The all encompassing thing of my life

My blog might be a little boring as I am in school now and it's pretty much the only thing I think about, talk about, do, dream about, write about...So here's another update on what I'm doing for my plant class.

(Viburnum dentatum A.K.A. Arrowwood Viburnum of the family Adoxaceae)


As I said before, we have to learn 17 plants a week with their scientific name, common name, and family name for extra credit. I'm pretty good at learning the scientific name and remembering which common name goes with it, but it's harder if you have to only look at a plant and then come up with all the names on your own. SO, I decided to try something new.

Each week when we get our new set of plants to learn, the teacher takes us on a plant tour around campus to show us in real life each plant. On Saturday Greg and I went hiking around campus and I collected samples of each plant to take home, label, and quiz myself with. This is a great idea, if I do say so myself. A picture is only so-so for learning. Being able to see, feel, and smell the plant is way better. So this is my set-up. I have all but three of the plants for the week. (The others were in greenhouses that were locked on Saturday.)


I want to do this every week, so pretty much I'll have a new set of plants here each week for the rest of the semester, and again the next semester until about May.

(Wisteria sp. A.K.A. Wisteria of the family Fabaceae)



(Campsis radicans A.K.A. Trumpet Vine of the family Bignoniaceae)


I remember this one by saying to myself, "It's radical to see a trumpet while you're camping. Campsis radicans trumpet vine." I remember the family name because it makes me think, "Big Nose," and somehow that makes me think of a trumpet. Sometimes I end up remembering certain names just because they are so weird and hard to remember. I keep thinking, "That is the weirdest thing! How am I supposed to remember Hylotelephium x 'Herbstfreude'!" and then I remember it because I thought that so many times. Hahaha!

Chemistry is not quite as fun. I've been spending most of my time on that and feel like I'm not learning it very well. I understand the lecture, and when he says something it makes sense, but then I'm not able to think of it on my own when it's time to do homework or a quiz. The other frustrating thing is that there are so many typos in my lab manual that I don't know if I'm having trouble because I don't get it or because there was a typo. For our last lab, there were post-lab questions and calculations and you have to go read the beginning of the lab to know how to do it. In the example problem they used numbers with the decimal in the wrong place and the units wrong. (They labeled something as L/g instead of g/L.) I think chemistry is hard enough without all those mistakes that make it worse. My teacher actually wrote the lab manual so I'm thinking about circling all the errors and at the end of the semester giving it to him so he can fix it for the next group of students. Seriously, doesn't he know how to proof read?
I don't have any fun pictures of chemistry so I'll just end this post now.
Thanks for visiting my blog.