We were stuck there, inside the cafeteria, on that rainy Thursday afternoon. We were fighting the urge to go to the mall and have fun because we all have exams on the following today. It was time to come up of a plan. We have decided to go somewhere "away from the harsh realities of life". We didn't hit the nearest mall; we went a little farther, a little away from the harsh realities of life. I do not exactly have an idea why we were feeling so low that day. I supposed we were just low on happy hormones. Maybe it's the season? Maybe it's one of those things, as Miguel calls it, mid-sem crisis.
We ate at our favorite place, Tokyo Tokyo. We were supposed to go home after dinner, but we realized it wasn't even 7PM! We spent some of my extra tokens on videoke instead. Finally it was time for us to go back to the harsh realities of life and study for our exams tomorrow.
The next day was the exact opposite of the day before it. The lab exam in entomology was so stressful yet fun. I couldn't say it was easy because I knew I could have done better if I had studied the other parts as thoroughly as I did on the other parts. What I enjoyed was the dissection. There was a list of body parts, both internal and external, and we have to pin them and show the specimen to our instructor. I looked at the list and realized that more than half of it requires a grasshopper specimen. All I have is a smelly cockroach. I couldn't pass the exam without a grasshopper. So I stood there thinking, "Where to get a grasshopper? Where to get a grasshopper?" Then I remembered I kept my jar of insects inside a cabinet in the laboratory! I rushed to the cabinet and was glad to find my jar still there. And you know what, I have this large grasshopper which accounted for 60% of my dissection grade.
The remaining 40% was from my smelly cockroach. There were silent shrieks from students who were trying to get their specimens from a bottle full of cockroaches. Thank God someone helped me pin my specimen on the dissecting pan. Getting your specimen from the bottle then pinning it is the hardest part of the test. This was the first time I dissected a cockroach independently since we always perform dissections either in pairs or in threes. I will never ever ever forget the foul stench of my cockroach. I managed to pin its cercus, its proventriculus, its Malpighian tubules, and its alary muscles, yay!
My exhausting day did not end there. I had to attend a meeting right after my lab exam. After much noting of minutes and all, I was happily on my way home.
Labels: bio118, cockroach, entomology, exams, periplaneta americana, school, undergrad
