Weekend and Interview Update

Another week has come and gone, and I guess I'll write about it a little. As I said in my last post, I had several tests and quizzes coming up, and I have taken a couple of them already.

Thursday was the first day of testing for me last week, and this was a first for this particular class. It was a Chemistry Lab test, and since we only meet once a week, we only have like two tests for the entire semester. Well, this was the first one, and I think it went pretty well. I didn't really know what to expect since it was the very first assessment of any kind for this class, but I got through it just fine. It mostly had questions about safety rules and procedures in the lab, and then some questions about the labs that we've already done. That test only took about half an hour to 45 minutes, so we still had plenty of time to do the next lab.

Oh, and by the way, during this lab I was crowned the "Duke of Titration!" A titration, for those of you who don't know, is a Chemistry experiment that involves adding one liquid or solution to another one by dripping it slowly over time. The components in the two solutions interact with each other (possibly forming a new compound) and when the reaction is finished, there is a noticeable color change. One has to be very careful not to let the liquid drip too quickly, or one will miss the color change when it first appears. The reaction is complete when just one more drop of solution changes the color, and then you stop adding that solution. When this happens, one must read how much solution was added and do some calculations. By the end of all the calculations, we have to compare our experimental results with the given theoretical results. After doing these calculations, we determine the amount of iron in the compound, which is determined by how much we titrate into the unknown solution. For this experiment, my average results (I did the titration twice to get an accurate reading) were about 14.26% iron, where as the given/theoretical results were 14.24% iron. So this gave me a percent error of only 0.14%, which was the lowest in my class! This was really exciting for me, so I know I'll get a good grade on this lab!

On to Friday, which would be one of the hardest days of testing coming up. I had a Spanish mid-term and a Biology test, one right after the other. The Spanish test was all review for me, mostly vocabulary and conjugating verbs into different tenses. Most of it was pretty simple, but there were parts that required a little bit of higher thinking, like deciding which form of the verb is needed in a paragraph and which tense it should have. But, I think I did pretty well on that, and I was actually the first to get finished! My teacher let me leave early, so I had about fifteen minutes to prepare for my next test.

This Biology test would cover several large chapters that dated back about two or three weeks, so I had to go over some of it in greater detail. It mostly covered genetics, Punnett squares, chromosomes, DNA replication, RNA transcription, and finally protein synthesis (translation). I've had most of this before (stressing most), but I haven't had Biology since freshman year of high school. This required that I decompress this knowledge from the back of my mind and bring it forward to use now; not an easy task! But, I looked over the material as much as I could without over-doing it, and got through the test just fine. Everything on the test covered what was discussed in class, so that was much to my advantage. Sometimes it's a lot of the material from the book on the test, which we don't discuss directly in class. I do better with material discussed in class, since I've found I learn a lot from what the teacher says instead of what is written. But, I'll have to wait until later this week to find out the grades to all these assessments.

Now to the other major development this past week. Like I said in the last post, I had a first interview at Target with their Human Resource people. I got there a few minutes early since I really didn't know what to expect, and they led me to the back of the building. I waited for about fifteen minutes, and a woman took me into an office. She asked me a bunch of general questions about work experience, etc., but then I was surprised when she asked a bunch of hypothetical questions and stuff like that! But, I went with the flow and answered everything to the best of my ability. At the end of that, she seemed to be very impressed by me, and told me that she wanted to go ahead and do the second interview right then! I was excited about that, because I knew they were interested in hiring me! But, unfortunately, the hiring person for the Front End (over cashiers and stuff like that) doesn't work weekends. So, now I'll have to wait for a call from him on Monday, hopefully, and I'll schedule a second interview. Not exactly what I was hoping for, since I thought I'd be working by now, but I'll take this. At least I know they're interested.

Well, that's really all I have to write about for now. Sorry that I haven't been posting pictures like I had promised, but it's been raining lately. I don't think rainy pictures would show up very well online, so I'll just have to wait until there is better weather. So, just wait patiently and I'll try to get those out as soon as possible. Oh, and just check back here in the next couple of days, and I'll post any new updates about school (namely testing) and jobs. Until then, enjoy your Sunday, and have a very pleasant week!