My Wife's Birthday Dinner
To celebrate my wife's birthday, her family took us out to a great meal at Sushi Huku. (If you're a sushi fan, it's probably the best in Atlanta.) Anywho, my father-in-law isn't a big fan of sushi but was a really good sport. He was sitting next to me as I explained to my 7-year old nephew what the "green paste" on his plate was. I told him that it was called wasabi, which is really hot and spicy, and that he shouldn't eat it by itself but mix a little of it in his soy sauce and dip his sushi in it.
Not one minute later, my father-in-law makes a short, odd gasping sound before loudly telling everyone "Don't eat that green stuff, it is HOT!" I think his eyes were watering a little.
Orgo Grade
I made an "A" on my second organic chemistry exam. I'm not stupid, after all. Ahh, the sweet view from the peak that will soon be obscured by my trip to the valley.
Shortcuts in Lab
In one of my biology labs, we were separating DNA and doing an electrophoresis experiment. This involved making a slab of gelatin, injecting DNA into some little wells we made into the slab, submerging the entire thing in an electrolyte solution, and subjecting it to an electrical current. The applied current makes the DNA travel toward the positive pole. By staining the DNA afterwards and examining it, you can make inferences about the DNA based on how far it traveled across the gel.
This thing took forever to finish. At the end of the lab, you have to stain the gel with a carcinogenic solution and then look at it under UV light. Finally, you put it in a fancy photocopier, take a photo and print it for examination. Well, I figured that I'd skip the UV light step and just get right to the photo. My nemesis was behind me in line, jokingly complaining that I'd cut in front of him. I load the gel into the photo machine. Then, as fate would have it, the professor is unable to get an image to show up. She gets a little flustered and asks me what it looked like under the UV light. At this point, my nemesis starts saying that I didn't look at it. I elbowed him a little to shut him up, looked at the professor and said, "It looked crappy." My voice cracked and quickly faded to silence on the word 'crappy.' Science at it's finest. My nemesis was laughing. The prof was a little put out when she told me that I could use a photocopy of someone else's gel. I thanked her and stepped out of my nemesis' way. As I'm leaving the room, I see him hand the gel to the professor. She takes it from him, breaks it, and throws it away. As soon as it was in the waste bin, she realized that he wasn't done with it but, rather, needed to have it photographed. Classic.
That One Guy
My lab partner for organic chemistry is the guy who has a penchant for saying some inappropriate things at inappropriate times. The general consensus is that he doesn't mean anything bad by it but maybe his social filter just is a bit off. As I've learned over the last few months, he picked up some phrases in Iraq and likes to pepper his conversation with them. During casual conversation, he often replies to a simple question with an Arabic sounding word or phrase. Generally, the listener furrows her brow and asks "What does that mean?" which prompts an excited explanation from him. Well, by staying true to form, he earns my distinguished Uncomfortable Moment of the Month Award with this:
After lab, I'm chit-chatting with the prof, making small talk. Our professor is a dear, sweet, funny and charismatic woman who's also ridiculously brilliant. I ask her how she's feeling (she's been battling a persistent cold or something) and what costume her daughter was wearing for Halloween. During our conversation, my lab partner walks up and she notices that he looks a little run-down. She politely asks him how he's doing, how he's feeling.
He sighs a little and says something in poorly pronounced Arabic. So, he's dropped the word, beginning the dance. Our professor plays along and asks what it means. His explanation: "Bend over, here it comes again."
She gets this confused look, blinks here eyes a bunch, and tries to make sense of it. I mutter "My God, man," shake my head, and immediately walk away. As I'm leaving the room, out the door, I hear him offer this gem, "I'm sorry ma'am, I was in the military."
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