealthy weight goals and eating disorders crop up along the way. Due to desensitization to these issues, we are ignored.

And denied, god bless denial. Despite being commonplace, it's amazing how society chooses to abnegate such goings-on.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Firsties!

Tumblr has become too insanely hipster for me. Let's see how this baby works out!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone