I've been reminded by rachelswipe's tales of chemistry
of a couple of stories, one involving the adventures of Stalker Boy in GCSE Chemistry, and one involving me in the same class.

Stalker Boy and the Titration Experiment

I had the misfortune to take Dual Science Award for GCSE (for those unaware, this is where you sit all three science subjects separately, and have separate classes for the two years and your two highest exam marks are submitted. I know for a fact mine were Chemistry and Biology because I knew jack shit about Physics on the day, having spent five years listening to the teacher - who I'd not be surprised to find out is a b3tan - talk about his Reliant Scimitar and Cardassians and getting my dad to help me with my physics homework). Our chemistry teacher at the time was a rather horsey looking creature with wavy ginger hair and a whiny voice, and a fondness for saying "Maaalaaadictaaaa, you're going to fail..." if you so much as coughed in her classes*.

Stalker Boy, in another bizarre twist to his special personality, flirted shamelessly with this teacher - who we shall call Mrs Jones, for that was her name - to the point where if she saw him coming she'd do her best to escape by any means necessary. Consequently, he spent most of GCSE Chemistry trying to chat her up (despite her being at least three times his age) and generally being a pain in the arse.

One day, we were split into pairs, as usual, and given a burette and some colourless liquids (probably sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid - see, I was OK at chemistry) and told to add one to the other till they were neutralised - which you could see thanks to that nifty universal indicator stuff.

Half an hour into the lesson, my slaggy ex-best friend and I have more or less accomplished this, and glance over to Stalker Boy and his lab partner, the ever-present Tris. Their solution is still ruby red, and no one can quite work out why, until Mrs Jones appears with the magical indicator.

The whole block must have heard what happened next.

"You STUPID STUPID BOYS! All this time you've been wondering why it won't change, and you've been adding ACID TO ACID!"

They were never allowed to work together again.

* I got a B. Somehow.


Young Maladicta and the Water of Crystallisation

As I've mentioned, I was OK at, and even quite enjoyed, chemistry, when there was no maths involved and I was left in peace to fiddle with things. The exception to this rule was that our class usually had an odd number when one of the slutty girls was skiving to call her boyfriend and as I was chronically unpopular (lack of boyfriend and interest in things that exploded), no one tended to want to work with me.

One day, we were told to split into pairs and heat a solution until it made water of crystallisation - how this is different from what was already in there is beyond me, but I digress. I'm about ten minutes into this when Mrs Jones demands we all stop and pay attention to her for a moment, and tells us something inane about growing crystals on a tampon string.

Suddenly, there is a strange noise from behind me.

*pop*pop*pop*pop*pop*

Turning around I can see the crucible has boiled dry, and tiny white crystals are now leaping, popcorn-like, from within. And I got bollocked for it.

This was the same module where we were meant to make crystals by a similar method, and sticking them into my book resulted in whatever was inside them eating a hole through about twenty pages like a shrinking caterpillar. Strangely, Mrs Jones minded this a lot less.
( Maladicta, Thu 24 Jul 2008, 17:36, Reply)