My holiday is over!

I was given 4 days of relaxation, but instead I was only able to spend 2 doing things that I wanted to do. Which means that I truthfully had only one day, as the other ay was spent lounging around watching TV, organizing my food and really cleaning up my living area because during the initial week I pretty much destroyed the place (tons of dishes, clothes were in piles [which they still are], and and garbage and recycling bins are just full to the brim).

So on my one day, I spent it in a theater where I saw 3 movies. I’ll be watching a 4th on Saturday (I am currently writing this before the movie, on Saturday) and I have just finished the fifth and final season of The Boys on Prime. There are probably other movies I saw and I just can’t remember at the moment.

I saw four movies this week, Disclosure Day (A-), Obsession (A, I was actually scared out of my mind, I don’t know if I want to date, ever), Backrooms (this is an S tier movie. mind you I like the weird psychological theories and philosophical ideas that were at the root of this movie) and then I saw this really old Midnight Madness movie at TIFF Lightbox based on an Edgar Allen Poe story. The director is supposed to be well known, the movie is 1964’s The Masque of the Red Death by Roger Corman. I chose the middle of the theater to sit, so I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.

Did not like that, well let’s get back on track.

In The Lab

Analytical Chemistry

This weeks lab is about figuring out what kind of plastic a sample is made of and whether it contains any additives called plasticizers. We will be using PVC and analyzing it’s composition using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, a technique used to identify materials by measuring which IR (infrared) frequencies they absorb; in this lab, it helps identify the polymer and detect possible plasticizers. 

We are also going to be using Thin Layer Chromatography, it is a separation technique where a small sample is placed on a plate coated with a solid adsorbent, and a solvent moves up the plate so different compounds travel different distances based on how strongly they interact with the plate versus the solvent.

Put simply, the plasticizers in the PVC may be a mixture, and TLC is going to help by pulling them out of the PVC.. What I was told by AI, was that TLC is just sorting all the chemicals in the PVC.

Should be an interesting lab.

Ecology

I have chosen an independent research project to do, and there are fucking Lyme disease carrying ticks out in the wild. 2 weeks ago I read that they were already in the New York area, and then this week sometime I read that they are in Ontario.

This is my research question, I should have changed it to minimize the risk of exposure to ticks; “How does garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) invasion affect native understory plant diversity in Birkdale Ravine, and to what extent might these effects be associated with altered soil microbial communities?”

In the lab this week, were going to the campus farm. It’s not really a huge farm, and there are no chickens or anything, but there is the wild life that come around. There was a deer that visited me one winter. We are going to exploring the mutualistic relationship between plants and animals, more so insects as pollinaters. 75% of the worlds flowering plants are pollinated animals, mostly insects like bees, I don’t have to tell you important bees, I am sure that everyone in the world has screamed that in your ear or shoved an infographic in your face.

But hey, fire flies are actually at risk of going extinct, we could be the last generation that will ever know of or see a live, natural firefly.

I also have no pictures of the labs because I had none this week.

Home Experiments.

So I take care of a lot of stuff, and because I take care of a lot of stuff I sometimes get neglectful. I have been very good these past couple of years, I have only killed maybe 3 Boston Ferns. One of my Peace Plants, is dying! I am so saddened, I have two plants, and the other plant actually went through the same ordeal, but not as bad.

I have other issues with some of my plants as well that I have just never really took the time to properly figure out.

I don’t know if this is an infection, or a water issue. I have two Rose of Jericho’s to alert me when the water is running low, because the begin to curl up and close to protect their photosynthetic material

Pink Pineapple

I am observing the fermentation and degradation of a pineapple that I had purchased and I couldn’t finish on time. It’s actually a yeast that has formed and is turning my pineapple pink, or a reddish brown now. It was pink before I thought about running some experiments (observational). I had opened the container once or twice before I had known that there possibly could be bacteria inside.

I think food science is actually pretty cool, especially to learn. I am actually petrified of items that have passed their expiry date, just because there are some foods that can be really dangerous if consumed and they are past their expiry date or they are spoiled. Even if food is cooked improperly, like i didn’t even know about leaving cooked rice out, how you are not supposed to do that.

Next Week

I have an additional lab for soil science that I have to prepare for, but there isn’t anything posted really. We are going to be looking at soil chemistry, probably with the different types in a soil solution/mixture?

I have that exam for that course on Friday, I am behind in studying as well. I really have to get my ass in gear, I do want to move on with my life someday. As much as I say I don’t like chemistry, I might just finish a chemistry major as well as my Human Biology Specialist.

Wouldn’t that be something.