Article for 2013 Mar 07
This article is not in a series.
2013
2013 Mar
Mar 07 Thu
As much as I dislike Chemistry, I have to admit it does have some fun aspects. For instance, in today’s lesson we were recapping how to calculate the amount of a substance, making use of units of moles - a mole defined as a group of six hundred sextillion things, typically atoms or molecules.
The silence of work was broken suddenly by the high-pitched but sober slurring of 2 notes becoming 1, like a song by the Spice Girls, if they had ingested a chipmunk to improve their voice. Heard again, some seconds afterwards, and then again. The teacher told the bemused class it was probably a kestrel. I disagreed: “It sounds more like a buzzard, sir - I’ve heard buzzards calling like that before, and not kestrels”.
The silence in the room was more silent than before. I was unsure whether my classmates were astonished that I’d dared to correct a teacher, or amazed that I knew the calls of birds of prey.
I tried to lighten the mood: “I think it’s looking for moles”.
The applause was raptorous.