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jebbypalCause mine does. Case in point, all my life I've had issues with basic math. Seriously, you do not want to see me do multidigit long division without handing me a piece of paper. But it extends beyond that --- unit conversions, stoichiometry, it's not that I CAN'T do them. hell, when I do them all the time, it's a piece of cake. But rather it's the fact that since I no longer take physics and chem classes, I don't do them all the time. So I'll forget itty bitty details about the formula setup or something and I'll proceed to work the problem and the answer will look...wrong. So I'll do it again (slightly differently with the idea of working backwards or something to confirm), and I'll get a DIFFERENT ANSWER.
Wash, rinse, repeat, and sometimes I'll have four different answers and be in the corner beating my head against a wall if I can't contact anyone to check my math.
This really hasn't happened to me much of late, or at least not fully. Last night though, it came back with a vengeneance. Worse, I'm pretty sure that the reasons my ELISAs (anaylsis of how much of a specific protein my cultured cells are spitting out) have been all wonky is that my calculations originally were off --- I think this because the concentration I wrote on the top of the tube was oh, 100 fold more than the concentration the MAKER put on the tube in a slightly different format (really, who writes 5 micrograms in 50 microliters, that's just stupid. Somehow I ended up w/ 10ug/ml off of that when it's actually 0.1ug/ml). So I needed to GET THIS RIGHT so my exp would hopefully go right for once and I could stop doing the freaking four day repolarization experiments.
But the math mocked me. And proceeded to spank me. I went on IM hoping to catch![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
exsequar, the chem major, but she was off at work. I called my bio friends from college, but no one answered. I texted them, no one answered (though one did eventually text back later that night. I don't think the other actually has texting service). I called B (whom I try to shield from my utter blondeness most of the time so as to not damage his errored perception that I'm smarter than him. It's cute, but wrong), but he wasn't answering. I banged my head and reworked the problem.
Finally, four consecutive problems in a row yielded the same answer (4 ul into 1mL would yield 40 nanograms/ml) and I hope I'm right so the subsequent calculation for my standard curves was right.
So this just goes to show you (*coughcassiee cough*), even folks going after a PhD sometimes struggle with math. And if anyone ever takes away my TI-85, I'd never be able to convert from English measurements to Metric period cause I long ago forgot the conversion equations. Oh, and never ask me how many pints in a gallon and so forth, cause while I learned it at some point in grade school, I promptly forgot it in science cause IT'S STUPID AND NO ONE WORKS ON THAT FREAKING SYSTEM EXCEPT FOR COOOKING AND BAKING.
Wash, rinse, repeat, and sometimes I'll have four different answers and be in the corner beating my head against a wall if I can't contact anyone to check my math.
This really hasn't happened to me much of late, or at least not fully. Last night though, it came back with a vengeneance. Worse, I'm pretty sure that the reasons my ELISAs (anaylsis of how much of a specific protein my cultured cells are spitting out) have been all wonky is that my calculations originally were off --- I think this because the concentration I wrote on the top of the tube was oh, 100 fold more than the concentration the MAKER put on the tube in a slightly different format (really, who writes 5 micrograms in 50 microliters, that's just stupid. Somehow I ended up w/ 10ug/ml off of that when it's actually 0.1ug/ml). So I needed to GET THIS RIGHT so my exp would hopefully go right for once and I could stop doing the freaking four day repolarization experiments.
But the math mocked me. And proceeded to spank me. I went on IM hoping to catch
exsequar, the chem major, but she was off at work. I called my bio friends from college, but no one answered. I texted them, no one answered (though one did eventually text back later that night. I don't think the other actually has texting service). I called B (whom I try to shield from my utter blondeness most of the time so as to not damage his errored perception that I'm smarter than him. It's cute, but wrong), but he wasn't answering. I banged my head and reworked the problem.Finally, four consecutive problems in a row yielded the same answer (4 ul into 1mL would yield 40 nanograms/ml) and I hope I'm right so the subsequent calculation for my standard curves was right.
So this just goes to show you (*cough
cassiee cough*), even folks going after a PhD sometimes struggle with math. And if anyone ever takes away my TI-85, I'd never be able to convert from English measurements to Metric period cause I long ago forgot the conversion equations. Oh, and never ask me how many pints in a gallon and so forth, cause while I learned it at some point in grade school, I promptly forgot it in science cause IT'S STUPID AND NO ONE WORKS ON THAT FREAKING SYSTEM EXCEPT FOR COOOKING AND BAKING.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-21 04:54 pm (UTC)Also, you use a TI-85? Upgrade. the 89 is so much fun!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-21 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-22 04:01 am (UTC)LOL
I like this blonde moment of yours. it's endearing.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-22 05:08 pm (UTC)ANTHROPOLOGY MAJOR with a Literature/Creative Writing minor, yo. I TRIED to do poorly on the placement exam for college and I WON because I only had to take ONE semester of Finite Math which I took freshman year to get it over with. This is the last time I did math in any graded environment. *pumps fist in victory*